# Presentation: 185430

## NWS Central Region Climate Services

- Sub-Regional Climate Service Meeting
- Boulder, CO
- August 24-25, 2004

## New Challenges and Opportunities

- Primary challenge:  **meet constituent needs** for accessible and understandable information
**Acknowledge the diversity** of climate information needs in a continuously changing and complex society
**Remain relevant** in a changing social and political environment
- Development and enhancement of the climate services program must **remain centered on all users** and their informational needs

## Incorporating the National Plan

**Organization**
**&**
**Guidelines**

**Training**

**Data Stewardship**

**Science**
**&**
**Prediction**

**Outreach, Customers **
**& Partners**

**National Climate**
**Services Plan**

## Field Office Roles

- Goal 1: Partner!
- Goal 2:  *Provide reliable, timely, accurate, and secure observations and metadata for the climate record** *
- 	Ensure standards, rigorous metadata reporting, timely exchange of quality control information
- Goal 3:  *Enhance and extend CPC’s product suite to increase the use and effectiveness of regional and local climate information** *
- 	CPC team activities; local studies, conditional probabilities, and statistical downscaling
- Goal 4:  *Conduct outreach to regional and local *decision* makers and users of climate services products*

## Central Region Organization

- Regional and field office efforts are spearheaded by 4 sub-groups of field personnel along with national and regional partner participation (SC’s, RCC’s, NCDC, CSD, CPC, others...)
- Data Stewardship
- Web Development (national/regional/local)
- Science & Training
- Customer/Partner Outreach

## Sub Group Interdependency

**Web/Internet**

**Data**

**Science**

**Training**

**Outreach**

## Data Stewardship

**	****Initial Goals:**
- Insure a consistent baseline approach to quality control in each field office
- Establish standardized and automated procedures to conduct quality control and assurance at all field offices
- Abide by and practice the “10 Climate Monitoring Principles” (reference NCDC)
- Assure climate record accuracy with RCC’s and NCDC (XMACIS)

## Web/Information Delivery

**Initial Goals:**
- Provide *access to* accurate, reliable, and useful information to a broad spectrum of constituents
- Assure all outreach materials offer a feedback mechanism via the web, phone or address
- Directly aid in the construction of regional and field office intranet and internet climate sites
- Assist data, outreach, science and training groups with implementation of web pages
- Keep all public internet sites consistent
- National climate web page standardization

## Science & Training

**Initial Goals:**
- To provide all field office operational personnel a base level of understanding of climate science and services
- To provide climate program leaders in each field office enhanced knowledge and tools of climate issues regarding
- statistical operations (downscaling & compositing)
- internal and external training and seminars (outreach)
- response to inquiries from the media and public
- collaboration with partners on mutually beneficial projects

## Outreach 

**Goals:**
- The primary goal of outreach in climate services is to understand who uses climate information, how they use it and what we can do to improve the delivery of information
**Identify** partners and customers
**Recognize** the importance of maintaining or establishing communications with partners and users
**Attend, present and plan **joint workshops, conferences, seminars and meetings

## Conclusion

**Central Region Priorities**
- Identify customers and partners
- Focus on meeting customer informational requirements
- Strive to provide easy access to accurate, high quality, consistent and useful data
- Internal and external training
- Be prepared to adapt to changing needs

## BTW:  National Contractor Support

- Hiring three contractors this summer to provide technical support
- Local Forecast Products Specialist
- Web Presentation Specialist
- Outreach Services Specialist
- Will reside in 3 different Regional HQs and be supervised by respective RCSPMs
- Will work with appropriate teams and/or CSD/CPC focal points to complete tasks
- Task prioritization will be done by RCSPMs and CSD lead
- RSIS currently recruiting

## Thank you