[House Hearing, 113 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
RESTORING U.S. LEADERSHIP
IN WEATHER FORECASTING
PART II
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JUNE 26, 2013
__________
Serial No. 113-38
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology
Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov
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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
JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon
F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., JULIA BROWNLEY, California
Wisconsin DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland
DANA ROHRABACHER, California MARC VEASEY, Texas
RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas MARK TAKANO, California
PAUL C. BROUN, Georgia ALAN GRAYSON, Florida
RANDY WEBER, Texas EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas
C O N T E N T S
Wednesday, June 26, 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.................................. 10
Written Statement............................................ 11
Statement by Representative James Bridenstine, Vice Chairman,
Subcommittee on Environment, Committee on Science, Space, and
Technology, U.S. House of Representatives...................... 12
Written Statement............................................ 13
Statement by Representative Suzanne Bonamici, Ranking Minority
Member, Subcommittee on Environment, Committee on Science,
Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives........... 14
Written Statement............................................ 15
Witnesses:
Panel I
The Honorable Kathryn Sullivan, Acting Administrator, National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Oral Statement............................................... 16
Written Statement............................................ 19
Discussion....................................................... 35
Panel II
Dr. Kelvin Droegemeier, Vice President for Research, Regents'
Professor for Meteorology, Weathernews Chair Emeritus,
University of Oklahoma
Oral Statement............................................... 46
Written Statement............................................ 49
Dr. William Gail, Chief Technology Officer, Global Weather
Corporation, President-Elect, American Meteorological Society
Oral Statement............................................... 59
Written Statement............................................ 62
Dr. Shuyi Chen, Professor, Meteorology and Physical Oceanography,
Rosentiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, University
of Miami
Oral Statement............................................... 71
Written Statement............................................ 74
Discussion....................................................... 87
Appendix I: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
The Honorable Kathryn Sullivan, Acting Administrator, National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration......................... 96
Dr. Kelvin Droegemeier, Vice President for Research, Regents'
Professor for Meteorology, Weathernews Chair Emeritus,
University of Oklahoma......................................... 125
Dr. William Gail, Chief Technology Officer, Global Weather
Corporation, President-Elect, American Meteorological Society.. 131
Dr. Shuyi Chen, Professor, Meteorology and Physical Oceanography,
Rosentiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, University
of Miami....................................................... 133
RESTORING U.S. LEADERSHIP
IN WEATHER FORECASTING
PART II
----------
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 26, 2013
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Environment
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
Washington, D.C.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 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 the Environment will
come to order.
Good morning, everyone. Welcome to today's hearing entitled
``Restoring U.S. Leadership in Weather Forecasting, Part II.''
In front of you are packets containing the written testimony,
biographies, and truth-in-testimony disclosures from today's
witness panels.
And I now recognize myself for five minutes for an opening
statement.
I would like to thank the excellent witnesses for being
with us today. We have two panels, and first, Dr. Sullivan, I
thank you especially for being with us. We had the chance to
spend some time together last week, and I enjoyed that and
appreciated the opportunity to get to know you, and we look
forward to working with you on many important issues.
I would also like to welcome the Subcommittee's new Vice
Chairman, the gentleman from Oklahoma, Mr. Bridenstine.
Mr. Bridenstine. Thank you.
Chairman Stewart. This hearing is the second installment in
a process that we began last month to discuss legislation to
enhance weather forecasting throughout targeted research
investments at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration.
Severe weather routinely affects large portions of the
United States, and this year is no different. As we discussed
in Part I of this hearing, the United States needs a world-
class weather predicting system that effectively safeguards
American lives and property.
Today, we are discussing legislation that was recently
introduced by Vice Chairman Bridenstine, a bill that I am proud
to cosponsor. The Weather Forecasting Improvement Act of 2013
prioritizes forward-looking weather research, improves
procurement of observing systems data from space and land, and
opens up NOAA processes to encourage private sector weather
solutions. The legislation is a down payment to upgrade our
weather predicting systems that has fallen behind according to
international standards.
Now, let me be clear what the goal of this bill is. It
makes the protection of lives and property through improved
forecasting the top priority for NOAA. The bill does not
micromanage the Agency--and I know, Dr. Sullivan, you will
appreciate to hear that--but instead expands resources
available for achieving this objective.
I appreciate the wise counsel of the witnesses testifying
today, and I think we can all agree that improved weather
prediction is a goal worth pursuing. We should not let the
perfect become the enemy of the good, and in these tight fiscal
times, it is absolutely vital that our first and most important
research programs are authorized by Congress and thus more
protected from future budgetary constraints.
At this time I would like to yield the remainder of my time
to the Vice Chairman from Oklahoma, Mr. Bridenstine, to discuss
his legislation and the positive impacts it would have to
protect his State and this Nation from the life-threatening
severe weather.
[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 titled ``Restoring U.S. Leadership in Weather Forecasting Part
II.'' I'd like to thank our excellent witnesses for being here today.
I'd also like to welcome the Subcommittee's new Vice Chairman, the
gentleman from Oklahoma, Mr. Bridenstine.
This hearing is the second installment of a process we began last
month to discuss legislation to enhance weather forecasting through
targeted research investments at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA). Severe weather routinely affects large portions
of the United States, and this year is no different. As we discussed at
part I of this hearing, the United States needs a world-class weather
prediction system that effectively safeguards American lives and
property.
Today we are discussing legislation that was recently introduced by
Vice Chairman Bridenstine,a bill that I am proud to cosponsor. The
Weather Forecasting Improvement Act of 2013 prioritizes forward-looking
weather research, improves procurement of observing system data from
space, air, and land, and opens up NOAA's process to encourage private
sector weather solutions. The legislation is a down payment to upgrade
our weather prediction system that has fallen behind international
standards.
Let me be clear about the goal of this bill: It makes the
protection of lives and property through improved forecasting the top
priority for NOAA. The bill does not micromanage the Agency, but
instead expands resources available for achieving this objective. I
appreciate the wise counsel of the witnesses testifying today and I
think we can all agree that improved weather prediction is a goal worth
pursuing. We should not let the perfect be the enemy of the good, and
in these tight fiscal times it is absolutely vital that our most
important research programs are authorized by Congress and thus more
protected from future budgetary constraints.
At this time I would like to yield the remainder of my time to the
Vice Chairman from Oklahoma, Mr. Bridenstine, to discuss his
legislation, and the positive impacts it would have to protect his
state and this nation from life threatening severe weather.
Mr. Bridenstine. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for
your leadership and for your co-sponsorship. And I look forward
to working with you on this. I wanted to take just a few
moments to recognize some important points about today's
hearing for me and the people of my State.
Let me begin by saying how truly honored and proud I am to
be here. This is my first hearing as the Vice Chairman of the
Subcommittee on the Environment, and recent events have made me
even more appreciative of the opportunities we as a committee
will have to do important work for the American people over the
next 18 months.
As every Oklahoman knows, tornadoes are an unavoidable
challenge faced by millions of Americans. But we know equally
well that every minute we can add to our tornado detection and
alert system has a direct effect on the number of lives that
can be saved.
As the Subcommittee with jurisdiction over the agency
responsible for weather research and prediction--the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA--I believe we
have a moral obligation to advance legislation to the full
House that forces NOAA to place its highest priority on what is
undoubtedly its most important duty: enhancing public safety
through timely and accurate forecasts of severe weather
systems.
To implement these much needed reforms, I have recently
introduced the Weather Forecasting Improvement Act of 2013.
This legislation would establish within NOAA a Tornado Warning
Extension Program aimed at improving the average time for a
tornado warning from a few minutes to an hour or more. NOAA
itself has indicated that this is a worthy and achievable goal,
but sufficient resources and a dedicated effort is needed to
make it a reality.
This legislation aims to accomplish this not by requesting
or spending any new funds at NOAA, but rather by shifting their
priorities and resources away from lower priority climate and
ocean research and towards weather forecasting research and
innovation.
The inadequacy of attention to potentially life-saving
advances in weather forecasting is evidenced by the fact that
NOAA's research arm currently spends more than three times as
much on climate change research as it does on weather
forecasting research. Across all government agencies, the
difference in these misplaced priorities can be measured in the
billions of dollars. Today's hearing is an important step
towards the legislative solution needed to fix this problem.
Finally, I want to thank Acting Administrator Sullivan and
all of our witnesses for appearing here today, and extend a
particularly warm welcome to Dr. Kelvin Droegemeier, who will
be joining the second panel from my home State of Oklahoma.
Dr. Droegemeier has been an invaluable resource both for my
office and the staff of the Science Committee as we have
developed this legislation, and I thank him for making the trip
from the University of Oklahoma today to lend his perspective
and answer questions for our committee.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Bridenstine follows:]
Prepared Statement of Subcommittee Vice Chairman James Bridenstine
Let me begin by saying how truly and honored and proud I am just to
be here. This is my first hearing as the Vice-Chairman of the
Subcommittee on the Environment, and recent events have made me even
more appreciative of the opportunities we as a committee will have to
do important work for the American people over the next 18 months.
As every Oklahoman knows, tornadoes are an unavoidable challenge
faced by millions of Americans. But we know equally well that every
minute we can add to our tornado detection and alert systems has a
direct effect on the number of lives that can be saved.
As the Subcommittee with jurisdiction over the agency responsible
for weather research and prediction--the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA --I believe we have a moral
obligation to advance legislation to the full House that forces NOAA to
place its highest priority on what is undoubtedly its most important
duty: enhancing public safety through timely and accurate forecasts of
severe weather systems.
To implement these much needed reforms, I have recently introduced
the Weather Forecasting Improvement Act of 2013. This legislation would
establish within NOAA a Tornado Warning Extension Program aimed at
improving the average time for a tornado warning from a few minutes to
an hour or more. NOAA itself has indicated that this is a worthy and
achievable goal, but sufficient resources and a dedicated effort is
needed to make it a reality. My legislation aims to accomplish this not
by requesting or spending any new funds at NOAA, but rather by shifting
their priorities and resources away from lower priority climate and
ocean research and towards weather forecasting research and innovation.
The inadequacy of attention to potentially life-saving advances in
weather forecasting is evidenced by the fact that NOAA's research arm
currently spends more than three times as much on climate change
research than it does on weather forecasting research. Across all
government agencies, the difference in these misplaced priorities can
be measured in the billions of dollars. Today's hearing is an important
step towards the legislative solution needed to fix this problem.
Finally, I want to thank Acting Administrator Sullivan and all of
our witnesses for appearing today, and extend a particularly warm
welcome to Dr. Kelvin Droegemeier, who will be joining the second
panel. Dr. Droegemeier has been an invaluable resource both for my
office and the staff of the Science Committee as we have developed this
legislation, and I thank him for making the trip from the University of
Oklahoma today to lend his perspective and answer questions from our
Committee.
Chairman Stewart. Thank you, Mr. Bridenstine.
I now recognize the Ranking Member, the gentlewoman from
Oregon, Ms. Bonamici, for her opening statement.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you, Chairman Stewart, for holding this
hearing today.
This is our second hearing to consider legislation to
improve the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration--
NOAA's--forecasting abilities. And I appreciate your
willingness, Mr. Chairman, to work together to plan this
hearing, and I am very pleased that we ended up with such a
distinguished panel of witnesses.
The views of NOAA, as represented by Dr. Sullivan, as well
as those of the other three witnesses from the nongovernmental
portion of the weather enterprise, will greatly enrich our
understanding of how to improve weather forecasting. And I
wanted to thank you, Chairman Stewart, for the bipartisan
spirit you have shown in inviting collaboration on legislation.
The draft bill we took testimony on in the first hearing
has been replaced and expanded upon in the bill introduced by
Subcommittee Vice Chair Mr. Bridenstine. There are many
elements of that bill that are promising and I am particularly
enthusiastic about the new section on tornado forecast
research. I want to applaud the gentleman from Oklahoma for
including that provision.
We all agree that weather forecasting can and must be
improved. As we learn more about weather forecasting in the
United States, how it is done, and the partnership that has
evolved among NOAA, academic researchers, and private
businesses, it becomes evident that the core of the bill should
be refocused away from its emphasis on research at OAR, or the
office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, and more on the
actual forecasters' needs at the National Weather Service.
Putting all of our legislative emphasis on the OAR seems
inconsistent with our stated intention of improving forecasting
and protecting lives.
OAR is a research arm in NOAA that manages oceans, Great
Lakes, climate, weather, and computer research. It makes more
sense, Mr. Chairman, to authorize the National Weather Service
directly and put the forecasting operation in the lead on
guiding research into innovations that have real utility. If
our goal is to enhance forecasting, empowering the forecasters
would seem to be the obvious way to proceed, and this is in
fact the way the Army, Navy, and Air Force all do their
research-to-operations efforts.
Additionally, the bill as drafted may create unnecessary
conflict between the researchers at OAR and the forecasters and
researchers at the National Weather Service, as well as between
the weather portion of OAR and the oceans and climate
portfolios at OAR. We need progress in all of these areas to
improve forecasting.
As Dr. Sullivan concisely explains in her testimony, in the
scientific world, weather is classified at shorter timescales
which technically extends to two weeks. Any forecast timescales
beyond two weeks are classified as climate. So emphasizing
weather research over climate research is likely to be
counterproductive.
As Dr. Droegemeier states in his testimony, all of us
recognize the importance of balance between weather and climate
investment in our Nation's research and operations portfolio.
Yet the traditional line dividing weather and climate is
increasingly blurred as climate models are now run at
resolutions approaching those of weather models. Consequently,
we would do well to consider weather and climate not as two
distinct elements at the extreme ends of the spectrum but
rather as inseparable parts of the Earth's system. And I look
forward to Mr. Droegemeier's testimony further on that.
Mr. Chairman, I am confident that working together we can
craft a bill that is on target with the needs of the weather
community, fiscally responsible, and protective of the public
safety. I am very optimistic that your Subcommittee can draft a
bill that is constructive and truly bipartisan. If we closely
study the testimony we have received, it will give us a good
guide for how to move forward, and I hope we can do that
together.
And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Bonamici follows:]
Prepared Statement of Subcommittee Ranking Member Suzanne Bonamici
Thank you, Chairman Stewart, for holding this hearing today. This
is our second hearing to consider legislation to improve the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA's) weather forecasting
abilities. I appreciate your willingness to work together to plan this
hearing, and I'm pleased that we ended up with such a distinguished
panel of witnesses. The views of NOAA, as represented by Dr. Sullivan,
as well as those of our three witnesses from the non-governmental
portion of the Weather Enterprise, will greatly enrich our
understanding of how to improve weather forecasting.
I want to thank you, Chairman Stewart, for the bipartisan spirit
you have shown in inviting collaboration on legislation. The draft bill
we took testimony on in the first hearing has been replaced and
expanded upon in the bill introduced by Subcommittee Vice Chair Mr.
Bridenstine. There are many elements of that bill that are promising. I
am particularly enthusiastic about the new section on tornado forecast
research and I want to applaud the gentleman from Oklahoma for
including that provision.
We all agree that weather forecasting must be improved. As we learn
more about weather forecasting in the United States--how it is done and
the partnership that has evolved between NOAA, academic researchers,
and private businesses--it becomes evident that the core of the bill
should be refocused away from its emphasis on research at OAR, the
Office of Oceans and Atmospheric Research, and more on the actual
forecasters' needs at the National Weather Service (NWS).
Putting all our legislative emphasis on the OAR seems inconsistent
with our stated intention of improving forecasting and protecting
lives. OAR is a research arm in NOAA that manages oceans, Great Lakes,
climate, weather, and computer research. It makes more sense, Mr.
Chairman, to authorize the National Weather Service directly and to put
the forecasting operation in the lead on guiding research into
innovations that have real utility. If our goal is to enhance
forecasting, empowering the forecasters would seem to be the obvious
way to proceed; this is, in fact, the way the Army, Navy, and Air Force
all do their research to operations efforts.
Additionally the bill appears to create unnecessary conflict
between the researchers at OAR and the forecasters and researchers at
NWS, as well as the between the weather portion of OAR and the oceans
and climate portfolios at OAR. We need progress in all of these areas
to improve forecasting.
As Dr. Sullivan concisely explains in her testimony, ``In the
scientific world, `weather' is classified at shorter time scales, which
technically extends to two weeks. Any forecast timescales beyond two
weeks are classified as `climate'.''
Emphasizing ``weather'' research over ``climate'' research is
likely to be counterproductive. As Dr. Drogemeier states in his
testimony, ``All of us recognize the importance of balance between
weather and climate investments in our nation's research and operations
portfolio. Yet, the traditional `line' dividing weather and climate is
increasingly blurred as climate models are now run at resolutions
approaching those of weather models. Consequently, we would do well to
consider weather and climate not as two distinct elements at the
extreme ends of a spectrum, but rather as inseparable parts of the
Earth system.''
Mr. Chairman, I am confident that, working together , we can craft
a bill that is on target with the needs of the weather community,
fiscally responsible, and protective of public safety. I am very
optimistic that this Subcommittee can draft a bill that is constructive
and truly bipartisan. If we closely study the testimony we have
received, it will give us a good guide for how to move forward and I
hope we can do that together.
Chairman Stewart. Thank you, Ms. Bonamici. And let me state
as well that we look forward to working with you and other
Members in a bipartisan fashion as I think is appropriate for a
Subcommittee such as this.
If there are Members who wish to submit additional opening
statements, your statements will be added to the record at this
point.
It is now my honor to introduce our first witness panel.
And our first witness today is Hon. Kathryn Sullivan, acting
Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and
Acting Administrator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration.
Previously, Dr. Sullivan served as Assistant Secretary of
Commerce for Environmental Observation and Prediction, as well
as performing the duties of NOAA's Chief Scientist. She is a
distinguished scientist, a renowned astronaut, which is in my
opinion very cool, and an intrepid explorer. Dr. Sullivan
earned her doctorate in geology.
And as I am sure, Doctor, you know, spoken testimony is
limited to five minutes after which the Members of the
Committee will have five minutes each to ask questions. So I
now recognize Dr. Sullivan for five minutes to present her
testimony.
TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE KATHRYN SULLIVAN,
ACTING ADMINISTRATOR,
NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION
Ms. Sullivan. Thank you, Chairman Stewart, Ranking Member
Bonamici, Members of the Committee. It is a pleasure to be with
you this morning.
I would like to start by thanking you for your support for
NOAA. We share a goal of improving the United States' weather
forecasting, and so we welcome your interest in something about
which we throughout the Agency also care very strongly.
While the intent of the legislation as submitted is a very
good one, we do have still a few serious concerns about some
aspects of the bill. We look forward to working with you to
discuss those in the weeks ahead. The products and services
that the Nation has come to rely on from NOAA require research
across many science disciplines and scales. I look forward to
working with you to refine some aspects of the bill that will
ensure that we can reach our shared goal of improved weather
services and products.
NOAA is entrusted with the responsibility of providing
environmental intelligence to American citizens, businesses,
and governments. This is what we all need to enable informed
decisions on a range of Earth science issues and scales from
the local to the global and the short-term to the long-term. We
provide a suite of products and services, including reliable
and timely delivery of public weather warnings that save lives
and property and enhance our national economy.
Much of our success in providing these products and
services comes from scientific and technological breakthroughs
produced by research across scientific disciplines and a range
of time and space scales. Therefore, we caution and appreciate
the Committee's concerns about erecting artificial boundaries
between these disciplines or across these scales that would
hinder the advancement of our mission and the critical research
that can help achieve the goal we share.
Our understanding of Earth system phenomena along short and
long timescales strengthens our weather products and services
and allows us to examine the ways in which we can make
improvements such as highly accurate hurricane track
predictions further in advance. Emergency management officials
have indicated to us that at ideal capacities, NOAA would
provide highly consistent and accurate hurricane landfall
predictions at days five and six, allowing for pre-positioning
of crews and enhanced evacuation efforts. Many economic sectors
would see significant cost savings with highly accurate drought
predictions ranging 6 months to several years in advance.
If NOAA is to achieve these goals and also achieve the
improved warning we need on severe and acute events like
tornadoes and severe storms, we must have the flexibility to
research both shorter and longer timescale phenomena.
Historically, weather and climate models only incorporated
atmospheric inputs and outputs. In recent years, scientists
have recognized the need for these to be integrated with ocean
observation and science to provide a more accurate picture of
how our entire Earth system works.
For example, the El Nino Southern Oscillation, or ENSO, is
a recurring pattern of periodic warming and cooling in ocean
temperatures off the coast of South America. These significant
changes in tropical Pacific water temperature affect weather
patterns worldwide. Daily and seasonal weather in the United
States are affected by these slightly longer-term seasonal
climate events. So improving our weather forecasts requires
that we follow the science and apply our research and
observational efforts appropriately across the continuum of
time and space.
Advanced computing assets and modeling methods are also
crucial elements of our national forecasting infrastructure.
Over the past two decades, our tornado warning lead times have
more than doubled and we share your aim of continuing to
improve the timeliness of such warnings. Computing capacity and
computer modeling are indispensable to this.
The upgrade to NOAA operational computers that is scheduled
to be completed next month marks a big step forward and we
thank you for supporting the Disaster Relief Appropriations Act
of 2013 that made this possible. In addition, the President's
Fiscal Year 2014 budget requests further funds for NOAA to take
the next vital step forward in operational supercomputing,
ultimately providing a 27-fold increase in computing capability
by 2015 and putting us on par with the world-leading forecast
centers again.
NOAA uses many tools to help determine what new data or
technologies will yield the best improvements in forecast
accuracy and so warrant investment. Observing System Simulation
Experiments, or OSSEs, are just one of these tools. They are
computationally intensive and time-consuming. Observing system
experiments and adjoint simulations are two other tools that
can provide similar analytical insight and rigor much more
efficiently. Thus, we would hope the final bill would not
stipulate that only OSSEs be used to assess the relative value
and benefits of observing systems.
NOAA regards the protection of the people of the United
States from the devastation that weather can bring as a sacred
trust and duty. Fulfilling this obligation requires a robust,
flexible, and integrated program of sustained environmental
observations, scientific research aimed at computing our
forecasts and warnings, and cutting-edge modeling and
computing. Our end goal is a weather-ready Nation. We
appreciate the bill's intent to advance this cause and look
forward to working with you to refine its provisions.
I thank you again for the opportunity to testify on this
important matter and am happy to take your questions.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Sullivan follows:]
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Chairman Stewart. Thank you, Dr. Sullivan, for your
testimony today. Thank you for your extraordinary service to
your country for many years.
I would remind the Members that Committee rules limit
questioning to five minutes. And the Chair will at this point
open the round of questioning, and the Chair recognizes himself
for five minutes.
Dr. Sullivan, you mentioned a couple things in your
testimony I would like to maybe expand on a little bit. And the
first one I would like to go a little quickly, saving time for,
perhaps, a second question as well. You mentioned the money
provided by the Super Storm Sandy relief funding that was
appropriated recently and that NOAA has committed to Congress
to immediately undertake two very important OSSEs, or the
Observing System Simulation Experiments, to assess potential
gap-filling satellite technologies. And in our meeting last
week, we had a chance to talk about this just a little bit, GPS
radio occultation and the geostationary hyperspectral sounding.
For this latter technology can you explain to the Committee
your evaluation criteria? Are you going to evaluate a
constellation of six instruments around the globe or only a
single sounder here in North America? And can you then give us
some insight into, you know, with that decision how that will
affect the results of these experiments?
Ms. Sullivan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
That Observing System Simulation Experiment, as I
understand, is still being formulated. I don't have at hand the
detail of whether a--whether the initial plan is to do a single
instrument or then a full complement of 6 or what the time and
computational resource required to do either and both of those
would be, but I would be happy to get that for you.
Chairman Stewart. Okay. Help me understand. Can you get
meaningful data with just one or do you really need six to draw
very meaningful conclusions?
Ms. Sullivan. That is a very subtle, technical answer that
goes to how the data would be incorporated into global forecast
models. I would have to get some of our scientific experts to
give you a view on that.
Chairman Stewart. Okay. Well, I look forward to those--you
know, that reply from you. It would be helpful for us.
And, you know, I wouldn't presume that you can't achieve
what you want to do with only the one, but it would certainly
seem like six is much more meaningful and I am sure you have
constraints regarding funding that would impact that.
Ms. Sullivan. Certainly to provide--and when you run a
global model, you need to initialize it, start it out with some
initial conditions. And to do that you need to sample the
entire globe.
So we take today, for example, polar satellite data,
sounding data, from all across the globe and we take ground-
based instrumentation data from all across the globe shared by
international partners at no cost to each nation. So that is
the current initialization. It does make first-order sense. If
indeed the performance of the hyperspectral sounder proved out,
as is postulated in the written literature, it certainly might
make sense, but that density and precision could aid in the
initialization of global models.
Chairman Stewart. Okay. Thank you. And again, we look
forward to more detailed response on that.
I think you will like my second question. It is a little
easier perhaps. What are--you know, we have seen so much--so
many advances in technology, so much--such a greater result
over the last couple decades, certainly from when I was
younger, and it is remarkable really. But, of course, there is
much more that we can do and so I would ask you, what are some
of the promising technologies and some of the promising
research areas that you are not able to pursue because of some
perhaps restrictions in funding? What would you like to be
doing that you are not able to do right now?
Ms. Sullivan. I would focus on two things, and my answer
will pick up the piece of Mrs. Bonamici's statement. One of the
things that we have found most fruitful within NOAA to making--
really advancing the research, making sure we have got a sharp
focus on the most important things to move forward on, and
ensuring it couples closely and rapidly into the forecast world
are co-locations and testbeds.
So I can cite two, one from the Vice Chairman's home State,
which I know he knows well. At the National Weather Center at
the University of Oklahoma in Norman, we have co-located the
National Weather Service's Weather Forecast Office, the actual
operational forecasters; our National Center for Severe Storms
Prediction. Anytime you see ``the Severe Storm Center says'' on
your television, that is coming from NOAA, from the main
forecasting engine that produces American weather forecasts;
and finally, our Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research's
National Severe Storms Lab.
Putting those three entities so close together, letting the
scientists and the forecasting experts really work very
flexibly and fluidly with each other and work together around
what has been developed--they are called a hazardous weather
testbed--has really been a--made a tremendous difference in the
rate of advance and refinement of the forecasters' tools.
So what we aim to do at NOAA, frankly, in essentially all
of our research, we are not really a blue sky research agency.
Yes, we do research that is labeled climate. Far the great
majority of that research within NOAA is seasonal to
interannual and very directly oriented towards understanding
the longer-term underlying patterns that shape daily and
seasonal weather in the United States. And these close
couplings with the Severe Storms Lab, the testbed, the Storm
Prediction Center, and the forecasters have proven very
fruitful. I would love to replicate that model in more places.
Chairman Stewart. Okay. Great. You know, and my time is--
has now ended. Maybe I could close with just these two
observations. The first is obvious, and that is as Mr.
Bridenstine has indicated in what took place recently in his
home State. There is more that we can do and the technology is
available for us now perhaps where we can take some
generational leaps forward in providing a longer warning period
and more safety and security for people. And we look forward to
working with you in helping that come to pass.
The Chair now recognizes Ms. Bonamici for her questions.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
And I want to follow up on your previous answer, Dr.
Sullivan, but before that, I want to join the Chairman in
thanking you for all your service. I really liked reading in
your testimony about your view from the shuttle showing the
interconnectedness of all the systems.
So following up on your last answer, Dr. Sullivan,
according to some weather experts and people who have raised
concerns about proposals to reallocate significant resources
from NOAA's climate and ocean investments to weather
forecasting. So I noted in several places in your written
testimony where you caution us against actions to increase one
important mission area to the detriment of NOAA research
programs in climate or ocean science. So will you please
explain how climate and ocean research and research flexibility
are critical to NOAA's mission providing more timely accurate
weather forecast?
Ms. Sullivan. Thank you, Mrs. Bonamici. I would be
delighted to do that.
Let me open by saying that weather forecasting and the
protection--the forecast services that protect American lives
and livelihood already--are already NOAA's highest priority.
They are encoded in national security functions that we are
directed to fulfill by the President of the United States in
support of the Commerce Department's mandates. So they stand
already far head and shoulders above many other things that we
do.
How is this flexibility important? How does it help us? Let
me cite our Hurricane Forecast Improvement Program to give you
an example of that. This was assembled after a state of land
falling hurricanes, very devastating hurricanes. We brought
together academic, federal, outside researchers and
forecasters. We looked at the spectrum of underlying causal
factors, what patterns in the atmosphere lend to the formation
of hurricanes, shape them, steer them, stop them? What phases
of things do we need to understand?
The answer is a mixture of things ranging from
understanding decades-long oscillations in the Earth that put
the Earth sometimes in a phase we are in now where the Atlantic
basin is very active, and then a few decades later in the phase
when the Atlantic basin is not very active. That is a deep
underlying heartbeat of the planet. To know the predictability
of hurricanes, we need to understand those kind of longer-term
heartbeats.
But to really get track and intensity right is also clear
on the other end of the scale. We need to have models that can
resolve the actual inner core of a hurricane very precisely. So
this Hurricane Forecast Improvement project set out an array of
research endeavors coupled to this purpose across that
timescale. They cross-check regularly and frequently which ones
are advancing. They created a stream that could advance and
yield benefits to forecasting with the operational
supercomputing assets in place at the moment and they yielded a
second stream that could take us even further if we could step
ahead the capacity of the operational supercomputer, like way
ahead. And then they created another stream to bridge them and
make sure that we didn't leave good results sitting on the
sidelines for any longer than are necessary.
The flexibility of this sort of integrated team to move
those pieces back and forth under a broad charge given by the
Congress to get better hurricane forecasting, get these targets
by these times, and then the throttle-setting that the Congress
can allow us each year in the appropriations has really made
that a tremendously fruitful program. I think that is a great
model to emulate.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you. And this is similar to the
Chairman's second question. Based on your years of experience
and your expertise, what changes if any should be made to the
structure or processes at NOAA to provide continuing
improvement in weather forecasting? Are there some structural
things that could change that would help improve them?
Ms. Sullivan. We are trying to make some of those now, and
I think a couple others could help. Again, I would cite the
Hurricane Forecast Improvement Program. It had many strands of
activity under it but it was agreed upon with the Congress at
the level of the program and then appropriated at that level
each year. That, in my view, is a sound and healthy balance of
the rightful prerogatives of the Congress and the flexibility
needed to adjust programs as they evolve and deal with setbacks
when they occur as--you know, as they will in the research
arena.
We have also--I think if we can improve the way we all look
at keeping NOAA's operational supercomputers closer to the
cutting edge, we would find a great improvement there.
And I will give you one great example. We have research
models running. In fact, the research model that runs under the
hurricane program cannot be put into the operational
supercomputer right now. So during hurricane season we run the
National Hurricane Center, and we run this research model in
real time because we can't fit it into the operational
supercomputer. We should be able to fit it in. We have a model
that could have forecasted last year's diverter 12 hours in
advance. It did. It did but it was running in research mode. We
need to be able to move those more rapidly into supercomputing
rather than waiting so long for big-step functions in our
supercomputers.
Ms. Bonamici. That is very helpful. Thank you very much,
Dr. Sullivan.
And I see my time is expired. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Stewart. Thank you, Ms. Bonamici.
We now recognize the Vice Chair, Mr. Bridenstine, for five
minutes.
Mr. Bridenstine. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you,
Dr. Sullivan, for being here. I have just a few questions.
You would agree that increasing tornado warning lead times
is as much as one hour is a priority of NOAA's?
Ms. Sullivan. I wouldn't set one hour necessarily as a
priority, Mr. Bridenstine. There is a significant response
question as to what people would do with one hour. And I think
we have begun mounting in concert again with the weather center
down in Norman some social science and risk communication
research lines to understand A) is that the right target to
set? And B) if it were, what do we need to understand about how
to present and communicate that so that it doesn't become
something somebody heard and then got busy on something else
and then by the time the hour came they were immersed in a
video game and the tornado ran right over them.
Mr. Bridenstine. So more lead time would be more dangerous?
Ms. Sullivan. More lead time if it triggered the
inappropriate response to take safety----
Mr. Bridenstine. Is it----
Ms. Sullivan. --could be inimical to the gain----
Mr. Bridenstine. --you are impugning the motives of the
people we are trying to protect. If they had an hour lead time,
that would be better than 16 minutes, which is what the people
in Oklahoma got this time, correct?
Ms. Sullivan. I do believe longer than 16 would be
beneficial. I am simply saying there is a genuine question
about how humans respond to impending risks that are--risk
scientists tell us we need to be cautious about in just
imagining that an hour or a day is the right time frame to
communicate on.
Mr. Bridenstine. So the----
Ms. Sullivan. So I consider it an open question.
Mr. Bridenstine. And so the government should make
decisions about how much lead time we give people because we
know better than they know how to protect themselves?
Ms. Sullivan. No, we should understand how to communicate
the information we have so that it is effective for the people
who have those decisions to take.
Mr. Bridenstine. So, let's say we had an hour lead time.
Would you suggest we should withhold that information because
an hour is too much and people aren't smart enough to take
cover?
Ms. Sullivan. We provide five and three day outlooks now to
citizens and to emergency managers in a rich dialogue that has
evolved over time to where we know how--we all know how to
respond to that information. And again, there are powerful
instances from your home State and town of communities doing
just that. I will defer to Dr. Droegemeier to amplify on it. He
has lived through them.
So I am not saying withhold it. I am simply saying that the
challenge of communicating forecast information effectively to
decision-makers is a genuine question that needs to be
approached thoughtfully, and the best scientists I know on this
question cautioned me, including scientists at the National
Weather Center, cautioned me the questions we need to probe
together to be sure we would communicate that information
effectively and not unintentionally have exactly the result we
didn't want.
Mr. Bridenstine. Okay. Are you--you are familiar with the
phased array radar, obviously, that is in Norman, Oklahoma----
Ms. Sullivan. I am.
Mr. Bridenstine. --and I am a Navy pilot myself and
certainly I have been involved in these kind of technologies
from a war-fighting perspective and the ability to detect
targets from long distances and direct energy in a very
specific and dynamic way to get precise measurements I think is
critically important. Is this technology something that you
believe we could advance to the point where we could deploy it
in a way where we could get an hour lead time?
Ms. Sullivan. It is--I don't have the technical acumen to
conclude that phased array radar itself is pivotal to that. We
are still learning a lot about what the dual polarization
NEXRAD radars can give us. I would go back to the example that
I cited to Mrs. Bonamici in assimilating NEXRAD current radar
into very fine resolution models, which we are running in
research mode.
Last year, in June of 2012, in fact very accurately
forecast the retro line of very severe storms which were
tornadic-strength storms 12 hours in advance. So we do already
know finer-scaled modeling, which requires better--much better
computing capacity operationally than we currently have, and
proper incorporation of that data, all 3 ingredients are
critical. It is not just by a radar. But those three we have
demonstrated could give us a 12-hour very good--not just the
convective probability but there is the storm line and here is
where we are propagating.
MPAR is certainly--offers additional promise but we have
had one of them that we are still experimenting with to
understand just what that potential could be. And as your bill
suggest, be sure that we really understood its contribution
before we might make any nationwide deployment decision.
Mr. Bridenstine. Let me ask you, if you were in Moore,
Oklahoma, and somebody said to you maybe we shouldn't have this
type of research because if we gave you too much information
too early you might not act on it, how do you think my
constituents in Oklahoma would respond to that?
Ms. Sullivan. But that is not what I am saying, sir. I am
saying that I want to be sure I say to you, go now or some
communication that you really register as the one that will
prompt you to the action that you should take. And that--the
language style mode of that communication is something that
needs to be studied and worked with people like your
constituents.
Mr. Bridenstine. Okay. I yield back.
Chairman Stewart. All right. Thank you, Mr. Bridenstine.
And now, we turn to Ms. Edwards.
Ms. Edwards. Thank you, Chairman Stewart, Ranking Member
Bonamici. I appreciate today's hearing on weather forecasting.
In my view, it is a necessary part 2 on a subject that greatly
impacts the American public and our greater economy.
And I am pleased that NOAA, which is headquartered in my
Congressional District--thank you, Dr. Sullivan--has the
opportunity to be before our committee today and to discuss
efforts to improve weather and climate forecasting.
Today's panels are an improvement, I think, on the last
that we have had. I am concerned about the legislation that we
are discussing today. And, as indicated in the testimony of our
witnesses, the legislation is really flawed in its execution in
my view. NOAA is a multi-mission agency, and that means its
priorities--ocean, atmosphere, climate, and weather--are
interconnected. I think Dr. Sullivan has testified to that
today.
And given what we have learned and experienced with
increasingly severe and more frequent severe storms,
hurricanes, tornadoes, flooding, it is hard for me to believe
that you can separate or slash funding of climate research when
all of our weather scientists and our forecasters indicate the
kind of interconnectivity that Dr. Sullivan has discussed. Our
Earth is a system, and I think in order to understand the
processes, we have to understand it as a whole.
And so with that, Dr. Sullivan, I know we have had a couple
of one-on-one conversations about NOAA's work and concern about
where we stand vis-`-vis Europeans in weather forecasting. And
I know we talked about our--the lagging in our supercomputer
computing power as evidenced by some of the different modeling
that we saw with Hurricane Sandy. And so I wonder if you could
explain to the Committee some of the institutional differences
between the U.S. Government's role in weather forecasting
versus Europeans' that keep NOAA from being as cutting edge is
we would like it to be?
Ms. Sullivan. Thank you, Mrs. Edwards.
The model that received such acclaim, rightfully, during
the evolution of Hurricane Sandy, especially the early days, is
a model run by the European Center for Midrange Weather
Forecasting. That is a combination research and operational
forecasting center that is charged with one and only one thing
and that is to run a global model that gives a 12--10- to 12-
day forecast.
They have become very good at that. They--it is definitely
one of the leading models at that time range. What else to say?
That is all they do at the European Center so the rest of the
products and services that most national hydro-meteorological
services like NOAA are charged with fall to the U.K.'s
Meteorological Office or Meteo-France or the Deutscher
Wetterdienst.
So to really understand what Europe is doing, you need to
take a look at both the European Center and the collection of
Federal or national-level weather services throughout each of
the European states. That is closer to comparable.
What does it--what else does European Center do that we
would like to emulate more closely? They make consistent
progressive investments in their main operational
supercomputer. They have set a target and a policy of staying
very close to the leading edge of computational capacity. In
the United States, in contrast, we tend to step forward an
operational supercomputer and live with it for quite a while as
it falls further and further behind the cutting edge and then
make a big step forward and let it fall back again. That has
certainly been the case with work that has been going on at
NOAA in the last five years.
Europe has also focused on methods that determine how you
take data into a model to a method called data assimilation or
a step called data assimilation. It is almost--it is in some
respects more important than what data do you have. You get the
data in properly and understand the errors that it contains.
They have pioneered new methods over at the European Center for
data assimilation. They are very computationally intensive. We
have not been able to adopt those methods in NOAA's operating
supercomputers because they are so intensive.
Ms. Edwards. Do we need to?
Ms. Sullivan. Well, I was just going to transition and say
we know it is a good advance and so our scientists again--OAR
scientists plus our satellite data scientists and our weather
service scientists altogether developed a method that is as
effective and less computationally intensive, and proof of
that--solidity of that advance is that the Europeans are now
going to adopt our method because it does the same work more
efficiently.
So stay closer to the cutting edge in our operational
supercomputer. It would be good. Places like our Science Center
down in Norman that I cited as an example, emulate the kind of
close coupling of research and operations that the European
Center has. So we do know how to do that and we do it but we do
it in a little more distributed and more topic-oriented fashion
around aviation weather challenges, severe storm challenges,
and tropical storm challenges than they have chosen to do in
Europe. But we have a greater array and greater variety of
weather phenomena in the United States than all of Europe
combined. And so I think our plurality and our diversity suits
this country's needs.
Ms. Edwards. Thank you very much.
Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Stewart. Yes, Ms. Edwards.
We now--Dr. Broun for your five minutes of questioning.
Mr. Broun. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Sullivan, the Chairman, the Vice Chairman and I are all
three pilots, and so we have been very engaged in weather
issues for a long period of time and concerned about weather,
and we are concerned not only from a pilot operational
perspective but also how it affects all of our constituents and
not only in our district but all across this country.
The Fiscal Year 2014 request proposes 180 million for
climate research and $82 million for weather research. If
Congress were to spend 158 million on climate research and 112
million on weather research, would this help or hinder weather
forecasting?
Ms. Sullivan. Additional funding in weather forecasting
would certainly help that effort. My concern would simply be to
understand where--what are we giving up? NOAA's climate
research is not multi-decadal, century-scale climate research.
It is climate research aimed at understanding and more closely
relating phenomena such as the Pacific decadal oscillation or
the Atlantic meridional oscillation to the weather phenomena
that affect the United States so that we can extend our lead
times on forecasts out beyond five days to maybe seven or ten
days.
These broad underlying patterns that are at climate
timescales, we are--we believe are critical to unlocking the
secrets.
Mr. Broun. Well, to just tag on to what Commander
Bridenstine was just saying about time interval between tornado
forecasts, I just found it incredible that you would even
question giving people more advanced time for a warning of an
impending tornado.
But let me go back to that same question and let me ask it
in a different way. Which contains--contributes to weather
forecasting more? A dollar for climate research or a dollar for
weather research?
Ms. Sullivan. It depends on what the--each dollar is spent
for, Dr. Broun. I can put a dollar into some aspects of weather
research that are going to make only a minimal advance then I
might make an advance in understanding just how El Nino effects
seven day storm tracks and sets up convective patterns in the
central United States that would do a lot better for Oklahomans
than understanding when they are prone to tornado outbreaks.
Mr. Broun. Well, I am sure the people in Oklahoma would
like to have had an hour warning on their tornado that was
bearing down upon them, and I think a dollar in weather
forecasting research would have helped in that regard.
Let me kind of change tracks a little bit. Dr. Sullivan, as
you know, in 2012 a financial scandal was uncovered at the
National Weather Service where a senior official moved money
certainly without authorization and very highly unlike--
illegally they moved that. They moved it between different
accounts. It was reported that the amount of unauthorized
transfers of money may have exceeded $100 million over several
years. Did these transfers in any way negatively impact
programs focused on transitioning new technologies from
research into operations?
Ms. Sullivan. Those transfers, Dr. Broun, were all within
the National Weather Service itself and they were typically
transfers from systems accounts, software upgrade accounts and
things like that, into operations and management. So they were,
as the investigation indicated, well-intentioned on the part of
the offending individuals, which doesn't justify the act but
well-intentioned to try to support the forecasters in their
everyday work where they felt they had budget shortfalls.
Mr. Broun. $100 million is a lot of money and moving things
around illegally is certainly--should not be done by anybody,
and my concern is that when we talk about tornadoes, when we
talk about what I faced when I climbed into a cockpit in with
these other gentlemen did, weather is an important issue.
I understand climate research and I understand weather
research, and I just disagree with maybe my Democratic
colleagues over where our priorities should be set and
obviously what you seem to be so wedded to as far as doing
climate research.
But the folks in Oklahoma need more advanced warning, and I
don't think it is the government's responsibility to decide how
they respond to that warning. We need to give people as much
advanced warning as they possibly can for a tornado or
hurricane or anything else. And doing weather research, I
think, is extremely important.
Now, I applaud the Vice Chair's bill that he has put
together and I think it is important for us to proceed, and
hopefully, it will be marked up and we will pass it into law.
Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back.
Chairman Stewart. Thank you, Mr. Broun.
And our final questioner for this panel would be Mr. Weber
from Texas.
Mr. Weber. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Let me follow up, Dr. Sullivan, what Dr. Broun was asking
about. I think when he asked you about the transfers that might
have been illegal, you said the individuals were well-
intentioned, I think?
Ms. Sullivan. In their own mind, Mr. Weber, they professed
to be doing things that they felt kept the weather forecast
enterprise healthy as it needed to be in their mind. I don't
defend the statement. I am just reporting what they said in
their depositions.
Mr. Weber. So were you aware of that when it took place?
Ms. Sullivan. I was not aware of it when it took place.
Mr. Weber. How soon thereafter did you possess the
knowledge that it had happened?
Ms. Sullivan. I try to recall that timeline. There--it came
to NOAA's attention through an Office of Investigator General
complaint that was referred to us for action by the OIG. We
very promptly acted on that, established in concert with the
Office of the Secretary, an investigation and inquiry panel,
placed some individuals on administrative leave, and proceeded
to conduct an inquiry.
Mr. Weber. And was that time frame a month, a week, a year?
Ms. Sullivan. The time frame from our receiving word of the
problem to initiating the inquiry was hours. The inquiry was
completed over some several months.
Mr. Weber. Okay. Do you have knowledge as to what has
happened to those particular individuals?
Ms. Sullivan. I do have knowledge and I--as I know the
panel appreciates under the privacy laws of this country, I
can't speak to individual matters in open session. We have
shared those details with our appropriators.
Mr. Weber. Okay. Have they--and I am not asking for names
or specifics, but have they been disciplined? Has anybody lost
their job?
Ms. Sullivan. Individuals have been disciplined.
Individuals are no longer with NOAA. Financial controls have
been thoroughly reviewed across the entire department and
modified and strengthened, and training has been put into place
for all senior officials.
Mr. Weber. I find the term well-intentioned individuals
kind of interesting because I am just thinking when they--when
those--as you called them well-intentioned individuals play
fast and loose, if you will, with the rules, would you agree
that one can certainly make that assessment----
Ms. Sullivan. I----
Mr. Weber. --that they have played fast and loose with the
rules?
Ms. Sullivan. Oh, that they were either willfully and
inexcusably ignorant of the rules or played fast and loose----
Mr. Weber. Or they played fast and loose. We hear that a
lot in this capacity that people are ignorant of certain things
that go on, and I keep thinking to myself they should probably
run for Congress at that level of ignorance.
Nonetheless, when we up here look at a situation where
someone plays fast and loose with the rules, can you understand
that it gives us pause for concern when somebody brings a
budget request to us and says this is going to negatively
impact our ability to predict climate change and then we have
to think, well, there has been reported incidences of people in
that agency playing fast and loose with the rules. And I
believe the quote is well-intentioned individuals who we would
ascertain that played fast and loose with the rules. So when
someone comes up with the budget request and they say this is
going to impact us negatively, can you understand how we might
draw a similar conclusion that may be that is a fast and loose
playing with the rules that we might question that? Could you
understand how we could come to that conclusion?
Ms. Sullivan. I follow your logic, Mr. Weber. I would ask
that you attribute the fast--the well-intentioned to the people
who said it and to the people who were doing the actions.
Mr. Weber. Okay.
Ms. Sullivan. It is certainly not my characterization of
them.
Mr. Weber. Okay. You don't want to be associated with it. I
don't blame you.
Ms. Sullivan. I don't care to be associated with it----
Mr. Weber. Right.
Ms. Sullivan. --and I think I feel, judging from your
comment, my reaction to and response to that incident and those
behaviors----
Mr. Weber. Right.
Ms. Sullivan. --are very close to yours.
Mr. Weber. Right. Well, we would hope that it--that there
would be enough oversight and enough safeguards in that agency
that that kind of playing fast and loose with the rules A) as
it purports to moving money--well, some of us have been afraid
it was actually illegally--would also purport, too, that when
you come to this committee or when you come to the Congress and
say we need money for climate change and, yes, there is a
discussion--this is going to be about climate change--that
there is not the same kind of fast and loose playing with the
facts. And that is what is our concern.
And I know that you can't speak for everybody but we just
simply ask you to--implore you to make sure that that kind of
fast and loose playing goes away and that if you have anything
to do with it, well-intentioned individuals or otherwise, you
make sure we get the facts.
Ms. Sullivan. I assure you that I will do that, Mr. Weber.
Mr. Weber. Okay. I appreciate that. And I yield back.
Chairman Stewart. I thank you, Mr. Weber.
Dr. Sullivan, thank you for your time today. Thank you for
your testimony. There is one item I would like to follow up
with if I could, and that is, as I--you may remember, last
September you testified before the Committee's Oversight
Subcommittee on a hearing about the National Weather Service,
and on November 6, Committee staff sent follow-up questions for
the record to you as well as to one of your colleagues, Mrs.
Maureen Wylie.
The Committee has not yet received a response to those
questions for the record. And I would ask if you would commit
to me and to other Members of this Committee as well that you
would answer those questions as soon as possible?
Ms. Sullivan. I certainly will make that commitment to you,
Mr. Chairman. The formal clearance processes, as I know you
understand, sometimes wreak havoc with the actual timeliness
and delivery. It is my understanding that we have had staff-to-
staff conversations on those matters but the formal transmittal
has been delayed.
Chairman Stewart. Okay. Can you----
Ms. Sullivan. I admit we will work on that.
Chairman Stewart. Can you give us some indication of when
you--that would--that process would be complete and we could
expect answers to those questions?
Ms. Sullivan. I will probe where that is--where things
stand and get back to you on that.
Chairman Stewart. Okay. So we are going to--you are going
to get back to us on when you are going to get back to us. Is
that--okay.
Ms. Sullivan. I will get back to you on the timeline that I
believe I can commit to.
Chairman Stewart. Okay. All right. Thank you for that.
Again, one more time, thank you for your testimony today.
And, Members of the Committee, as we have discussed, can
have additional questions for you and they--and we will ask you
to respond to those in writing in an appropriate and timely
fashion.
And the witness is now excused and we will now move on to
our next panel. Thank you, Dr. Sullivan.
Ms. Sullivan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Stewart. At this time, I would like to introduce
our second witness panel, and I will introduce them
individually and then allow them time for their opening
statements.
Our first witness today is Dr. Kelvin Droegemeier, Vice
President for Research and Regents' Professor of Meteorology at
the University of Oklahoma. Dr. Droegemeier is a Fellow of the
American Meteorological Society and a member of the National
Research Council Board on Research Data and Information.
In 2004, Dr. Droegemeier was appointed by President Bush to
the National Science Board and was reappointed in 2010 by
President Obama. He holds a Ph.D. in atmospheric science from
the University of Illinois.
And I will remind all of the witnesses that, as has already
been stated, your spoken testimony is limited to five minutes
each and after which Members of the Committee will have five
minutes to ask questions.
And I now recognize Dr. Droegemeier for five minutes to
present his testimony.
TESTIMONY OF DR. KELVIN DROEGEMEIER,
VICE PRESIDENT FOR RESEARCH,
REGENTS' PROFESSOR FOR METEOROLOGY,
WEATHERNEWS CHAIR EMERITUS,
UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA
Dr. Droegemeier. Good morning, Chairman Stewart. Thank you
so much. Ranking Member Bonamici, Mr. Bridenstine, good to see
you. Thank you so much for the privilege to speak to you this
morning on a very important matter. I appreciate all the work
that you are doing to help protect our citizens from the
destructive forces of nature.
I offer my perspectives as a Professor of Meteorology at
the University of Oklahoma. I have been there almost 30 years
working at the National Weather Center as a meteorologist
really at the nexus of severe weather in the Nation, in fact,
in the world. I witnessed firsthand last month as these
tornadoes ravaged parts of our State and many thousands of
people no doubt would be dead today were it not for the
extraordinary warning and prediction system we have in this
country.
So great--thanks to NOAA and all the wonderful work they
have done, but yet, in fact, our work is not done and we still
have people dying. Even one death is really intolerable.
I would like to make three very brief points for you this
morning. First, I really do welcome this bold, focused
initiative on high-impact weather prediction. It builds upon a
strong foundation that we have in this country, a very, very
solid foundation. It prioritizes key topics, and really the
only thing I would add would be to build on what Dr. Sullivan
said in terms of the prescriptiveness of the bill really
allowing scientists to focus on the best tools and techniques
to do things like assess observational needs. And I want to let
you know that the academic community stands ready to work with
you and to help you however we possibly can. You can marshal
all of those resources.
The second point was talked about in the last session. It
is extremely important. As a meteorologist it may seem
heretical for me to talk about the social sciences, but in fact
this is a real people problem. Really, ultimately, what we are
dealing with here is a loss of life, and our ability to deal
with that means that we have to address the issues of how
people understand and predict and prepare and so on, respond to
warnings. We need to understand how we convey and formulate
uncertainty in messaging to the public, how the public responds
and comprehends warning information. There are issues of trust
and source security of information and so on.
And I think we have to even ask ourselves whether or not
the whole current warning and watch system really needs to be
rethought from the ground up starting with people because the
people are the ones who are affected ultimately.
Also, I would like to talk to the issue of tornado warning
lead time. As specified in the Act, this is a very, very
important issue, extremely important. It has to be looked at.
But I think we want to be careful about not focusing entirely
on that magical number because, ultimately, the question is, as
Dr. Sullivan mentioned, what are people going to do with that
one hour?
In my written testimony, I give you a little narrative of
what I saw firsthand on May 31 in Oklahoma as thousands of
people fled their homes, put themselves in harm's way because
they had a very large amount of lead time without really
knowing what to do with it. This issue resides in the domain of
the human behavioral sciences. It is not a weather or
technology problem. It is something we really have to learn how
to address. And so I would argue that really our focus ought to
be on the goal of zero deaths. Zero deaths. We achieved that in
microbursts.
Wind shear--you folks are pilots. You know, we had a lot of
planes crashing back in the '70s. We had a concerted attack on
understanding the causes of wind shear we put in technology and
training and over 20 years now have passed since then and no
one has died in an aircraft accident due to wind shear. Zero
deaths is not an unattainable goal and that puts our focus on
people.
Finally, I would like to highlight the importance of a
truly interdisciplinary approach. Dr. Sullivan and Ranking
Member Bonamici talked about this a little bit. In terms of our
testbeds, these operational test beds that we have that
integrate research and operations are very important. They
exist but they need to be expanded and improved and enhanced.
They do a really wonderful job but we could yet do more.
And I would suggest to you that this notion of research to
operations is probably a little bit misconceived. It really
says there is research over here and operations over here. I
suggest that research plus operations, working hand-in-hand
with the operational folks, working with the researchers hand-
in-hand as we do in Norman, this wonderful hazardous weather
testbed that truly is credited with saving lives, developing
new technology, and the rigors of operational activities with
scientists and operations people working together, that to me
is the way that it ought to be done.
I would like to close by showing you a brief movie here of
the May 20 tornado in Moore and it gets to the question I was
asked earlier about the value of MPAR and this movie, I will
introduce it to you. We will go ahead and start it.
[Video shown.]
The first clip is of a TV station, KWTV Channel 9 in
Oklahoma City. There is the Moore tornado. It is hailing; there
is debris falling. And I am going to freeze it on a radar
picture from the TV station you will see in a moment that shows
where the current warning time comes from before you have a
given thunderstorm, and then the path of the tornado is
extrapolated based on its previous history. So there you see
it. That hook-shaped image there in the lower left part is the
tornado itself. That great part is the debris ball and the line
moving from it to the Northeast is the track of the tornado at
various times. So that is where we got the 16, 30, 40 minutes
of lead time. People in harm's way saw that image.
[Slide.]
What I am showing you now is sort of the future. This is a
picture of counties in Oklahoma and the two lines of inverted
triangles are actual tornado paths in 2011. We reran the
forecast of this situation there. You see the radar echoes
forming. And as as this thing plays forward, you will see these
black contours, these dark circles. Do you see them forming
along the tornado track? This forecast was produced an hour in
advance, experimentally, not in real time, but we got very,
very close to predicting the occurrence of a real tornado of a
real event an hour in advance.
This is what is possible. Can we do it this good every
time? No. You see some tornadoes down there in the lower right
that have no real counterpart associated with them. And so the
science is not there yet, but 20 years ago we didn't think this
was even theoretically possible. Now, we are not only able to
show it is possible, but in the hazardous weather testbed, we
are able to demonstrate it in real time working with
operational forecasters.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Droegemeier follows:]
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Chairman Stewart. Thank you, Mr. Droegemeier. I appreciate
your testimony.
Our second witness I would like to introduce as Dr. William
Gail, Chief Technology Officer of the Global Weather
Corporation and President-Elect of the American Meteorological
Society. He was previously a Director in the Startup Business
Group at Microsoft, Vice President of Mapping Products at
Vexcel Corporation and Director of Earth Science Programs at
Ball Aerospace. He is a lifetime associate of U.S. National
Academy of Sciences Research Council, and Dr. Gail received his
Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Stanford University.
And Dr. Gail.
TESTIMONY OF DR. WILLIAM GAIL,
CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER,
GLOBAL WEATHER CORPORATION,
PRESIDENT-ELECT, AMERICAN METEOROLOGICAL SOCIETY
Dr. Gail. Thank you. Chairman Stewart, Ranking Member
Bonamici----
Chairman Stewart. Turn your microphone on, please.
Dr. Gail. Thank you. Chairman Stewart, Ranking Member
Bonamici, and distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, it is
a privilege to be here today and provide testimony. Thank you
for your invitation.
As was mentioned, I am Cofounder and Chief Technology
Officer of Global Weather Corporation, a startup company
providing precision weather forecast to businesses within the
energy, media, transportation, and consumer sectors. I am also
President-Elect of the American Meteorological Society, and I
was a member of the recent National Research Council study
advising on future directions for the National Weather Service.
This is a tremendous time to be part of the weather
community. We have an opportunity to serve the Nation, our
citizens and businesses, far more effectively than has ever
been possible. The reason is simple. Our work involves three
basic cavities: observing the current weather, converting that
information into forecasts, and getting the results to the
people who need it.
Each step in this process has been sequentially
revolutionized. Beginning in the 1960s with the advent of
satellites and ultimately Doppler radars, continuing through
the 1980s with rapid improvements in computing and weather
forecast models, and finally, today, with broad adoption of the
internet and mobile phones. We are now beginning to deliver the
ultimate vision: individualized weather information matched to
every user's need, time, and place.
So why is this important? Well, Sandy and the Oklahoma
tornadoes reminded us that we can and must do far more to
protect lives and property, but often forgotten is the great
potential of weather information to drive economic growth. On
average, economic output at the state level varies by up to
three percent from one year to the next due to weather
variability. In four of the eight States represented on this
subcommittee, the variation is over 8 percent.
Improved weather information can clearly be a growth engine
for the Nation's economy. Indeed, in every market my company
enters, we find opportunity for efficiency improvement.
For example, Xcel Energy uses ten percent of America's wind
farm capacity. An improved wind forecast system saved $22
million for the ratepayers in 2012 alone.
The trucking industry lost $18 billion in 2011 to weather-
related accidents and delays, yet weather forecasts are not
routinely used. A company called Telogis is about to change
that, providing weather and road surface forecasts for every
mile of major road in the country.
All this is made possible by the American Weather
Enterprise, a truly remarkable collaboration between academia,
government agencies such as NOAA, and the private sector.
Working cooperatively allows us to be bigger than the sum of
our three parts, a key reason for our success.
One current goal is to unify our voice and provide
prioritized community-based guidance for legislation such as
this. To this end, a group of enterprise leaders recently met
and agreed to build an advocacy organization called the Weather
Coalition.
It is important to recognize that our strength arises from
breadth. Space weather, hydrology, oceanography, and coastal
meteorology are key sister disciplines to weather. Both near-
term and long-term weather are important. One often hears that
businesses need a predictable regulatory environment to plan
long-term growth. Predictable climate is needed for the same
reasons.
Whether it is a military strategist analyzing regional
vulnerabilities over the coming decade or simply a parent
planning a sunny day for their daughter's wedding next year,
understanding climate and its variability are integral to
weather forecasting. Rather than dividing the weather and
climate communities, we need to bring them together to improve
forecasts and ever-longer timescales.
Now, we do have problems to address as a community from the
looming satellite gap to forecast model performance. The Sandy
Supplemental already helps substantially, but our problems are
not simple. The issues are interlinked requiring collaboration
across NOAA and often the entire enterprise. The proposed
legislation, while admirable for furthering forecast
improvement, is too limited in scope, too prescriptive, and not
sufficiently guided by broad community input to accomplish what
the Nation deserves. I urge you to build from this legislation
drawing on community advice and encouraging innovative
solutions within NOAA and across the enterprise.
Unlike most people who have the honor to serve as the AMS
president, my career has not been entirely within the field of
weather. It gives me a bit of an outsider perspective. My
experience is that the people in this field--and I
enthusiastically include those in NOAA--are the most dedicated,
passionate, and innovative people I have ever met. To a person,
they have one focus: make the Nation safer and more productive.
Give these people your legislative support and they will return
the investment many times over.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Gail follows:]
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Chairman Stewart. Thank you, Dr. Gail.
Today's final witness is Dr. Shuyi Chen, Professor of
Meteorology and Physical Oceanography at the Rosentiel School
of Marine and Atmospheric Science at the University of Miami.
She previously served as an editor for Weather and Forecasting
Journal at the American Meteorological Society. She is a Member
of the National Academies Board on Atmospheric Science and
Climate and a Fellow at the American Meteorological Society.
She received her Ph.D. in meteorology from Pennsylvania State
University.
Dr. Chen.
TESTIMONY OF DR. SHUYI CHEN, PROFESSOR,
METEOROLOGY AND PHYSICAL OCEANOGRAPHY,
ROSENTIEL SCHOOL OF MARINE
AND ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES,
UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI
Dr. Chen. Chairman Stewart, Ranking Member Bonamici, and
other respected Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the
opportunity to testify before you on the important issue of
improving weather forecast.
So I would like to focus my testimony on three points
regarding the bill and many have been stated. I wouldn't
repeat. These are my personal opinions, although they are very
much based on the number of studies conducted by the National
Research Council of the National Academies.
The first point will be probably the most important point.
I will come back to that. So I would first like to make a
comment on the second and the third. The second referred to a
point in the bill about specific technology, evaluating
observing systems in terms of using models. I would say in its
present form it is narrow and prescriptive, so we would like to
see that to be broadened to address the challenge that we are
facing in terms of a--having that technology more flexible and
including other new technologies that are currently in place.
In terms of weather prediction, we have made tremendous
progress. The point I would like to bring your attention to is
that we are at a crossroads that we face new challenge. One of
the issues is that we can actually make weather forecasts
beyond two weeks. This is where I think the weather and climate
will come together because this is an important area.
In fact, in Florida, when we make a forecast for
hurricanes, the long-term projection into the next several
weeks, a probablisitic forecast, is important because that is
the time we need to make plans, for instance, for water
management. The science that can be done nowadays is much
better than we can imagine before.
So, again, follow the same theme. I think weather and
climate forecasts are connected. They both are needed by
society. I think we are ready to do that and we certainly would
like to see that happen.
Now I am going to the first point of my testimony in terms
of a need for a holistic approach to the transition from
research to operations. As you all know that we have made
tremendous progress in terms of forecasting high-impact weather
like the event in Moore, Oklahoma, and Super Storm Sandy. The
problem that we are facing, the challenge that needs to be
resolved, is the following: the research and the operations are
sitting in two boxes. They are not well-connected. They are
well-intentioned, as we probably heard before, but there is no
connection between them or no link, so we have not made much
progress even though a lot of the studies have suggested we
should.
I think Congress can help us in terms of providing that
linking piece. This is where I think a National Advisory Board
would help to make that decision for transition from research
to operations, not only at OAR or within NOAA but also a broad
research community that is driven by users' needs, and at the
same time we would like that the oversight for this important
effort to making decisions for transition to the National
Weather Service.
Currently, many models not only they are not running in
real time by NOAA operations; they have no pathway to even
getting into NOAA operations. So this is where I think Congress
can help to bridge that gap.
I would like to show you a research that is done--many
research has been done for Super Storm Sandy. And this is a
familiar picture, and I would like you to be the judge to see
what research has come along and whether they should be going
to operations.
[Slide.]
This storm taught us a lot of things. Many things have
worked well. One thing we recognize Sandy as a hurricane does
not to operations, with its environment, and many models had
made forecasts quite far in advance. If you look at the panel
on the right that many global models prodicted the storm track
way in advance, especially one of the models from Europe that
prodicted nine days before the storm would have a high
probability of hitting the Northeast.
On the other hand, our high-resolution model to the left on
the slide can really get into the nitty-gritty details of the
storm impact in terms of rainfall and so on, interaction
between the storms. And furthermore, the models conducted at a
universities have made much more progress in terms of resolving
the surface winds. For instance, the right panel is model
prediction and the left panel is observed from satellite.
Those--you can't really almost tell them apart. The research is
really making progress.
In terms of forecasting impact, these are--you are looking
at, the surface wave and ocean sea level height. This was not
imaginable many years before, but recently, we can really
quantitatively forecast the sea level heights when the storm is
approaching, especially to the right of the storm track where
you have water pushing onshore and offshore to the south. So we
can quantify this information much more accurately by going to
high-resolution storm surge impact forecasts. All this is
available now in the research community.
[Video shown.]
The last thing you will see is a movie that is model
simulation of the weather systems that are interacting with
each other. One is Sandy as it is approaching the land and the
upper atmosphere has a wave that interacts with Sandy. They
wrap around each other, dancing around, and this has made Sandy
extremely special.
This type of research is available, but unfortunately many
of these models developed by the research community have no
pathway to go into operation. We would really like the Congress
to address this important issue going forward.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Chen follows:]
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Chairman Stewart. We thank the witnesses for your testimony
today and we remind Members of the Committee that rules limit
questions now to five minutes. And the Chair at this point will
open the round of questions and the Chair recognizes himself
for five minutes for questioning.
I would like to expand a little bit on some things that
have been said both in this panel and in the previous panel.
And, Dr. Droegemeier, I would like to begin with you and your
desire--I think the goal where we said we had theCan objective
of trying to have zero deaths from hazardous weather, and you
said that that was an achievable goal.
I would like to open that to the other members of the
panel. Do the rest of you believe that that is an achievable
goal as well? Dr. Gail?
Dr. Gail. My specific knowledge on this issue is somewhat
limited so I prefer not to say what an achievable goal is, but
certainly we have continued to make progress in our ability to
forecast. And so improving beyond what we are currently doing
towards an hour, to an hour, passed an hour is a--definitely a
worthy goal, absolutely.
Chairman Stewart. Okay. And Dr. Chen?
Dr. Chen. I think in terms of scientific knowledge, the
predictability which means how long or how far in advance we
can predict a certain phenomena, it is very much skewing the
research that we are trying to search for these answers because
answer ocean as a system that has a limited predictability. In
terms of scientific findings, we are not at a stage where we
can tell exactly which phenomena, how far in advance we can--
but it will certainly search for the answer, including
hurricanes. Is a hurricane predictable 7 days out or 30 days
out? That is an open question.
Chairman Stewart. Okay. And, look, I understand you can't
account for people doing foolish things. You can give people
adequate warning and they can ignore it, they can run into the
face of the storm. People will do dumb things sometimes. But
the point is you give them the information that would allow
them to protect and--their property and their own lives in many
cases.
And, Dr. Droegemeier, I am wondering, do you want to expand
on that or we just leave it at that, that this is an achievable
goal? Because I believe that it is an achievable goal with the
exception again of sometimes foolishness.
Dr. Droegemeier. Yes, sir, Mr. Chairman, I agree. And I
think the--part of the point of that is to get our focus on
what is really important. There are lots of metrics that we can
use to measure forecast accuracy, reliability, lead time; all
of those things are floating around. At the end of the day,
though, it is about people dying. And I think if we say what is
it going to take to get us to that place of zero deaths, then
it really forces us to confront the difficult challenges of
understanding what those deep problems are.
But you are quite right. I think there are going to be
circumstances where people will die unnecessarily due to
decisions they made, but I think we can do a lot better job of
conveying information, formulating it, and helping them
understand what the consequences of their actions are.
Chairman Stewart. Yes. The money that we spend on weather
research and weather studies is money well spent. We have an
achievable goal here that would be dramatic and some would say
fanciful, but it is not. And I think we would obviously support
any efforts in order to move towards that goal.
In my remaining time, I would like to come back. We had an
interesting exchange between Mr. Bridenstine and the previous
witness, Dr. Sullivan, where there was this--a bit of an idea
about, you know, well, we--can we give 16 minutes or could we
give an hour? And I would like to explore that just a little
bit and that is, again, the idea that just very quickly from
the three of you, if we could give someone an hour's warning,
that is always better than giving them 15 minutes' warning.
Does anyone disagree with that?
Okay, no, of course not. I mean, clearly, it is better to
give them an hour than 15 minutes. But then if any of you would
like to talk about some of the concerns we have with giving
people more time and what some of the reactions that people
have that make it so they don't take advantage of that or how
you have to communicate that? Any on the panel like to address
that? Dr. Gail?
Dr. Gail. Sure. One of the big challenges we face not only
in this area but in all aspects of weather it is how to get the
right information to the right people at the right time. So you
can have an hour warning but to get it to them in a way that
they can act on it and they can choose to do the most
appropriate thing for themselves is still a big challenge. And
so when we say we want an hour warning, the next step is to
make sure that that information doesn't in fact get to people;
it doesn't just come out on some single website. That is a
challenge, being able to get it into--to them in a way that
they can make best use of it.
Chairman Stewart. Okay. Thank you. Then it seems that we
have two problems. One is the technology and the research in
actually providing the--whatever it is, 45 minutes or an hour,
as long as it might be, and then kind of the human element of
helping people to take advantage of that. But we don't want to
make perfect the enemy of the good. Recognizing that there are
challenges on the backside doesn't diminish the great--the good
that can come from expanding and lengthening the amount of time
we could warn people.
Okay. And my time is expired again. Thank you to the
witnesses and I now recognize the Ranking Member, Ms. Bonamici.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And thank
you to this very distinguished and knowledgeable panel of
witnesses.
And in some of the testimony it mentioned three reports,
recent reports that have studied how we can improve weather
forecasting, one from the National Academy of Science, one from
the National Academy of Public Administration, and then NOAA's
own Scientific Advisory Board.
And in those reports they did discuss the issue that you
brought up, Dr. Chen, about the moving innovation and research
from labs to the weather forecasting operations. My impression
is that there has been a lack of communication and an inability
to--for those entities to connect and that is something that
hopefully we can address through this legislation.
But I wonder, could you talk also about other
recommendations in those reports? Are there recommendations in
those reports that could help improve the legislation? Because
we all have the same goal here of improving weather
forecasting. Can we make use of those reports in other ways?
Do you want to start, Dr. Chen, and then the others?
Dr. Chen. Thank you. I would like to follow up on that.
There have been many studies from the National Research
Council, and each report recommends almost exactly the same
thing. We need a systematic approach to research--from research
through operations and then transfer the technology. Our
current system so far has not worked as well. Like I mentioned,
the research and the operations are somewhat separate.
So I think that this particular panel and this particular
bill could help us to address that in terms of providing that
mandate, perhaps a National Advisory Board. Even though the
funding has been appropriated to do this work, right now, the
problem is the structure that are not allowing the smooth
transition from the research arm of NOAA to the operations, and
more importantly, from the research community, from outside.
From academia and private sectors we have not been able to make
that transition to NOAA because the system is not allowing that
flexibility. I think that----
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you, Dr. Chen.
And, Dr. Gail or Dr. Droegemeier, do you agree with that?
Do you want to add to that, the information in the reports that
may help inform NOAA?
Dr. Gail. Yes, these are all excellent reports and provide
a substantial basis of community input upon which legislation
could be based. Helping NOAA move forward with implementation
of these recommendations within legislation I think would be a
very valuable thing.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you. Dr. Droegemeier?
Dr. Droegemeier. Yes, thank you very much. I think we do
have some exemplars of these kinds of testbeds that truly are
integrative where you bring in the operational folks that are
already there, you bring in the academics, you bring in other
researchers, and they all work together toward the common goal.
And not being parochial, but the one we have in Oklahoma,
truly is unique because we have the university co-located, as
Dr. Sullivan said, with an OAR lab, with National Operational
Centers, plus a Forecast Office. When those folks get together,
wonderful magic things happen, and that sounds a little trite
but it is really true. And I think we can replicate that model.
Ms. Bonamici. All right. Thank you. Dr. Sullivan agreed
with you in terms of her testimony.
Dr. Droegemeier. Yes, ma'am. Thank you.
Ms. Bonamici. And there is a requirement in the draft
legislation about the OSSEs. And do you--can you explain
briefly other kind of evaluative tools that might be used?
There is a requirement that may be too constraining we heard in
the testimony, so if anyone wants to address. Are there other
kinds of evaluative tools that might be used instead of OSSEs,
and is that flexibility important?
Dr. Droegemeier. I could address that real quickly. There
are a variety of techniques and tools, one of which Dr.
Sullivan mentioned is the adjoint technique. Basically, it
tells you where the forecast error will be large and where you
need observations. What is important about that is you can, if
you are not careful, put observations where in fact they are
going to degrade the forecast because it will put errors where
you don't want errors to be and they might grow. And sometimes,
these other assimilation techniques will actually create
observations where they don't exist and you actually don't need
observations.
So we need--it is a very, very complex problem. We need to
understand it. And I think the only thing that we are saying is
basically there are many tools available. Probably let the
scientists decide which ones are most appropriate. We are not
at all discounting the value of OSSEs. We are just saying there
are other techniques used in concert would be helpful.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you. We heard testimony about that
flexibility. And in my remaining time I just want to follow up
on the social science research. Dr. Droegemeier, you talked
about and the Chairman mentioned about the importance of how to
communicate. Of course, the timing is important but the message
is important as well, so it was an issue in Katrina as well,
how that communication is and how we get people's attention. So
could--maybe if any of you want to, in my remaining time, just
add how that research can be furthered through that bill,
please?
Chairman Stewart. In the remaining two seconds.
Ms. Bonamici. Sorry, I am out of time. Well, I yield back
and maybe I will ask for some input in writing from the
witnesses about that important issue.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Stewart. Thank you, Ms. Bonamici.
To the Vice Chair, Mr. Bridenstine.
Mr. Bridenstine. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Droegemeier, I had a question for you specifically
about the Multifunction Phased Array Radar. Earlier, you showed
a video and you had those two lines and you were in--you were
suggesting that we were able to predict tornadoes an hour ahead
of time. Is that accurate?
Dr. Droegemeier. Correct. And that was with a numerical
forecast model if I failed to mention that. It was initialized
with radar data but you are seeing simulated with the model
radar data.
Mr. Bridenstine. Okay. So as far as our numerical model,
how do we compare to the rest of the world in our ability to
use that?
Dr. Droegemeier. With these particular models, we called
them cloud resolving models. We lead the world. There is no
question. In fact, we pioneered this whole area of the fine
scale prediction. Other groups are now doing a lot of wonderful
work but we really lead the way on that.
Mr. Bridenstine. And on this Multifunction Phased Array
Radar, is there anywhere else in the world that has that?
Dr. Droegemeier. In military circles, phased radar is used
a lot, as you know. As far as phased array, weather radar is
really--I think we are leading the area there as well.
Mr. Bridenstine. Are there multiple of those in the United
States or is there only one?
Dr. Droegemeier. Right now, there is one testbed in Norman
called the National Weather Radar Testbed. There is a lot of
development going on. The FAA and NOAA are jointly looking at a
system that would not only track weather but also track
aircraft as well.
Mr. Bridenstine. Wonderful. So if you were to have--is
there any talk of maybe one day eventually networking multiple
Multifunction Phased Array Radars together, networking maybe
throughout the greater Oklahoma City area to provide as much
energy as possible into a specific target for purposes of, no
kidding, enhancing that one-hour capability that you have
already identified?
Dr. Droegemeier. That is an excellent question. In fact,
the National Science Foundation, almost ten years ago, funded a
center to focus just on that where instead of having large
phased array radars you actually have small ones and they talk
to one another and they collaborate----
Mr. Bridenstine. Right.
Dr. Droegemeier. --and say, hey, there is a tornado over
here. Let's focus our attention on that because that is what is
really important right now, and then later on, focus attention
on something else. So that has been done experimentally and we
are looking at that as part of the operational system going
forward.
Mr. Bridenstine. The distributed networking capability that
we have leveraged inside the United States military it seems
would be highly valuable to get better information for weather.
But certainly one other thing, when you think about the
Multifunction Phased Array Radar, is this a technology that
would be kept in the public sphere or is this something that
the private sector could eventually advance and develop a part?
Is there any revenue model by which this could be valuable for
a private enterprise?
Dr. Droegemeier. That is an interesting question. The
private sector is actually involved in helping develop the
prototypes. Various companies are doing that. As far as the
operational structure, that is a good question. Would it be a
government-run system or could it be a privatized system by
which the government would purchase data or--I think that needs
to be looked at. That hasn't been decided yet.
Mr. Bridenstine. Okay. I yield back. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Chairman Stewart. Thank you, Mr. Bridenstine.
We now turn to Ms. Edwards, the gentlewoman from Maryland.
Ms. Edwards. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you to our
witnesses.
I want to focus on behavioral and social sciences research
because in the time that I have been on this committee we have
held hearings, not recently, on the use and effectiveness of
social science research, and there are a number of Members of
this Committee who have point-blank rejected the use of that
kind of research and the work that we do, and so I am
intrigued, Dr. Droegemeier, by your testimony, and in
particular on page 5 of your testimony where you point both to
a University of Oklahoma preliminary study, as well as to the
events surrounding the May 31st hurricane and--or tornado
rather in Oklahoma City in Norman and surrounding communities.
And you make a really compelling argument for the integration
building on a foundation of social science and behavioral
research that would augment the kind of weather forecasting
that we also need to invest in.
And so I wonder if you could be a little bit more specific.
You have one recommendation for building on that, but where and
what agencies would it be most appropriate if the Federal
Government were involved in funding some of that research? I
know that we do fund some research in other agencies--NIH,
National Science Foundation, and the rest--but it is not all
focused on weather forecasting. So if you could share your
thoughts about that.
Dr. Droegemeier. Well, thank you very much, Congresswoman.
That is a really important point. And I think the term ``social
sciences research'' is misunderstood. I think a lot of folks
don't really know what all that involves. But the questions
that we need to address are really fairly clear. They do
involve human behavioral work.
You are right. The National Science Foundation, National
Institutes of Health, a lot of studies have been done. People
that look at trust in terms of information and communication
and verification. There is a broad body of literature already
out there, but a lot of the social scientists--in fact, most of
them--I don't think realize the opportunity that is available
for them to come and link up with the weather community to
really understand how to apply this body of scholarship, number
one, that already exists; and number two, to do new studies
that are geared specifically toward the weather challenges.
But I think a lot of it is misunderstanding of what the
social sciences are really about. And I have to say I had the
same misunderstanding until I began working with them and
really seeing the virtue of their activities.
Ms. Edwards. And I did until I came to serve on this
committee. I didn't get it at all. I thought it was kind of
silly making. But it turns out that understanding behavior
really should connect with the kinds of technology advances
that we see.
Do you have an idea of how much is spent or whether it
would be worth it to have some of those resources actually
engage through the National Weather Service and NOAA?
Dr. Droegemeier. I think that is a good question. I don't
know the amount of money that is spent across agencies or even
within agencies, but I do think that NOAA--it doesn't need to
stand up a whole big social sciences activity. I mean
universities have entire social sciences programs across many,
many departments. So I think NOAA is in a position to leverage
that, but I do think there has to be a presence within NOAA
that recognizes and helps, as Dr. Chen mentioned, transfer
that--those research outcomes into the operational mainstream
of decision-making and behavior in terms of how we do the
warning and watch system.
Ms. Edwards. Great. And just with my remaining minute-and-
a-half, I want each of you, if you could, to comment on the
link--a link that you see or don't see between balancing NOAA's
work on climate with the work on weather forecasting and
whether or how those things are connected and whether you think
that we struck the right kind of balance.
Dr. Gail. Let's imagine that we didn't have a debate on
anthropogenic climate change and climate change. I believe we
would be doing the same research on climate that we are
currently doing just to improve our weather forecasting. So
what we are doing is really essential to what we are doing in
climate.
Dr. Chen. Yes, I want to comment on the jointedness of the
weather and climate because if the system is together, there is
no artificial dividing line. For instance, hurricanes, we are
very much needing information of few weeks outlooks so exactly
for the water management. And the same time as each storm close
to landfall, we do transition to the forecast part very
smoothly.
So I just want to also possible follow-up on the question
of the using social science to address this issue. Hurricane,
for instance, is 7 days ahead. Whether we can get warnings and
then whether it is good because that is interesting social
science question. A lot of times our forecast is not precise
and that could be--or a warning can actually do harm in terms
of people's actions, so those are connected to issues that need
to be addressed.
Ms. Edwards. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Stewart. Thank you, Ms. Edwards.
And we appreciate your comments regarding the social
science. And some of you may be interested to know that Section
5 of this proposed legislation has extensive foundation
therefore encouraging the social science and some of the
communication process as well.
Our final questioner then today is the gentleman from
California, Mr. Rohrabacher.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Thank you very much. Let me just note that
there has been a great deal over the last 15 years of money
spent specifically to prove that humankind is causing the
climate change. To suggest that that would at the same time
benefit weather forecasting stretches credibility because
people were given grants specifically to prove that and other
people were denied grants unless they were willing to prove
that.
Let me go back to the question that seems to have been
asked before, something about this climate research going back
to challenge the point you just made, for the dollars that we
are spending in climate research, would not those dollars be
better spent on weather research that we know affects and puts
people in danger right now?
Dr. Gail. Yes, thank you for the clarification. And that
was really specifically referring to NOAA where really the
large part of the climate research is focused on improving
weather forecasting. And so----
Mr. Rohrabacher. Department of Energy, et cetera, et
cetera, has spent enormous sums of money on trying to prove
that human beings are changing the climate. That has not helped
weather forecasting. But let's--let me get into this one last
thing because I have got three minutes to ask questions as well
to get the answers from you folks.
I understand that there is a gap--let's go right to weather
forecasting--that there is a gap that will be appearing, if it
is not already there, in the data provided by polar-orbiting
and geostationary satellites. There will be a gap in that
information. Is that correct? Is that predicted? Is it
happening now? Is that something that is predicted? Whoever.
Dr. Gail. That is certainly anticipated. I do come from the
satellite industry a while back and you can never know how long
a satellite is going to last, but there are certainly risks and
widely recognized risks.
Mr. Rohrabacher. So this is a--there is a significant gap
that is--that we are facing in the information that we have
been getting from these satellites? Now, we had--there was a
hearing last year in which Dr. David Crane stated that possibly
commercial satellite data doing this--getting that data
commercially might actually be the most cost-effective way of
doing this, but yet, in this Observing System Simulating
Experiments that NOAA hasn't really looked at that option.
Should NOAA be looking at that? Should the OSSE system focus on
whether or not we can cost-effectively utilize private
satellites for--to fill this gap that is expected? Anybody?
Dr. Droegemeier. Well, I would just say the OSSEs
themselves are really agnostic in terms of who operates and
build the satellites.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Right.
Dr. Droegemeier. It really is telling what sensors are
needed and how rapidly and so on. So it really doesn't--the
OSSE itself doesn't address the question that you are asking.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Right, but should NOAA then be doing--
taking the steps to see if this would be a cost-effective way
of meeting this need that we will have in the future in terms
of the data gap? Is there some reason we shouldn't use private
satellites?
Dr. Gail. Oh, absolutely not. I think there is a lot of
room for innovation here in terms of how we access data,
whether it comes from the private sector, whether it comes from
the government, and it should be done in the most effective way
possible, absolutely.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Right. Let me just note, Mr. Chairman,
that there are some things the government has to do and there
are other things that can be contracted out. And before SpaceX
arrived on the scene, everybody thought the government had to
provide all the transportation systems to and from space
station, for example. We have already saved about $500 million
using SpaceX. Perhaps using commercial satellites, which have
other functions that they can sell to the private sector, might
be a good way to get in the information that would protect us
from this data gap that we are going to face in the future.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Stewart. Thank you, Mr. Rohrabacher, and I share
your concern as well that satellite coverage gap between 2015
and 2017 is troubling for us and we hope this legislation is
able to address some of that.
Let us conclude then. We thank the witnesses for your
valuable testimony and for the Members for their questions as
well. And once again, the Members may have additional questions
for you, and we will ask that you respond to those in writing.
The record will remain open for two weeks for additional
comments and written questions from the Members. The witnesses
are then excused and this hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:39 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
Appendix I
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Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Responses by The Hon. Kathryn Sullivan
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Responses by Dr. Kelvin Droegemeier
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Responses by Dr. William Gail
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Responses by Dr. Shuyi Chen
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