Climate Program Office (CPO)

Today, the NOAA Climate Program Office’s National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) and Modeling, Analysis, Predictions and Projections (MAPP) program jointly announced $4.9 million in funding for NOAA labs and research partners to improve drought monitoring and prediction in the American West. This research combines $3.1 million in funding from NIDIS and $1.8 million from the

Study finds steepest drops in areas of the Northern Hemisphere reliant on snow for water.Scientific data from ground observations, satellites, and climate models have not agreed on whether climate change is consistently chipping away at the snowpacks that accumulate in high-elevation mountains and provide water when they melt in spring. This complicates efforts to manage the water scarcity that

NOAA’s National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) has announced approximately $2 million in funding for projects to support tribal drought resilience as part of President Biden’s Investing in America agenda. This investment will help tribal nations address current and future drought risk on tribal lands across the Western U.S. while informing decision-making and strengthening tribal

NOAA’s National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) has announced a total annual award of $6.2 million to support 12 new, innovative, and impactful projects that will improve our nation’s resilience at a critical time in the fight against the drought crisis. The projects will focus on ecological drought and building tribal drought resilience. NIDIS is funding seven new 2-year

Although wildfire is part of the natural ecosystem cycle over the western U.S., its intensity and frequency has been increasing at an alarming rate in recent decades. A new study shows that climate change is the main driver of this increase in fire weather in the western United States. And even though wetter and cooler conditions could offer brief respites, more intense and frequent wildfires and

Drought represents a globally relevant natural disaster linked to adverse health. But while evidence has shown agricultural communities to be particularly susceptible to drought, there is a limited understanding of how drought may impact occupational stress in farmers. To address this problem, NIDIS co-funded a study to examine the relationship between drought conditions and measures of job-

Since early 2020, the Southwest United States has suffered record low precipitation and near-record high temperatures, gripping the region with an unyielding, unprecedented, and costly drought. This exceptional drought—marked by massive water shortages, destructive wildfires, emergency declarations, and the first ever water delivery shortfall among the states sharing the Colorado River—punctuates

For the past two decades, the southwestern United States has been desiccated by one of the most severe long-term droughts—or ‘megadroughts’—of the last 1,200 years. And now, scientists say the risk of similar extreme megadroughts and severe single-year droughts will increase in the future as Earth’s temperature continues to rise, according to a new study in Earth’s Future sponsored by NOAA’s

Effective use of drought forecasts is critical for farmers to make proactive, well-informed decisions. Forecasts are especially important in rainfed agriculture, since without irrigation, little can be done to protect against droughts once a crop is planted. A key factor that determines how decision makers respond to and use drought forecasts is the extent to which they trust those forecasts.

El Niño and La Niña events show a wide range of durations over the historical record, but whether event duration can be predicted has remained largely unknown. Since longer-lived, multi-year El Niño and La Niña events could extend their climate and socioeconomic impacts, it’s important to have accurate predictions of their durations with the longest lead times possible. A new study published

The agricultural sector is an important contributor to the nation’s economy, from providing jobs to promoting food and energy security. In 2015, farms contributed $136.7 billion to the U.S. economy, with an additional $855 billion from other agriculture- and food-related sectors. Drought can have significant negative impacts on the agricultural industry, so accurate monitoring and forecasting are

The development of drought is a complex process that involves multiple, interwoven relationships between precipitation, land surface temperatures, soil moisture, humidity, and atmospheric patterns. Often, drought is typified by the combination of a lack of precipitation and hot temperatures. However, the exact relationship between the two is not yet fully understood, nor is the role that