Several years ago, the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) began to offer scientific briefings for staffers on Capitol Hill. Topics are chosen for their social relevance and expert panelists are recruited from UCAR member universities, appropriate agencies, and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). To capture the briefing presentations and make them available to students, policymakers, and the interested public, The Roberts Forum streaming media web site was created. The web site will be demonstrated during this session along with discussion of the manner in which the briefings are crafted in order to make the information of use to the Forum's diverse audience. Policy-relevant issues such as climate change, the growing societal impacts of severe weather, and the impacts of solar activity on communications will be featured. The Forum may be found at www.ucar.edu/40th/Roberts/index.html.

More than 30 years ago, Walter Orr Roberts, the founding director of NCAR and founding president of UCAR, wrote, "… the findings of science have an embarrassing way of turning out to be relevant to the customs and to the civil laws of men - and of requiring these customs and laws also to be revised…" It is in this articulation of the relevance of our science that the Forum is offered and named for Dr. Roberts.