1986

An El Niño model developed by Mark Cane and Steve Zebiak successfully predicts Pacific Ocean warming.

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1993

Pilot phase of IRI: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration provides support to Columbia's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

1995

The International Forum on Forecasting El Niño: Launching an International Research Institute for Climate Prediction takes place in Washington, DC.

1996

NOAA awards $19 million to fund IRI activities at LDEO, Scripps and University of California, San Diego.

Antonio Divino Moura becomes first director-general.

First Regional Climate Outlook Forum convenes in Zimbabwe, with others soon to follow across Africa and globally.

1997

IRI begins issuing seasonal forecasts and produces first global net assessment forecast.

1998

IRI introduces forecast skill, global extreme rainfall, the Climate Information Digest, and other new products.

1999

USAID, World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank support IRI programs in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America.

2000

NOAA supports IRI through a cooperative agreement with Columbia University for $42 million for 2000-2005.

2001

IRI global forecasts start to be issued monthly instead of seasonally.

2002

IRI begins production of monthly El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) probability forecasts.

2003

Steve Zebiak becomes director-general.

Launch of the IRI Climate Predictability Tool, currently used by dozens of national weather services in their forecast development and verification.

2004

Enrollment begins for the IRI-developed M.A. Program in Climate and Society at Columbia University.

The Pan American Health Organization and World Health Organization designate IRI a collaborating center on Early Warning Systems for Malaria and Other Climate-Sensitive Diseases.

2005

IRI changes its name to the International Research Institute for Climate and Society.

NOAA provides $48 million to support IRI for 2005-2010.

2006

IRI starts its first index-insurance project, in Malawi, with World Bank support.

2007

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and IRI launch a “Partnership to Save Lives.”

Climate risk management in Africa: Learning from practice publishes as the first issue in the Climate and Society publication series.

2008

IRI launches a series of annual Summer Institutes focused on training public health experts to use climate information for health-care planning and disease prevention.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies issues the first-ever emergency appeal for West Africa based on a seasonal forecast — thanks to ongoing collaboration with IRI — catalyzing the start of anticipatory action in the humanitarian community.

2009

IRI plays a key role in World Climate Conference 3 and the creation of the Global Framework for Climate Services.

Index insurance and climate risk: Prospects for development and disaster management - Issue #2 of the Climate and Society publication series.

2010

Start of 12-year, $500+ million CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security. IRI leads the Climate Services and Safety Nets Flagship theme.

IRI leads training with the World Meteorological Organization on downscaling seasonal forecasts in Beijing, China with participants from 17 countries.

2011

USAID launches the $30 million Climate Resilient Development project; IRI leads work on climate information and climate services.

IRI hosts the first International Conference on Climate Services, and later helps launch Climate Services Partnership with support from USAID.

A better climate for disaster risk management - Issue #3 of the Climate and Society publication series.

2012

Enhancing National Climate Services initiative (ENACTS) launches in Ethiopia; it will later expand to more than a dozen countries in Africa.

World Food Programme, USAID and Oxfam resilience project gives an index insurance payout of unprecedented scale directly to poor Ethiopian farmers, thanks to a groundbreaking methodologies developed at IRI.

Lisa Goddard becomes director.

2013

IRI plays a leading role in developing a verification framework for interannual-to-decadal climate prediction.

2014

IRI launches “flexible format” seasonal probabilistic forecasts, enabling users to select the seasonal rainfall/temperature threshold value of relevance to their decisions as probabilities of exceedance/non-exceedance.

IRI leads Climate Services for Africa, a five-year regional capacity development project funded by USAID.

NOAA funds a new five-year climate-resilience project jointly led by the IRI and the University of Arizona.

2015

IRI, World Food Programme and national institutions launch the Food Security Climate Resilience Facility (FoodSECuRE) to support community-centered actions and improve post-disaster recovery.

A new drought forecast system is developed with Jamaica Meteorological Service and Caribbean Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology; it rapidly scales up to support 40 million people in 23 Caribbean countries.

2016

IRI co-hosts a workshop on Sub-Seasonal to Seasonal Predictability of Extreme Weather and Climate.

IRI convenes Climate and Health Colloquium to help build a global community of climate-trained health practitioners and policymakers.

IRI leads the $5 million Rwanda Climate Services for Agriculture project funded by USAID.

2017

IRI leads the first Columbia World Project, Adapting Agriculture to Climate Today, for Tomorrow. ACToday's goal is to develop climate services to improve food security in Ethiopia, Senegal, Colombia, Guatemala, Bangladesh and Vietnam.

2018

IRI begins issuing routine global subseasonal forecasts for precipitation and temperature.

ACToday helps launch the Bangladesh Academy for Climate Services to incorporate climate thinking in decision-making processes across all sectors and all branches of government.

2019

The ENACTS initiative expands to Bangladesh, Vietnam, Guatemala, Colombia, and Senegal through the ACToday project.

IRI becomes a partner in the Global Commission on Adaptation's Year of Action consortium.

2020

IRI enables the World Food Programme to reach its goal of providing index-insurance access to a million farmers in Ethiopia.

IRI becomes a key partner in the $60 million World Bank project, Accelerating the Impact of CGIAR Climate Research for Africa, to scale up climate services and climate-smart agriculture.

2021

IRI's climate and weather forecasting approach, NextGen, expands to 10 countries in Latin America after initial launches in Colombia and Guatemala through the ACToday project.

John Furlow becomes IRI's current director.

2022

At its conclusion, ACToday held more than 180 training events for more than 5,500 participants. The project leveraged nearly $6 million in new funding through 21 new projects, and produced 150 research and communications outputs, including 41 peer-reviewed publications.

IRI is providing support to insurance projects and International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies forecast-based action and finance projects that provide risk coverage for millions of smallholder farmers in dozens of countries.