If you're having trouble seeing international characters or other parts of this html page, click here to view online.


homepage_spotlight_feature_1
The Truth About Verification
Sure, IRI's seasonal forecast says there's a 60 percent chance of above normal rain. But what does that really mean, and more importantly, can you trust it? IRI's scientists hope to make those answers clearer with a publicly available forecast verification metrics. Read more.



!peear
Special Event: Adapting to a Changing Climate Managing Our Cities & Food Supply
An Earth Institute panel on Oct. 29 will explore how science is enhancing society’s ability to understand and manage the impacts of climate variability and change. We will look at predictions, projections, tools and programs from disasters relief, agricultural and urban perspectives, as well as investigate what stakeholders can do to improve the process of using science to influence decisions. Register for the event.

A Global Conversation
Pasted Graphic 7
What do loaded climate dice mean for policy? At the Earth Institute's recent State of the Planet conference, IRI Director Lisa Goddard and NASA Goddard Director James Hansen laid out the impacts climate change and variability have on society and what policy solutions are at our disposal. See how people reacted on Twitter in this curated story.

Advancing International Climate Services
1952687_orig
IRI helped organize the second International Conference on Climate Services, held in Brussels, Belgium in September. Watch videos from the event and read interviews with participants on the ICCS website. The conference was also the meeting point for the Climate Services Partnership, a diverse international network that engages climate information users, providers, researchers and donors in an effort improve the provision and development of climate services worldwide. ICCS 2 created an opportunity for members of the CSP to take stock of progress made in the last year, and to reach out to new communities, particularly the private sector. Learn more by visiting CSP website.

Join us on Twitter and Facebook!

Pasted Graphic 4Pasted Graphic 6 Pasted Graphic 3



IN THE SCIENCE PRESS

Screen Shot 2012-10-22 at 2.57.15 PM
A verification framework for interannual-to-decadal predictions experiments.
Decadal prediction - our ability to predict the climate up to 10 years into the future - has important scientific and societal implications. Governments can use the information for better planning on agriculture, water and energy development, for example. Unlike climate change projections, the science of decadal climate prediction is still considered experimental, and little is known about its skill. A team of more than two dozen climate scientists, led by IRI's Lisa Goddard, hopes to advance the young field forward by laying out a sound framework for verifying and evaluating the skill of decadal predictions. They describe the approach in a recent paper in the journal Climate Dynamics.

climate_smart_public_health_6
Climate information for public health: the role of the IRI climate data library in an integrated knowledge system. The impact of climate variability and change on public health is a source of concern among professionals working in the field. Understanding and mitigating these impacts requires new working relationships between the health sector and providers of climate data and information. Fast, powerful, and adaptable, the IRI's Data Library can be a key tool in this regard, writes John del Corral (pictured here) and other IRI researchers in a recent paper in Geospatial Health that lays out some of the Data Library's features and applications in the public health field.


IRI IN THE NEWS

Forecasts Call for Weak-to-Nonexistent El Nino This Winter. (Climate Central) view

Dire Warnings Issued on Diminishing Arctic Ice. (Voice of America) view

Hurricane season outlook, second half, and the latest on Nadine. (The Washington Post) view


CURRENT SEASONAL RAINFALL FORECAST

Pasted Graphic 10


The International Research Institute for Climate and Society was established as a cooperative agreement between
the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Climate Program Office and Columbia University.
It is part of The Earth Institute, Columbia University.