The US Climate Variability and Predictability (CLIVAR) Program is a US federally-sponsored research program to advance understanding and prediction of climate variability and change on timescales from subseasonal to centennial, through observations and models, with an emphasis on the role of the ocean and its interaction with other elements of the Earth system. The US CLIVAR Project Office, operated through the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research Cooperative Programs for Advancing Earth System Science (UCAR CPAESS), provides the staff, meeting, and travel support to enable science community planning and implementation of climate research activities, interagency coordination of research efforts, and collaboration among climate scientists. The National Science Foundation (NSF) support of the Project Office since 2015 has sponsored the travel of US scientists to participate in meetings of the US CLIVAR scientific steering committee, its three implementation panels, numerous topical working groups, and workshops, conferences, and training programs. NSF sponsorship is leveraged with co-sponsorship of the Project Office by four other US science funding agencies: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Energy, and Department of Defense Office of Naval Research. During the extended performance period over the past nine years, the steering committee and panels have accelerated progress within the community to address the program science goals and research challenges. Monthly webconferences and annual in-person meetings, supported by the Project Office, have assessed current capabilities and future needs for climate observations, monitoring, analysis, process understanding, model improvement, and evaluation of simulations and predictions of the global climate system, with additional efforts to develop an effective interface with the applications of climate information for practical decision support. Their conclusions and actions are summarized in annual program reports published by the Project Office and available on the program website.

NSF has provided support for 11 limited-lifetime groups of experts to address core goals and research challenges identified in the program’s science plan. Chief among these has been the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation Science Team of more than 100 US scientists on agency-funded projects who fielded new observing networks across the Atlantic, coordinated the use of observations and models to monitor and understand the state, variability, and change in the large-scale circulation of the Atlantic, and evaluated the impacts of those changes on climate and extreme events. A recently completed two-year Air-Sea Transition Zone Task Team of 18 experts produced a roadmap for implementing a revolutionary observing-modeling system for measuring the coupling of the upper ocean and lower atmosphere to capture their interactions and feedbacks that drive predictability of the climate system. Nine Working Groups, each with 12-18 scientists, addressed a range of cutting-edge climate research topics including the influence of Arctic climate change on midlatitude weather and climate extremes; quantifying the observed widening of the tropics in response to climate change and its regional impacts; using large ensembles of climate model runs to quantify uncertainty in climate change projections and to delineate climate change trends from natural variability; the use of water isotope measurements to understand past and present water cycle changes in response to a changing climate; the use of data science tools including machine learning and artificial intelligence to advance climate science; assessing the state of scientific understanding of small-scale air-sea interactions and their contribution to predictability across timescales; quantifying uncertainty of ocean data from multiple sources, including in-ocean observations, satellite remote sensing, and model data sets; assessing coastal climate information needs and evaluating prediction approaches to meet them; and bridging climate and health sciences by identifying and addressing differences in data access and use among communities.

NSF support of the Project Office has also enabled the planning and participation of thousands of scientists in the more than 70 community workshops, scientific conferences, and summer schools that have been organized and/or sponsored by US CLIVAR over the past nine years.

Broader Impacts 

The Project Office has promoted and facilitated scientific collaboration within the US and international climate and Earth science communities. Its activities have helped determine the requirements and develop new capability for building and sustaining scientific infrastructure, including observing and data management systems, modeling centers, operational predictions, and periodic national and international climate assessments. The Project Office has engaged other Earth science programs to discuss, plan, and implement collaborative interdisciplinary research on shared challenges and has engaged in dialogue with application-based science programs and boundary organizations to co-develop research requirements for useful climate information and to inform research planning that addresses those requirements. The Project Office has promoted and enabled the participation of students and early career scientists in workshops, conferences, and training programs to enrich the scientific capacity of the next generation. It has ensured consideration of diversity and gender balance in membership of organizational bodies, leadership, and participation in meeting and workshops.

Last Modified: 09/16/2024
Modified by: Hanne Mauriello