Program manager Michael Johnson explains how NOAA/OAR’s Program combines with the efforts of other agencies and other nations to build toward a global climate observing system.

Climate Observation

Central to describing, understanding, and predicting the Earth's climate system is observation. The Office of Climate Observation program supports ocean and atmospheric projects designed to contribute to the implementation of the global climate observing system that is needed to satisfy the long-term requirements of the operational forecast centers, international research programs, and the major scientific assessments. With few exceptions, the sponsored projects are U.S. elements of global networks coordinated through international science and implementation panels. The program seeks to gain efficiencies wherever possible by promoting the utilization of platform/sits/data infrastructure for several objectives in parallel, including the objectives of understanding the Earth's climate system, the global carbon cycle, and the global water cycle. Although the focus of the Office of Climate Observation program is on projects that deploy autonomous in situ platforms, the underlying objective is to foster a "system" approach to effective international organization of complementary in situ, satellite, data, and modeling components of climate observation.

Climate Observation Staff

For more information about the Office Climate Observation, go to their new website, http://www.oco.noaa.gov.

News and Events

• 4/13/04 - 4/15/04 Office of Climate Observation System Review
• Climate Observation "Teacher in the Field" Opportunity
• New Office of Climate Observation Website
• more ...

Research

• Ocean Networks 
• Atmospheric Networks
• Global Ocean Observing System for Climate and Marine Services Map
• Building a Sustained Ocean Observing System for Climate by Michael Johnson
• 20 Years of Reynolds SST Anomalies: November 1981-February 2000

Climate Observation News

• Dust bowl caused by ocean highs and lows (Nature Magazine, March 19, 2004)- Sea temperatures linked to 1930s US drought.

Links

• Climate Monitoring and Diagnostics Laboratory
• Global Climate Observing System
• National Climate Data Center
• NOAA Laboratory for Satellite Altimetry
• The Tropical Atmosphere Ocean (TAO) Project
• Ocean Reference Stations

Contact the Office of Climate Observation