Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences

Science @ CIRES > Products > Assessments

Scientific

CIRES researchers collaborate across traditional disciplinary, institutional and programmatic boundaries in support of interdisciplinary assessments with significance for both research and policy. For example, a team of CIRES researchers and their partners seek to understand, support and enhance the local decision-making process on the North Slope of Alaska in the face of climate variability on seasonal to decadal timescales, both natural and anthropogenically induced. The primary goal is to help stakeholders clarify and secure their common interest by exchanging information and knowledge concerning climate and environmental variability. Another team of CIRES researchers and collaborators is focused on the decision-making processes of the individuals, groups, and organizations in the Interior West that have responsibility for managing, using, treating, and protecting water resources. By understanding decision-making processes, stresses, and constraints of this community, researchers seek to assess vulnerability to climate variability and develop hydro-climate products that help achieve more informed decisions. Such scientific assessments bring together CIRES expertise across a range of fields, including policy research and technology transfer in collaboration with experts and end users who partner from outside the Institute.

The assessments listed here represent only a sample of the assessments produced by CIRES. For more information, see Integrating Activities, a CIRES research theme.

Assessment Spotlight

As a joint effort between CIRES and the Climate Diagnostics Center [ About CDC ] , the Western Water Assessment project's mission is to identify and characterize regional vulnerabilities to climate variability and change, and to develop information, products and processes to assist water-resource decision-makers throughout the Intermountain West.

Water and Climate in the Western United States

book coverSays amazon.com of Water and Climate in the Western United States by CIRES Fellow and Western Water Assessment team member William M. Lewis, Jr., "With papers from researches and managers representing the multiple viewpoints of climate forecasting, water management, water law, and water allocation, "Water and Climate in the Western United States" demonstrates that new technologies and a new scientific understanding of the water cycle are emerging. ... The papers in this volume highlight both the opportunity and necessity for change in human management of water, the West's most limited resource. Unique in its full, integrated coverage, "Water and Climate in the Western United States" will appeal to academics and policymakers interested in water supply and management questions as well as climate prediction.

Cryosphere and
Climate

snow flakeThe "State of the Cryosphere" product from CIRES' National Snow and Ice Data Center [ About NSIDC ] provides an overview of the status of snow and ice as indicators of climate change and examines how the cryosphere is sending signals of a changing climate. State of the Cryosphere also provides time-series data for Northern Hemisphere snow cover, mountain glacier fluctuations, sea ice extent and concentration, changes in ice shelves, and global sea level, as well as a snapshot of current permafrost conditions.

Current Events/
Popular Culture

Day After TomorrowWhen "Day After Tomorrow," 20th Century Fox's movie about abrupt global climate change, was released, CIRES produced two reviews and assessments of the film. See this review and Q&A response from CIRES' National Snow and Ice Data Center [ About NSIDC ] . See also Paleo Perspective on Abrupt Climate Change, from CIRES' partners at the National Geophysical Data Center (NDGC).
Man and woman looking at data on paper