Excerpt:

"NASA's role in characterizing, understanding and predicting climate variability and change is centered around providing the global scale observational data sets on the higher-inertia components of the climate system (oceans and ice), their forcings, and the interactions with the entire Earth system. Understanding these interactions goes beyond observations, but includes developing and maintaining a modeling capability that allows for the effective use, interpretation, and application of the data. The ultimate objective is to enable predictions of change in climate on time scales ranging from seasonal to multi-decadal. As we pioneer new satellite measurements to enable this capability, we work with our agency partners to transition our demonstrated observational capabilities to operational capabilities run by other agencies."