"There's a purpose to what we're trying to do and it's driven by the needs of society to live effectively in the environment we have, both the natural environment and the built environment," Thomas R. Karl, who is director of NOAA's National Climatic Data Center, said Wednesday.

Much of the service's initial work will have to do with shifting from performing purely research activities, which take place in time frames of years, to providing information to legislators, agencies and companies in time for them to act.

"The recognition that climate is changing; decisions need to be made," Karl said at a panel discussion sponsored by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "We need to be timely, otherwise people are going to go ahead and make decisions without your information."

In February, the Obama administration proposed a climate service to provide longer-term projections on climate change similar to the way the National Weather Service distributes weather information. The NOAA Climate Service is be online this fall or winter, the agency said.

During the discussion, which included climate experts from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the U.S. Congress and the president's office, CSIS released a report that found an absence of reliable climate data will hamper the ability of government entities, businesses and people to manage climate-related risk.

The report advocates turning the focus of the U.S. mission in space to looking not to the stars, in what the report labels "the romantic fiction of space flight," but back toward the Earth to collect precise data about Earth's changing environment.

"We have ways to view our planet that we as a species have never been able to do before," said Jack Kaye, associate director for research and analysis with NASA'S Earth Science Division.

Moving forward, agencies must cooperate to create the broad policy changes that a changing climate will require, Karl said.

"What we need to do is be a little bit smarter," Karl said. "Our government is not set up to address problems we have today that transcend all the agencies. That's a real challenge."

earlier related report
Democrats put US climate change legislation plans on hold
Washington (AFP) July 22, 2010 - Democratic lawmakers have scrapped plans to introduce climate change legislation and are instead preparing an energy bill that will address the BP oil spill, a senior US senator said Thursday.

"We have a responsibility -- both to our constituents and our children -- to take on America's energy challenge," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

"Many of us want to do that through a comprehensive bill... Unfortunately, at this time not one Republican wants to join us in achieving this goal," he said. "That isn't just disappointing. It's dangerous."

President Barack Obama has made climate change legislation a key priority, and told Americans during an Oval Office address in June that the Gulf of Mexico oil spill was a sign of the urgent need for energy alternatives.

"The tragedy unfolding on our coast is the most painful and powerful reminder yet that the time to embrace a clean energy future is now," he said at the time.

"Now is the moment for this generation to embark on a national mission to unleash America's innovation and seize control of our own destiny."

But Republicans have refused to support sweeping energy reform, arguing that policies like "cap-and-trade," intended to limit harmful emissions, will cost American businesses and hobble US innovation.

In the face of unified opposition, and lacking the supermajority needed to pass legislation without Republican votes, Reid and Democratic Senator John Kerry said they would focus on a narrower bill for now.

"To be clear: we are not putting forth this bill in place of a comprehensive bill," Reid said.

"But we will not pass up the opportunity to hold BP accountable, lessen our dependence on oil, create good paying American jobs and protect the environment."

Kerry said he would continue to work towards "sixty votes for comprehensive legislation that appropriately targets, in an appropriate way, carbon, so that we can send signals to the marketplace and change the direction and create jobs for America and improve our security."

The less ambitious legislation being developed would directly address the catastrophic oil spill triggered by an explosion aboard the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon rig on April 20.

It would seek to ensure that BP assumes all the costs of cleaning up spilled oil, propose measures to prevent similar environmental disasters and also move to create more so-called "green jobs" in clean energy production.

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