An adequate understanding of climate variability and the eventual prediction of climate change are among the most urgent and far‐reaching efforts of the scientific community. The climate system is in an ever‐changing state with vast impact on mankind in all his activities. Both short and long‐term aspects of climate variability are of concern, and the unravelling of “natural” variability from “man‐induced” climate change is required to prepare for and ameliorate, if possible, the potentially devastating aspects of such change. In terms of scientific effort, the climate community can be thought of as the union of the disciplinary sciences of meteorology, oceanography, sea ice and glaciology, and land surface processes. Since models are based upon mathematical and numerical constructs, mathematics and computer sciences are also directly involved. In addition, some of the problems of man‐induced climate change (release of greenhouse gases, the ozone‐hole problem, etc.) are basically chemical in nature, and the expertise of the atmospheric and oceanic chemist is also required. In addition, some part of the response to climate perturbations will arise in the biological world, due to upsetting the balance in the great food web that binds communities together on both the land and the sea. Thus, the problems to be solved are extraordinarily complex and require the efforts of many kinds of scientist. Copyright 1995 by the American Geophysical Union.
