# Presentation: 328506

## Navy Meteorology and Oceanography Support for Homeland Security

- Thomas J. Cuff
- Deputy Technical Director
- Oceanographer of the Navy
- 28 November 2001

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## How do we do it?

- Partner with other entities:
- NOAA/NWS; NESDIS; NOS
- DOD/U.S. Air Force Weather; Army Corps of Engineers
- Office of the Federal Coordinator for Meteorology
- Industry (*e.g. *The Weather Channel)
- Develop organic capabilities:
- Office of Naval Research: funds academia
- Navy Research Laboratory: Navy’s “Corporate Lab”
- Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command: demonstrate, test, and field new capabilities
- Industry

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## Navy METOC Support for Homeland Security (HLS)

- Functional lead roles identified for Navy METOC centers*:
- Mesoscale Modeling: Fleet Numerical METOC Center, Monterey, CA.
- Ocean Modeling/Mine Warfare Support: Naval Oceanographic Office, Stennis Space Center, MS.
- WMD consequence management & liaison with Defense Threat Reduction Agency: Naval Atlantic METOC Center, Norfolk,VA.

- * Commander, Naval METOC Command message, 18 Sep 2001

## What needs to be done?

- Enhance awareness of available METOC support and its application to Homeland Security.
- Inventory available products _and the national capacity_ for meeting known *and anticipated *requirements.
- Identify and prioritize operational weather and ocean support requirements.
- Balance CONUS and overseas METOC requirements against available interagency DoC and DoD resources.
- Determine and fund most urgent R&D needs.

## Context for METOC Support

- DoD operational METOC responsibilities for Operations Noble Eagle and Enduring Freedom are identified:
- NORAD and JFCOM Staff METOC Officers
- Anticipation that as planning for homeland security accelerates, requirements will grow.
- Other than NOAA, most Federal agency roles are focused on incident response, not routine support.

- * NORAD: North American Aerospace Defense Command; bi-national United States and Canadian organization* JFCOM: U.S. Joint Forces Command

## Navy METOC Support to HLS

- Baseline data collection in priority ports and strategic waterways.
- NOAA responsibility.
- Increased Fleet priority resulting in NOAA/Navy/Army Corps cooperative effort.
- Support for atmospheric WMD dispersion models.
- Navy responsibility to support JFCOM, National Weather Service for civil agencies. *We both need to give same answer.*
- Modeling waterborne contaminant dispersion.
- NOAA responsibility in U.S. waters; Navy already running operational ocean models.

## Key Navy HLS Capabilities

- Observations
- Oceans: Oceanographic survey fleet, single and multi-beam depth measurements, digital side-scan imagery, tidal stations, bottom-mounted current profilers, etc.
- Atmosphere: potential for extracting weather data/chem-bio information from Navy AEGIS radar when operating in U.S. waters.

## Key Navy HLS Capabilities

- Predictions
- Atmosphere/Weather:
- Global Model (NOGAPS): 81 km/28 levels, soon 50 km/50 levels.
- Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere Mesoscale Prediction System (COAMPS): Triple-nested, 27/9/3 km, 30-50 vertical levels.
- Atmosphere/Chemistry:
- WMD dispersion predictions (HPAC) to support Joint Forces Command

## Key Navy HLS Capabilities

- Predictions
- Ocean:
- Global ocean model, 5 km resolution/6 vertical layers.
- Mesoscale models, 200-6000 m resolution/20 vertical levels; mix of 2-D and 3-D models, run over 17 locations worldwide.
- Wave models (global – 1o/mesoscale – 12 ́ to 1 ́)
- Various satellite-derived and other products, tailored to meet Navy mission needs.

## Interagency Relationships

- Naval Deputy to NOAA
- Navy’s global model in NCEP ensemble.
- National Hurricane Center provides hurricane forecasts for Navy’s 2nd and 3rd Fleet activities.
- WAVEWATCH III model.
- WMO data (via NWS Telecommunications Gateway).
- Navy buoy deployments support Navy and NOAA models.
- NPOESS: Navy currently chairs Senior Users Advisory Group for national converged polar-orbiting satellite program.

## Interservice Relationships

- Air Force Weather:
- Space Weather products and real-time cloud depiction analyses and forecasts.
- Joint Typhoon Warning Center (Navy/USAF) provides forecasts for U.S. interests in western Pacific and Indian Oceans.
- Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP).
- Global numerical weather model data (NOGAPS).
- Exchange of mesoscale model databases.

## Interagency Relationships

- NAVOCEANO/NOS/USACE agreement (15-16 Oct):
- Conduct cooperative surveys in U.S. waters to meet Navy’s requirements for harbor surveys.
- Explore ocean modeling cooperation to support waterborne hazard predictions.
- Investigate associated data networking, processing, and storage issues.

## Support and Backup

- Fleet Numerical METOC Center back-up site for NCEP global models.
- Navy use of NCEP, AFWA model data as back-up.
- NAVOCEANO/NODC data exchange.
- National Ice Center: backed-up by Canada.
- Navy METOC centers have established back-up capabilities.

## Near-term Challenges

- On the fidelity of high-resolution mesoscale atmospheric models to feed WMD models:
- What’s good enough?
- Weather model validation – how good are they?
- WMD VV&A
- Ensure DoD and NOAA weather model fields are fully “exchangeable”
- Near-shore estuarine models need lots of R&D.