[House Hearing, 113 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
RESTORING U.S. LEADERSHIP
IN WEATHER FORECASTING
PART I
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
THURSDAY, MAY 23, 2013
__________
Serial No. 113-32
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology
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COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
HON. LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas, Chair
DANA ROHRABACHER, California EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
RALPH M. HALL, Texas ZOE LOFGREN, California
F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois
Wisconsin DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland
FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma FREDERICA S. WILSON, Florida
RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas ERIC SWALWELL, California
PAUL C. BROUN, Georgia DAN MAFFEI, New York
STEVEN M. PALAZZO, Mississippi ALAN GRAYSON, Florida
MO BROOKS, Alabama JOSEPH KENNEDY III, Massachusetts
RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois SCOTT PETERS, California
LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana DEREK KILMER, Washington
STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas AMI BERA, California
BILL POSEY, Florida ELIZABETH ESTY, Connecticut
CYNTHIA LUMMIS, Wyoming MARC VEASEY, Texas
DAVID SCHWEIKERT, Arizona JULIA BROWNLEY, California
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky MARK TAKANO, California
KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota ROBIN KELLY, Illinois
JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma
RANDY WEBER, Texas
CHRIS STEWART, Utah
VACANCY
------
Subcommittee on Environment
HON. CHRIS STEWART, Utah, Chair
F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon
Wisconsin JULIA BROWNLEY, California
DANA ROHRABACHER, California DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland
RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas MARC VEASEY, Texas
PAUL C. BROUN, Georgia MARK TAKANO, California
RANDY WEBER, Texas ALAN GRAYSON, Florida
EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas
C O N T E N T S
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Page
Witness List..................................................... 2
Hearing Charter.................................................. 3
Opening Statements
Statement by Representative Chris Stewart, Chairman, Subcommittee
on Environment, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
U.S. House of Representatives.................................. 9
Written Statement............................................ 10
Statement by Representative Suzanne Bonamici, Ranking Minority
Member, Subcommittee on Environment, Committee on Science,
Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives........... 12
Written Statement............................................ 10
Witnesses:
Mr. Barry Myers, Chief Executive Officer, AccuWeather
Oral Statement............................................... 14
Written Statement............................................ 17
Mr. Jon Kirchner, President, GeoOptics
Oral Statement............................................... 29
Written Statement............................................ 31
Discussion....................................................... 37
Appendix I: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Mr. Barry Myers, Chief Executive Officer, AccuWeather............ 50
Mr. Jon Kirchner, President, GeoOptics........................... 56
Appendix II: Additional Material for the Record
Revised submission from GeoOptics, Inc., submitted by Mr.
Kirchner....................................................... 72
GeoOptics, Inc. closing comments, submitted by Mr. Kirchner...... 76
RESTORING U.S. LEADERSHIP
IN WEATHER FORECASTING
PART I
----------
THURSDAY, MAY 23, 2013
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Environment
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
Washington, D.C.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 9:35 a.m., in
Room 2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Chris
Stewart [Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
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Chairman Stewart. The Subcommittee on Environment will come
to order.
Good morning, everyone. Welcome to today's hearing entitled
``Restoring U.S. Leadership in Weather Forecasting.'' In front
of you are packets containing the written testimony,
biographies and Truth in Testimony disclosures for today's
witness panels, and I now recognize myself for five minutes for
an opening statement.
First, let me say, diverting from prepared comments for
just a little bit, that our thoughts and prayers are with the
people of Oklahoma, and I think this tragedy highlights the
importance of real-time forecasting to protect lives and
property.
I would like to thank our excellent witness panel as well
for traveling here today, and while this hearing was scheduled
several weeks ago to discuss draft legislation to help enhance
weather forecasting, the tragedy in Oklahoma once again
underscores the importance of this issue and should encourage
us to start tackling these questions today.
It is unfortunate that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration is unable to testify in-person. However, as the
Ranking Member and I have just discussed, we will be asking
Acting Administrator Kathy Sullivan to submit comments for the
record, and we will work to accommodate her in-person testimony
on these issues some time very soon.
We need a world-class system of weather prediction in the
United States--one, as the National Academy of Sciences
recently put it, that is ``second to none.'' We can thank the
hardworking men and women of the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, and their partners
throughout the weather enterprise for the great strides that
have been made in forecasting in recent decades. But the
reality is, is that we can do better. And it is not enough to
blame failures on programming or sequestration or lack of
resources. As Moore, Oklahoma, has demonstrated, we have to do
better. But the good news is that we can.
Superstorm Sandy made clear what many in the weather
community have known for years: Our model for weather
prediction has fallen behind Europe and other parts of the
world in predicting weather events in the United States. The
Weather Forecasting Improvement Act, draft language our
witnesses will be discussing today, would build upon the down
payment made by Congress following this storm toward restoring
the United States as a leader in this field through expanded
computing capacity and data assimilation techniques.
The people of Moore, Oklahoma, received a tornado warning
16 minutes before the twister struck their town. Tornado
forecasting is difficult but lead times for storms have become
gradually better. The draft legislation would prioritize
investments in technologies like multi-phased array radar,
technology being developed at NOAA's National Severe Storms
Laboratory in Oklahoma, which has, and I am quoting, ``the
potential to provide revolutionary improvements in tornado
warning lead times and accuracy, reducing false alarms'' and
could move us toward the goal of being able to warn on
forecast.
We have seen the devastating effects that severe weather
can have in this country, and this bill would establish a
priority mission for all of NOAA to improve forecasts and
warnings to protect lives and property. Recent studies suggest
that even routine weather variability every year can have an
impact on a large portion of the economy with hundreds of
billions of dollars in consequences.
The Weather Forecasting Improvement Act is based upon a
number of recommendations received in the last Congress, and
let me tell you what this bill will do. As the country faces
severe satellite data gaps, it would encourage NOAA to
systematically conduct cost-benefit assessments to ensure that
we are getting the most bang for our buck in acquiring and
procuring a mix of critical space-, air- and ground-based
observational data. As Dr. Berrien Moore, Director of the
National Weather Center at the University of Oklahoma,
explained to this Subcommittee, ``NOAA needs to do a better job
of conducting quantitative assessments on data use, cost, and
value.''
This draft would help remove barriers to NOAA's cooperation
with parts of the weather enterprise, including upstream data
options and downstream, value-added forecasting capabilities
from the private sector. As Dr. David Crain, President and CEO
of GeoMetWatch, a company looking to develop critical sounding
observations from a constellation of satellites, stated ``a
commercial approach can provide the needed data years earlier
and with minimal cost and risk.'' It would balance NOAA's
research portfolio by emphasizing weather research with the
potential to protect lives and property. In 2012, NOAA barely
spent one-third of the resources on weather research as it did
on climate research.
And finally, the language would dedicate resources to
transition next generation research into operational
forecasting. As NOAA's Science Advisory Board stated last
month, ``Unless science is transitioned into operations, NOAA
will fail in this mission.''
Unfortunately, NOAA was unable to testify in-person this
morning, but we will be providing the Subcommittee with
comments--I am sorry--they will be providing the Subcommittee
with comments on forecasting improvements, and we look forward
to their feedback informing this legislation and their future
testimony on this and other topics.
I look forward to discussing these absolutely critical
issues with our witnesses today, and learning about how we can
restore U.S. leadership in weather forecasting.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Stewart follows:]
Prepared Statement of Subcommittee Chairman Chris Stewart
Good morning and welcome to this morning's Environment Subcommittee
hearing entitled ``Restoring U.S. Leadership in Weather Forecasting.''
First, let me say that our prayers are with the people of Oklahoma.
This tragedy highlights the importance of real time forecasting to
protect lives and property.
I'd like to thank our excellent witnesses for traveling to be here
today. While this hearing was scheduled several weeks ago to discuss
draft legislation to help enhance weather forecasting, the tragedy in
Oklahoma underscores the importance of this issue and should encourage
us to start tackling these questions now. It is unfortunate that the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is unable to testify
in-person today; however, we have asked Acting Administrator Kathy
Sullivan to submit comments for the record and we will work to
accommodate her in-person testimony on these issues next month.
We need a world-class system of weather prediction in the United
States--one, as the National Academy of Sciences recently put it, that
is ``second to none.'' We can thank the hard-working men and women at
the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, and their
partners throughout the weather enterprise for the great strides that
have been made in forecasting in recent decades.
But we can do better.
Superstorm Sandy made clear what many in the weather community have
known for years: Our model for weather prediction has fallen behind
Europe and other parts of the world in predicting weather events in the
United States. The Weather Forecasting Improvement Act, draft language
our witnesses will be discussing today, would build upon the down
payment made by Congress following this storm toward restoring the U.S.
as a leader in this field through expanded computing capacity and data
assimilation techniques.
We can do better.
The people of Moore, Oklahoma received a tornado warning 16 minutes
before the twister struck their town. Tornado forecasting is difficult
and lead times for storms have become gradually better. The draft
legislation would prioritize investments in technologies like multi-
phased array radar, technology being developed at NOAA's National
Severe Storms Laboratory in Oklahoma, which ``has the potential to
provide revolutionary improvements in. tornado. warning lead times and
accuracy, reducing false alarms'' and could move us toward the goal of
being able to ``warn on forecast.''
We can do better.
We have seen the devastating effects that severe weather can have
on this country, and this bill would establish a priority mission for
all of NOAA to improve forecasts and warnings to protect lives and
property. Recent studies suggest that even routine weather variability
every year can have impact a large portion of the economy with hundreds
of billions of dollars in consequences.
We can do better.
The Weather Forecasting Improvement Act is based upon a number of
recommendations received last Congress--As the country faces serious
satellite data gaps, it would encourage NOAA to systematically conduct
cost-benefit assessments to ensure that we are getting the most bang
for our buck in acquiring and procuring a mix of critical space-, air-,
and ground-based observational data. As Dr. Berrien Moore, Director of
the National Weather Center at the University of Oklahoma, explained to
this Subcommittee, ``NOAA needs to do a better job in conducting
quantitative assessments on data use, cost, and value.''
This draft would help remove barriers to NOAA's cooperation with
parts of the weather enterprise, including upstream data options and
downstream, value-added forecasting capabilities from the private
sector. Dr. David Crain, President and CEO of GeoMetWatch, a company
looking to develop critical sounding observations from a constellation
of satellites, stated that ``a commercial approach can provide the
needed data years earlier and with minimal cost and risk.''
It would balance NOAA's research portfolio by emphasizing weather
research with the potential to protect lives and property. In 2012,
NOAA barely spent one-third of the resources on weather research as it
did on climate research.
This language would dedicate resources to transition next
generation research into operational forecasting. As NOAA's Science
Advisory Board stated last month, ``Unless. science is transitioned
into operations. NOAA will fail in its mission.''
Unfortunately, NOAA was unable to testify in-person this morning,
but they will be providing the Subcommittee with comments on
forecasting improvements, and we look forward to their feedback
informing this legislation and their future testimony on this and other
topics.
I look forward to discussing these absolutely critical issues with
our witnesses today, and learning about how we can restore U.S.
leadership in weather forecasting.
I yield back the balance of my time, and recognize Ranking Member
Bonamici for an opening statement.
Chairman Stewart. With that, I yield my time, and recognize
the Ranking Member, Ms. Bonamici, for an opening statement.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you very much, Chairman Stewart, and
welcome to our witnesses, Mr. Myers and Mr. Kirchner. I want to
thank you for appearing here to provide your insights regarding
weather data and weather forecasting.
I join the Chairman in saying that our thoughts and prayers
go out to all of the victims of the powerful and devastating
tornado that just days ago swept through the State of Oklahoma.
All of us have been moved by this event and the courageous
efforts of the community. The event is a painful reminder that
we are all vulnerable to unexpected disasters, and it also
highlights how critical the work of the National Weather
Service is as a public safety tool.
And that leads us to the purpose of today's hearing. The
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration--NOAA--has an
expansive mission: to predict the weather, to ensure healthy
oceans and fisheries, to address climate mitigation and
adaptation, and to enhance the resilience of our coastal
communities and economies. To carry out all of these missions,
NOAA must manage a very broad set of scientific challenges and
look for ways to incorporate the findings of research into the
daily lives of all our citizens.
In recent years, our Nation has experienced harsher
climactic conditions and a wave of severe weather. From
unprecedented heat waves and droughts, to severe record-
breaking weather events across this country, we have received
constant reminders of the importance of accurate and timely
weather prediction.
Good weather prediction, however, doesn't just happen. It
requires collection of the appropriate data, and our
understanding of what is useful evolves over time. It also
requires us to conduct scientific research to understand the
physical processes that drive short- and long-term weather
conditions.
Unfortunately, the draft legislation that we are
considering today includes little or no acknowledgment of
NOAA's other missions carried out by the Office of Oceanic and
Atmospheric Research, particularly with regard to its climate
and ocean research. Although my colleagues across the dais
might not always agree on every issue around climate and ocean
science, sacrificing these critical areas will only weaken us
for the future. Understanding the climate is as critical to
public protection as understanding the weather.
It is unfortunate that NOAA could not be here today. They
received 10 days ago on May 13 a letter from the Chairman. It
is my understanding that a copy of the draft bill was given to
the agency at that time. That did not give them enough time for
the agency to evaluate a bill, compose testimony, and then
clear that testimony through OMB.
Also, I want to point out that NOAA just released their
Weather Ready Nation Roadmap last month after they spent more
than a year preparing the report and seeking public input.
Additionally, there have been four outside reviews of NWS and
NOAA R&D in the last year, two by the National Academies of
Science, one by the National Academy of Public Administration,
and one done for the NOAA Science Advisory Board. These reports
address key issues like how to move from research to operation;
the need for NOAA to more actively tap the modeling and
forecasting expertise in the research community; and the
divisions within NWS and between NWS and OAR.
The draft legislation does not address all these relevant
issues but they need to be considered. It would be both
appropriate and beneficial for this Subcommittee to receive
testimony about these reports before we move to mark up a bill.
We can work together in this area if we have complete
information, which requires a more complete Committee record
than today's hearing will yield.
As I indicated to the Chairman, the minority submits that
the importance of weather forecasting and the work of NOAA are
so important that we are invoking our Rule XI right to ask for
a second day of witnesses, and I am attaching that letter to my
statement for inclusion in the record, and I appreciate the
Chairman's cooperation in that regard.
I am sure we can work together, Mr. Chairman, to find a
date and time and a range of expert witnesses who can help us
craft strong legislation that will improve weather forecasting
for the nation. I look forward to working with you, Mr.
Chairman, and the Committee Members in this critically
important area.
Thank you very much again for appearing before us, and I
look forward to an informative discussion today. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman, and I yield back.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Bonamici follows:]
Prepared Statement of Subcommittee Ranking Member Suzanne Bonamici
Thank you, Chairman Stewart. And welcome to the witnesses, Mr.
Meyers and Mr. Kirchner. I want to thank you for appearing here to
provide your insights regarding weather data and weather forecasting.
My thoughts and prayers go out to all of the victims of the
powerful and devastating tornado that just days ago swept through the
state of Oklahoma. All of us have been moved by this event and the
courageous efforts of the community. This event is a painful reminder
that we are all vulnerable to unexpected disasters, and it also
highlights how critical the work of the National Weather Service is as
a public safety tool.
And that leads us to the purpose of today's hearing. The National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have an expansive
mission: to predict the weather, to insure healthy oceans and
fisheries, to address climate mitigation and adaptation, and to enhance
the resilience of our coastal communities and economies.
To carry out all of these missions, NOAA must manage a very broad
set of scientific challenges and look for ways to incorporate the
findings of research into the daily lives of all our citizens.
In recent years, our nation has experienced harsher climactic
conditions and a wave of severe weather. From unprecedented heat waves
and droughts to severe record-breaking weather events across the
country, we have received constant reminders of the importance of
accurate and timely weather prediction.
Good weather prediction, however, doesn't just happen. It requires
collection of the appropriate data, and our understanding of what is
useful evolves over time. It also requires us to conduct scientific
research to understand the physical processes that drive short- and
long-term weather conditions.
Unfortunately, the draft legislation that we are considering today
includes little to no acknowledgment of NOAA's other missions carried
out by the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, particularly
with regard to its climate and ocean research. Although my colleagues
across the dais might not always agree on every issue around climate
and ocean science, sacrificing these critical areas will only weaken us
for the future. Understanding the climate is as critical to public
protection as understanding the weather.
It's unfortunate that NOAA could not be here today. They were
invited just 10 days ago on May 13 by a letter from the Chairman. It is
my understanding that a copy of the draft bill was given to the agency
at that time. Six working days is simply not enough time for an agency
to evaluate a bill, compose testimony, and then clear that testimony
through OMB.
Also, NOAA just released their ``Weather Ready Nation Roadmap''
last month, after they spent more than a year preparing the report and
seeking public input. Additionally, there have been four outside
reviews of NWS and NOAA R&D in the last year-two by the National
Academies of Science, one by the National Academy of Public
Administration, and one done for the NOAA Science Advisory Board. These
reports address key issues like how to move from research to
operations; the need for NOAA to more actively tap the modeling and
forecasting expertise in the research community; and the divisions
within NWS and between NWS and OAR.
The draft legislation does not address all these relevant issues
but they need to be considered. It would be both appropriate and
beneficial for this Subcommittee to receive testimony about these
reports before we move to markup a bill. We can work together in this
area if we have more complete information, which requires a more
complete Committee record than today's hearing will yield.
As I indicated to the Chairman, the minority submits that the
importance of weather forecasting and the work of NOAA are so important
that we are invoking our Rule XI right to ask for a second day of
witnesses. I am attaching that letter to my statement for inclusion in
the record.
I am sure we can work together, Mr. Chairman, to find a date and
time and a range of expert witnesses who can help us craft strong
legislation that will improve weather forecasting for the nation. I
look forward to working with you Mr. Chairman in this critically
important area.
Chairman Stewart. Thank you, Ms. Bonamici, and regarding
your request, once you have provided us with the written
request, we will certainly review it, and we look forward to
working with you on that.
Okay. If there are Members who wish to submit opening
statements, your statements will be added to the record at this
point.
At this time I would like to introduce our witnesses. Our
first witness today is Mr. Barry Myers, Chief Executive Officer
for AccuWeather Incorporated. He previously served as
AccuWeather's Executive Vice President and General Counsel. Mr.
Myers has served as Special Advisor to three separate directors
of the National Weather Service and is a Professional Member of
the American Meteorological Society. He also currently serves
on the Environmental Information Services Working Group for
NOAA Science Advisory Board.
Our next witness today is Mr. Jon Kirchner, President and
Chief Operating Officer of GeoOptics. Previously, Mr. Kirchner
has held senior executive positions for large satellite
communication companies, Loral Space and Communications, and
Arqiva Satellite and Media. Mr. Kirchner has worked to develop
long-term space-based infrastructure for data networking, Earth
observations and sensing, and information management systems.
As our witnesses should know, spoken testimony is limited
to five minutes after which the Members of the Committee will
have five minutes each to ask questions, and I now recognize
Mr. Myers for five minutes to present his testimony.
TESTIMONY OF MR. BARRY MYERS, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER,
ACCUWEATHER
Mr. Myers. Thank you for inviting me to speak today, and to
the families and friends of those who lost loved ones on Monday
in Oklahoma and to those who suffered injury and other loss, I
can only offer my condolences and a hope that today's hearing
will contribute to improved warnings of severe weather.
The United States has the most violent and challenging
weather on Earth: tornados and hurricanes, lightning and hail,
snow and ice and floods, to name a few. The United States has
more tornados than any nation. In fact, we have four times the
number that all of Europe has.
On Monday, NOAA's National Weather Service provided about
16 minutes of warning before the tornado touched down, and
actually over 30 minutes before it reached Moore. The agency
and the people of the National Weather Service did an
outstanding job.
There can be no doubt without those warnings the toll would
have been much worse. Mike Smith in his book ``Warnings''
points out the huge progress made in tornado forecasting since
the 1950s. But we can and must do more relative to severe
weather. People should not live in fear in America's
heartlands, in its cities and along its coasts. With enhanced
modeling, perhaps we might have known hours in advance exactly
where the tornado would form, where it would touch down, how
monstrous it would grow, and its exact path.
Imagine being able to tell people an hour or two in advance
to move out of the zone of danger and have them watch the
tornado from miles away. Is it a pipe dream? This year marks
the 50th anniversary of AccuWeather's creation. Fifty years
ago, weather forecasting was more art than science. A tornado
might form at night in the darkness unknown to those in its
deadly path, and no radar was there to help a forecaster spot a
hook echo.
A storm like Hurricane Sandy without a weather satellite
would have thought to have moved away out into the ocean only
to return as a surprise, much like the great Galveston
hurricane of 1900 that no one knew was coming because there
were no eyes in the sky.
In the United States, the National Weather Service and
America's weather industry and the academic and research
communities each have important and complementary roles to
play. It is a unique and special partnership and a benefit to
the Nation. The United States government collects and
disseminates data from local and remote sensing platforms, runs
forecast models and prepares and makes special warnings.
Weather companies and academic and research institutions use
this information and also collect and disseminate data and make
weather forecasts and warnings, some specific and tailored and
some for the general public.
The joint system of public and private cooperation helps to
save countless lives and prevent hundreds of millions of
dollars in property damage a year in the United States. In
fact, it has a name: the Public/Private Partnership. And it has
been held up as a model by other Federal agencies and even a
recent Executive Order mentioned it this month.
In 1962, if I had told anyone that a company named
AccuWeather by 2008 would tell a manufacturing facility in
Mississippi, a thousand miles away, 21 minutes in advance, that
a tornado was headed right at it and that they needed to
shelter their people and that the private weather warning would
save 88 lives in a single electronic message, it would have not
been believed, but it and similar situations have happened now
repeatedly.
The government is uniquely positioned to ensure and enhance
the provision of weather data and the issuance of warnings for
the public aimed at the protection of life and property. These
activities require research and development, transfer of
knowledge between government agencies and the private sector,
and this is needed with regard to advanced radar technologies,
aerial observation systems, high-performance computing
networks, advanced forecast modeling and other government-
appropriate activities. We all need to protect this core
functionality and the research that keeps the entire American
weather enterprise ahead of the curve.
Of special focus during Superstorm Sandy was the ECMWF, so-
called European model, which did a better job at some points in
the storm track than U.S. models did. This gap presents issues
from an economic safety and national security standpoint.
Relying on other countries for better weather models places
America in a weak and subservient position.
Weather research and development and the creation and
operation of core infrastructure remain a matter of national
government urgency, which the Weather Forecasting Improvement
Act will help to address. Thank you for your time.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Myers follows:]
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Chairman Stewart. Thank you, Mr. Myers. I appreciate that.
Mr. Kirchner.
TESTIMONY OF MR. JOHN KIRCHNER,
PRESIDENT, GEOOPTICS
Mr. Kirchner. Chairman Stewart, Ranking Member Bonamici and
distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, it is indeed the
first time I have been to a hearing such as this, and it is a
privilege for me to be present here today and provide you
testimony in the absence of my colleague and our CEO, Vice
Admiral Conrad Lautenbacher, former NOAA Administrator. The
admiral sends his regards and regrets his inability to be here
today.
We also pass on our condolences and thoughts with those in
Oklahoma as well.
The U.S. weather forecasting capabilities are in need of
repair and attention not solely because of technical
shortcomings, inadequate computing power, or deficient weather
models but also because of the explosive growth in the cost of
acquiring critical weather data from satellites and the
resulting significant delays in new satellite programs. The
traditional methods for the collection of satellite data
effectively block new instruments in more potent, lower cost
and proven data sensing instruments. The net effect is damaging
our Nation's ability to keep pace in weather observations and
predictions. A transition of the weather data acquisition
community to 21st-century methods, both technical and economic,
is overdue and our weather-dependent economy depends on it.
The genius of American innovation and initiative has had
technical and market solutions to the weather data crisis at
the ready for many years. As analogs, a few working cases from
related sectors already exist. At NASA, instead of operating a
fleet of costly space shuttles, NASA has contracted with the
private sector for its payload needs and works cooperatively
with other governments. The commercial satellite-based
communications industry provides the government 80 percent of
its bandwidth globally. The commercial satellite-based imagery
industry also provides government much of the imagery outside
of the intelligence community application.
With these analogs in mind, the focus would be better
placed on achieving data quality, accuracy and excellence from
wherever that data may come rather than necessarily owning that
data infrastructure. The added irony is that the costs of
technologies of every kind have plummeted over the last 20
years except not seemingly in the wider space domain.
Tragically, the benefits of mobile and miniaturized
technologies that we all carry in our pockets are seemingly
sheltered from the critical space mission of forecasting
weather.
GeoOptics, our company, will advance a small satellite
cellular-like observing model that starts with a GPS radio
occultation. We believe an integrated private company can
deploy such systems for a fraction over current cost to
government. GeoOptics working with private-sector partners and
the science community can realize uncommon efficiencies to
deliver path-breaking science speedily at bargain prices for
the public good and lower government's cost for satellite
weather data.
We want to emphasize that today, our government and, as a
consequence, our economy and citizens, is facing a weather data
crisis that can be relieved almost immediately through
procurement reform that would unleash the resourcefulness and
the ingenuity of American private enterprise. In doing so, the
government will foster a vibrant and innovative free market in
satellite weather data, creating a new weather data economy
that will be supported by weather data security that will once
again stock our shelves with the best possible weather products
and services.
In sum, we highlight some of the following comments
regarding the bill and general recommendations. In section 3
regarding forecasting innovation, it mentions little regarding
the general principal of the role of commercial private sources
of innovation or the potential role of public-private
partnerships; it could. Section 6 regarding OSSEs does not
mention the potential role of the private sector or scientific
university sources of research to support these efforts, which
it also could. In section 8, we believe that overall
procurement reform is needed. Elements of this reform could
include shift the focus of Federal agencies and users away from
the ownership of weather data infrastructure, open competition
to acquire the best, most effective and lowest-cost efficient
data. Government could articulate--should articulate and
implement procurement reform by creating new performance-based
pay-on-delivery data purchase procurement models that enable
Federal agencies to immediately contract for services they need
now from private companies that can provide them. This approach
will energize capital for private-held companies and aid in
rapid deployment of needed product and services. Establish
specific programs within NOAA and the Air Force and possibly
other agencies with budget authority beginning in Fiscal Year
2015. We recommend satellite data purchase line items of $10
each for NOAA and Air Force in 2015, growing to $50 million for
each by 2020 accompanied by RFQs and/or BAAs soliciting
proposals.
These recommendations and actions are necessary to ensure
that the United States is never again lagging behind any
country or consortium of countries in weather prediction or
forecasting. Opening up the government through changes to
procurement to very economical, proven and reliable data
sources that meet the standards and specifications of NOAA, Air
Force and other users will be the act that infuses innovation
and creativity into our Nation's weather enterprise. The
results of this change to the weather enterprise will not only
enhance public safety through better forecasting but will also
feed our economy and society with an important source of jobs
and help participants in our economy manage vital risk.
Additional examples of GeoOptics' efforts in a small
satellite cellularized world are available on our Web site.
Admiral Lautenbacher and I will be happy to provide any follow-
up comments needed by the Subcommittee. I will be happy to
answer your questions. Thank you.
.The prepared statement of Mr. Kirchner follows:]
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Chairman Stewart. Thank you, Mr. Kirchner. I thank the
witnesses again for your testimony, for your dedicated service
to our Nation. I remind Members that Committee rules limit
questioning to five minutes, and the chair will at this point
open the round of questioning.
Before I do, I ask unanimous consent to recognize
Representative Bridenstein. Without objection, so ordered.
The chair now recognizes himself for five minutes for
questions.
I think your testimony illustrates something that I pointed
out in my opening comments, and that is that we can do better,
and the innovation and the technology development that your
companies represent is encouraging to us. You know, I have done
some scary things in my life. I was a military B-1 pilot for
many years. I do a lot of rock-climbing. Heck, I taught six
teenagers how to drive. But I have never been as scared as I
was one night in Texas when we lived in the plains of Texas and
a storm around us and to hear the tornado warning siren go off.
It is a terrifying and helpless feeling because there is really
not much you can do other than pray that the storm misses you
and jump in the bathtub, which isn't very comforting actually.
Mr. Myers, you mentioned the 16-minute warning that we had,
and 16 minutes is significant, but I would ask, you know, what
is our goal? How many minutes could we achieve? How many hours
could we actually be able to provide warning? And I ask that
hypothetically, but I would like you to address it if you could
in your answer. And then what technologies will allow us to do
that? And then I would like to follow up with Superstorm Sandy
if I could, recognizing that the technologies for tornado
warning is quite different than for hurricane warnings. So if
you could, either one of you, what is a realistic goal for us
in providing warning to people and what technologies will help
us get to that?
Mr. Myers. Well, I would suggest in looking at hurricanes
and looking at tornados, there is an interesting comparison.
Because we can see hurricanes, because they are large and they
move relatively slowly over large land and sea areas, we can
evacuate people. In fact, the prime objective is to determine
the best path and get people out of the way, and we see news
stories all the time of people who decided they were going to,
quote, ride out the storm, and we think that is foolish.
With regard to tornados, we do the opposite. We expect
people to ride out the storms in their bathtubs. That is not
acceptable. The only reason that that is the case is because we
cannot yet scientifically determine far enough in advance the
strength, the exact path and location of where a tornado is
going to form and where it is going to go. What we need to
strive for is having sufficient lead time so that people can
get out of the way. If you are not there, you cannot get hurt.
We can't stop the buildings from being destroyed. What is that
lead time? I don't know, but it seems to me, you know, an hour,
two hours, plenty of time for people to get out of the way. The
science is not there. I don't know how we are going to get it
there. I think that is what research is required to do.
Chairman Stewart. Mr. Kirchner, do you have anything to add
to that?
Mr. Kirchner. Sure. I am probably not in the best position
to answer what happens, giving a warning minutes before a
storm. The technology that we work with is in the polar-
orbiting, I will call it the longer-term forecast realm. But I
think within a portfolio of capabilities and the ability to do
things faster, irrespective of whether you are right before the
storm or days before the storm, the kinds of technologies that
we are working with have been proven to, in the example of GPS
RO, which is the technology that we are first and foremost
focused on. There are studies that show that a portfolio of GPS
RO observations can help four days in advance. It can give you
eight hours of additional time ahead of existing methods of
forecasting--eight hours. If you go out 8 days, it can help
with 15 hours of additional time. Now, that is on the long end,
but I think within a portfolio of predicting and planning for
severity and weather patterns, anything we can do to be
efficient and faster at any part of that time horizon is going
to be extremely helpful to weather forecasters.
Chairman Stewart. Mr. Myers, I would like to come back to
you if I could and just back up what we started to talk about.
You know, knowing that technology is emerging and that we can't
predict exactly until we test it and deploy it. With the
current technology that you know as under development or being
tested, is it reasonable to say that we could, say, double the
warning time from 16 to, say, 30 minutes, give people a half-
hour or more than that even?
Mr. Myers. I think we could, and in fact, you know, the 16
minutes was in advance of when that storm actually touched
down. People on the far end had more warning because it was on
the ground and people knew it was coming. But as you can see,
even 30 minutes, which was the case at the far end, is not
enough, and people don't know what to do. It is interesting
because in our business, I mentioned about a plant in
Mississippi that we protected, and we do this all over the
country. But we have specific sites that we can forecast for
with regard to where a tornado was moving on a path. You can't
do that publicly because you have large communities, and people
don't all have shelters and places to go. So there needs to be
enough lead time. You can probably double with improvement on
current technology quickly. The lead time has increased
significantly in the last 20 years.
Chairman Stewart. Okay. Thank you. I am a little bit over
my time. Thank you to both of you and to the Ranking Member.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you
for your testimony.
Mr. Kirchner, you spoke specifically about the bill, so I
am going to ask this question to you, but if Mr. Myers wants to
weigh in, that is great too. Section two of the legislation
makes weather-related activities the top priority in the
planning and management of programs within all relevant line
offices. So which of the six NOAA line offices would you
consider to be relevant?
Mr. Kirchner. That is a level of detail regarding the
structure that I am not acquainted with. I am still relatively
new to this industry. I have been in this position for about 6
months. I think the portfolio that we address as a company is
one of weather data, data that serves the operational weather
community, the space weather community as well as the climate
community, and to the extent that we can help our customer
balance and address those needs, we will respond to that as a
service company.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you. Mr. Myers, do you have any opinion
about which of the six NOAA lines offices would be relevant and
would have to prioritize weather-related activities under the
legislation?
Mr. Myers. Well, it seems to me the ones that deal with
weather mostly are the National Weather Service, NESDIS and
obviously OAR. I know I have seen over time, and I think that
one of the good provisions in the bill is the need for the
agencies to cooperate, especially the Weather Service, to make
sure that they get the kind of research that they think is
necessary and that there is a connection between the research
that is being done in OAR that is tighter than perhaps we see
today.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you. One of the concerns that I have,
and I know I have other colleagues on this Committee who
represent coastal areas, and in fact, we are having a lot of
conversations in our Oregon coast about tsunami evacuation. So
we are talking about how much warning do we need, so that goes
on in a different context. So my constituents rely on the ocean
economy for vital jobs in hard-hit coastal areas without
research done by NOAA's Sea Grant program on invasive species,
for example, without the work of NOAA's cooperative institutes,
their livelihoods could be at risk. So if weather forecasting
is the top priority in every line office, which is what we are
trying to figure out under the draft proposal, what would
happen to the climate and oceans and invasive species programs
and all the other work that NOAA does. I just wanted to pose
that question because there is a broad mission at NOAA, and we
need some clarity about weather-related activities being the
top priority in all relevant line offices.
I have another question for both of you. The OAR, Office of
Atmospheric Research, which is the subject of much of this
bill, has responsibilities that range well outside of weather
research. They are also the lead on climate mitigation and
adaptation. They do important work on oceans, Great Lakes,
invasive species. So some have commented that the division
between the weather forecasters and the research done at NWS
and the research done at OAR leads to the OAR doing work that
has no utility for the forecasters. So how do you view the
proposal that the weather research be pulled out of OAR and
moved to NWS to consolidate all of the weather work in one
place? Would you support that?
Mr. Myers. Anything that could improve the way in which the
research is conducted as it relates to the critical needs of
improving forecasts to protect life and property I would
support. Whether that is the best division, I can't sit here
and tell you, but things that move in that direction, I think,
are useful.
Ms. Bonamici. Mr. Kirchner, do you have an opinion if the
weather research be pulled out of OAR and moved to NWS?
Mr. Kirchner. Well, I will echo some of what Mr. Myers just
said. From an organizational perspective, it is about being the
most effective and efficient in terms of structure. I can't
speak to that in terms of how NOAA should operate in that
regard. I think the most--the thing that I would say is that
there are different functions that the organization plays out.
There is operational weather, which has heavy emphasis coming
from NWS. We are supportive of all the areas of the weather
enterprise that our data and other forms of data will support.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you. One more quick question. Section 4
directs the Assistant Administrator of OAR in coordination with
the Assistant Administrator of Weather Services to issue a plan
to restore U.S. leadership in weather modeling prediction and
forecasting. That plan is supposed to be issued within 6 months
of passage and then annually. Now, I mentioned in my opening
statement two reports that the National Academy of Science has
done, other reports that have recently been done, what National
Weather Service, for example, worked for more than a year on
such a plan. So do we need another study? Do we need it
annually? If we need another study, why should the Assistant
Administrator be in charge of it? Mr. Kirchner? Oh, I see my
time is expired, but if you could do a brief response?
Mr. Kirchner. Again, I will just, not dissimilar to what I
said earlier, that structure and how to organize oneself to
meet these needs is an area that I am not going to be able to
speak wholly to. We just would look for the best direction as a
customer to give the market----
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you, and I see my time is expired.
Thank you.
Chairman Stewart. Yes, thank you. And gentlemen, we
recognize that you are not experts on NOAA organization and
structure, and that is why we look forward to hearing them from
their representative at some time in the future.
Okay. We now recognize Mr. Rohrabacher for his questions.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I
remember when I was about six or seven years old and my family
came from North Dakotato visit my mother's sister. It was very
dark--there was a storm--and the radio said there was a tornado
that might be happening that night. I recall that we felt
absolutely helpless and we had no idea. We crawled down--this
was into a cellar where my aunt had all these little jars of
things that she had made, jellies and jams and things. We spent
the night in this cellar underneath the floor, and we had no
idea where were the tornados, how close they were, but we knew
there were tornados. There were tornado warnings out there on
the radio. And we have advanced so dramatically since then.
However, it is--we also sat through Hurricane Hazel back in the
1950s. My dad joined the Marine Corps and we lived on a Marine
base down in North Carolina. In fact, we went through two
hurricanes at the same year, I remember. It was pretty
incredible.
Gentlemen, there is all this talk about the weather getting
worse than it used to be. Is that experience from your
companies and your perspectives? You are around weather all the
time. Do we have worse weather now? Is Sandy so much worse than
Galveston, as you mentioned, in 1900, which was a horrible loss
of life, or are we just more aware of the weather now?
Mr. Myers. Well, Mr. Rohrabacher, I am not sure if I can
answer that. I know my grandfather always told me that the
winters had gotten much milder, that when he was a boy they
were much worse. I think you are thinking of Hurricane Hazel in
1954 and probably Connie and Diane in 1955.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Yes.
Mr. Myers. And clearly, when we see events like Sandy and
we see an event like Moore, Oklahoma, we conclude that things
are getting worse because where we are and what we see tends to
influence us, I think, the most. I don't know that anyone has
statistics that can demonstrate that is the case, but as I said
in my talk, America really in a sense has the worst weather in
the world, and it is so variable, the nature of it, from
hurricanes to tornados to droughts to what have you, that we
really need to focus on it, I think more than perhaps we have
and more than other nations do.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Well, there has been a lot of talk about
climate and weather around here, and when I was young, I just
remember people saying that you can--a lot of people are
concerned about the weather and talk about the weather but
nobody does anything about it. Now we are being told that we
are actually affecting the weather and the long-term climate,
which some of us are very skeptical about, but whatever it is,
we do know that weather, for example, in Galveston--how many
people lost their lives in the Galveston hurricane? Five
thousand? So we are talking about--the fact is, with modern
technology and satellite technology, especially space-based
assets, we have been able to save thousands and thousands of
lives that otherwise would have been lost, and I think that we
can be proud that our country has invested in this, and I do--I
remember, well, just one last note.
I remember when I first got here, Vice President Gore had a
meeting with all of the weathermen that he could put together.
There is a legend about that, that he had them all gathered
there at the White House for a conference talking about
weather, and the weathermen were supposed to be talking about
global warming. But there was a huge storm front that came
through while they were there. The rain was pouring down, but
only about two of the weathermen bothered to bring an umbrella
to the meeting. I don't know what that all indicates, but I
think that we should pay a lot of attention to the weather. So
thank you very much.
Chairman Stewart. Thank you, sir. Mr. Takano, your five
minutes for questions.
Mr. Rohrabacher. I would be out there selling umbrellas.
That is what my job would be.
Mr. Takano. This is a question for both the gentlemen. As
we consider how to reauthorize weather research, who would you
recommend the Committee hear from? We have testimony from you,
the private firms, representing private firms. What other
experts or stakeholders should we take testimony from?
Mr. Kirchner. I would think the scientific community,
university community in terms of research. I think there are
models for how other countries look at this domain that may be
useful to hear from, and I think the wealth of private
industry--we come from--our two companies come from two
different parts of the value chain. My company will produce
some of the most advanced, best weather data on the planet. Mr.
Myers' company will use that data downstream to inform the
citizenry and enterprise. There are a variety of people in
between that could be useful from a private enterprise
perspective to hear from.
Mr. Takano. Mr. Myers?
Mr. Myers. I would agree with that. When you look at the
American weather enterprise, we always think of it as a three-
legged stool comprised of the government assets, the weather
industry, in a broad sense as was just described by Mr.
Kirchner, and the academic and research community, and I think
it is appropriate to hear from all of those with regard to this
that they get their viewpoint.
Mr. Takano. So you do not consider yourself of the academic
and research community, you are--both of your--the authority
from which you are able to speak is not academic or research
oriented?
Mr. Kirchner. No, I can speak from an authority of sort of
commercial data service provision, but not the technical
aspects of satellite delivery and collection of that data.
Mr. Myers. And we are a weather information company, and we
don't view ourselves as heavily into the research aspect of
basic modeling and things of that nature.
Mr. Takano. But you both have a respect and esteem for the
research and scientific community, especially those who are
recognized experts in the field of climate and weather
research?
Mr. Kirchner. Indeed. Our company was founded by a
gentleman by the name of Tom Yunck, who was at JPL for 30
years. We are engaged as a company with an organization called
LASP, the Laboratory for Atmospheric Space Physics out in
Colorado, which is part of the university. So there is no
question that we are as a company drawing on the very research
expertise both in the scientific community and in the
university community to help build our company.
Mr. Takano. Do you happen to know your founder's view on
global climate change? Does he take the scientific consensus on
global climate change seriously or not seriously? Is he a
skeptic, non-skeptic?
Mr. Kirchner. I cannot speak to that.
Mr. Takano. Would you say it is worthwhile to hear
testimony from NOAA on this bill?
Mr. Myers. I would think it would be quite necessary and
appropriate to have the customer who we are dealing with who
is, you know, involved in this domain, leading the domain in
the United States to be heard from.
Mr. Takano. Thank you. I yield back the balance of my time.
Chairman Stewart. Okay. Thank you. Dr. Broun.
Mr. Broun. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Myers, thank you
for AccuWeather. I have got my AccuWeather app here on my phone
and I depend upon it greatly, so thank you for the service that
you provide.
Mr. Myers. Glad to hear that. Thank you.
Mr. Broun. I am a pilot, though I am not currently flying,
and I am also a hunter and a fisherman, and I like to follow
you all's weather forecasts and what you have there, but thank
you very much.
Dr. Cliff Mass, professor of atmospheric studies, or
sciences, at the University of Washington recently wrote: ``The
politicization of climate change--that's hard for a southerner
to pronounce--also has had a major impact on government
resource allocation with bountiful funding going into climate
change research while other areas such as weather prediction
are poor cousins. How else can one explain that climate
research gets more than 100 times the computer resources
provided to weather prediction, with the latter having huge
benefits for people today. NOAA Administrators have
continuously pushed the climate agenda while downplaying
weather prediction. This needs to change.'' And I could not
agree more.
Mr. Myers and Mr. Kirchner, do you agree with Dr. Mass's
position on this?
Mr. Myers. Well, I know Cliff, and he tends to state things
rather emphatically. I agree that I think we need a
reallocation between climate and weather resources. I don't
know if I can ascribe reasons to why we have an imbalance the
way we do, and so I am not interested in weighing into a maybe
quasi-political debate on climate change and the causes of it.
Whether or not, though, as many who do support the concerns
over climate change state that weather events have become more
severe, and I am not saying I agree or I don't agree, but if
that is the case, that suggests that we really should be
allocating more resources into looking at what is happening on
the weather front. And so I think it is perfectly consistent
with anyone's climate position that more money needs to go to
weather research, whether it is because there is change that is
affecting the weather now or those people who believe that
there isn't, but we still have severe weather issues that we
have got to address. So I think it is actually something that
all sides of the political spectrum and the climate area should
be supporting simply by the very nature of what people believe
climate is causing.
Mr. Broun. Mr. Kirchner?
Mr. Kirchner. I am not intimately, just due to time, not
that intimately familiar with all the workings of NOAA. What I
can say from being in this business for six months is that my
understanding is that the National Weather Service has its
primary focus to tend to day-to-day weather prediction. I think
there is a broader question, though, that I think is worth
talking about: what role does weather prediction in the short
term, medium term or long term play in terms of a strategic
role in our society and economy? Ultimately we believe that
weather is of strategic interest to supporting our economy,
industry, infrastructure; and our company's response to that
broad belief has developed, and will continue to develop,
products and services that will address the day-to-day
operation of weather interests, which are forecasting now to
the next 10 days and beyond, to space weather. Space weather is
that weather that is out in the ionosphere, which is further
from the ground but deals with the sun ejecting coronal mass,
and indeed climate. Our particular technology, GPS RO, is both
for operational weather and for climate application, is
absolute in its establishment of temperature, water pressure
and water vapor--air pressure and water vapor. It is unique. It
does this in such a way that calibrates all other forms of data
for both long-term climate application and operational weather,
and our focus is on providing a suite of those capabilities,
whether you are talking about the short term or the long term.
Mr. Broun. Well, my time expired. Thank you, Mr. Chairman,
but I agree with Dr. Mass. We have got to put more funds on
weather research than we are on climate change. I think we are
allocating those funds in an improper way. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Chairman Stewart. Thank you, Dr. Broun.
A vote has been called, and in order to provide all Members
time to ask their questions, I would like to ask the witnesses
if they would make themselves available after a short recess?
Mr. Myers. Yes.
Mr. Kirchner. Yes.
Chairman Stewart. Thank you. That being the case then, the
Committee will recess subject to the call of the chair, and
without objection, so ordered. The Committee stands in recess.
[Recess.]
Chairman Stewart. The Subcommittee on Environment will come
to order.
To the witness panel, thank you for bearing with us as we
had other obligations there with our vote, and unfortunately,
we have lost some of the Members who wanted to have the
opportunity to ask you questions, so we remind them, as other
Members, that they can always submit written questions, and if
we do, we would appreciate your response within a two week
period. We now turn to my colleague, Mr. Weber from Texas, for
his five minutes of questions.
Mr. Weber. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I really don't know
exactly where to begin. My wife and I have this conversation
from time to time, a good job to have would be a weather
forecaster because you can be wrong so much of the time and
still get paid. So I want to ask you guys really about your
satellite systems, if you will, some of the more technical
aspects, I suspect.
First of all, let me get into the monetary side of it
maybe. Are either of you aware of competition from foreign
companies, I am talking about from foreign countries, where
they could come in and put up a satellite or a system like an
AccuWeather where they can do the kinds of things that we do? I
guess what I am really driving at is, what is the pressure,
what kind of pressure is there on you all to be your best and
do your best? Is there pressure in the marketplace?
Mr. Kirchner. I will certainly respond to that. Depending
on what industry we are talking about--I actually come out of
the communication satellite world where there is a lot of
global pressure and global competition that overlaps regions.
In the weather domain, so far as I have seen, there is less
pressure per se coming for satellite systems. They tend to be
over particular regions or particular countries, especially the
geosynchronous kind that are 22,000 miles away that are staring
at a particular region. The polar orbiting systems, the lower
earth orbit systems that cover the globe, to my knowledge,
there are certainly other countries or consortium that have
those kinds of systems the Europeans have those kinds of
satellites.
What we would love to see more of, frankly, is intense
competition, intense commercial competition, not state funded
necessarily but privately funded, and that is part of what my
company is here to talk about is how do--in this world, how do
we evolve to a model where the weather satellite community is
privately funded, not necessarily on the balance sheets of the
taxpayers. And we are looking for, hopeful that our customer
can migrate to a world of looking to commercial provision of
services to do that. Today there is a data buy provision. There
are data buy policies that exist but those data buy policies
within NOAA have to do with buying something that exists today.
My company has a system that it is planning to deploy, which
means my company needs to go to the marketplace, raise capital,
talk to customers about something that we need to start
building today that won't be available just due to technology
for 18 to 24 months. What we are ultimately looking for are
ways to change the procurement approach that allow us to get
contingent commitments to say I will take the data that you are
going to provide that meets the specifications of NOAA or Air
Force or other agencies but give that commitment today so that
we can begin to build our systems now. That would feed
competition certainly in the United States. I am sure--we
ultimately like competition. We want to deliver the best
possible service on a highly competitive basis and we believe
that we will do that if we have that kind of procurement
structure in place.
Mr. Weber. Mr. Myers?
Mr. Myers. AccuWeather is really a downstream user of
satellite information, and we are more than happy to see
competition in the area. Right now we receive satellite
information mostly from government and government consortiums
around the world including, of course, the U.S. satellites
which we read directly. The weather industry itself in the
United States is very competitive, and worldwide, that is true
as well. There are a number of robust weather companies in
Korea, in China, in Japan, and in Europe at this point, and we
compete with them on a worldwide basis. So I think the
competitive landscape is good. I think it is a huge advantage
that the United States has, though, that the American weather
industry is really ahead of the rest of the world and some of
the things that we are talking about in terms of enhanced
research, I think we should realize get leveraged in a very
great way because there is such an industry. So it does not
only benefit the government and the ability for the government
to issue warnings, but it benefits all those downstream who can
make use of the information, the modeling and what have you to
provide specialized services and even general public services
on Web sites and mobile devices and so forth to the public.
Mr. Weber. Okay. I see I am out of time, Mr. Chairman. I do
have other questions. Are you going to round two hopefully?
Chairman Stewart. No, Mr. Weber, we actually don't
anticipate doing that, but you are free to take as much time if
you need additional time.
Mr. Weber. Well, thank you. Let me ask this question then.
So having said that about the pressure to be as good as you can
be and looking forward to see, you know, what kind of policies
we can put into place to make sure the taxpayers are getting
the most bang for their buck, a couple of questions. Number one
is more technical in nature about the ability of a satellite to
look out into the--if you are looking at a hurricane that is
forming over in the Atlantic and coming off the Atlantic--I
mean the African coast, for example, what kind of time degree
of predictability is there? Can you predict with any degree of
certainty three days, five days, seven days? I guess Mr. Myers.
Mr. Myers. It depends on the weather regime that is
occurring at that particular time. Some storms are more
predictable than others as a result, so I can't give you a
definitive answer to that.
Mr. Weber. Can you give me a window? Is it three to five
days? Is it one to three days?
Mr. Myers. Well, the further out you go, the bigger the
cone. We have all seen those cones at the Weather Service and
the weather companies.
Mr. Weber. But surely you have got statistics, and that was
my follow-up question. How far back does your data go to say
that we have had a degree of success in predicting these
weather events by 30 percent, 60 percent, 90 percent going back
as far as ten years or 20 years?
Mr. Myers. There are statistics that do go back that far,
and generally they indicate that the predictability has
increased significantly, that the cones have narrowed. The
accuracy going out has increased. I don't have those statistics
here with me to refer to. But they have certainly improved
significantly.
Mr. Kirchner. What I might add is that as I said earlier,
the technology world that we are in is predominantly about
looking, evaluating, gathering data that is going to tell you
what is going to happen. Other technologies such as
geosynchronous satellites tell you what--really focus on what
is happening right now and near-term warnings. Two examples,
one I mentioned earlier and the other one I will give in
addition. The technology that we work with is GPS RO, radio
occultation. It has been proven or has been studied within NOAA
as well as other organizations that we can--that data can tell
you four days out that something is going to happen eight hours
sooner. We can tell you eight days out that we can give you 15-
hour additional heads-up on a hurricane, as an example, or
severe weather that might be coming. So those hours are
precious, absolutely precious to the forecast community to
predict what is going to happen.
The other example that I would give, which if I had a
camera or a picture I could show you, is that the GPS RO data,
looking back at Hurricane Ernesto back in 2006. This was done
by UCAR. It actually visibly shows in simulation where with GPS
RO data, you can see a storm that without it you could not see
54 hours, 78 hours and 102 hours. So there is actually
mechanisms, and this technology does this, that enables with
other data--it is not alone, it is with the other suite of data
sources we have--but with GPS RO data, you can see things
further in advance that you wouldn't have been able to see
without it, and again, that is about bringing forward the
ability to see and forecast that in a portfolio of analyzing
weather you would want to grab every hour and every minute you
could.
Chairman Stewart. Recognizing the time is short now, Mr.
Weber, are you----
Mr. Weber. Thank you for your indulgence, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Stewart. And since we had additional time over
here, to the minority side, would you request any additional
time for further questions?
Ms. Bonamici. No, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Stewart. Okay. Thank you.
To the witnesses, again, thank you for your valuable
testimony, and to the Members for their questions. The Members
of the Committee, as I mentioned previously, may have
additional questions for you as witnesses, and we ask you to
respond to those in writing, if that is the case. The record
will remain open for two weeks for additional comments and
written questions from Members.
I would also like to note that the Ranking Member, my
colleague from Oregon, Ms. Bonamici, and I have had an
opportunity to discuss the minority's request for a House Rule
XI hearing. We have agreed to hold a subsequent hearing with
two witnesses from both the minority and the majority parties.
I look forward to inviting a representative from NOAA as one of
our witnesses to be a part of the witness panel, and we will
work with all parties to schedule this most important second
hearing on this topic at the nearest available time. And as a
result of that agreement, the minority has agreed to withdraw
their request for a Rule XI hearing.
With that, the witnesses are excused and this hearing is
now adjourned. Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 11:21 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
Appendix I
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Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Responses by
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Responses by
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Appendix II
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Additional Material for the Record
Revised submission from GeoOptics, Inc.,
submitted by Mr. Kirchner
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GeoOptics, Inc. closing comments, submitted by Mr. Kirchner
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