use of weather and climate information (Pielke and Kimpel, 1997). We expect that the creation and distribution of useful climate products for the public and private use will be the best way of maintaining these links.

Increased computational and human resources are required to effectively respond to the various demands outlined in Section 4. A new way of focusing resources to meet the specific challenges posed by these various demands implies a less fragmented and therefore more centralized mode of addressing these problems. The nature of the institutional and management requirements were discussed in terms of a Climate Service, which here is the designation for the organizational entity that would create the climate information products and manage the climate modeling activities that would deliver these products. The full range of functional components of such a Climate Service extend beyond climate modeling and were not discussed. This will be presented in Section 7, where an overall vision of its functions and its interaction with the research community is presented.