# Presentation: 271261

## Realizing NOAA’s Potential:Promoting a Society Fully Invested in the Environment Richard W. Spinrad, Ph.D.Assistant Administrator, OARNational Oceanic & Atmospheric AdministrationAugust 31, 2006

**Notes:**
Introduced by:  Eddie Ribas

Photo Credits:
NOAA Stock – Cracked Earth; NOAA Stock – Forest Fire;  NOAA Stock – Hurricane Fran; NOAA Stock – Richmond, VA Flooding

##   NOAA is Unique

** **** ****NOAA is Unique**

**Notes:**
Main Message:  NOAA is unique among federal agencies.  No other federal agencies has our depth and breadth of people and capabilities.  Where else can fisheries biologists alongside a uniformed officer work with a meteorologist to  demonstrate preeminence in research, value to society and a culture of transparency. 

Responsibility for 
Maintaining and improving the viability of marine and coastal ecosystems, 
For delivering valuable weather, climate, and water information and services, 
For understanding the science and consequences of climate change, and 
For supporting the global commerce and transportation upon which we all depend

Photo Credits: 
Rick Knabb, Meteorologist, NWS
Karen Kohanowich, deputy director of the NOAA Undersea Research Program (OAR)
LCDR Joe Pica, NOAA Corps (NMAO)
Unidentified NOS OR&R Staff
Sinh Nguyen, OFA, Grants Management (OFA)
NMFS Fisheries Enforcement Officer (NMFS)
Dr. Usha Varanasi, Science and Research Director, Northwest Fisheries Science Center 
Unidentified NESDIS Engineer (NESDIS) 

##  Adaptation

***1989 to Present***

**WWII to 1989**

***Berlin Wall Falls***

** ****Adaptation**

**Notes:**
Main Message:  In the 1990’s, DOD adapted to face a new world order with multiple threats – but this shift did not occur in just one budget  cycle.

During the Cold War, America/DOD focused on one threat to National Security: all resources devoted to diffusing this one threat

In the mid-1990’s, Americans (and notably, DOD) went through a dramatic shift/evolution in how threats to national security were perceived  

Post Cold War conditions demand that we operate on multiple fronts, and prepare for independent threats that might happen at the same time

The previous focus on “one threat at a time” lacked foresight and left the nation vulnerable

Photo Credits:
USSR Flag; Kruschev (Wikipedia Photo); Former USSR Map (Rice University); Fall of Berlin Wall (Wikipedia Photo); US Tank Photo (DoD Site – Desert Storm); Troop Deployment Map (Credit DoD); US Troops Somalia (DoD)

##  The Tipping Point

** ****The Tipping Point**

****** ****Hurricane Track Forecast Skill**** **

****** ****Coastal & Urban Populations**

****** ****Tsunami Detection Skill **

****** ****Cost of Disasters**

****** ****Cost of Disasters**

**Little Mitigation $**

****** ****Loss Of Life **
**     ****& Property**

**Hazard Resilient**
**Communities**

**2004-2005**

**** **Mitigation $**

**Notes:**
Main Message:  Malcolm Gladwell’s book, “The Tipping Point,” describes how occurrences can literally cause a positive social “epidemic” that starts a movement—in our case, towards hazard resilient communities.  

NOAA’s ability to forecast natural hazards has steadily improved over the last 30 years.  Over the same period, the cost of natural disasters, in dollars and lives, has steadily increased.  However, Katrina, the Indian Ocean Tsunami, unbelievably expensive disasters, in combination with technological advancements in hazard mapping, storm surge and wind hazard prediction = a tipping point for NOAA in favor of hazard resilience.

In the Past...society lacked consideration for environmental information:
Businesses and communities not using environmental information.  (i.e. hurricane track forecasts improving, advance watches & warning but still moving to coasts, building codes don’t reflect hazards, and costs continue to increase).  
Hazards command attention/resources and their impacts can be mitigated:
In 2005, weather-related disasters caused $121B in damages and at least 1466 deaths (damage totals increased every year since 2000 – up 170% from 2004 to 2005 alone.) (source: NCDC)
Each dollar spent on disaster mitigation saves society an average of four dollars, according to a 2005 study released by the National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS).   

New Societal Demands...and Opportunities...
Demand from the general public and policymakers for enhancing disaster resilience of communities and reducing losses from future disasters.
Demand from the private sector to fill science and technology gaps underpinning performance-based practices, standards, and codes.
Recent advances in relevant disciplines in observational and computational capabilities that allow physics-based solutions of these complex problems.

## Is it Time for NOAA’s Paradigm Shift?

**Is it Time for NOAA’s ****Paradigm Shift?**

**Notes:**
Main Message:  Is it time for a shift within NOAA?

It is time to shift from an environment of watches and warnings to a focus on preparedness and resiliency.
NOAA has unique opportunity (because of our mission, capabilities, and portfolio) and tremendous potential to work as an integrated whole—expanding outside the LO or Goal team boxes
Recent events (e.g., Katrina, IO tsunami) have prompted NOAA to make a paradigm shift in how we think, plan, and operate.  We must use foresight and combine our resources in new ways to better serve societies need for disaster preparedness, mitigation, and response

Photo Credits:
Katrina Satellite; Indian Ocean Tsunami – Indonesia; Seal in front of the “Jessica” (2001 Galapagos Islands) photo by NOAA Scientific Support Coordinator - Charlie Henry; NOAA Stock – Cracked Earth

## To Promote a Society Fully Invested in the Environment
Meeting this challenge would result in decisions at every level and on most issues being based on the best environmental information ...
A healthy and productive environment, used and enjoyed today— and more so in the future 
People/Business/Policy able to adapt to/respond to/use environmental events and changes 
“Across the Board” recognition of the value of NOAA products and services

- Meeting this challenge would result in decisions at every level and on most issues being based on the best environmental information ...
- A healthy and productive environment, used and enjoyed today— and more so in the future
- People/Business/Policy able to adapt to/respond to/use environmental events and changes
- “Across the Board” recognition of the value of NOAA products and services

** ****The Challenge**

**Notes:**
Main Message: This challenge was set out to NOAA leadership at the SES Summit last year.

The NEC/NEP reviewed and approved the Action Items on February 3.  (ACTIONS APPROVED ARE ON SLIDE 11).

## 
PEOPLE: Working at the Community level, connecting with people to make the case for safety, welfare and quality of life

BUSINESS CASE: Reaching the managers, make the business case for the environment and recognize the environment of business

POLICY: Influence the policy makers, place in context of other societal concerns

**PEOPLE:** Working at the Community level, connecting with people to make the case for safety, welfare and quality of life
**BUSINESS CASE**: Reaching the managers, make the business case for the environment and recognize the environment of business
**POLICY:** Influence the policy makers, place in context of other societal concerns

** ****Steps Toward Change**

**Notes:**
Main Message:  Implicit in these steps in the need to work with our partners (CIs, Media, International Interagency Collaboration)

##  Hurricane Katrina

**Google Image Overlays**

**NOAA Helicopter @ Stennis**

**Nancy Foster**

**NOAA-EPA **

**NRT**

**Notes:**
Main Message:  NOAA’s Hurricane Katrina forecasts and response efforts were a “One NOAA” success, and, are evidence that we are shifting the way NOAA does business.  We had this response w/o an integrated hazard response plan.  Imagine if New Orleans or Gulfport were designed to be hazard resilient communities.

Examples of “One NOAA” Katrina successes:
Nancy Foster – National Marine Sanctuaries Program vessel, staffed by NOAA Corp was sent into duty to conduct research and monitoring of fisheries and assisted the navigation response teams.
Fisheries enforcement officers guarded Weather Forecast Offices so they could continue providing critical support to the response and recovery efforts in the region.
The Gordon Gunter hosted NOAA Employees and their families. 
A convoy from the NWS Southern Region delivered much needed supplies (gasoline, generators, etc.) to NOAA offices throughout the region.
Interagency coordination of toxics/pathogens sampling and public release of findings – EPA, FDA, USGS, US Army Corps
Photos from NMAO Citation uploaded on Google Earth 

Photo Credits:
Google Earth overlay – Super Dome
Nancy Foster (NOAA)
A NOAA helicopter, sent by NMAO, landing at NDBC's buoy row to bring the first shipment of supplies to Stennis on 3 September 2005. Bill Burnett is standing in the foreground watching the helo land, Ed Loveless (SAIC) is directing the landing and Steve Berg (SAIC) is standing by ready to unload the supplies. The pilots in the helicopter are CDR Michelle Finn and LT Dave Demers.
NOAA-EPA collaboration

##  Response to Resilience

** ****Response to Resilience**

- Disaster resilience can be enhanced significantly by transforming current public safety practices through the development and end-user adoption of ***scalable*** capabilities to ***predict ***the effect of hazards on the ***performance*** of structures, communities, and larger regions.

**South Louisiana Levee Protection Project**

**Hurricane-Resistant Buildings**

**Seattle Tsunami Inundation Map**

**Notes:**
How is it achieved? By whom? 

Analogy:  “When we ignore these measures we behave like the man who, instead of eating better, exercising, giving up smoking and making other lifestyle changes, just figures that when the heart attack comes, the ambulance will be there and the bypass surgery will make him as good as new.”  (Bill Hooke, Ph.D., AMS)

Disaster resilience of structures and communities determined by building codes, standards, and practices used when they were built.
Legacy codes, standards, and practices are highly prescriptive, oversimplified, and insufficiently risk-consistent.
Codes and standards developed by private sector through voluntary consensus process; lack resources to perform necessary research.
Forecasting tools and building practices developed primarily through government-funded R&D to meet U.S. public safety needs

Examples, of  new technologis include validated
Computational Fluid Dynamics modeling, i.e.,“Virtual” Wind Tunnel
Fire dynamics modeling to predict community-scale fire spread at the wildland-urban interface.
Coupled and scalable numerical models to forecast wildland fire spread, coastal inundation from storm surge, floods and tsunami using high quality real time observational data
Structural engineering models using field measurements in storms of winds, surge, and waves
Hazard and vulnerability maps for at-risk communities to provide education, community design, proper attention to land use, and desired response to warning systems     

Photo Credits:
NOAA’s National Hurricane Center (Post-Andrew Hurricane Resistant Building)
South Lafourche (La-Foosh) Parish, Louisiana – NOAA Funded Marsh Creation Project to protect parish’s hurricane levees – levees held during Katrina. (Tim Osborn took photo)
Seattle Tsunami Indundation Map (WA State Dept of Natural Resources & NOAA)

##  What Can You Do?

** *****What Can You Do?***

**Notes:**
Exercise for the Group:  Imagine a suite of challenges—an on-going drought, forest fires threatening urban and wildlife areas, a toxic spill on the coast, a sensitive marine mammal population, severe weather and flooding.

(For Example...climate outlooks impact the Klamath Fishery...how are our climate scientists working with our fisheries biologists to ensure the fishing industry/policy makers have the best information)

1.  Where do you currently impact any one of these challenges?

Where could the work you do impact (in a non-traditional role for your office) at least one more of these challenges?  Can you impact all of them?

(Get a few good volunteers from the crowd to raise some exciting opportunities. . . We will plant a few within OAR staff attending)

Photo Credits:
NOAA Stock – Cracked Earth & Forest Fire
Charlie Henry – Jessica listing off Galapagos; NMFS Stock – Seals in Oil Spill
Katrina Satellite; Flooding New Orleans (Citation Flight)

## Actions:

Develop conceptual framework to put in AGM  

Inventory of capabilities, policies & partnerships

Develop focused Business Strategy 

Develop Pilot Project

Input from gap analysis to review & revise NOAA FY06/07 Legislative Strategy

- Develop conceptual framework to put in AGM
- Inventory of capabilities, policies & partnerships
- Develop focused Business Strategy
- Develop Pilot Project
- Input from gap analysis to review & revise NOAA FY06/07 Legislative Strategy

** ****Steps Toward Change**

**Notes:**
Main Message:  On a NOAA-wide level, the goal is to develop a new way of doing business for NOAA, through hazard resilient communities, policies and partnerships, and hazard ready businesses.  

Status of Action Items:
  Done
  In progress:  draws in part from information pulled from the FY09 POP (Goal Team leads had the action to create an inventory); Margaret Davidson recently held a “Community Resilience Salon” in Boulder in July; RS and MG pulling team of SES back together in Aug/Sept timeframe to discuss early results of these efforts and take on future Actions.
Tbd
Tbd
Tbd

##  “Connective Tissue”

** ****“****Connective Tissue”**

**Notes:**
Main Message:  What are the mechanisms, and, What can you do?
Remember the first slide – We are unique.  We should be exploiting these overlaps to move forward. 
The “matrix” interactions, including inter-Goal, inter-LO activities, and regional collaboration are the Connective Tissue 
We have regional synergies already.  (Eg. Norman, OK; NOAA in the Carolinas); - these need to be broadened.  
The paradigm shift will be affected by the links you create: creative, collaborative solutions and increased interaction/activity 
Are you operating in a culture of transparency?  Do you know what your NOAA neighbors are doing?  Do they know what you do?
Examples of areas “ripe” for expanded collaboration:  climate and ecosystems (PNW fisheries issues), Climate and weather and water research, (use ideas from audience exercise)

First Pop-Up (Climate + Ecosystems)
El Niño Forecast + Fisheries Biologist = Fisheries Productivity Forecast

Second Pop-Up (courtesy of a Hollings Scholar’s summer project) (Commerce & Transportation + Ecosystems)
GPS Whale Tracking +Navigation Routes = Fewer Whale Strikes

Third Pop-Up (Climate + Wx & Water + Ecosystems)
CO2 Monitoring + Ocean Observations + Ecosystem Expertise= Reef Management Plan 

## The goal is to access and provide the right information, in the right format, at the right time, to the right people, to make the right decisions.

**Notes:**
Main Message:  This is something you may have heard the Admiral Lautenbacher say on previous occasions – but it bears repeating.

The goal is to access and provide the right information, in the right format, at the right time, to the right people, to make the right decisions.

## Questions?

## Backup Slides

## Priorities

- National Windstorm Reduction Act of 2004 (Public Law 108-360)
- Western Governors’ Association Policy Resolution 05-04, June 2005: “Operational fire managers need improved products and services from NOAA’s National Weather Service which can be seamlessly infused into fire operations decision-making.”
- National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) Subcommittee on Disaster Reduction’s (SDR) report _“Grand Challenges for Disaster Reduction” _June 2005

**Priorities**

## Priorities Continued

-  The FY 2007 OSTP R&D Budget Priorities memo: “address societal and environmental impacts of science and technology, including ethical, national security, and homeland security issues” and “enhance our ability to understand and respond to global environmental issues.”
- Wind Hazard Reduction Program Implementation Plan – OSTP

**Priorities Continued**

**Notes:**
The WindHRP implementation plan was developed under the leadership of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (currently in final OSTP review).  NOAA provided leadership in developing the WindHRP implementation plan