Dissemination of Climate Model Output to the Public and Commercial Sector

While climate model data is publicly available, existing data portals generally serve climate model output files in network Common Data Form (netCDF). This output is designed for scientists and programmers, but is opaque to a non-expert. Nonetheless, this information is vital to businesses, as regional and short term effects, in addition to changes in climate variability, can have a profound effect on project planning, land development projects, and risk mitigation strategies. This project will create a website that takes climate model results and repackages, interprets, and delivers these results for non-researchers in a user-friendly manner. With the proposed system, a user with no background in climate science and no literacy in Earth System Grid navigation will be no further from climate model data than a browser and some ubiquitous desktop utilities. Phase I will create a website that imports the climate data, presents it in Google Earth, and allow downloads of the data in the user¿s preferred format. In Phase II, value added aspects of the climate analysis will be incorporated, such as interpreting El Nino cycles, advanced data processing, and running high resolution regional climate models. Commercial Applications and other Benefits as described by the awardeeAn entire industry has grown by taking the forecasts of the National Weather Service, and repackaging, interpolating, and providing other processing services for their customers. This technology would provide a similar value-added service by taking the latest state-of-the-art climatological model forecasts and delivering them to the general public in their preferred format