New Paradigms of NOAA’s NWS Climate Services

Although NOAA NWS has had responsibility for delivering climate services since the passing of the “Weather Service Organic Act” in 1890, the NWS Climate Prediction Center (CPC, former Climate Analysis Center) was established in 1978 and NWS Regional and Local Climate Services Program was created in 2000, with the implementation plan for regional and local offices developed in 2003. The NWS existing infrastructure provides a nationwide coverage of climate services down to the local level, but there is a need to improve provision of regional and local climate services to meet NWS' strategic commitment for a Weather-Ready Nation, which requires comprehensive environmental information from near term to extended time scales. To meet this goal NWS needs to develop stronger relationships and better coordinate actions between the national climate centers, such as the Climate Prediction Center (CPC), the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), the Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL), and the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL), and climate programs at the Weather Forecast Offices (WFOs), Weather Service Offices (WSOs), and the River Forecast Centers (RFCs). The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) 2012 Report on Weather Service for the Nation recommends NWS to evaluate its function and organizational structure to improve science and technology infusion. The 2014 NWS reorganization proposal in response to the NAS report includes strengthening the NWS climate services program. The new paradigm of NWS climate services will include end-to-end climate services from users needs to delivery of products and services with emphasis on Decision Support Services (DSS). The execution of new paradigm will be done in four planning and budgeting portfolios: (1) Observing System, (2) Science and Technology, (3) Analysis, Forecast, and Support, and (4) Dissemination Services. Each portfolio will integrate climate services not only between national center and local and regional services, but also with suite of weather and water products and services. This will allow better streamlining of user-centric information for effective DSS.