Testimonial from Martin Hoerling

US CLIVAR's milestone of leading the science community on how the oceans are the flywheel of climate couldn't be more timely. Very few serious climate studies conducted today fail to invoke the ocean’s role.

I note that NOAA recently declared that 2017 notched another record-setting year for global ocean surface temperatures. We are experiencing, virtually every year, new record ocean warmth. It is fair to say that the very notion of "climate" – as a pace-setter for expectations of stability and reliability derived from our experiential history – is being progressively invalidated by each new year's measurements.

To my view, what CLIVAR science does is to make sense of how this new world ocean is altering our notion of normality and reliability of patterns in variations and means. I think that our climate science overall serves the function of "societal pacemaker" – relieving the fatigue that many people feel about wondering how climate and its change affects their well being, and helping them to plan for and if need-be adapt to notions of a new climate.

And US CLIVAR science is a "pacemaker" in a another way, by acting as a leader in our field, setting the pace for our science, setting the tone of our dialogues about the meaning of the science, and stimulating a wider body of research.

Best wishes for a wonderful celebration of the first 20 years and wishes of success for the next 20 years!