This book is the standard reference based on roughly 20 years of research on atmospheric rivers, emphasizing progress made on key research and applications questions and remaining knowledge gaps. The book presents the history of atmospheric-rivers research, the current state of scientific knowledge, tools, and policy-relevant (science-informed) problems that lend themselves to real-world application of the research—and how the topic fits into larger national and global contexts. This book is written by a global team of authors who have conducted and published the majority of critical research on atmospheric rivers over the past years. The book is intended to benefit practitioners in the fields of meteorology, hydrology and related disciplines, including students as well as senior researchers.

As the nation's economic activities, security concerns, and stewardship of natural resources become increasingly complex and globally interrelated, they become ever more sensitive to adverse impacts from weather, climate, and other natural phenomena. For several decades, forecasts with lead times of a few days for weather and other environmental phenomena have yielded valuable information to improve decision-making across all sectors of society. Developing the capability to forecast environmental conditions and disruptive events several weeks and months in advance could dramatically increase the value and benefit of environmental predictions, saving lives, protecting property, increasing economic vitality, protecting the environment, and informing policy choices. Over the past decade, the ability to forecast weather and climate conditions on subseasonal to seasonal (S2S) timescales, i.e., two to fifty-two weeks in advance, has improved substantially. Although significant progress has been made, much work remains to make S2S predictions skillful enough, as well as optimally tailored and communicated, to enable widespread use. Next Generation Earth System Predictions presents a ten-year U.S. research agenda that increases the nation's S2S research and modeling capability, advances S2S forecasting, and aids in decision making at medium and extended lead times.