# Presentation: 401326

## From Technology Innovation To Scientific Stewardship

- Vice Admiral Conrad C. Lautenbacher, Jr., U.S. Navy (Ret.)
- Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans & Atmosphere
- WVHTC Foundation Roundtable
- April 13, 2007

- NOAA’s Linkages to West Virginia

**Notes:**
Thank you for the kind introduction, Representative Mollohan.  I appreciate that you invited me to speak to this esteemed group of technology leaders in your state.
Thank you to the West Virginia High Technology Consortium Foundation for hosting us here today.  Many thanks to Chairman Jim Estep for his efforts.
I am happy to be here to discuss NOAA’s work, its role in West Virginia, and the global impact of our work together.  NOAA uses science and technology to achieve our mission, and WV has a role in that effort.

## Slide 2

- From Technology Innovation To Scientific Stewardship: NOAA's Linkages to West Virginia

**Notes:**
The breadth of NOAA’s mission – These are some of examples of what NOAA does on a daily basis...
(descriptions of pictures from top to bottom)
Beach scene represents NOS and coastal management
Satellite view of Earth represents NOAA
Argo float deployment represents OAR
Aquaculture represents NMFS
Stormy weather represents NWS 
P3 plane represents NMAO

## How do we carry out our Mission? 

- How do we carry out our Mission?

- People/ Research
- Aircraft & Ships
- Satellites...

- From Technology Innovation To Scientific Stewardship: NOAA's Linkages to West Virginia

**Notes:**
Each of the dots on this map represent NOAA people and facilities across the country.
NOAA has a broad range of resources across the country – from its diversely skilled staff to its ships and airplanes to its research capabilities in the ocean and atmosphere, its satellites, and so much more...
NOAA is spread throughout our nation... we are in every state and territory from Maine to Guam.  NOAA’s mandate also covers the nation’s vast oceans and lakes.
West Virginia plays a meaningful role in how we accomplish our mission.

## NOAA in West Virginia

- NOAA has Federal Employees and several contractors providing support and services to NOAA
- National Weather Service Forecast Office, Charleston
- National Weather Service Back up Supercomputer, Fairmont
- NOAA Research, Air Resources Laboratory and Canaan Valley Institute Partnerships
- Climate Data Modernization Program
- Comprehensive Large Array-data Stewardship System

- From Technology Innovation To Scientific Stewardship: NOAA's Linkages to West Virginia

**Notes:**
While NOAA only has a few federal employees in West Virginia (29), NOAA has several contracts with WV businesses to provide services to field offices and to support research activities in the state.
Here’s a list of how NOAA is engaged in West Virginia – which I will detail in the next few slides.

## Aquaculture and West Virginia

- Commerce Secretary Gutierrez visited a WV fish hatchery yesterday, this hatchery produces safe seafood for U.S. consumers
- U.S. has an $8 billion seafood trade deficit
- 81% of the seafood consumed in the U.S. is imported and _40% of those imports are farmed_
- Need more U.S. aquaculture, both                             coastal and inland, to meet                                   growing demand for seafood
- NOAA investments in aquaculture                                   are coastal and offshore in the                                  open ocean

- Offshore aquaculture cages, raised for inspection.  Kona, Hawaii

- From Technology Innovation To Scientific Stewardship: NOAA's Linkages to West Virginia

**Notes:**
Secretary Gutierrez visited the Mingo County fish hatchery yesterday.  The hatchery uses water from a redeveloped coal mine to hatch Arctic Char, a cold water fish species with significant market potential.  
The hatchery has a capacity equivalent to more than two million pounds of saleable products each year.  
The U.S. has an $8 billion seafood trade deficit and is largely dependant on farmed seafood imported from other nations to meet our domestic demand.  West Virginia companies are helping meet the demand.  
The U.S. aquaculture industry is about $1 billion but, the Administration and NOAA hope to expand that number by allowing open ocean aquaculture in Federal waters beyond three miles.
NOAA has made significant investments for research on the culture of coastal and offshore shellfish, finfish, ornamental species, corals, and other marine species.  The Administration has released its National Offshore Aquaculture Act of 2007, a bill to establish a regulatory framework for safe, sustainable marine aquaculture operations in Federal waters. 

Picture Caption:  Offshore aquaculture cages are raised to the surface for inspection at the Kona Blue Water Farm in Hawaii.  The company raises Kona Kampachi, a native species, for commercial sale.  

## Department of Commerce activities in West Virginia

- The Department of Commerce and EDA also are proud to have partnered with various organizations throughout West Virginia to promote economic development.
- Since 2001, EDA has awarded 120 investments totaling almost $48.2 million in West Virginia.
- These investments are predicted to lead to over $786 million in private sector investments which are expected to generate nearly 9,700 new jobs, and be a major catalyst in transforming West Virginia's economy.

- From Technology Innovation To Scientific Stewardship: NOAA's Linkages to West Virginia

## Weather and climate related events affect 1/3 of the GNP, including every segment of our economy
NOAA relies on supercomputers to provide the nation with continuous up-to-date forecasts
Forecasts are based on complex weather/climate models, requiring intensive calculations
Back up system in Fairmont fulfilled its mission during February 16, 2007 incident...

- NOAA relies on supercomputers to provide the nation with continuous up-to-date forecasts
- Forecasts are based on complex weather/climate models, requiring intensive calculations
- Back up system in Fairmont fulfilled its mission during February 16, 2007 incident...

- NWS Fairmont Back UpSupercomputer

- From Technology Innovation To Scientific Stewardship: NOAA's Linkages to West Virginia

**Notes:**
At approximately 3:00 PM local on Friday, 16 February the National Weather Service Primary Central Computer System suffered a failure of its disk system in the suburbs of Washington, DC.   This computer is responsible for the core of NOAA’s weather modeling operations – that supports weather forecasting across the country.   
Due to the strong reliability of the backup system in Fairmont, WV, within 12 minutes, NOAA’s weather models were up and running again.  This was possible thanks to the strong backup system located across the street from this facility.  
Without the success of the backup system, NOAA’s weather modeling operations would have been down for 6 hours, causing delays for weather data users here in the U.S. and abroad.  This could have caused degraded afternoon and evening forecasts, and impacted the accuracy with which forecasters could predict the path of severe weather.
In addition, the aviation community relies heavily on this weather information. Delays in that data can pose risks and impact aviation operations worldwide. 
Some facts about the computers:
Gaithersburg and Fairmont Operations
14 Tflops Linpack sustained per system
144 Power 5+ Nodes
2,304 processors (16 per node), 1.9 gigahertz speed) 
4,608 gigabytes of shared memory 
150 terabytes of disk space
75 terabyte tape archive

## Climate Monitoring

- NOAA’S Air Resources Laboratory: Air quality research and monitoring
- Acid deposition; nitrogen deposition
- Ambient ozone levels
- Acid deposition:
- Significant source of acidification in watersheds; excess nitrogen may cause a shift in natural balance of plant and animal life, leading to depleted levels of oxygen in lakes and streams
- Ozone:
- A powerful oxidizer, can damage plant and lung tissue

- Climate Station in WV Elkins, Canaan Valley Resort State Park (Cabins Area)

- From Technology Innovation To Scientific Stewardship: NOAA's Linkages to West Virginia

**Notes:**
(Canaan = kuh-NANE (sounds like ‘insane’))
NOAA has an important role in climate monitoring for the Nation.  NOAA seeks to understand and describe climate variability and change to enhance society's ability to plan and respond.
The Mid-Atlantic region is known to be adversely impacted by the atmospheric deposition of pollutants. 
The NOAA-ARL / CVI measurements in Canaan Valley are important because:
They are typically the only network measurements of their kind in the region, providing a key role in filling what would be “holes” in several critical monitoring networks
They provide high-quality data that helps advance scientific understanding of climate change and other issues, on local, regional, national, and global scales
The mid-Atlantic Highlands is an important ecosystem, with a number of potentially significant environmental impacts 

## NOAA Air Resources Laboratory Canaan Valley Institute Research Collaboration

- National Atmospheric Deposition Program (NADP-AIRMoN)
- Global Energy Water Cycle Experiment (GEWEX)
- FLUXNET

- Climate Reference Network (NOAA-CRN)
- Atmospheric Mercury Research
- Periodic Intensive Field Studies

- From Technology Innovation To Scientific Stewardship: NOAA's Linkages to West Virginia

**Notes:**
Highlighted here are several critical NOAA Research programs that rely on West Virginia data and partnerships. 
National Atmospheric Deposition Program – AIRMoN subnetwork
Measures wet deposition of major ions (e.g., Soil and stream acidification). The AIRMoN subnetwork of NADP is a small collection of sites providing research grade measurements and these sites also serve as a research/development testbeds for network improvement
Measures wet deposition of major ions (e.g., Soil and stream acidification )
Global Energy Water Cycle Experiment (GEWEX)
Through a partnership with CVI and USFWS is part of international network observing energy and water exchange (highlighted in slide graphic).
Part of international network observing energy and water exchange.
FLUXNET
Is part of national and international network observing energy, water and CO2 exchange. 
Part of national and int’l network measuring energy, water and CO2 exchange. 
Climate Reference Network (CRN)
Through partnership with CVI and Canaan Valley State Park is part of the NOAA CRN network.
Part of network measuring temperature and precipitation
Atmospheric Mercury Research
Measurements of atmospheric mercury concentrations, and wet and dry deposition of mercury  
Periodic Intensive Field Studies
Periodic intensive studies focusing on pollutant deposition to mid-Atlantic Highlands. Periodic intensive studies focusing on pollutant deposition to mid-Atlantic Highlands.

## Climate Reporting Through History

- Jefferson’s Weather Observations
- July 1776

- Ozonesonde Launch—South Pole
- April 2005

- El Nino Visualized
- December 1997

- CarbonTracker
- March 2007

- From Technology Innovation To Scientific Stewardship: NOAA's Linkages to West Virginia

**Notes:**
When you read in your local newspaper or see on your local news, that last month was the warmest on record – that information is coming from NOAA.
Those news stories, together with the more and more frequent news about climate, all rely on climate data and observations over time for their accuracy.  NOAA takes many environmental observations today, but also relies on observations made in the past.
Weather observations have been recorded for centuries – and they are playing an increasing role in NOAA’s overall climate data record.  
Ranging from Jefferson’s weather observations from the late 1700s – leading to his creation of the first part of NOAA in 1807, observations continue to play a critical role in environmental prediction.

## Climate Data Modernization Program (CDMP)

- Preserving historical weather and climate records electronically
- Enables first-time access by scientific community
- Allows data to be used within climate assessments
- Preserves global records that may have been lost forever if left on paper
**WV–a key partner in CDMP**

- 1842 Hourly Weather Data from Washington, DC Imaged & Digitized through CDMP

- From Technology Innovation To Scientific Stewardship: NOAA's Linkages to West Virginia

**Notes:**
It is NOAA’s job to maintain climate data records – and a critical role is to ensure that climate records are modernized.
Since many of the records in the past were kept on paper, preserving them has been a challenge.
Therefore, through the Climate Data Modernization Program (CDMP), NOAA is preserving historical weather records electronically.
This enables the scientific community to access them for the first time.
Allows data to be used more readily
Preserves global records that could have been lost forever.
WV plays a key role in the ongoing success of this program.

## WV & CDMP: Results with Impact

- Data Management Activities
- Preserving and rescuing historical records
- Ingesting newly observed data
- Processing data (Quality Control)
- Maintaining a long term and secure archive for data
- Maintaining metadata (station location changes, sensor calibration coefficients, data formats, many others)
- Providing Access to data collected

- West Virginia partnership activities

- From Technology Innovation To Scientific Stewardship: NOAA's Linkages to West Virginia

**Notes:**
This slide shows the broad range of the work done on this program in WV.  
This program – and the work done in WV – plays a significant role in sustaining the historical climate data record.
As a result of this program, there are now:
Fifty million climate & environmental images online
Hundreds of million of records digitized & online
International data access and rescue activities
Climate change has no political boundaries
Over 7,000 gigabytes of climate data now available to support the U.S. economy and produce climate change assessments

## Next Generation Satellites

- Satellites are critical to NOAA’s current and future ability to fulfill our Mission
- GOES-R:			NPOESS:

- Geostationary Operational  Environmental Satellite-R

- National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System

- From Technology Innovation To Scientific Stewardship: NOAA's Linkages to West Virginia

**Notes:**
(This slide starts the transition from highlighting the current programs of NOAA in WV – to highlighting the future of NOAA.)
Much of the future of NOAA lies in its next generation satellites – and broad range of weather data these systems will bring to ensure that environmental prediction continues to improve.
These satellites not only bring weather data – but advanced climate, ocean and atmospheric capabilities that will enhance our ability to predict environmental hazards.
GOES satellites produce the photos that you are accustomed to seeing on the nightly news.  They produce the images that help to enable to predict severe storms across the nation.
POES satellites provide data that contributes to NOAA’s environmental models.

## Future of Data Archiving

- New satellites will generate a **10-fold** increase in the amount of information seen today.
- Information must be archived in order to be useful to society
- Requires a concerted effort of data archiving:
- Comprehensive Large Array-data Stewardship System (CLASS)
- An advanced electronic library of NOAA’s next generation environmental satellite data.

**Archive growth **
**1990 - 2005**

**Major systems archive growth 2000 - 2015**

- From Technology Innovation To Scientific Stewardship: NOAA's Linkages to West Virginia

**Notes:**
With advanced satellite systems comes advanced data – lots of data.  Actually, we are expected to have a ten-fold increase in data with our new systems.  
To be able to manage this extent of new data – and to be able to ease access for users for the years to come – NOAA is developing a system that represents the future of data archiving – CLASS or the Comprehensive Large Array-data Stewardship System.  
CLASS is the premiere web-based data archive and distribution center for data from NOAA’s satellite systems.
WV has a role in CLASS’ ongoing operation and development.

CHARTS
TOP: Archive growth rates are accelerating, as new systems come on line.  NOAA archives experience a steady growth in digital data, increasing at an average rate of nearly 20 %/year; Archive growth during the 1990s and 15-year projected archive growth. SOURCE: NOAA, 2001, The Nation’s Environmental Data: Treasures at Risk, Report to Congress on the Status and Challenges for NOAA’s Environmental Data Systems (A. Hittelman and I. Hakkarinen, eds.) 
BOTTOM: Archives are expected to grow at approximately 1.2 petabytes (1 petabyte = 1 quadrillion bytes) per year.  NOAA’s total archive, entering the 21st Century, was less than 1.2 petabytes; Major systems archive growth from 2000 to 2015. SOURCE: NOAA, 2001, The Nation’s Environmental Data: Treasures at Risk, Report to Congress on the Status and Challenges for NOAA’s Environmental Data Systems (A. Hittelman and I. Hakkarinen, eds.) 

## The Future of Environmental Data Access

- NOAA is the world’s repository for environmental information
- CLASS is critical to the ongoing success of NOAA’s data centers and                     access to NOAA satellite                         data:
- National Climatic Data Center
- National Geophysical Data Center
- National Oceanic Data Center
- National Coastal Data Development Center

- Companies in West Virginia provide CLASS development support since 2002

- From Technology Innovation To Scientific Stewardship: NOAA's Linkages to West Virginia

**Notes:**
NOAA is the world’s repository for the environmental information.
NOAA’s data centers are the “Libraries of Congress” for scientific data.
WV industry is making a key contribution to CLASS – both now and for its development in the future
GST-WV CLASS Funding and Staffing Total Funding Since May 2002: $23,503,174.26 FY06: $4,983,517.78 FY07: $4,712,138.40 (includes funding for new extension contract) Total Staff (including subcontractors): 39.75 FTEs 
(Please note that the CLASS RFP was issued on March 27, 2007 – and we are currently in a blackout period that does not enable us to discuss issues related to CLASS with firms that may apply for the contract.)

## Benefits of Innovation & Stewardship

- Provide the right information,
- in the right format,
- at the right time,
- to the right people,
- to make the right
- decisions.

- From Technology Innovation To Scientific Stewardship: NOAA's Linkages to West Virginia

**Notes:**
The work of NOAA – and its contractors here in WV – is devoted to information – and making it accessible to those who need it – to make decisions, to support the economy, etc.
The value of NOAA does not come just through its science and technology – but through the application of its S&T to bring societal and economic benefits to global citizens.  It all comes down to how we use the tools to bring the benefits of environmental data and information to the Nation’s citizens every day.

## Questions?

**Notes:**
Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today.
I would be happy to take questions.

## Backup Material

## Canaan Valley AIRMoN Wet Deposition Site (measures wet deposition of major ions, e.g., “acid rain”)

- Collection of
- precipitation for
- chemical analysis

- Measurement
- of precipitation
- amount

- Canaan Valley AIRMoN Wet Deposition Site (measures wet deposition of major ions, e.g., “acid rain”)

- From Technology Innovation To Scientific Stewardship: NOAA's Linkages to West Virginia

## Canaan Valley GEWEX and FLUXNET Site(measures surface energy balance and surface exchange ofCO2 and water vapor, relevant for climate change research)

- GEWEX
- and FLUXNET

- short-term intensive experiment measuring ozone fluxes

- Canaan Valley GEWEX and FLUXNET Site(measures surface energy balance and surface exchange ofCO2 and water vapor, relevant for climate change research)

- From Technology Innovation To Scientific Stewardship: NOAA's Linkages to West Virginia

## Canaan Valley Climate Reference Network (CRN) Site (benchmark station measuring temperature, relative humidity and precipitation, providing data for climate change research)

- Measurement
- of precipitation

- Measurement
- of temperature

- Canaan Valley Climate Reference Network (CRN) Site (benchmark station measuring temperature, relative humidity and precipitation, providing data for climate change research)

- From Technology Innovation To Scientific Stewardship: NOAA's Linkages to West Virginia

**Notes:**
The fence is around the precipitation measurement system, so that rain and snow do not blow in from the side. The objective is to measure the precipitation falling down “directly” from the sky, rather than that blowing in from the side...

The temperature measurements are made in the three “mushroom-shaped” objects about 1⁄4 of the way up the tower. They are “aspirated shields” to protect the sensors from bias caused by direct sunlight, etc. At the top of the tower, there is a windmill that used to provide power for the site. 

In the middle of the picture (between the two measurements indicated), there is a solar panel that provides power for the site. 

## Slide 22

- From Technology Innovation To Scientific Stewardship: NOAA's Linkages to West Virginia

## Slide 23

- From Technology Innovation To Scientific Stewardship: NOAA's Linkages to West Virginia

## Underground bunker at GEWEX-FLUXNET-AIRMoN site where on-site chemical analysis is done

- Underground bunker at GEWEX-FLUXNET-AIRMoN site where on-site chemical analysis is done

- From Technology Innovation To Scientific Stewardship: NOAA's Linkages to West Virginia

## Slide 25

- From Technology Innovation To Scientific Stewardship: NOAA's Linkages to West Virginia

**Notes:**
Purpose of slide:
To describe NOAA’s global mandate – its role in a range of issues from sun to salmon.
Mission Goals on left: Detail more of the specifics of NOAA’s work – each of the areas.  Focus should be on climate, weather and water – and link to the other pieces of the Strat plan – our effort for scientific data stewardship, etc.
-----------------------
Speaker notes from a previous talk using this slide:
I would like to start with a reminder of what NOAA’s vision is  - and that is – 

an informed society that uses a comprehensive understanding of the role of the oceans, coasts, and atmosphere in the global ecosystem to make the best social and economic decisions 

Information that NOAA provides to our nation and the world is derived from our observations – observations that NOAA makes every day 

– and that is not just hardware and software that is in the ocean or in the sky 

– what I would like to emphasize that it is data collected to how the data is interpreted to how it is presented.

##  Production Management Branch

- Government responsible for job flow
- IBM responsible for providing 99% System Availability
- System Administration staff
- On-site repairs
- Software support (Operating system, Cluster System Management, file system, job scheduler, compilers)
- Weather and Climate forecast codes
- Developed by the Government
- Performance tuning by IBM

- NWS Supercomputing System: “Frost” and “Snow”

- From Technology Innovation To Scientific Stewardship: NOAA's Linkages to West Virginia

## High Performance Computing Technology

- Gaithersburg and Fairmont Operations
- 14 Tflops Linpack sustained per system
- 144 Power 5+ Nodes
- 2,304 processors (16 per node), 1.9 gigahertz speed)
- 4,608 gigabytes of shared memory
- 150 terabytes of disk space
- 75 terabyte tape archive

- From Technology Innovation To Scientific Stewardship: NOAA's Linkages to West Virginia

## Product Generation PerformanceHighly Dependable & Reliable

- Product Generation PerformanceHighly Dependable & Reliable

- From Technology Innovation To Scientific Stewardship: NOAA's Linkages to West Virginia

**Notes:**
The reliability with which NCO generates products has been extremely high since all processing was transferred to the IBM SP.  
There was a dramatic improvement in OOS pickup time when the Phase II upgrade was installed, followed by a decline as data loading increased due to higher resolution models and longer forecasts.  However, this pickup time is now improving dramatically with the installation of higher bandwidth communications links.