NOAA — WHERE SCIENCE GAINS VALUE

March 15, 2005 — “NOAA is where science gains value,” says retired Navy Vice Adm. Conrad C. Lautenbacher, Ph.D., undersecretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator. NOAA’s responsibilities for the environment, ecosystems, safety and commerce of this nation span oceanic, coastal and atmospheric domains.

Americans rely on NOAA for an incredible variety of products and services. NOAA provides weather, water and climate services; manages and protects fisheries and sensitive marine ecosystems; conducts atmospheric, climate and ecosystem research; promotes efficient and environmentally safe commerce and transportation; supports emergency response; and provides vital information in support of homeland security.

What is NOAA?
NOAA is a federal agency focused on the condition of the oceans and atmosphere. It plays several distinct roles in the U.S. Department of Commerce:

• A Supplier of Environmental Information Products: One of the most important resources in our society is information. For more than 30 years, NOAA has supplied oceanic and atmospheric information to its customers. This is clearly manifest in the production of weather warnings and forecasts through the NOAA National Weather Service, but NOAA’s information products extend to climate, ecosystems and commerce as well.
• A Provider of Environmental Stewardship: NOAA is also the steward of national coasts and marine environments. In cooperation with federal, state, local, tribal and international authorities, NOAA manages the use of these environments — regulating fisheries and marine sanctuaries, as well as protecting threatened and endangered marine species.
• A Leader in Applied Scientific Research: NOAA is a trusted source of accurate and objective scientific information in four particular areas of national and global importance:
  • Ecosystems: NOAA works to ensure the sustainable use of resources and balance competing uses of coastal and marine ecosystems, recognizing both their human and natural components.
  • Climate: NOAA works to understand changes in climate (including the El Niño phenomenon) so both NOAA and the nation can plan and respond properly.
  • Weather and Water: NOAA works to provide data and forecasts for weather and water cycle events (including storms, droughts and floods).
  • Commerce and Transportation: NOAA works to provide weather, climate and ecosystem information to make sure individual and commercial transportation is safe, efficient and environmentally sound.

NOAA MEETS CHALLENGES
Economic development is critical to the nation, but it can not make it immune to the forces of mother nature. Many of the opportunities the nation takes to improve its quality of life are also accompanied by increased sensitivity to the natural world. As the quality of life increases, so do the risks and responsibilities. NOAA's products and services help the nation understand the challenges it faces as part of the Earth system in order to create appropriate solutions.

Our Natural Context
No matter how successful the nation’s economy or how advanced the technology, society is inseparable from the natural systems of the Earth. While the nation is often focused on the problems humans often create for themselves, it is also important to consider the effects of the following:

• Hurricanes: Every year more and more Americans choose to live in coastal regions, amplifying the national risks and costs associated with hurricanes (both in terms of destruction, as well as mitigation).
• Drought: Expanding communities in the West put greater stress on already limited aquifers, thus making more Americans sensitive to drought conditions.
• Overfishing: Presently, more than one-third of the fish stocks studied by NOAA are overfished when compared to the abundance levels that would be necessary for long-term sustainability.
• Everyday Weather: Heat, rain and other day-to-day weather conditions affect decisions in nearly every segment of society, from what clothes you wear today to what price a trader plans to pay for grain on the commodities market tomorrow.
• Climate Change: Changes in global and local climates have real socioeconomic consequences and will require responses that are neither trivial, temporary nor avoidable.
• Tsunamis: The December 2004 tragedy in the Indian Ocean demonstrated how massive waves caused by undersea earthquakes can take hundreds of thousand of lives, destroy communities and alter landscapes.

Fundamental Activities
With these and other challenges in mind, NOAA conducts an end-to-end sequence of activities, beginning with scientific discovery and resulting in a number of critical environmental products and services. The Earth’s natural systems — on land, in the sea, in the atmosphere and even extending into space — all change over time and interact with one another. In order to understand these systems and meet the challenges they present, NOAA has assumed certain responsibilities:

• Monitoring and observing the land, sea, atmosphere and space to create an observational and data collection network that tracks Earth’s changing systems
• Understanding and describing how natural systems work together through investigation and information interpretation
• Assessing and predicting changes in natural systems and providing information about the future
• Engaging, advising and informing individuals, partners, communities and industries to facilitate information flow, assure coordination and cooperation, and provide assistance in the use, evaluation and application of information
• Managing coastal, ocean and Great Lakes resources to optimize benefits to the environment, the economy and public safety

NOAA CREATES SOLUTIONS
NOAA is an agency composed of the world’s leading experts in Earth Science, equipped with the world’s most advanced technology for environmental observation and prediction, and supported by a world-class management and administrative workforce. Thousand of people serve at NOAA facilities across the county and aboard ships and airplanes across the globe. NOAA satellites and computers yield a torrent of valuable data around the clock. Within its task to meet the nation’s economic, social and environmental needs, NOAA must establish priorities and adopt strategies that allow it to use its capacities as effectively as possible. It must optimize its resources in order to maximize payoff to the user community and the nation at large.

Strategies for Success
Strategic planning is central to NOAA in performing its mission and achieving its vision. Essential components of the strategies of each Mission Goal, as well as Mission Support, include:

• Ecosystems: To promote management of coastal and marine ecosystems, to balance competing uses, and to ensure the sustainable use of resources, NOAA conducts ecosystem analyses using the best available technology for observation and predictive modeling.
• Climate: Decisions about mitigating the effects of climate change, adapting to it or possibly even altering its rate of progress all begin with greater understanding of this global phenomenon. Through extensive research, public outreach and international partnerships, NOAA increases understanding of climate change by providing unbiased information about its causes and consequences.
• Weather and Water: For public, private and global benefit, NOAA provides quality now-casts and forecasts of weather and water events, while also improving the lead-time, reliability, utility and delivery of this information to the user.
• Commerce and Transportation: NOAA fosters the safe, efficient and environmentally sound transport of goods and people by using the most advanced techniques for monitoring and predicting conditions on land, sea and in the air, as well as providing critical environmental information for accurate navigation.
• Mission Support: To meet current and future needs of society, NOAA develops relationships of mutual understanding with its customers and partners domestically and abroad, recognizes the potential of new and existing technologies, and guides the transition of capabilities from research through to operations.

Agency-wide Priorities
In creating environmental information and stewardship solutions for the nation, NOAA gives special attention to five activities that must take place within and across every office and within each of NOAA’s mission goals. Woven into the fabric of the NOAA community are five priorities:

• Develop, value and sustain a world-class workforce
• Integrate global environmental observations and data management
• Ensure sound, state-of-the-art research
• Promote environmental literacy
• Exercise international leadership

NOAA PRODUCES RESULTS
NOAA supplies valuable products and services that are used every day in households throughout the nation, in sectors such as agriculture and energy, in government agencies (such as the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency) and in the environmental and meteorological institutions around the world. NOAA takes great pride in ensuring that its stakeholders’ needs are met and that the suite of products and services that it offers continues to improve in quality and social value.

Performance Objectives
To assess its own performance and improve its services, NOAA compares the results of its programs with the objectives it has set for itself. Examples of specific objectives for achieving NOAA Mission Goals include:

• Public knowledge and stewardship of marine and coastal areas
• Availability and use of climate products and services to enhance public and private sector decision-making
• Lead time and accuracy of weather and water warnings
• Avoidance of weather-related transportation crashes and delays
• Quantity, quality and accuracy of satellite data that are processed and distributed within targeted time frames.

Measurable Benefits
NOAA benefits society in innumerable ways — many of these have been clearly identified and more still remain. NOAA is increasing its capacity to qualify and, where possible, quantify the social impacts of its programs — both relative to their costs and to each other. Rigorous measurement and analysis will facilitate informed decision-making within NOAA and create value for end users. Benefits include:

• Ecosystems: Non-market recreational benefits to Florida’s coastal communities from coral reefs are $312 million per year, while the reefs’ asset value is estimated at $10.4 billion. The reefs of Hawaii and beaches of California both have similar values.
• Climate: Reducing climate-related uncertainties in climate policy decision-making can be worth more than $100 billion for the United States alone, and relatively small increases in accuracy can yield substantial dividends.
• Water and Weather: For households alone, the value of all weather information is 4.4 times the federal spending required to produce it, yielding a net national benefit of $8.8 billion per year. The value to households of improved accuracy, detail and frequency of forecasts is $1.7 billion per year.
• Commerce and Transportation: The value of better coastal information and services has been estimated at greater than $600 million per year in terms of reduced risk of accidents, search and rescue, commercial fishing and recreational boating.
• Mission Support: Preliminary estimates of the potential national benefits from an improved coastal ocean observing system are nearly $700 million per year, stemming from applications in beach recreation, maritime commerce, search and rescue activities and coastal hazard mitigation.

NOAA has been (and will continue to be) committed to providing the nation and the world with economically and scientifically valuable information about the oceans and atmosphere.

Furthermore, because NOAA's work affects the nation each and every day, it is important that NOAA stakeholders stay informed and educated about NOAA and contribute to the NOAA Strategic Planning process. Most recently, stakeholders provided input into NOAA's newly released 2005-2010 Strategic Plan, which incorporates advice from NOAA stakeholders attending forums in San Diego, Seattle, and Washington, D.C., as well as other meetings around the country.

Relevant Web Sites
NOAA: Where Science creates value for America

NOAA Economics Book (2004)

NOAA History

Media Contact:
David Miller, NOAA, (202) 482-6090