Research

Science-based research stands at the foundation of the knowledge community supported by Openclimate.org. Environments to support new research activities will be developed. Two types of research that require knowledge of the climate system have emerged. The first type benefits from easy access to state-of-the-art climate simulations and evaluations of the quality of those simulations. (e.g., the IPCC archive through the Earth System Grid. The second type requires the ability to configure, alter, and develop climate models, as well as to develop interfaces to climate models. Openclimate.org will support both the research and the development of infrastructure to support the research. We recognize that the research and its infrastructure are complex, intertwined, and contribute to the sustainability of the field and the acceleration of problem solving.

Openclimate.org strives to provide entrée to key literature, research institutions, and repositories of climate change information. As members of the community develop projects and reports that work at the intersection of traditional disciplines, for example water resources, energy generation, and climate change, they will provide portals to information. Synthesis of information from different fields will highlight the important issues that each field needs to know in order to engage in productive problem solving. The use of this information will reduce the overhead for new members to gather needed information as well as a mechanism for contributing their contributions for future users.

The scope of Openclimate.org is not limited to the physical climate system and the use of information on the physical climate. Impacts of climate change are realized in ecosystems and humans. The problems posed by the members of the growing climate community range often need to be informed by climate change; that is, how does climate change sit in relation to other factors that influence problem solutions? This rationalization of the role of climate change helps to advance solutions; it, then, informs the generation of new climate change information.

We recognize the unique opportunity provided by the predictions of climate change. We have the opportunity to anticipate climate change; we can build resilience and develop plans to reduce deleterious disruption. We can use the information to inform history, what is happening today that historians of the future will look back on as the early behavior of those facing climate change – what are the written and oral stories?