Defining societal and economic research and applications (SERA) priorities related to developments in numerical weather prediction and THORPEX

During August 2006, a workshop was held at the National Center for Atmospheric Research to define research priorities for the North American THORPEX Societal and Economic Research and Applications (SERA) program. This workshop brought together an interdisciplinary community to define a SERA research agenda. The results of this workshop have broader application to the entire numerical weather prediction (NWP) community, and could lead to increased relevance of NWP developments. Workshop discussions focused primarily around four themes: communication of forecast uncertainty, user-relevant forecast verification; the economic value of forecasts and use of forecasts in decision-making; and weather-related decision support. Collaborations with developing countries were also addressed. The research priorities identified through the workshop will be discussed, within each of the four themes and integrated across the themes. The resulting agenda will help guide social science-physical science interdisciplinary research related to THORPEX and other NWP activities, and it will contribute to broader research on weather-society interactions.