The parts of the climate problem which we understand the best and which are the most predictable at present are associated with seasonal to interannual time scales. These are the time scales of El Nino and the Southern Oscillation, They are fairly straightforward to observe, thanks to mooring arrays like TAO in the equatorial Pacific, and sea level networks like the one maintained by the University of Hawaii. NOAA started working hard on understanding these time scales right after the 1982-83 el Nino, which we did not recognize as happening until it was at its peak. Between 1985 and 1995 NOAA/PMEL put the TAO array in place in the equatorial Pacific. Long before the array was completed in December, 1995, the usefulness of the data was already recognized. NOAA, the University of Hawaii  and the University of Guam established a Pacific ENSO Applications Center (PEAC), which has now been in operation for 15 years. It publishes a quarterly newsletter called the Pacific ENSO Update, which describes the state of present state of the ENSO cycle and the expected impacted for the islands in the western Pacific. This is a prototype for a very practical climate service, providing useful information to decision makers who need it.

Data regarding the state of the ENSO cycle is now available in many places on the internet. The seasonal to interannual time scale is still the part of the climate problem that we understand the best, and information about it is definitely useful to decision makers. But very little has been paid to this part of the climate problem in the NCS discussion. The entire emphasis seems to be on the longer time scales that the IPCC process is trying to address. Given that the time scales here are decades to centuries and beyond, it is not clear what information needs to be provided, beyond the present IPCC process.

The Pacific ENSO Application Center was a low cost undertaking that took advantage of a real need and an available way of meeting it. It was not done at no cost. New funding was provided both by the Office of Global Programs and the Weather Service, and the Joint Institute of Marine and Atmospheric Research agreed to host the effort, and still does.

In contrast to the PEAC, the plans for the NCS call for a whole new line office in NOAA, to be created without any new funding. That is clearly an unrealistic expectation.