Societal Impacts and Assessments: Weather and climate variations affect human welfare, often by altering the productivity of natural systems. Human activities alter many of the components of the earth's climate system. In addition, human choices can either mitigate or amplify the effects of environmental change by enhancing or undermining the health and resilience of social and natural systems. NCAR's research program on human dimensions and societal impacts promotes the use of atmospheric science information in service to society and is designed to improve understanding of the complex interactions among human societies, natural resource systems and atmospheric processes. The mission of this research is to investigate the impacts of climate and meteorological processes on society, both directly and through impacts on the natural systems that humans use and value. We focus on anthropogenic influences on the climate system, on societies' ability to cope with climate-related impacts, and on the use and value of meteorological information in a variety of concerns. The following links take you to the websites of the programs involved in this research:

Environmental and Societal Impacts Group

Research Applications Program

Climate and Global Dynamics Division