Societal Impacts

Climate is a very important factor in the complex relationship between societies and ecosystems. For example, the food we eat, water we drink, clothes we wear, and houses we build all can depend on the climate where we live, or at places we don't even know exist! Therefore, climate variability and change on decadal-multidecadal time scales can have enormous societal impacts.

At CRCES, a large part of our research efforts are directed towards detecting and improving prediction of decadal-multidecadal variability and change of climate variables, such as precipitation. In addition to this, part of our mission is to relate the knowledge of climate variability and change that we gain from observations, and computer climate simulations, into information that can be used by policy makers, civil engineers, city planners, farmers, as well as laymen. This information, we hope, can be used to assess the possible impacts of the things we research at CRCES, such as decadal-multidecadal precipitation variability and change, with the things we all depend on to live, such as a stable and healthy water supply.