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Important message from the director of the Societal Impacts Program

April 3, 2012

Due to the tough budget times and NOAA’s choices about the allocation of their funds, we regret to say that external funding of the Collaborative Program on the Societal and Economic Benefits of Weather Information (aka the Societal Impacts Program) has been discontinued.

We have thus discontinued or suspended non-research related activities including WAS*IS, the Societal Impacts Discussion Board, the Weather and Society Watch, the Extreme Weather Sourcebook, and other information resources. As such we will be “taking down” these webpages as we will not be able to maintain them.

The Societal Impacts Program Discussion Board will be reinvented very shortly as a community service supported by Rebecca Morss here at NCAR. Please look for a message from her in the next week or so as we hope that a new incarnation of the board comes back online.

If you have any questions you may contact Jeff Lazo at lazo@ucar.edu.
Sincerely,
Jeff Lazo

Weather and Society*Integrated Studies (WAS*IS) is a grassroots movement that is changing the weather enterprise by integrating social science into meteorological research and practice in comprehensive and sustained ways.

As of August 2011, the WAS*IS mission has empowered 276 practitioners, researchers, and stakeholders around the world to build new relationships and to use new tools and concepts for more effective socio-economic applications and evaluations of weather information and products.

By emphasizing the importance of developing a life-long cohort, as well as learning social-science tools and concepts, WAS*ISers address societal impacts in real and sustained ways and are changing the culture from what WAS to what IS the future of integrated weather studies.

Denotes UCAR Staff Only