Lexington, Massachusetts — May 31, 2007 — Atmospheric and Environmental Research, Inc. (AER) a leader in climate and weather forecasting, is pleased to introduce hCast-SR™, a probabilistic hurricane tracking service for trading the new CME (NYSE, NASDAQ:CME) futures and options on futures contracts based on the Carvill Hurricane Index (CHI™), in time for the 2007 Hurricane Season.
With hCast-SR™ traders can monitor the projected value of their hurricane contracts as hurricanes develop, making it easier to make buy/sell decisions. AER scientists have developed techniques to process an ensemble of over fifty tropical cyclone track forecasts from all leading US and international hurricane modeling centers. Traders will have access to regional probability density plots of the CHI™ for all hurricanes that are predicted to approach within 100 nautical miles of the coastline. These regions, as defined by the CME Hurricane product specifications, include the Gulf Coast, Florida, the Southern Atlantic Coast, the Northern Atlantic coast and the Eastern US.
"We are pleased to meet the needs of this growing market. Based on the increased risk of hurricane damages, we see CME's new futures and options contract to be a prominent instrument for mitigating risk" stated Dr. Thomas Nehrkorn, Director of Tropical Forecasting at AER. "As we enter this extended period of active hurricane activity, it is important for our capital markets to contain such risk. hCast-SR™ is an important tool for maximizing contract value, as well as, a natural extension to our existing forecast services for the financial markets. "
Atmospheric and Environmental Research, Inc. (www.aer.com), established in 1977 and headquartered in Lexington, Massachusetts, is an award winning environmental research and consulting company with demonstrated expertise in medium and long range forecasting for the Energy and Financial Markets.
CME (www.cme.com) is the world's largest and most diverse derivatives exchange. As an international marketplace, CME brings together buyers and sellers on the CME Globex® electronic trading platform and on its trading floors. CME offers futures and options on futures in these product areas: interest rates, stock indexes, foreign exchange, agricultural commodities, energy, and alternative investment products such as weather, real estate and economic derivatives. CME is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Holdings Inc. (NYSE, NASDAQ: CME), which is part of the Russell 1000® Index and the S&P 500® Index.
hCast-SR is a registered trademark of Atmospheric and Environmental Research, Inc.
CHI is a registered trademark of Carvill America, Inc..
Contacts:
Contact: AER, Inc. at Marketing@aer.com