# Presentation: 692004

## Status ofNERON/HCN-MforThe Committee for Climate Analysis, Monitoring, and Services (CCAMS) 

**John Hahn**
**NWS Office of Science and Technology**

## General Overview – Program Description

- HCN-M evolved from the former NERON (NOAA Environmental Real Time Observing Network Program).
- NERON was redirected by the NEP to modernize the  Historical Climate Network (HCN-M)
- HCN-M will sustain the Nation’s regional temperature and precipitation climate record
- Modernize 1,000 of the existing 1,221 HCN stations to collect temperature and precipitation data through automation
- Provide for expansion capacity to collect other data sets (e.g., National Integrated Drought Information System, NIDIS, dataset)
- Address the gaps in the HCN including: data quality, data availability, and aging technology
- The *primary requirement* for the HCN is to *produce quality climate observations* for sustaining the nation’s regional climate record in support of monitoring and assessment of the surface climate.

## General Overview – HCN Today

- _Current Capabilities_
- The HCN is an NWS operated sub-network of COOP stations** **
- Network created to compile data suitable for detecting and monitoring regional climate variability
- Stations must have >80 years of continuous data record with the majority having >100 years
- 1,221 stations identified by NCDC
- Observations
- Daily observations of Temperature and Precipitation recorded manually by volunteers
- NCDC publishes data within 30-90 days
- Uses
- Climate assessments, state of the climate reports, and commercial sector
- Specialized scientific analyses

- _Gaps_
- Data quality
- Attrition of current volunteers 1
- Manual process susceptible to human errors in observing and documentation1
- Significant number of stations no longer meet siting requirements due to overgrowth and urbanization 2
- Data availability
- Due to manual process, not available for up to 90 days1
- Technology
- Aging equipment and maintenance issues 1
- Not expandable to cost effectively add new sensors 1
** **

- 1  	National Research Council. 1998. *Toward a New National Weather Service.  Future of the National Weather Service Cooperative Observer Network. Washington, D.C. pp. 12-18*
- 2 	Christopher A. Davey and Roger A. Pielke Sr.. 2005: *Microclimate Exposures of Surface-Based Weather Stations: Implications For The Assessment of Long-Term Temperature Trends.* /Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society/: Vol. 86, No. 4, pp. 497–504

## General Overview –  Key Customers and Stakeholders

- Internal
**NCDC climate record archive**
**OAR analyses and NIDIS Project**
**NWS climate products and services**
- External
**U.S. Departments Agriculture and Interior (Stakeholders)**
**Private, Public and Academic members of the weather enterprise communities **
- State climatologists
- Consulting meteorologists and climatologists
- Design standards community (e.g., engineering, construction, energy)
- Water resource managers

## General Overview –Draft Locations for HCN-M Sites

## Overview of Project

- Project will follow the OSIP and NOAA KDP processes as a Major Project.
- Level 1 Requirements Document defines the scope.
- Developed through collaboration between NESDIS/NCDC, NWS/OCWWS, OOS and OS&T.
- Delivered to NOSC for review and comment.
- Climate is the focus (climate requirements are primary)
- Input from all primary stakeholders is required for success
- Climate Community in NOAA (NCDC, CPC, OCWWS/CSD)
- Regions

## Level 1 Requirements Document (Final Draft)

**Level 1 document distributed to NOSC for review on September 28, 2007**
**HCN-M consists of 1000 sites for the purpose of automation of air temperature and precipitation observations and transmittal**
**5 minute collections of temperature (+/- 1 deg) & precipitation (+/- .02 in)**
**Minimum daily transmittal of data**
**Design for expansion (snow, soil moisture, etc.)**
**Raw data distributed to MADIS *****and***** NCDC**

## Performance Metric

- The performance of HCN-M will be measured by the improvement in the
-       percentage of the explained variance of both regional temperature and
-       precipitation.
- The target is to have 95% variance explained for temperature and precipitation with the completion of ~1,000 sites. The following table demonstrates the relationship between the number of sites and the expected improvement in the performance measures.

## Project Schedule

**Jan 07**

**Jan 08**

**Sep 08**

**Sep 09**

**OSIP Gate 1 Complete**

**OSIP Gate 2 Complete**

**OSIP Gate 3 **
**Complete**

**OSIP Gate 4**
**Complete**

**Stage 4: Acquisition Plan**

**Stage 3: Recommend Solution**

**Stage 2: Alternatives & Develop Plan**

**Stage 1:**
**Identify Need**

- Project Planning Documents

- Cost Benefit Analysis

- System Design

- Dev Transition Strategy

- Dev Acquisition Plan

- Completion

- Establish IWT

- Develop ConOps

- Develop RFI

- Initiate Site Surveys

- Acquisition Strategy

- Site Surveys

- Dev O&M Plan

## Next Steps

- Continue  the OSIP process and KDP Gate reviews
- KDP 2 January 2008
- KDP 3 September 2008
- Develop Acquisitions Strategy and Plan for Site Surveys
- Work with SCC/RCCs to investigate their conducting  site surveys and compiling meta data
- Finalize the Integrated Work Team
- Conduct Risk Assessment and develop Risk Management Plan
- Develop WBS, Project Milestones and Schedule for FY08