The objective of the Program is to provide credible information on climate and air quality, including their variability, change and impact, as a scientific basis for decision makers to select optimal pathways to achieve future economic, societal and environmental goals in Illinois. This will be accomplished through better understanding and modeling of the critical processes that affect local climate and air quality. The Program will address four key scientific issues: the causes of historical climate and air quality variability, the potential future changes in frequency and intensity of severe weather and climate events, the potential future changes in air quality, and quantitative assessment of the societal implications.

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One central effort of the Program is to project climate and air quality variations at scales that are crucial to Illinois human activities and natural resources. These variations are determined not only by local geographic characteristics, including topography, hydrology, land cover/use, and gas/aerosol emissions, but also by remote large-scale anomalies through planetary atmospheric circulations. The physical processes and underlying mechanisms are scale specific and no single model is capable of simulating all important processes. Thus, it is essential to develop an integrated Climate, Air Quality and Impact Modeling System (CAQIMS) to incorporate realistic information flows between different scales of dynamical, physical, chemical and societal processes. The CAQIMS includes not only global and regional components, but also modules for local processes and impacts. Read More about CAQIMS