2. Trends and Drivers for Research
Trends and drivers consist of three types: Legal, Technology and Requirements.
Legal drivers are the laws, mandates, and agreements that obligate NOAA to
perform certain activities. The legal drivers specifically directed at SMCD
programs are listed in this section.
Technology trends and drivers consist of the planned and expected advances
in satellite instrument observing capabilities. By creating new capabilities,
these technology drivers enable SMCD scientists to push the state of the art
and develop enhanced and new satellite products and applications.
Requirements trends and drivers are the requirements for satellite-based
information to achieve NOAA's strategic goals. These requirements are developed
by the users of the satellite products and applications. NOAA's requirements
for upgraded and new products are constantly becoming more demanding as it
strives to improve its services.
Legal Drivers
Weather and Water
H.R. 4 Energy Policy Act of 2002 (Senate Amendment) S. 517, Part II,
Section 1383, Forecasts and Warnings and appropriations in later years:
NOAA shall issue air quality forecasts and perform regional air quality
assessments.
The "Great Waters" Section of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments
(Section 112(m), Title III) Atmospheric Deposition to Great Lakes and
Coastal Waters: NOAA shall identify and assess the extent of deposition of
atmospheric pollutants to significant water bodies.
The "Ecosystem Research" Section of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments
(Section 901(e), Title IX) : NOAA shall conduct a research program to
improve understanding of the short-term and long-term causes, effects, and
trends of ecosystems damage from air pollutants on ecosystems.
The Organic Act of October 1, 1890, which created the National Weather
Bureau, established NOAA's mission to provide weather and water
information and services to the Nation.
Federal Plan for Meteorological Services and Supporting Research FY2003
- Citation: Public Law 87-843 (1963 ), Federal Coordinator for Meteorology
FCM-P1-2002 is a Congressional mandate providing for government research
and development programs that directly support and improve meteorological
services in an effective and efficient manner.
U.S. Weather Research Program (USWRP) Authorization Act: The U.S.
Weather Research Program (USWRP) is mandated to accelerate forecast
improvements of high impact weather and facilitate full use of advanced
weather information.
Memorandum of Understanding between NOAA and the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) signed by the Deputy Secretary of Commerce and the
Administrator of EPA (May 2003): NOAA and EPA will collaborate on air
quality research.
Memorandum of Agreement between NOAA and EPA signed by the Deputy
Secretary of Commerce and the Administrator of EPA (May 2003): NOAA and
EPA will collaborate on air quality forecasting. NOAA deliverables include
improved air quality forecast models and air quality forecast guidance.
EPA deliverables include providing emissions inventory and monitoring
data.
Climate:
- Public Law 95-95, Clean Air Act Amendments, 1990. NOAA (and NASA) is
required to "... continue programs of research, technology, and monitoring
of the phenomena of the stratosphere for the purpose of understanding the
physics and chemistry of the stratosphere and for early detection of
potentially harmful changes in the ozone in the stratosphere ..." Further,
NOAA (and NASA) is required to report "... on the current average
tropospheric concentration of chlorine and bromine and on the level of
stratospheric ozone depletion."
- U.S. Carbon Cycle Science Plan (USGCRP, 1999) and associated
implementation plans. This plan defined five goals, of which three
pertain directly to NOAA expertise: "Quantify and understand the Northern
Hemisphere terrestrial carbon sink", "Quantify and understand the uptake
of anthropogenic CO2 in the ocean", and "Provide greatly
improved projections of future atmospheric concentrations of CO2".
NOAA's Climate Forcing Program is designed to help meet those goals.
- The North American Carbon Program (2002). This plan defines major
program elements needed to determine the carbon balance of North America
and adjacent ocean basins. They include "Expand atmospheric monitoring:
vertical concentration data, column CO 2 inventories, continuous
measurements," "Conduct field campaigns over North America, and
eventually over the adjacent oceans, using aircraft linked to enhanced
flux tower networks and improved atmospheric transport models," and
"Improve inverse models and strengthen connections between atmospheric
model inferences and direct terrestrial and oceanic observations."
- The Global Change Research Act of 1990 (P.L. 101-606, 15 U.S.C. 2921 et. seq.)
- U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP)
Satellites already in the pipeline or planned will drive the types of
research and applications activities that SMCD will undertake in the
future. Figure 1 shows the schedule for launches of NOAA satellites to
2020. In addition to these, SMCD scientists will continue to experiment
with and exploit research satellite data to support NOAA's services and to
prepare for future operational satellite implementations.
Major trends in instrument technology that will challenge but offer new
opportunities to SMCD scientists include:
- Hyperspectral sounding and imaging instruments with finer wavelength,
spatial, and temporal resolution, but with orders of magnitude for more
data, that will provide atmospheric and surface measurements of
unprecedented information content, timeliness, and detail.
- Active instruments such as Global Positioning System/Radio Occultation
(GPS/RO), Cloudsat, Precipitation Radars, Calipso, and Atmospheric Laser
Doppler Instrument (ALADIN) that will provide detailed measurements of the
vertical structure of the atmosphere, including temperature and moisture,
cloud and precipitation properties, and aerosols.
- New operational passive instruments such as the National Polar-orbiting
Operational Environmental Satellite System Aerosol Polarimeter Sensor
(NPOESS APS), Earth Radiation Budget Sensor (ERBS), and Total Solar
Irradiance Sensor (TSIS), that will provide the first space-based
information on aerosol composition and continue indefinitely into the
future the observations of solar irradiance and Earth radiation budget
initiated by NASA's research satellite.
SMCD scientists will exploit the capabilities of these advanced
instruments to provide critical support to NOAA's Weather and Water,
Climate, and Commerce/Transportation Strategic Goals. This will involve
evaluation of the data and development of product, applications, and
assimilation systems.
Figure 1 shows a timeline of launches of NOAA satellites and satellite
missions in which NOAA is a partner; i.e., NPOESS and METOP
(Meteorological Operations Platform). Major milestones in this series of
launches will occur with the first launches of METOP, NPOESS, and GOES-R,
when advanced and completely new instruments are introduced.
Initial Joint Polar System: NOAA-N, N' and METOP-1,2,3
NOAA and the European Organization for the Exploitation of
Meteorological Satellites ( EUMETSAT) are working together to maintain
continuity of polar orbiting operational environmental satellites. The
Initial Joint Polar System (IJPS) will comprise the continuation of the
current NOAA satellite series with NOAA-N and -N', together with the new
EUMETSAT satellite series Metop-1, -2, -3, the first of which is scheduled
for launch in 2005. Major instrument advances in the IJPS include: global
Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) observations at 1 km
horizontal resolution (compared to current sampled 4 km resolution) for
detailed surface vegetation and ocean temperature measurements; first
operational advanced IR sounders for high vertical resolution temperature
and moisture structure, and the first operational GPS/OS system for
observing the fine structure of atmospheric temperature in the upper
troposphere and lower stratosphere.
Additional details on the IJPS payloads are contained in Appendix 1.
NPP and NPOESS
NPOESS will converge existing polar-orbiting satellite systems under a
single national program. N POESS, with a first launch in 2009, will carry
a new generation of environmental satellite instruments, some of which
will be flown on a risk-reduction mission, NPOESS Preparatory Program
(NPP), in 2006. These instruments will provide new capabilities in
visible, infrared, and microwave imaging; infrared and microwave sounding;
ozone mapping and profiling; and measurements of solar irradiance, the
Earth's radiatition budget, and aerosols that make significant
contributions to NOAA's Climate Goal.
Additional details on the NPP and NPOESS payloads are contained in Appendix 1.
GOES-R
The major Earth observing instruments of the GOES-R System, planned for
launch in 2012, are: the Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) and the
Hyperspectral Environmental Suite (HES). The Advanced Baseline Sounder
(ABS) will have 16 channels observing at higher spatial resolution and
frequency than today's 5-channel GOES Imager. The HES will have 1500 IR
sounding channels compared to the current 19 channel GOES sounder.
Research Satellites
SMCD also uses the observations of research satellite instruments to
carry out its mission. Noteworthy current examples are the Atmospheric
InfraRed Sounder (AIRS), Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer
(MODIS), and Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) instruments on NASA's Earth
Observation System (EOS) satellites, GPS/OS on the Challenging Mini
Satellite Payload (CHAMP), and Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment (GOME)
on European Remote Sensing (ERS-2). Research missions in the pipeline that
will drive SMCD research include active instruments that will provide the
first data on: the global, three dimensional distribution of hydrometeors,
aerosols, and winds in the atmosphere; soil moisture; and time continuous
monitoring of temperature, moisture, and winds from geostationary
altitude.
Additional details on the NPP and NPOESS payloads are contained in
Appendix 1.
Requirements Drivers
NOAA Weather and Water Goal: Serve Society's Needs for Weather and Water Information
Flooding and storm related damage account for $11 billion
annually in the United States. One of NOAA's mission goals, to Serve
Society's Needs for Weather and Water, has ultimately led to NOAA's
increasing role in understanding, observing, forecasting, and warning of
severe weather events.
SMCD must support NOAA's Weather and Water performance measures to
increase lead time and accuracy for weather and water warnings and
forecasts and improve predictability of the onset, duration, and impact of
hazardous and severe weather and water events. Satellite observations
already provide over 90% of the data used to initialize global forecast
models. These data, together with improvement in data assimilation, NWP
models, and computer power have enabled forecast accuracy to improve at a
rate of about one day per decade over the last few decades - i.e., today's
5-day forecasts are as accurate as 4-day forecasts were just 10 years ago.
But the data being used are largely for clear skies. There is a growing
need to develop the tools to assimilate observations of cloudy and
precipitating areas.
Protecting the public against environmental hazards demands increased
awareness on the need to predict changes in people's exposure to extreme
weather events, adverse air quality, and to hazardous pollutants. NOAA
provides forecasts and warnings of various natural hazards related to the
atmosphere and ocean and, is developing better understanding of the
underlying environmental processes and predictive methodologies of natural
hazards.
A primary air quality concern is the increasing human health risk
associated with exposure to adverse air quality, and to hazardous
pollutants. EPA and NOAA signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on Air
Quality Research and the parallel Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) on Air
Quality Forecasting on May 6, 2003. The major purpose of these agreements
is to facilitate the routine preparation and dissemination of air quality
forecasts. Satellite observations of low level pollutants such as smoke
and other aerosols are needed as input to NWP modules specifically
designed to make such air quality forecasts.
NOAA Climate Goal: Understand Climate Variability and Change to
Enhance Society's Ability to Plan and Respond
NOAA's mission for the next century includes a bold new Climate Goal to
Understand Climate Variability and Change to Enhance Society's Ability to
Plan and Respond as one of four central goals. Strategies for achieving
this goal include: 1) Improve the quality and quantity of climate
observations, analyses, interpretation, and archiving by maintaining a
consistent climate record and by improving our ability to determine why
changes are taking place, and 2) Improve the quantification and
understanding of the forces bringing about climate change by examining
relevant human-induced increases in atmospheric constituents. SMCD will
contribute to implementation of both strategies.
Under Strategy 1, SMCD is a co-lead of the Scientific Data Stewardship
(SDS) component of the Climate Observations & Analysis Program of NOAA's
Climate Goal. For environmental satellite observations, SDS priorities
include:
- Observing System Performance Monitoring
- Documenting measurement practices and processing practices (metadata)
- Providing feedback on observing system performance, including
recommending corrective action for errant or non-optimal operations.
- Climate Data Records
- Reprocessing (incorporate new data, apply new algorithms, perform
bias corrections, integrate/blend data sets from different sources
or observing systems)
- Inter-comparison of data sets for validation
Under Strategy 2, SMCD contributes to the objectives of the Climate
Forcing Program of NOAA's Climate Goal, whose objectives are:
Reduce uncertainty in climate projections through timely information on
the forcings and feedbacks contributing to changes in the Earth's climate:
- Attain a timely understanding of atmospheric and oceanic carbon dioxide
trends, both natural and human, that may be directly applied to climate projection
and to policy decisions regarding climate management that are related to limiting
unwanted effects of future climate change.
- Provide timely and adequate information on the climate roles of the
radiatively important trace atmospheric species (e.g.,
fine-particle aerosols and ozone) that is needed to broaden the suite of
non-carbon options available for policy support regarding the climate change issue.
NOAA Commerce and Transportation Goal: Support the Nation's Commerce
with Information for Safe, Efficient, and Environmentally Sound Transportation
Safe and efficient transportation systems are crucial to the U.S. economy.
The Aviation Weather Program of the Commerce and Transportation Goal focuses on
improving observation, forecast and training capabilities to deliver long term
reduction in the number of weather related aviation mishaps and the number and
extent of weather related flight delays. SMCD contributes to the Aviation Weather
Program by developing tailored satellite-based aviation weather hazards products
for the air transportation sector. SMCD is also responsible for providing technical
support for integrating satellite observation products into aviation weather
observation and forecast systems.
