"ASHEVILLE -- From the big-picture view of satellites orbiting Earth every hour and half, weathermen can tell you if it's going to rain in your backyard this weekend.

Now scientists coming to Asheville hope to use that same satellite data to forecast what weather patterns people can expect by the end of the century.

'Climate is changing, and it's clear that humanity at large is the main reason for this change,' said Otis Brown, who will head a new group of university researchers at the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville.

'We're looking at 50- to 100-year time scales where it's hard to argue that the changes aren't going to be very significant and affect quality of life for hundreds of millions if not billions of people.'

In part by using an archive of weather records stashed in Asheville's Grove Arcade starting in 1950, NCDC is shifting its mission beyond a massive storehouse in the federal building to a cutting-edge research center that can confidently predict how climate will change."

Dale Neal reports for the Asheville Citizen-Times July 5, 2009. [2]