GIS in Weather, Climate and Impacts Workshop 2005
Boulder, Colorado July 6-8, 2005

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Challenges of earth system science research community include not only the integration of complex physical processes into weather forecast and climate system models but understanding interactions between climate, environment, and society and integrating social and environmental information with weather and climate. In addition, in order to be able to make climate-related policy decisions in the context of human infrastructure it is critical that we make the atmospheric science usable and data accessible to a wide community of users, including researchers, educators, practitioners and policy-makers.

Over the past decade GIS has been used for data integration, analysis and decision-making in many societal sectors and academic disciplines. Geographic information science and technology however have evolved from the requirements of a GIS community which until recently did not include atmospheric scientists. In 2001, NCAR developed a GIS Initiative as an interdisciplinary effort to foster collaborative science, spatial data interoperability, and knowledge sharing. With the goal to integrate data and knowledge across disciplines the GIS Initiative aims to bridge communities of atmospheric scientists, data managers and the GIS community at large.

As a step towards fuller integration of earth system science and bridging atmospheric and GIS communities, 2nd workshop on Weather, Climate and Impacts, hosted by the NCAR GIS Initiative, brought together representatives from education and academic communities, the private sector and government organizations to

• explore uses of GIS in atmospheric and related geo- and social sciences;
• discuss needs and opportunities in geospatial research and education; and
• address issues of data management and discovery.

The workshop program included plenary sessions, panel discussions, poster session, break-out sessions of interdisciplinary working groups (educators, data managers, research community) and a reception. The working groups and the workshop forum were tasked to:

• develop an integrated approach to increase usability of the atmospheric and earth system science (focus on users, data management, discovery, and education);
• define research needs in GIS with regard to atmospheric and earth system research; and
• identify action steps for developing interdisciplinary collaborative projects that would bridge atmospheric and GIS communities.

Workshop summary and recommendations are available here. For more information about this or future workshops, please contact GISsupport at ucar.edu