Climate Program Office FY 2019

Climate variability and change present society with significant economic, health, safety, and security challenges and opportunities. In meeting these challenges, and as part of NOAA’s climate portfolio within the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR), the Climate Program Office (CPO) advances scientific understanding, monitoring, and prediction of climate and its impacts, to enable effective decisions through investments at NOAA labs, service lines and Cooperative Institutes, as well as non-governmental organizations, the private sector and the university community.  These investments are key to NOAA’s mission of "Science, Service, and Stewardship" and are guided by the agency’s vision to create and sustain enhanced resilience in ecosystems, communities, and economies.

Within this context, CPO manages competitive research programs through which NOAA funds high-priority climate science, assessments, decision support research, outreach, education, and

capacity-building activities designed to advance our understanding of the Earth’s climate system, and to foster the application and use of this knowledge to improve the resilience of our Nation and its partners. CPO supports research that is conducted across the United States and internationally. CPO also provides strategic guidance for the agency’s broader climate science and services programs and supports NOAA’s mandated responsibilities under the National Climate Program Act, Global Change Research Act and its National Climate Assessment, the National Integrated Drought Information System Act, and similar international endeavors such as the Global Framework for Climate Services.  CPO’s climate research portfolio is designed to achieve a fully integrated research and applications program.

CPO’s strategy addresses challenges in the areas of: (1) Weather and climate extremes, (2) Climate impacts on water resources, (3) Coasts and climate resilience, (4) Sustainability of marine ecosystems, and (5) Changing atmospheric composition and its impacts. Making progress in addressing climate-related societal challenges, and realizing benefits for NOAA’s public and private partners, requires that these mission-focused capabilities be integrated across CPO to align research, applications, transitions, and operations, and to meet the information needs for a resilient society.  We work towards this objective of integration through a focus on climate intelligence and climate resilience, in support of NOAA’s goals.

CPO defines climate intelligence as the capabilities regarding: (1) Observations and monitoring, (2) Earth system science and modeling, (3) Climate and societal interactions, and (4) Communication, education, and engagement. Climate resilience leverages climate intelligence to advance capabilities for responding to the urgent and growing demand for reliable, trusted, transparent, and timely climate information needed to protect and sustain all sectors of our economy and environment.

A hallmark of CPO’s success in linking climate intelligence to resilience is the development and deployment of end-to-end research-based integrated information systems that address needs of high societal relevance.  Key components of this effort are annual Federal Funding Opportunities, competitive grants programs and other types of support that advance and extend NOAA’s foundational capabilities and applications research. Proficiency in these core areas ensures that CPO’s infrastructure is always in place to meet the intelligence and resilience challenges of our changing climate.

NOAA, OAR, and CPO encourage applicants and awardees to support the principles of diversity and inclusion when writing their proposals and performing their work. Diversity is defined as a collection of individual attributes that together help organizations achieve objectives. Inclusion is defined as a culture that connects each employee to the organization. Promoting diversity and inclusion improves creativity, productivity, and the vitality of the climate research community in which CPO engages.