The Societal Aspects of Weather WWW site is an experimental project sponsored by the U.S. Weather Research Program (USWRP). The U.S. Weather Research Program is an interagency effort of the federal government with a goal of improving forecasts of weather phenomena in order to contribute to a reduction in society's vulnerability to weather. The Director of the Program is Dr. William Hooke of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Chief Scientist is Dr. Rit Carbone of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).
The purpose of the WWW site on the Societal Aspects of Weather is to provide a community resource to a range of scholars and practitioners who are interested in the relation of society and weather. Ultimately, we'd like to see the site contribute to the development of a network of scholars from a range of disciplines and decision makers from a variety of sectors. For the site to be successful, we will need your participation, in order to both shape the evolution of the site as well as to contribute materials that you would like to disseminate and others might find useful.
Currently, some of our objectives with the site are the following:
The site is overseen by the Environmental and Societal Impacts Group (ESIG) at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). NCAR is sponsored by the National Science Foundation.
Quindi Franco has been responsible for the design and development of the site to date. He became involved in the project during the summer of 1996 while a protege in the Significant Opportunities in Atmospheric Science and Research (SOARS) program at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). During that summer, he developed a prototype of the site and a vision document of where it may go. He is currently pursuing a Masters Degree at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, and will be working on the site remotely during the school year. He is eager to develop and promote the site into what he believes can become an "incredibly useful tool for the research community." Quindi would really love to hear from you, so please share your suggestions or comments with him at quindi@ucar.edu.
A Floods section has been added to the Phenomena category. It contains links to national organizations and groups, reports, as well as pointers to data and bibliographies specifically on floods.
Lightning is the leading cause of weather related personal injuries. This section contains links to lightning safety tips, primers on lightning and thunderstorms, and to organizations concerned with reducing the impacts of lightning.
This new section contains links and pointers to information of interest to agricultural users.
With links to primers on various weather phenomena, safety guidelines, and "interesting weather-society sites in general," this section aims to provide entertaining and informative resources useful to a wide audience.
An interactive calendar of events has been created as an easy means for announcing and promoting events and opportunities to the community. Users with forms capable browsers can use an on-line form to submit events for the calendar.
FEEDBACK An improved system of on-line forms has been developed to make it easier for you to submit resources and make comments on the site. The "FEEDBACK" link in the toolbar at the bottom of each page in the site will take you directly to a set of forms where you simply need to fill in relevant information.