Insurance Services Office said it has acquired environmental and scientific research, and predictive modeling firm Atmospheric and Environmental Research, Inc. (AER), expanding ISO's reach in the energy, financial, and government markets.

Jersey City, N.J.-based ISO, said AER provides solutions for sensing, simulating, modeling, and predicting weather-related phenomena in the atmosphere, ocean, and space.

AER services are provided to federal agencies, including the Department of Defense, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. AER also supports Fortune 500 defense contractors, research institutions, and commercial entities in the financial and energy industries, according to ISO.

ISO said AER will complement its AIR Worldwide Corporation (AIR) subsidiary, which also provides catastrophe modeling.

Scott Stephenson, chief operating officer of ISO, said via email that AER will help make AIR's models more accurate, and that the entities will remain separate.

“AER's leading edge science regarding climate change will help improve the accuracy of AIR's models for predicting extreme events,” Mr. Stephenson said. “ISO has no plans to merge AIR and AER. Each will remain separate, wholly-owned subsidiaries of ISO.”

Cecilia Sze, AER's president and CEO, said, “We look forward to developing new modeling and analytic solutions with ISO and AIR to further the understanding of the global environment and to enable better decision-making in response to weather and climate risks.”

ISO said AER will continue to operate from its corporate headquarters in Lexington, Mass.