COLA’s Mission:
Explore and quantify the predictability of Earth’s climate on monthly to decadal timescales using state-of-the-art coupled models of the global atmosphere, oceans, land surface, and cryosphere, and apply climate predictability science to deliver societally beneficial predictions.
About the Center for Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Studies
The George Mason University Center for Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Studies (COLA), located in Fairfax, Virginia, is a unique institution which allows scientists from several disciplines to work closely together on interdisciplinary research related to variability and predictability of Earth’s climate on monthly to decadal time scales. The scientific premise for research at COLA is that there is a predictable element of the Earth’s current climate that makes it possible to accurately forecast climate variations. While the chaotic nature of the global atmosphere is known to impose a limit on the predictability of the weather at a given instant, the hypothesis underlying COLA’s research suggests that there is predictability in the midst of chaos, and that accurate climate forecasts with lead times longer than the inherent limit of deterministic predictability are possible. The profound effects that human activity – fossil fuel combustion and deforestation, which are changing the composition of the atmosphere and the nature of the energy and water cycles – have on variability and predictability are also studied by COLA researchers.
Methods – In order to critically examine the hypothesis, COLA scientists use computer models of the Earth’s global atmosphere, world oceans, continental land surface biosphere, and cryosphere in numerical experiments, and develop and use advanced techniques to analyze observational and model data. By tightly linking the predictability research and experimental predictions for real observed climate situations, scientific results can provide guidance for improving climate forecasts, and the forecast results can be applied to revise the experimental design for studying predictability and improving prediction models.
Education – The education of the next generation of atmospheric and oceanic modelers is critical to the advancement of our science and the improvement of our understanding of the predictability and variability of the Earth’s climate. COLA is closely coordinated with the Mason Climate Science (M.S.) and Climate Dynamics (Ph.D.) programs.
Support – COLA is widely considered to be a shining example of the successful way that cooperation and coordination among the federal agencies that support climate research has led to greater, more flexible and more creative federal support for basic research in climate variability and change. Support for COLA research is provided largely by research grants from federal agencies, including The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, The National Science Foundation, and The National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The supercomputing resources that have been made available by the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the Texas Advanced Computing Center, and the NASA Advanced Supercomputing division have been instrumental in the successful execution of the COLA research agenda. The scientific and technical activities at COLA are critically peer-reviewed.
Reviews – Technical reviewers of COLA have found that “The quality of the personnel and the focus of their effort on the [climate] prediction problem make COLA a preeminent institution that provides national leadership in this area, which is crucial to the nation’s effort to provide better climate forecast services. COLA makes major contributions through: (a) independent evaluation of the characteristics of the nation’s leading models for climate variability and climate change; (b) leadership among the community working toward improved understanding and prediction of climate variability; and (c) highly valued and widely used information technology for the efficient exchange and utilization of climate model and observational data.”