PHOENIX (AP) -- It may sound contradictory, but the U.S. is experiencing more droughts and more flooding due to global warming - helping drive an increase in demand for scientists who understand water in the atmosphere and what happens to it on the ground.

Two professors at the University of Arizona in Tucson recently passed the first hurdle in producing more of those scientists, known as hydrometeorologists. The Arizona Board of Regents approved the professors' proposal to create what they say would be the nation's first master's and doctoral program in the burgeoning field.

The program, which still needs approval from numerous university officials, could begin as early as the fall of 2009.

"Water, of course, is a huge issue throughout the country," said Gregg Garfin, director of science translation and outreach at UA's Institute for the Study of Planet Earth. "The proposed program really fills an important niche that will help us work out problems that we're going to face due to climate change."

The nation already is seeing some of those problems, said Richard Heim, a meteorologist at the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C.

For instance, he said drought has increased in much of the country, including the Southwest, the Southeast and the Southern Plains. At the same time, floods are becoming more frequent, not because it's raining more but because there are more extreme precipitation events, Heim said.

Heim pointed to Texas, which has experienced severe drought in the past few months but saw severe flooding in July because of localized thunderstorms and the remnants of Hurricane Dolly.

"So you're having major drought and then major flooding in the same month in the same place," Heim said.

As global temperatures increase - also increasing the conditions for drought - those extremes only are expected to occur more often.

With an understanding of water in the sky and what it will do on the ground, a hydrometeorologist can better predict both short- and long-term floods and droughts than a hydrologist - whose focus is on water - or a meteorologist - whose focus is on the atmosphere, said Hoshin Gupta, a UA professor of hydrology and water resources who co-authored the proposal for the hydrometeorological program.

And better predicting floods and droughts is useful for forecasting agencies, governments, agricultural workers and insurance companies, he said.

Xubin Zeng, a UA professor of atmospheric sciences who co-wrote the proposal with Gupta, said the hope is for the new program to be funded by the federal government, the private sector and international organizations that stand to benefit from better predicting of weather extremes.

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On the Net:

UA's Institute for the Study of Planet Earth: http://www.ispe.arizona.edu/

National Climatic Data Center: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/

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