What’s the Forecast: A Look at the Future of Weather Research (U.S. House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, Subcommittee on Environment)

Hearing	What’s the Forecast: A Look at the Future of Weather Research
Committee	U.S. House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, Subcommittee on Environment
Date	June 14, 2022

 

Hearing Takeaways:

• U.S. Weather Forecasting Capabilities: The hearing focused on the current state of the U.S.’s weather forecasting capabilities and considered various policies for improving these capabilities. Subcommittee Members and the hearing’s witnesses noted how weather forecasting information played a key role in protecting lives and property during extreme weather events and highlighted how the U.S. was experiencing an uptick in the number of extreme weather events as a result of climate change. They stated that while the U.S. had made some improvements to its weather forecasting capabilities, they asserted that the U.S. could still make further improvements. Subcommittee Ranking Member Stephanie Bice (R-OK) and Dr. Carr also noted how the European Union (EU) currently possessed superior weather forecasting capabilities relative to the U.S.
  • Importance of the U.S. Weather, Water, and Climate Enterprise: Subcommittee Members and the hearing’s witnesses expressed interest in the U.S. Weather, Water, and Climate Enterprise (commonly known as just the U.S. Weather Enterprise). The U.S. Weather Enterprise refers to the collaboration between the public sector, the private sector, and academia on weather, water, and climate issues. Subcommittee Members and the hearing’s witnesses expressed interest in increasing collaboration across the U.S. Weather Enterprise. Dr. Colman stated that the private sector could provide otherwise unavailable data, products, and services to federal agencies, which would in turn accelerate research and innovation. Dr. Carr also called for continued investments in U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Earth Prediction Innovation Center (EPIC) to incentivize and support external partners to conduct research for improving NOAA’s weather forecasting systems.
  • The Priorities for Weather Research (PWR) Report: Subcommittee Members and the hearing’s witnesses expressed interest in the recent PWR Report from NOAA’s Scientific Advisory Board (SAB). This report contains recommendations from experts across the U.S. Weather Enterprise on where to prioritize federal investments in weather research and forecasting. Dr. Glenn noted how the Report documented priority investments across the three pillars of the U.S. Weather Enterprise: observations and data assimilation, forecasting, and information delivery. Dr. Petty noted that the PWR Report had acknowledged that the scope of its recommended investments was vast. He asserted that it would therefore be difficult for NOAA to make the material investments across all of the PWR Report’s priority areas and suggested that NOAA attempt to partner with both academia and the private sector to address these priority areas.
  • Use of Emerging Technologies: Subcommittee Members and the hearing’s witnesses expressed interest in how emerging technologies could be leveraged to enhance the U.S.’s forecasting capabilities. These emerging technologies include autonomous surface vehicles (ASVs), ocean gliders, drones, advanced radar systems, the WSR-88D radar network, next generation satellites, and the U.S. National Weather Service’s (NWS) Weather-Ready Nation program.
  • Improvements to the U.S.’s Weather Observational Capacity: Subcommittee Members and the hearing’s witnesses expressed interest in working to bolster the U.S.’s weather observational capacity so that it could develop more precise weather forecasting models. They stated that these efforts should involve data assimilation so that the U.S. could make better use of currently occurring weather observations. Dr. Petty specifically called for enhanced observations of the atmospheric boundary layer and commented that the U.S. currently lacked data on the boundary layer. Subcommittee Ranking Member Bice and Dr. Carr also stated that state mesonet systems could play a key role in providing more weather observations.
  • Use of High-Performance Computing (HPC): Dr. Glenn and Dr. Carr remarked that HPC would be needed to support more advanced weather forecasting models. They elaborated that HPC would be foundational to receiving more observations, enhancing the sophistication of weather models, improving data assimilation, and increasing resolution. Dr. Carr also mentioned that the U.S. Department of Energy laboratories possessed exascale computing systems and suggested that NOAA should be empowered to develop exascale computing capacity.
  • Communication of Weather Information to the Public: Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR), Dr. Colman, and Dr. Glenn discussed the importance of bolstering the U.S.’s informational delivery capabilities. They stated that there existed a difference between the outputs of the U.S.’s weather models and the weather information that the public received. Dr. Colman and Dr. Glenn called for investments into behavioral and social sciences so that the U.S. could ensure that its weather findings were being effectively communicated to the public.
  • Development of a U.S. Weather Workforce: Rep. Bonamici, Dr. Carr, and Dr. Petty also expressed interest in working to strengthen the U.S.’s weather workforce and to identify areas for additional federal investments. Dr. Carr noted how federal weather research funding often supported the work of graduate students and post doctorates, which helped to train the U.S.’s weather workforce. Dr. Petty remarked that weather research funding could support private sector internships, which could help to develop the future U.S. weather workforce.
  • Reliance on Supplemental Appropriations to Support Weather Research: Dr. Glenn and Dr. Carr discussed how the U.S. Weather Enterprise had recently relied heavily upon supplemental appropriations from Congress to support their research. Dr. Carr also noted how Congress had funded HPC initiatives through supplemental appropriations. They stated that while this funding helped to support U.S. weather research capabilities, they cautioned that supplemental funding could not support long-term planning. Dr. Glenn also highlighted that supplemental funding was currently being used to support many critical operations and commented that this situation will reduce the U.S.’s disaster response capabilities.
• Weather Act Reauthorization: Full Committee Ranking Member Frank Lucas (R-OK) discussed the Full Committee’s previous efforts to pass the Weather Research and Forecasting Innovation Act of 2017 (the Weather Act), which was intended to improve weather forecasting and increase federal weather coordination. He noted how the Weather Act would need to be reauthorized before the end of September 2023 and commented that the hearing would help to inform the reauthorization process. 

Hearing Witnesses:

1. Dr. Scott Glenn, Board of Governors Professor Center for Ocean Observing Leadership of the Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences, Rutgers University
2. Dr. Bradley Colman, President-Elect of the American Meteorological Society; Director of Weather-Strategy, Bayer & The Climate Corporation
3. Dr. Frederick H. Carr, Professor Emeritus, School of Meteorology, University of Oklahoma
4. Dr. Kevin R. Petty, VP, Weather and Earth Intelligence, Spire Global, Inc.

Member Opening Statements:

Subcommittee Chairman Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ):

• She discussed how the NWS provided the necessary data to support private sector weather-related products and services, including weather mobile applications and weather news reports.
  • She commented that people and businesses relied upon this weather forecasting to guide their planning efforts.
• She recounted how Hurricane Sandy had adversely impacted her Congressional District in 2012 and stated that the NWS had “significantly” improved the accuracy of hurricane tracking and forecasting capabilities since Hurricane Sandy.
  • She asserted however that the NWS still needed to improve its hurricane intensity forecasting capabilities.
• She also contended that policymakers must ensure that the topic of long-term forecasting would be considered as part of future weather forecasting policy discussions.
• She then discussed how climate change was causing more extreme weather events to occur and highlighted how these more extreme weather events were impacting her Congressional District.
  • She asserted that providing Americans with accurate long-term and short-term precipitation models would help with the selections of housing and business locations and the responses to acute weather events.
• She remarked that while the accuracy of short-term weather forecasts had improved “significantly” in recent decades, she stated that there remained gaps in the U.S.’s ability to provide sub -seasonal and seasonal forecasts.
  • She commented that improved longer-term forecasts would support the resiliency of critical infrastructure sectors, including the transportation, utility, and energy sectors.
• She mentioned how Congress had requested a report to identify necessary weather research investments, which became the PWR Report.
  • She explained the PWR Report contained recommendations from a variety of experts from across the U.S. Weather Enterprise (including the public sector, the private sector, and academia).

Subcommittee Ranking Member Stephanie Bice (R-OK):

• She noted how weather forecasting information played a key role in protecting lives and property during extreme weather events and highlighted how the U.S. experienced more extreme weather events than any other country.
  • She indicated that the U.S. typically experienced 26,000 annual thunderstorms, 5,000 annual floods, 1,300 annual tornadoes, and six annual Atlantic Basin hurricanes.
• She commended the efforts of academia, the public sector, and the private sector to form the U.S. Weather Enterprise, which worked to improve the timely delivery and overall accuracy of weather products and services.
  • She commented that the largest improvements to weather forecasting could be directly attributed to both basic and applied research.
• She remarked that collaboration across the U.S. Weather Enterprise was critical to conducting this research and translating it so that it could be successfully deployed at a commercial scale.
  • She asserted that neither the public sector, the private sector, nor academia could support this research and translation on their own.
• She discussed how there existed numerous emerging technologies that could support the U.S.’s forecasting goals and listed ASVs, ocean gliders, drones, and advanced radar systems as examples of these technologies.
• She remarked that U.S. investments in these forecasting technologies would enable the U.S. to catch up to the EU and support U.S. economic growth.
  • She highlighted how solar and wind data was needed for renewable energy production, precipitation data was needed for agriculture production, water management analysis was needed for urban communities, and accurate weather predictions were needed for road, marine, and aviation transportation.

Full Committee Ranking Member Frank Lucas (R-OK):

• He remarked that the U.S.’s ability to provide accurate weather forecasts was dependent on its continued investments in weather forecasting resources and research of weather patterns.
  • He mentioned how the National Weather Center (NWC) was located in his state of Oklahoma and noted how the NWC convened representatives from NOAA and academia to conduct weather research.
• He also highlighted the work of the Oklahoma Mesonet, which provided real-time weather data for his state.
  • He commented that the Oklahoma Mesonet ought to serve as a model for other weather observation systems across the U.S.
• He mentioned how he had supported the Weather Research and Forecasting Innovation Act of 2017 (the Weather Act) and stated that this law had helped to redefine NOAA’s weather research priorities.
  • He also highlighted how the legislation had created a pilot program that directed the utilization of commercially purchased data in NOAA’s weather models.
• He noted how the Weather Act would need to be reauthorized before the end of September 2023 and commented that the current hearing would help to inform the reauthorization process.
• He then mentioned how Congress had directed the NOAA SAB in December 2020 to commission a report on future priorities in weather research and noted how the report contained many recommendations that ranged from improving earth system modeling to increasing NOAA’s computing capacity.
  • He stated that these recommendations ought to inform Congress’s upcoming efforts to reauthorize the Weather Act.

Witness Opening Statements:

Dr. Scott Glenn (Rutgers University):

• He discussed how over 150 subject matter experts across the U.S. Weather Enterprise had worked to produce the PWR Report.
  • He stated that the PWR Report’s recommendations were very pertinent given the increasing frequency of extreme weather events, the importance of leveraging weather information to support the U.S.’s economic competitiveness, and the importance of supporting equity and environmental justice.
• He mentioned how the PWR Report documented priority investments across the three pillars of the U.S. Weather Enterprise: observations and data assimilation, forecasting, and information delivery.
  • He noted that the PWR Report had identified 11 priority areas for investment, provided 33 recommendations and envisioned outcomes, and suggested 102 specific critical actions for achieving these goals.
• He highlighted how one of the narrative themes of the PWR Report was high impact weather and commented that hurricanes were an example of such weather.
  • He noted how hurricanes had caused more than $1 trillion in damage in the U.S. since 1980, which was more than all other weather and climate-related billion dollar disasters combined.
• He then discussed how disaster supplemental appropriations from Congress that supported hurricane observations and research and stated that the technologies stemming from this funding had led to a new understanding of how the atmosphere and ocean were coupled.
  • He commented that these observation and modeling improvements had been translated into operational systems for NOAA, the U.S. Coast Guard, and the U.S. Navy.
• He remarked that Congress must support NOAA’s continued transition to an earth system modeling approach and commented that this would require observing both the atmosphere and the ocean.
  • He further asserted that this approach would require HPC for operations and research, as well as collaboration across various offices and sectors.
• He lastly stated that hurricane forecasting in the U.S. had long benefited from federal investments in the Hurricane Forecast Improvement Program (HFIP) and suggested that a lack of support was limiting the Program’s success.

Dr. Bradley Colman (American Meteorological Society; Bayer & The Climate Corporation):

• He first thanked the Subcommittee for its support of the Weather Act and the National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) Reauthorization Act of 2018 and stated that these laws provided “critical groundwork” for the PWR Report’s priorities.
• He discussed how his company, Bayer, leveraged NOAA’s array of products and indicated that these products supplemented his company’s own data and in-house expertise to support their agriculture business.
• He remarked that the U.S. currently faced “sobering” weather-related statistics and noted how the U.S. was experiencing an uptick in billion dollar disasters and the loss of hundreds of Americans annually.
  • He commented that these problems were occurring despite improvements in weather forecasts and warnings.
• He stated that these improved weather forecasts benefited the public, transportation, and private industry and asserted that federal investments had helped to drive these improvements.
  • He specifically mentioned the WSR-88D radar network, next generation satellites, and the NWS’s Weather-Ready Nation program as examples of such improvements.
• He then mentioned how the PWR Report had identified ten actions that were essential to the success of any comprehensive federal investment plan.
• He noted that these ten actions fell into one of four areas: research and development (R&D), infrastructure, actions and impacts, and NOAA prioritization and investment.
  • He explained that R&D included data system modeling, data assimilation, and social and behavioral sciences.
• He remarked that there was a growing gap between the weather information produced and known by forecasters and the weather information that was understood and acted upon by the public and emergency management bodies.
  • He commented that addressing this gap was “especially critical” for historically underserved and socially vulnerable populations and asserted that investments in this area must be “significantly” increased.
• He noted how the PWR Report’s actions and impacts area included re-analysis and reforecasting, high impact weather, and water cycle extremes.
  • He commented that NOAA’s launch of its first earth system model could not be implemented without addressing re-analysis and reforecasting.
• He then discussed how NOAA had sometimes struggled to align internal priorities and partner with external groups, which had undermined the Agency’s overall impact.
• He contended that increased federal investments in the NOAA NWS Programs would “greatly” benefit from NOAA having improved methods to assess, balance, and evaluate such investments.
• He further remarked that NOAA would benefit from increased partnerships from the U.S. Weather Enterprise.
  • He stated that the private sector could provide otherwise unavailable data, products, and services to federal agencies, which would in turn accelerate research and innovation.

Dr. Frederick H. Carr (University of Oklahoma):

• He noted that while NWS weather forecasts were of high quality and provide great economic value, he remarked that these forecasts were not the best in the world.
  • He mentioned how some international weather modeling centers produce more accurate weather forecasts than the U.S. and asserted that the U.S. could improve its forecasting capabilities.
• He stated that the U.S. could improve its forecasts of all high impact weather phenomena through investments in increased observations of the earth
•  system, development of earth system models, and HPC.
  • He commented that these investments would enhance the skill of future forecast models, improve the guidance to weather forecasters, and result in greater public safety and protection of the U.S.’s infrastructure.
• He contended that the U.S. needed to maximize the use of underutilized observations to realize the benefits of already made investments.
  • He also stated that the U.S. needed to add observational capacity to increase the detail and accuracy of earth system measurements.
• He then discussed how earth system models were sophisticated forecast systems that considered the earth’s atmosphere, ocean, land surface, ice, air pollution, and other factors.
  • He noted how supercomputers projected these models forward in time to produce weather forecasts and seasonal outlooks.
• He called for current forecasting models to be upgraded to earth system models in order to enable more accurate forecasts on all time scales.
• He remarked that the U.S. should accelerate the development of earth system models through supporting research on the physical interactions between all of the various components of the models.
  • He commented that earth system models could not be used without first determining their biases and errors.
• He also stated that the U.S. must develop improved storm-scale models in order to forecast hurricanes, severe thunderstorms, tornadoes, wildfire evolutions, and storm surges.
  • He further called for continued investments in NOAA’s EPIC incentivize and support external partners to conduct research for improving NOAA’s weather forecast systems.
• He then discussed the important role that HPC played in supporting improvements in weather forecast skill and thanked Congress for its recent HPC allocations.
  • He lamented however that these allocations were often done via funding supplementals rather than through sustained annual investments.
• He also stated that research HPC capacity lagged operational HPC and asserted that research HPC capacity should be at least three times greater than operational HPC.
  • He further noted how U.S. HPC capacity was still behind other global weather prediction centers.
• He called for expanding U.S. HPC capacity by two orders of magnitude over the next decade.
  • He also stated that concomitant investments in storage, transmission, access, security, and software engineering workforce must be made as HPC capacity increases.
• He further asserted that NOAA must prepare for future HPC architectures, develop a “culture of rapid adaptation,” and train a skilled workforce.
• He lastly mentioned how six U.S. Department of Energy laboratories had already acquired or would soon acquire exascale computing systems and suggested that NOAA be allowed to make use of these systems.

Dr. Kevin R. Petty (Spire Global, Inc.):

• He recounted how the December 2021 Marshall Fire in Colorado had damaged his family’s home and stated that improvements in weather forecasting were needed to prevent similar future disasters.
• He remarked that the PWR Report was a “timely” and “exemplary” document that identifies and recommends investments for reducing the number and severity of high impact weather events.
  • He noted however that the PWR Report had acknowledged that the scope of its recommended investments was vast.
• He asserted that it would therefore be difficult for NOAA to make the material investments across all of the PWR Report’s priority areas and suggested that NOAA attempt to partner with both academia and the private sector to address these priority areas.
  • He highlighted how his company, Spire Global, had made significant investments that had led to the successful deployment of one of the world’s largest multi-purpose satellite constellations.
• He remarked that NOAA would continue to serve as a “cornerstone” of the U.S. Weather Enterprise and stated that NOAA served as a catalyst in driving research and forecast investments to mitigate the impacts of weather, water, and climate extremes.
• He called it “crucial” for NOAA’s investments to be strategic so that the U.S. could be a global leader in weather prediction.
  • He commented that forecast accuracy and reliability were the key drivers of downstream weather-related products, services, and solutions.
• He remarked that NOAA should recognize and carefully consider its limitations and formulate an R&D investment strategy that includes clear tradeoffs.
  • He stated that NOAA should seek to not replicate investments being made by other U.S. Weather Enterprise stakeholders.
• He contended that NOAA’s ability to effectively respond to the PWR Report’s recommendations was dependent on its ability to make strong and long-lasting partnerships.

Congressional Question Period:

Subcommittee Chairman Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ):

• Chairman Sherrill mentioned how the Northeast Regional Climate Center had predicted that precipitation would increase by as much as 50 percent by the end of the century. She commented that increased precipitation was already harming her constituents. She mentioned how she had introduced the Providing Research and Estimates of Changes In Precipitation (PRECIP) Act, which would direct NOAA to update out-of-date precipitation data. She indicated that the U.S. House of Representatives had passed this legislation. She also highlighted how NOAA’s Precipitation Prediction Grand Challenge (PPGC) initiative aimed to update weather models in order to provide timely and accurate forecasts that could inform decision making. She asked Dr. Colman to address how investments in NOAA’s weather research would assist the Agency’s efforts to update precipitation data. She also asked Dr. Colman to address how NOAA could collaborate with other members of the U.S. Weather Enterprise to ensure that this data reaches end users in a timely and accessible way.
  • Dr. Colman remarked that the return frequency and the shift in event probabilities were difficult to measure in light of climate change. He stated that there would need to occur a collaboration across various entities to measure these frequencies and probabilities. He remarked that re-analysis and reforecasting would play a key role in the U.S.’s move toward earth system modeling and explained that re-analysis and reforecasting would provide the U.S. with insights into the distribution and evolution of events.
• Chairman Sherrill then asked Dr. Colman and Dr. Glenn to address how advancing research related to total water levels would support improvements to weather forecasting overall. She also asked Dr. Colman and Dr. Glenn to address how supporting updates to probable maximum precipitation (PMP) and NOAA Atlas 14 estimates would relate to this work.
  • Dr. Glenn discussed how hurricanes and storms were traveling slower, which indicates that they have more water involved with them. He stated that improving weather forecasting models would require better precipitation observations. He remarked that slower moving storms, heavier rainfall, and stronger winds would result in more storm surges and flooding and commented that these trends were expected to adversely impact New Jersey.
• Chairman Sherrill then mentioned how many states (including New Jersey) were pursuing their own weather research initiatives. She asked Dr. Glenn to comment on how regional climate modeling could help communities and businesses to prepare and adapt to the extreme weather impacts of climate change.
  • Dr. Glenn remarked that there were several reasons for the rising of New Jersey’s sea levels, including the subsidence of land, changes in rainfall, and changes in storm frequency.

Subcommittee Ranking Member Stephanie Bice (R-OK):

• Ranking Member Bice stated that forecast models were only utilizing a small fraction of satellite-collected data. She asked Dr. Petty to discuss how the U.S. could extract more value from this “significant” amount of existing satellite-collected data.
  • Dr. Petty mentioned how the recent PWR Report had highlighted the importance of continued work on data assimilation. He remarked that data assimilation would help the U.S. to obtain an initial understanding of the current state of the atmosphere. He stated that investments in data assimilation would enable the U.S. to make better use of satellite observations. He also remarked that there existed opportunities to improve satellite observations and commented that these observations could address data gaps.
• Ranking Member Bice asked Dr. Petty to clarify whether private industry or academia would be better suited to pursue data assimilation efforts.
  • Dr. Petty expressed support for data assimilation efforts involving the public sector, the private sector, and academia. He mentioned how the Joint Effort for Data assimilation Integration (JEDI) initiative was working to convene various stakeholders from the public sector, the private sector, and academia to address the issue of data assimilation.
• Ranking Member Bice then indicated that she would soon introduce legislation to codify and expand the National Mesonet Program. She explained that this legislation would seek to encourage more states to build out or upgrade their mesonet systems. She asked Dr. Carr to address how having more mesonet observations supplement, improve, and add value to current satellite data.
  • Dr. Carr estimated that there were currently 30 states with mesonet systems and expressed support for efforts to support the establishment of mesonet systems in all 50 states. He noted that while most mesonet systems made extensive use of surface measurements, he indicated that these systems tended to lack atmospheric measurements. He contended that the U.S. needed to increase atmospheric measurements. He specifically called for adding vertical profiling networks to measure temperature, moisture, and wind in the lowest levels of the atmosphere.
• Ranking Member Bice then mentioned how NOAA was developing and releasing a user-friendly community earth system model. She also stated that NOAA was making progress in terms of setting up EPIC and commented that EPIC would help to leverage expertise across the U.S. Weather Enterprise. She asked the witnesses to address how academic institutions could leverage the community earth system model and EPIC for research and education purposes.
  • Dr. Carr stated that EPIC had been successful thus far and highlighted how EPIC had already awarded its first contract to Raytheon. He stated however that this Raytheon contract did not provide any funding to support outside stakeholder involvement in efforts to improve weather models. He asserted that private sector and academic partners would need funding to conduct necessary research to improve the weather models.

Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR):

• Rep. Bonamici discussed how climate change was causing weather events to increase in both frequency and severity. She mentioned how she had worked to pass the bipartisan Weather Act, which seeks to improve weather forecasting and increase federal weather coordination. She asked Dr. Glenn to discuss how improved weather forecasting could better prepare communities for severe weather events. She also asked Dr. Glenn to address how improved weather modeling could lead to an improved general understanding of the consequences of climate change.
  • Dr. Glenn remarked that the U.S. must improve how it communicated weather information to communities. He noted how the U.S. National Hurricane Center had called for improvements to the accuracy of ensemble models. He also discussed the importance of building trust between the U.S. National Hurricane Center and emergency managers so that the emergency managers could better choose which pieces of information should be communicated with the public during weather emergencies. He further called for funding research into best practices for communicating weather information to the public.
• Rep. Bonamici commented that it was important for weather-related messages to be clear and urgent. She then mentioned how Dr. Carr had called for immediate investments in the U.S.’s weather workforce. She asked Dr. Carr to discuss the existing pipeline for the U.S.’s weather workforce and to identify areas for additional federal investments. She further asked Dr. Carr to recommend actions that Congress could take to ensure that this workforce could be effectively mobilized during periods of crisis.
  • Dr. Carr remarked that the provision of weather research funding would support the development of a robust weather workforce. He elaborated that this research funding often supported the work of graduate students and post doctorates. He also stated that the U.S. needed software engineers to support weather projects and noted how software engineers tended to be very expensive for the U.S. government. He commented that NOAA could leverage EPIC to hire software engineers.
  • Dr. Petty remarked that weather research funding could be used to support private sector partnerships, which would support private sector internships. He stated that these internships could help to develop the future weather workforce.
• Rep. Bonamici lastly commented that HPC would play a key role in supporting weather-related research.

Full Committee Ranking Member Frank Lucas (R-OK):

• Ranking Member Lucas noted how the Committee would need to reauthorize the Weather Act during the next Congress. He asked the witnesses to provide recommendations for the Committee to consider for its upcoming reauthorization effort.
  • Dr. Petty recommended that the Committee work to enhance weather observations. He specifically called for enhanced observations of the atmospheric boundary layer and commented that the U.S. currently lacked data on the boundary layer.
  • Dr. Glenn also recommended that the Committee focus on enhancing earth system observations. He stated that many observation systems were incomplete and specifically highlighted how the ocean observing networks were incomplete. He called on the U.S. to address these incomplete observation systems.
  • Dr. Colman discussed the importance of bolstering the U.S.’s informational delivery capabilities. He stated that there existed a difference between the outputs of the U.S.’s weather models and the weather information that the public received. He called for investments into behavioral and social sciences so that the U.S. could ensure that its weather findings were being effectively communicated to the public.
  • Dr. Carr remarked that HPC would be foundational to receiving more observations, enhancing the sophistication of weather models, improving data assimilation, and increasing resolution.
• Ranking Member Lucas asked Dr. Carr to explain why the U.S. currently lacked the necessary HPC to support its weather forecasting capabilities.
  • Dr. Carr noted how the procurement process tended to be lengthy, which meant that there tended to exist more advanced HPC systems available once the U.S. had already finished implementing a new HPC system for weather forecasting. He mentioned however that the U.S. Department of Energy laboratories possessed exascale computing systems and suggested that NOAA should be empowered to develop exascale computing capacity. He commented that the development of such exascale computing capacity would require resources.

Subcommittee Chairman Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ):

• Chairman Sherrill asked Dr. Carr to elaborate on his comments regarding underutilized weather observations. She also asked Dr. Carr and Dr. Glenn to discuss the challenges associated with relying on supplemental funding for research.
  • Dr. Carr noted how there were a “tremendous” amount of surface network observations and highlighted how many of these observations were not associated with the federal government. He mentioned how the National Mesonet Program was working to gather these observations from state and local governments.
• Chairman Sherrill interjected to note that a lot of the weather observations from the private sector were proprietary in nature. She asked Dr. Carr to indicate whether private sector weather observations could be shared with the federal government.
  • Dr. Carr indicated that the private sector was already sharing its weather observations with the U.S. government and highlighted how NOAA relied entirely on private sector sources for lightning information. He also mentioned how the National Mesonet Program was working to purchase surface data from the private sector. He then discussed how existing weather models could not use all of the satellite weather data being produced. He stated that these models had to become more efficient in using this data. He lastly remarked that while supplemental funding helped to bolster U.S. weather research capabilities, he stated that supplemental funding could not support long-term planning.
  • Dr. Glenn discussed how the supplemental funding stemming from Hurricane Sandy had supported the replacement of damaged infrastructure and the deployment of gliders. He also noted how this supplemental funding had supported basic research that was now being operationalized. He raised concerns however that supplemental funding was currently being used to support many critical operations. He noted how the U.S. was currently in between supplemental funding packages and commented that this situation will reduce the U.S.’s disaster response capabilities.

Subcommittee Ranking Member Stephanie Bice (R-OK):

• Ranking Member Bice discussed how the NWC in Norman, Oklahoma had convened numerous elements of the U.S. Weather Enterprise, including NOAA, researchers, academia, forecasters, and the Oklahoma Mesonet. She asked Dr. Carr to discuss how this model of convening multiple elements of the U.S. Weather Enterprise had led to better research.
  • Dr. Carr noted how the NWC contained 11 weather entities, including a school of meteorology. He stated that having a school of meteorology at the NWC provided important educational, networking, and research opportunities for the school’s students.
• Ranking Member Bice asked Dr. Carr to address whether the NWC could serve as a model for future weather research.
  • Dr. Carr answered affirmatively. He stated that other universities had adopted similar models to the NWC and recommended that Congress support these types of models.