I want to take a minute to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Regional Climate Centers, a climate resource for the United States. In the Southeast, our partner is the Southeast Regional Climate Center, located in North Carolina, and they can provide an amazing amount of climate information, including the Perspectives tool that is used by climatologists around the country to help characterize how unusual the current climate is. Here is a short statement about the Regional Climate Center program:
The Regional Climate Center (RCC) Program was formed in 1983 in response to the National Climate Program Act of 1978, which recognized the need for accurate, localized climate information to support government decision-makers and other stakeholders. This came on the heels of the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Environmental Science Services Administration (ESSA), and its successor agency NOAA, and a growing interest in applied climatology owing to factors such as the globalization of the agricultural economy and the impacts of major climate events around the world.
You can read more about the program at Celebrating 40 Years of the Regional Climate Center Program – SERCC.