Accurate, high-resolution weather forecasts are a critical part of wind energy production. In December, UCAR signed an agreement with Xcel Energy to develop a wind prediction system for the company’s wind energy farms in Colorado, Minnesota, and Texas.

Several of the nation’s top experts on regional change will participate in the December 15 oral session (PA12A) and poster session (PA13C) on this topic during the 2008 AGU Meeting in San Francisco, California.

Researchers are working toward predictions of climate change impacts in specific regions and even metropolitan areas. But are local and regional decision makers taking advantage of this science to begin to prepare for the impacts of global warming?

Several red-eye commercial flights were rocked by moderate to severe turbulence as they flew across northeast Kansas early on June 17, 2005. A new study by NCAR scientists Stan Trier and Bob Sharman uses modeling to connect storms in Oklahoma with the Kansas turbulence.