USGCRP-sponsored research continues to advance the predictive and comprehensive understanding of seasonal to interannual fluctuations in the climate, including the socioeconomic implications of applying experimental predictions to agriculture and water management. The FY96 edition of Our Changing Planet included a summary of recent key findings. Highlights of more recent findings follow:

• The TOPEX/Poseidon satellite mission is providing the first precise global information on the state of the ocean. The instrument can measure changes in ocean height, which is a good indicator of ocean temperature and movement. This information is being used to test the computer models that predict ENSO events. Testing and refinement of the models is important, because ENSO events have been shown to disturb the temperature and precipitation systems in the tropics, lower latitudes, and parts of the United States, and affect agricultural production, fisheries, and water resources.

• The USGCRP led the world in a critical step toward the development of an International Research Institute for climate prediction that will generate experimental forecasts of the ENSO phenomenon and make them available for socioeconomic applications around the world. Representatives of more than 40 countries and 20 international organizations gathered in Washington, DC, to address the creation of an IRI with the capability to transform scientific information into products that can be applied in real-time to economic planning associated with water management, agriculture, natural disasters, and public health.

• The GEWEX Continental-Scale International Project is a multi-year field experiment underway in the Mississippi River Basin. The experiment focuses on improving predictions of changes in water resources on monthly, seasonal, annual, and interannual time scales. Considerable progress has been made in the development of better representations of soil moisture and vegetation cover in regional coupled models. While regional in design, GCIP findings are starting to provide important information for the water and agricultural sectors throughout the United States.

• A unique effort has been launched in the U.S. Pacific Northwest to bring together a multidisciplinary team of researchers with expertise in water management, coastal activities, fisheries, forestry, hydrologic modeling, institutional arrangements, and climate prediction. The scientists are developing an integrated approach to analyzing the impacts of seasonal to intradecadal climate variations on different social, economic, and ecological sectors with the aim of determining how climate forecasts can be used to improve decision making in these sectors for the benefit of society.

• Preliminary analyses climate-crop relationships in Utah and Idaho indicate that extreme values of precipitation and temperature have the most significant impact on crop yields. These analyses further demonstrate the impact of ENSO events on crop yields, rangeland conditions, and the duration of forage harvest for grazing. A framework for assessing the relationship between climate and land use in the states of California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Idaho, Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming is now under development.