UCAR Forum Followup Information

	Board of Trustees Meeting Presentations
	Members' Meeting Presentations
	University Relations Committee (URC) Presentation

UCAR Forum Followup Information As part of NCAR/UCAR's 40th Anniversary, this year's Annual Members' Meeting Forum began a year-long discussion on the implementation of two recent community planning reports: the Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate (BASC) report entitled "The Atmospheric Sciences Entering the Twenty-First Century" and NSF's "GEO 2000." * The Forum sought to address the following question: How should the universities and UCAR/NCAR, working in partnership with the rest of the atmospheric sciences community, evolve to meet the highest priority challenges and opportunities of the next several decades? The following four breakout groups, representing the BASC's key contribution areas, were organized--the links are to the whitepapers prepared for the discussions: Protection of Life and Property (e.g. meteorology, weather research and operations, USWRP, space weather). Maintaining Environmental Quality (e.g. air pollution, ozone depletion, global change, aerosols, USGCRP) Enhancing National Economic Vitality (e.g. societal impacts, value of weather and climate information) Strengthening Fundamental Understanding (e.g. basic research, disciplinary topics, studies of specific phenomena such as tropical and extratropical cyclones). To address these issues, each of the groups was asked consider the following questions within the context of their break-out groups: How the community could and should contribute to the BASC/GEO2000 goals and priorities? What facilities are needed to make these contributions? What are the key education and human resource issues? What are the key issues related to leadership, government, administration and organization? The Forum involved an introductory session providing background on the BASC and GEO2000 reports. The breakout groups were then held, followed by a plenary where the group discussions were reported. The participants of each group, the notes from the sessions, and the plenary summary of the groups are provided below: List groups and participants Notes from the sessions Group #1 Group #2 Group #3 Group #4 Co-chair plenary summary of the breakout session Group #1 Group #2 Group #3 Group #4 Later this year, the broader community will be invited through a survey to respond to the types of issues and themes produced in the breakout groups. The Forum, the survey, and other information will be used to write an article summarizing the results of the year-long discussion; the article will be discussed at the 2000 Annual Members Meeting. _________________________ *The BASC and GEO2000 report summaries can be found at the following websites: BASC: http://www.nap.edu/readingroom/books/atmos/ GEO2000: http://www.geo.nsf.gov/adgeo/geo2000/ _________________________