Observations
describing the current state of the atmosphere and or river conditions
are the basis of severe weather and flood warnings as well as fair
weather forecasts. Daily, the National Weather Service collects a
multitude of such observations from surface and upper-air stations
across the country. Satellites, offshore buoys, aircraft, volunteers
aboard seagoing vessels, and other sources contribute many more thousands
of observations. The collected data is exchanged with most of the
other countries in the world that collect similar observations.
Currently,
complete weather observations are collected at 260 National Weather
Service facilities by some 1,200 people who contribute at least part
of their time to this effort. Scheduled observations routinely absorb
a significant amount of staff time; but the workload increases dramatically
during severe weather, just at a time when the observer needs to devote
more time to the preparation and dissemination of warnings and special
statements.
The goal
of the Automated Surface Observation Systems (ASOS) program (also
begun in the early 1980's) is to develop and implement a flexible
and modular unit to monitor the weather automatically. Using modern
technology, these systems, expected to be deployed across the country
by the early 1990's, will automatically acquire, process, store, format,
and distribute weather observations like atmospheric pressure, temperature,
visibility and precipitation.
A key
component of the automated weather observing systems of the future
will likely be the result of a NOAA research program begun in the
mid-1980's to develop a ground-based system to continuously measure
vertical profiles of atmospheric conditions like wind speed and direction,
temperature and humidity. In 1986, NOAA signed a major, multi-million
dollar contract with the Sperry Corporation to build a 30-unit demonstration
network of the first component of such a system -- the Wind Profiler.
Once operational testing of this system is completed in the early
1990's, NOAA expects that the Wind Profiler could complement (and
in some areas, replace) the labor-intensive weather balloon network
and become an integral part of the modernized Weather Service.
In addition
to the development of new technologies, the 1980's have seen significant
improvements in weather forecast skills as a result of advances in
computer modeling. Advanced models, developed by NOAA's Geophysical
Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) and the Weather Service's National
Meteorological Center (NMC), can now be run on new Class VI supercomputers.
A particularly promising recent development in the area of weather
modeling was a GFDL model which couples atmospheric and oceanic conditions
and processes into a single interactive model designed to simulate
and then predict average weather conditions out to 30 days.
Oceanic and Atmospheric Research
NOAA
has also made considerable progress in the related area of climate
research and prediction during the 1980's. Probably the most visible,
and most significant, effort in this area is the international Tropical
Ocean-Global Atmosphere (TOGA) program which officially began in fiscal
year 1984. This program, and predecessor supporting research initiated
in the 1970's, is designed to provide an understanding of the role
that the tropical Pacific Ocean plays in determining climate changes
over North America. The principal focus of the program is the El Nino,
an unusually strong warming of equatorial Pacific waters which, when
coupled with an atmospheric phenomenon known as the Southern Oscillation,
(a global-scale see-saw in atmospheric pressure between Indonesia-North
Australia and the Southeast Pacific), can cause dramatic changes in
the earth's climate patterns. The 1982/1983 El Nino-Southern Oscillation
(ENSO) event was the strongest in history and as newspaper and television
reports told us, was responsible for nearly $20 billion in economic
losses worldwide - from flooding in coastal California to droughts
in Africa and
Australia. NOAA's scientific foresight and planning enabled the Agency
to track and document the '82/83 event in greater detail than ever
before and establish the foundation for a monitoring network and computer
modeling capability which will allow scientists to recognize the signals
of and eventually predict the phenomenon. High on NOAA's scientific
priority list, the development of such a predictive capability will
not only produce considerable economic savings but, will also be one
of the most significant scientific achievements of modern times.
NOAA's
research in the 1980's is also leading the way in the area of studies
on longer-term climate changes and air quality. Building on a strong
history of research in atmospheric chemistry, NOAA took another bold
step forward in 1985 with the initiation of a research program referred
to as Radiatively Important Trace Species (RITS). NOAA had, for years,
been a leader in research on the causes and potential effects of carbon
dioxide on the earth's climate (the so-called "greenhouse warming"
problem). In the early eighties, however, NOAA researchers led the
way for the scientific community by recognizing the fact that there
are also other so-called "greenhouse gases", like methane and the
chlorofluorocarbons currently implicated in the debate over stratospheric
ozone depletion, which also appear to be increasing in the atmosphere.
NOAA scientists estimate that the global greenhouse warming from these
gases could be as great as, and additive to, that expected
from carbon dioxide. NOAA was the first to justify the need to understand
the reasons for the increasing abundances of these gases and develop
a capability to predict the potential climatic and chemical consequences
of such changes. The RITS program remains the principal coordinated
agency attack on this scientific challenge and environmental problem.
A scientist
from NOAA's Aeronomy Laboratory led an Antarctic Ozone Expedition
to McMurdo Base in late 1986 to investigate the Antarctic ozone hole.
The results showed highly elevated abundances of reactive chlorine
compounds, reduced levels of nitrogen oxides, and 40 percent depletion
of ozone at 12-20 km altitude. The role of the chlorinated and brominated
compounds now seems somewhat more likely and that of the solar cycle
seems less likely. Since the cause of the ozone hole had not been
established with certainty, NOAA also led a second expedition in 1987
and a NOAA scientist has also been chosen as mission scientist for
an interagency aircraft observation program to fly through the ozone
hole in 1987.
These
examples illustrate NOAA's role as the Federal Government's principal
operational climate observing, prediction and information management
agency. These activities characterize NOAA's unique role and contribution
to an evolving national and international scientific program to understand
and predict natural and man-made changes in the global environment.
Joining the other principal U.S. participants in these efforts, NASA
and NSF, NOAA has chosen to focus on the global climate system because
changing climate confronts us with significant economic, health and
safety, and national security implications. Involving activities across
the agency, current NOAA programs in oceanic and atmospheric observations,
monitoring, data processing, research, predictive modeling, and information
management represent a substantial and unique Federal capability and
will serve as the foundation for NOAA's global environmental predictions
programs in the 1990's and beyond.
The National
Acid Precipitation (Acid Rain) Act of 1980 brought yet another leadership
role for NOAA. NOAA, along with DOE and EPA, co-chairs the interagency
National Acid Precipitation Task Force which oversees the ten-year
research effort to address this serious problem. The Act designated
NOAA as "Director of Research" and specifically assigned the Agency
with research responsibility in three areas:
•
natural sources and causes of acidity;
•
defining and assessing the relevant atmospheric processes that link
emissions of pollutants with acid deposition; and
•
interpreting the deposition mechanisms that bring acidic pollutants
to the earth's surface and assessing the severity and extent of such
acid deposition.
