U.S. climate service proposed

New NOAA website to track global warming changes

By FRITZ MAYER

UNITED STATES — There is still debate in some quarters about whether global climate change is real. There is, however, some readily available information that strongly suggests that it is.

For instance, according to information provided by the Climate Change Research Center at the University of New Hampshire, the annual average temperature in the Northeast increased by 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit between 1899 and 2000. And the average length of the growing season, which can be extremely varied in the region, increased by eight days.

For the U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke, there is enough evidence across the United States and the world that global climate change is real that he announced on February 8, that he intends to create a climate service within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the organization that brings the public weather alerts via the National Weather Service.

The agency issued a press release that said, “More and more, Americans are witnessing the impacts of climate change in their own backyards, including longer growing seasons, changes in river flows, increases in heavy downpours, earlier snowmelt and extended ice-free seasons in our waters. People are searching for relevant and timely information about these changes to inform decision-making about virtually all aspects of their lives.”

The NOAA Climate Service will provide climate data and information to “help individuals, businesses, communities and governments make smart choices in anticipation of a climate changed future.”

The release included endorsements of the new service by a raft of scientists, environmentalists and public officials and at least one business person, the CEO of Duke Energy Jim Rogers, who called the reporting something that would help Americans gain the consensus needed to move forward on the issue of climate change.

Along with the new service, NOAA also took the opportunity to unveil a new website, www.climate.gov, which deals with all things weather. The site includes a “climate dashboard” that shows a range of constantly updating climate readings over various time scales.