The Center for Solutions to Weather and Climate Risk (CSWCR) is a center within Penn State’s Department of Meteorology and Atmospheric Science.  CSWCR’s vision is to create the knowledge, training and solutions to enable the optimal outcome for every decision where weather and climate matter.

Achieving this vision will extract the maximum value out of every forecast, best serve the public and private sectors, and highlight Penn State’s skill and relevance in creating significant additional value to the Weather and Climate Enterprise.

CSWCR’s Mission is to leverage and integrate the capabilities of the University, in particular those found in Meteorology, Engineering, Statistics, e-Education and Communications, along with external partners, to advance the science of exploiting environmental opportunities and understanding environmental impacts to manage risk.  CSWCR will achieve this mission by focusing its efforts in four areas:

• User-inspired research:  Identify and conduct research in areas that will advance the decision support process for specific industries and organizations.

• Communications:  Train students and professionals how to convey environmental risk, impacts, opportunities, and solutions clearly, succinctly, and in a way understood unambiguously by the end user.

• Education:  Leverage and expand existing e-education programs in Weather Risk Management.  Educate and train future providers and users how to think about environmental impacts and how to identify optimal solution sets.

• Services:  Prototype and develop new methods and products to quantify and exploit environmental opportunities and reduce risks.

CSWCR creates innovative solutions by developing techniques to better combine and optimize all the diverse information available in today’s environmental forecasts with an understanding of specific business objectives, thresholds and constraints.   Equally important is the Center’s focus on effective communication, training, and resident and on-line education for both providers and users.  When effectively combined, the research, communications, education and training, can provide new tools and techniques to enhance the success of both users and providers of weather and climate information.

CSWCR invites collaborators to join our effort.  The center strives to:

• Be the best
• Maintain trust with everyone
• Be nice to all
• Be the quickest
• Break the status quo whenever and wherever needed

In summary, the goal is to “count the cards in Nature’s Casino”.   The center will enable students and professionals alike to develop solutions that exploit opportunities and manage the ever-changing weather and climate risks.