Inside the Greenhouse

Climate Science Policy in the RISA Program

Motivation

In April 2002, the House Science Committee held a hearing to explore the connections on climate science and the needs of decision makers. The Science Committee’s hearing highlighted the role of the NOAA Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessment (RISA) as a promising means to connect decision making needs with the research prioritization process.

The RISA program is ongoing for 10 years and has developed a significant body of experience in working to establish a two-way connection between decision makers and interdisciplinary science and assessment. This experience provides a rich resource for drawing lessons from the various RISA projects on setting science priorities, implementing research, and the resulting output transferred to operational agencies in support of the needs of decision makers.

Implementation

We held the 2005 Workshop on RISA Science Policy on August 15-17, 2005, hosted by the Hawaii and Pacific Islands RISA in Honolulu, HI which brought about 30 participants from each of the RISA teams to address questions such as “how are stakeholders’ needs reflected, assessed, and evaluated in the research prioritization process?”

Participants came from each of the NOAA RISA projects, the SPARC team, as well as others with expertise in science policy and climate.

Goals

The goal of the workshop is to refine processes, institutions, and other conditions that facilitate decision-making about climate science research priorities, from the RISA projects, which will lead to useful information for decision makers. In addition to the workshop, products will include a report and presentation of at least one article for submission to a peer-reviewed journal.

For more information about the project, contact Roger Pielke, Jr.