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33–104PS 2007

NATIONAL IMPERATIVES FOR EARTH

AND CLIMATE SCIENCE RESEARCH AND

APPLICATIONS INVESTMENTS OVER

THE NEXT DECADE

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND

TECHNOLOGY

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

FEBRUARY 13, 2007

Serial No. 110–3

Printed for the use of the Committee on Science and Technology

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.house.gov/science

(II)

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

HON. BART GORDON, Tennessee, Chairman

JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas

LYNN C. WOOLSEY, California

MARK UDALL, Colorado

DAVID WU, Oregon

BRIAN BAIRD, Washington

BRAD MILLER, North Carolina

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois

NICK LAMPSON, Texas

GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, Arizona

JERRY MCNERNEY, California

PAUL KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

DARLENE HOOLEY, Oregon

STEVEN R. ROTHMAN, New Jersey

MICHAEL M. HONDA, California

JIM MATHESON, Utah

MIKE ROSS, Arkansas

BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri

CHARLIE MELANCON, Louisiana

BARON P. HILL, Indiana

HARRY E. MITCHELL, Arizona

CHARLES A. WILSON, Ohio

RALPH M. HALL, Texas

F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER JR.,

Wisconsin

LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas

DANA ROHRABACHER, California

KEN CALVERT, California

ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland

VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan

FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma

JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois

W. TODD AKIN, Missouri

JO BONNER, Alabama

TOM FEENEY, Florida

RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas

BOB INGLIS, South Carolina

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas

MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida

PHIL GINGREY, Georgia

BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California

ADRIAN SMITH, Nebraska

VACANCY

(III)

C O N T E N T S

February 13, 2007

Page

Witness List ............................................................................................................. 2

Hearing Charter ...................................................................................................... 3

Opening Statements

Statement by Representative Bart Gordon, Chairman, Committee on Science

and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives ............................................... 9

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 10

Statement by Representative Ralph M. Hall, Minority Ranking Member,

Committee on Science and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives ......... 10

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 11

Prepared Statement by Representative Jerry F. Costello, Member, Committee

on Science and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives ............................. 12

Prepared Statement by Representative Harry E. Mitchell, Member, Committee on Science and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives ................. 13

Prepared Statement by Representative Vernon J. Ehlers, Member, Committee

on Science and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives ............................. 13

Prepared Statement by Representative Randy Neugebauer, Member, Committee on Science and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives ................. 13

Witnesses:

Dr. Richard A. Anthes, President, University Corporation for Atmospheric

Research (UCAR); Co-Chair, Committee on Earth Science and Applications

from Space, National Research Council, The National Academies

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 15

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 17

Biography .......................................................................................................... 26

Financial Disclosure ......................................................................................... 27

Dr. Berrien Moore III, University Distinguished Professor, Director, Institute

for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space, University of New Hampshire;

Co-Chair, Committee on Earth Science and Applications from Space, National Research Council, The National Academies

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 28

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 29

Honorable James Geringer, Director of Policy and Public Sector Strategy,

Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI)

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 36

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 39

Biography .......................................................................................................... 55

Discussion

Consequences of Earth Observation Drop-off .................................................... 56

Priorities and Recommendations of Decadal Survey ......................................... 57

Improvement of Weather Forecasts .................................................................... 58

Details of Decadal Survey Recommendations .................................................... 60

Addressing Emerging Regional and Global Challenges .................................... 61

Environmental Data and Ethanol Usage ........................................................... 62

Weather Prediction .............................................................................................. 63

Restoration of Dropped NPOESS Instruments .................................................. 64

Record of Hurricane and Cyclone Intensity ....................................................... 66

Page

IV

Need of Satellite System for Agricultural Production ....................................... 66

Consequences of Gaps in Data Records .............................................................. 67

Physical Improvements vs. Environmental Improvements .............................. 68

Global Dimming ................................................................................................... 69

Remote Sensing and Earthquake Activity ......................................................... 70

Potential for Private or International Partnerships in Remote Sensing ......... 71

Impact on American Competitiveness ................................................................ 74

Appendix: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions

Dr. Richard A. Anthes, President, University Corporation for Atmospheric

Research (UCAR); Co-Chair, Committee on Earth Science and Applications

from Space, National Research Council, The National Academies .................. 78

Dr. Berrien Moore III, University Distinguished Professor, Director, Institute

for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space, University of New Hampshire;

Co-Chair, Committee on Earth Science and Applications from Space, National Research Council, The National Academies ............................................ 83

Honorable James Geringer, Director of Policy and Public Sector Strategy,

Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) .......................................... 87

(1)

NATIONAL IMPERATIVES FOR EARTH AND

CLIMATE SCIENCE RESEARCH AND APPLICATIONS INVESTMENTS OVER THE NEXT

DECADE

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2007

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY,

Washington, DC.

The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 a.m., in Room

2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Bart Gordon

[Chairman of the Committee] presiding.

2

3

HEARING CHARTER

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

National Imperatives for Earth

and Climate Science Research and

Applications Investments Over

the Next Decade

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2007

10:00 A.M.–12:00 P.M.

2318 RAYBURN HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING

Purpose

On February 13, 2007 the Committee on Science and Technology will hold a hearing to examine the findings and recommendations of the National Academies report

‘‘Earth Science and Applications from Space: National Imperatives for the Next Decade and Beyond,’’ also known as the Decadal Survey. The report recommends a

prioritized set of investments in new satellite-borne instruments and spacecraft to

gather Earth, atmospheric, and climate data. These new satellites would replace our

aging space-based observing system to support national needs for research and monitoring of the dynamic Earth system during the next decade, as well as identifying

important research and applications directions that should influence planning for

the following decade.

The Decadal Survey panel described the national strategy outlined in its report

as having ‘‘as its overarching objective a program of scientific discovery and development of applications that will enhance economic competitiveness, protect life and

property, and assist in the stewardship of the planet for this and future generations.’’

The Committee will hear testimony from three witnesses. Two of the witnesses

were the co-chairs of the Decadal Survey, and they will discuss the findings and recommendations of their report. The third witness will discuss the application of remote sensing data to meet agricultural, resource management, and other needs.

Background

Although the development of decadal strategies for astronomy and astrophysics

research has been the practice since the 1980s, the report examined at this hearing

represents the first such decadal strategy to be developed for Earth science. The National Academies of Science and Engineering was asked to undertake the task by

NASA’s Office of Earth Science, NOAA’s National Environmental Satellite Data and

Information Service (NESDIS), and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Geography

Division. The study was overseen by an 18-member executive committee and carried

out be seven thematically organized panels with a total of more than 80 members.

The panels consisted of the following:

1. Earth Science Applications and Societal Needs

2. Land-use Change, Ecosystem Dynamics and Biodiversity

3. Weather (including space weather and chemical weather)

4. Climate Variability and Change

5. Water Resources and the Global Hydrologic Cycle

6. Human Health and Security

7. Solid-Earth Hazards, Resources and Dynamics

Major Findings and Recommendations of the Decadal Survey

Interim Report

The Decadal Survey panel issued an interim report in the spring of 2005, entitled

Earth Science and Applications from Space: Urgent Needs and Opportunities to

Serve the Nation. In that report, the panel made the following observations:

4

‘‘The current U.S. civilian Earth observing system centers on the environmental

satellites operated by NOAA; the atmosphere-, biospheres-, ocean-, ice-, and landobservation satellites of NASA’s Earth Observing System (EOS); and the

Landsat satellites, which are operated by a cooperative arrangement involving

NASA, NOAA, and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). Today, this system of

environmental satellites is at risk of collapse. Although NOAA plans to modernize and refresh its weather satellites, NASA has no plan to replace its EOS

platforms after their nominal six-year lifetimes end (beginning with the Terra

satellite in 2005), and it has canceled, descoped, or delayed at least six planned

missions, including the Landsat Data Continuity Mission.

‘‘These decisions appear to be driven by a major shift in priorities at a time when

NASA is moving to implement a new vision for space exploration. This change

in priorities jeopardizes NASA’s ability to fulfill its obligations in other important presidential initiatives, such as the Climate Change Research Initiative and

the subsequent Climate Change Science Program. It also calls into question future U.S. leadership in the Global Earth Observing System of Systems, an international effort initiated by the current Administration. The Nation’s ability to

pursue a visionary space exploration agenda depends critically on its success in

applying knowledge of the Earth to maintain economic growth and security at

home.

‘‘Moreover, a substantial reduction in Earth observation programs today will result in a loss of U.S. scientific and technical capacity, which will decrease the

competitiveness of the United States internationally for years to come. U.S. leadership in science, technology development, and societal applications depends on

sustaining competence across a broad range of disciplines that include the Earth

sciences.’’

Final Report

In January 2007, the National Academies released the final report of the Decadal

Survey panel. In the final report, the panel reiterated the concerns expressed in the

Interim Report about the Nation’s system of environmental satellites being ‘‘at risk

of collapse.’’ In that regard, the final report states: ‘‘In the short period since the

publication of the Interim Report, budgetary constraints and programmatic difficulties at NASA and NOAA have greatly exacerbated this concern. At a time of unprecedented need, the Nation’s Earth observation satellite programs, once the envy of the

world, are in disarray.’’

The Decadal Survey panel made a series of recommendations in its report to address the perceived problems. The first was an overarching recommendation that:

• The U.S. Government, working in concert with the private sector, academe, the public, and its international partners, should renew its investment in Earth observing systems and restore its leadership in Earth

science and applications.

Other major recommendations of the report are as follows:

• NASA should ensure continuity of measurements of precipitation and

land cover by:

Æ Launching the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission in

or before 2012

Æ Securing a replacement to Landsat 7 data before 2012

The Landsat program has operated for over 30 years. Landsat images are used

by governments, the research community, and the private sector in a wide variety

of applications including monitoring of crop productivity, documenting changes in

land use, water management, monitoring and tracking ‘‘red’’ tides, monitoring

changes in coastal wetlands, citing power and transportation routes, monitoring

changes in glacial features, and many other applications. The current Landsat instrument is in need of replacement. It is currently producing degraded imagery and

may not have many more years of functionality.

• In addition to implementing the re-baselined National Polar-orbiting

Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) and Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) program and

completing research missions currently in development, NASA and NOAA

should undertake a set of 17 recommended missions, comprised of small

(<$300 million), medium ($300 million to $600 million), and large ($600

million to $900 million) cost missions, and phased appropriately over the

5

next decade. Larger facility-class (>$1 billion) missions are not recommended. [See Attachment 1 for list of recommended missions.]

NOAA operates two satellite systems that collect data for weather forecasting.

The polar satellites orbit the Earth and provide information for medium to longrange weather forecasts. The geostationary satellites gather data above a fixed position on the Earth’s surface and provide information for short-range warnings and

current weather conditions. Both of these systems are scheduled for replacement

through the NPOESS and GOES–R programs, respectively.

Significant cost and schedule problems have arisen in the NPOESS program. A

number of instruments that would have provided continuity of our current Earth

and climate monitoring programs were planned to fly on the NPOESS satellites

were eliminated from the program to reduce its cost and complexity.

The suite of 17 priority missions outlined by the NAS are intended to provide continuity of the Earth science and climate data sets as well as advance our understanding of the Earth system and climate.

• U.S. civil space agencies should aggressively pursue technology development that supports the recommended missions; plan for transitions to

continue demonstrably useful research observations on a sustained, or

operational, basis; and foster innovative new space-based concepts.

The above recommendation includes three main points: NASA, as the primary

space research and development agency should increase funding allotted for the

early design and testing phases of technology development that serves the research

and operational missions recommended in this NAS report. The Panel believes that

greater investments made early in the development of new instrumentation and

spacecraft will result in more robust designs and prototypes which then move to development and deployment on a smoother, less risky path (and therefore with a

more predictable budget).

The Panel also recommends that NASA develop a new Program to take on newer,

more risky projects and demonstrate their feasibility and applicability to research

and operational needs. The NAS recommends this program focus on low-cost missions ($100–200 million) and that it have a strong focus on technical innovation as

well as education and training of future scientists and engineers working in the

field of Earth and climate science.

Finally, the Panel recommended that NOAA allocate increased funding to support

the transition of NASA-developed satellites and spacecraft that are identified as

having operational utility to NOAA’s missions.

The transition from research to operations continues to be a problem for NOAA

because there are no funds specified for the transition activities that must occur to

move research satellites and spacecraft to operational status. Consequently, procurement programs for operational systems now often carry these costs resulting in

higher risks of cost overruns, schedule slips, and higher risk of breaks in operational

data for weather forecasting.

• The NASA Science Mission Directorate should develop a science strategy

for obtaining long-term, continuous, stable observations of the Earth system that are distinct from observations to meet requirements by NOAA

in support of numerical weather prediction.

• Earth system observations should be accompanied by a complementary

system of observations of human activities and their effects on Earth,

and socioeconomic factors should be considered in the planning and implementation of Earth observation missions and in developing the Earth

Information System.

• NOAA, working with the Climate Change Science Program and the international Group on Earth Observations, should create a climate data and

information system to meet the challenge of ensuring the production, distribution, and stewardship of high-accuracy climate records from

NPOESS and other relevant observational platforms.

• As new Earth observation missions are developed, there must also be

early attention to developing the requisite data processing and distribution system, and data archive. Distribution of data should be free or at

low cost to users, and provided in an easily-accessible manner.

• NASA should increase support of its Research and Analysis (R&A) program to a level commensurate with its ongoing and planned missions.

6

Data gathered by satellite-based instruments and spacecraft must be properly

documented, analyzed and archived to be useful. Funding for these activities has

traditionally lagged behind funding for the hardware and software needed to build,

launch and operate satellite-based instruments and spacecraft. In addition to R&A

cuts made as part of an overall budget-balancing exercise, cost-overruns experienced

in the development and procurement of an observing system may lead to cuts in the

funding allocated for analysis of the data generated by the observing system.

• NASA, NOAA, and USGS should increase their support for Earth system

modeling, including provision of high-performance computing facilities

and support for scientists working in the areas of modeling and data assimilation.

• A formal interagency planning and review process should be put into

place that focuses on effectively implementing the recommendations

made in the present decadal survey report and sustaining and building

the knowledge and information system for the next decade and beyond.

• NASA, NOAA, and USGS should pursue innovative approaches to educate

and train scientists and users of Earth observations and applications. A

particularly important role is to assist educators in inspiring and training students in the use of Earth observations and the information derived from them.

Witnesses

Dr. Richard Anthes, President of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR):

Dr. Anthes served as Co-Chair of the Decadal Survey. He has conducted research

directed at better understanding of tropical cyclones and mesoscale meteorology, as

well as on techniques for doing atmospheric sounding. He chaired the 2003 National

Academies Committee on NASA–NOAA Transition of Research to Operations. Dr.

Anthes is a fellow of the American Meteorological Society and the American Geophysical Union.

Dr. Berrien Moore, Professor and Director of the Institute for the Study of

Earth, Oceans, and Space at the University of New Hampshire:

Dr. Moore served as Co-Chair of the Decadal Survey. His research has focused

on the carbon cycle, global biogeochemical cycles, and global change. Dr. Moore has

served on a number of NASA advisory committees, and he chaired the Scientific

Committee of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) from 1998–

2002. He currently serves on the Science Advisory Board of NOAA and the Advisory

Board of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).

Dr. Anthes and Dr. Moore will discuss the criteria the Decadal Survey Committee

used to determine the priorities recommended in the Report. They will also discuss

the utility of the research and application activities to the Nation and the international community. Dr. Anthes and Dr. Moore will also provide an assessment of

the President’s FY 2008 budget request for NASA and NOAA as they relate to the

recommendations included in the Decadal Survey Report.

Honorable James Geringer, Director of Policy at the Environmental Systems Research Institute in Wyoming and former Governor of Wyoming:

Former Wyoming Governor James Geringer has been active in the Alliance for

Earth Observations and was the force behind the Western Governors Association’s

call for a National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS).

Governor Geringer will discuss the utility of data derived from the current Earth

observing systems we have in place. He will discuss the applicability of remote sensing data to agriculture, natural resource management, municipal water supply management, and to tourism and recreation. The Governor will provide information regarding the accessibility of remote sensing data to different user communities and

discuss the role of private sector companies that provide value-added products from

remote sensing data. He will also provide a perspective on how widely remote sensing data are used by government and industry people working in agriculture and

natural resource management.

7

8

9

Chairman GORDON. It is 10 o’clock and time to get started, so

good morning, everyone. I would like to welcome our witnesses to

today’s hearing. We look forward to hearing your views.

As you know, last week the Science and Technology Committee

held the first hearing in Congress on the just-released report of the

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). That hearing

provided a useful glimpse into the current scientific understanding

of climate change.

It is clear that the advances in our scientific understanding of climate change are critically dependent on the data collection and

modeling enabled by our investments in Earth science research and

applications at NOAA and NASA. In addition, those investments

play a crucial role in improving the accuracy of our weather forecasts, monitoring land use, and managing our natural resources.

In short, this nation needs to continue to invest in robust systems of environmental satellites.

Two witnesses—or rather two years ago, one of today’s witnesses,

Dr. Berrien Moore, stated that the Interim Report of the National

Academies’ Decadal Survey had concluded that the Nation’s system

of environmental satellites was, and I quote, ‘‘at risk of collapse.’’

That was a sobering assessment.

Now the Decadal Survey is finished, and we will be hearing their

findings and recommendations today.

One of those findings is particularly troubling. And once again,

I quote: ‘‘In the short period since the publication of the Interim Report, budgetary constraints and programmatic difficulties at NASA

have greatly exacerbated this concern. At a time of unprecedented

need, the Nation’s Earth observation satellite programs, once the

envy of the world, are in disarray.’’

I don’t think the National Academies could be clearer than that

in voicing its concern. So at today’s hearing, I want to get answers

to the following questions.

When the Decadal Survey panel says that the Nation’s Earth observation satellite programs ‘‘are in disarray,’’ what does that mean

in specific terms?

What is the impact of that disarray, and why does it matter?

And, what needs to be done to fix this situation?

Of course, in these times of tight budgets, some will look at the

Academies’ recommendations and simply say, ‘‘We can’t afford to do

more than we are now.’’ However, the simple fact of the matter is

that our nation is getting ready to spend a lot of money to deal

with climate change in the coming years, both public dollars and

private dollars.

We will continue to need good data to make sure that those investments are wise ones and that we are getting the intended results. I am worried that we are going to be ‘‘flying blind’’ if we don’t

ensure that the Nation’s environmental satellite system is up to

the task of collecting critical climate science data, and the Decadal

Survey is sounding the alarm that unless we take steps to reverse

the current decline, we aren’t going to have the satellite system we

need in the coming decade.

And we have got a lot to discuss today, so I want to welcome our

witnesses, and now, I want to recognize Ranking Member Hall for

any opening remarks that he would like to make.

10

[The prepared statement of Chairman Gordon follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN BART GORDON

Good morning.

I’d like to welcome our witnesses to today’s hearing.

We look forward to hearing your views.

As you know, last week the Science and Technology Committee held the first

hearing in Congress on the just-released report of the Intergovernmental Panel on

Climate Change (IPCC).

That hearing provided a useful glimpse into the current scientific understanding

of climate change.

It is clear that advances in our scientific understanding of climate change are

critically dependent on the data collection and modeling enabled by our investments

in Earth science research and applications at NASA and NOAA.

In addition, those investments play a crucial role in improving the accuracy of our

weather forecasts, monitoring land use, and managing our natural resources.

In short, this nation needs to continue to invest in a robust system of environmental satellites.

Two years ago, one of today’s witnesses, Dr. Berrien Moore, stated that the Interim Report of the National Academies’ Decadal Survey had concluded that the Nation’s system of environmental satellites was ‘‘at risk of collapse.’’

That was a sobering assessment.

Now the Decadal Survey is finished, and we will be hearing their findings and

recommendations today.

One of those findings is particularly troubling.

Namely: ‘‘In the short period since the publication of the Interim Report, budgetary

constraints and programmatic difficulties at NASA have greatly exacerbated this

concern. At a time of unprecedented need, the Nation’s Earth observation satellite

programs, once the envy of the world, are in disarray.’’

I don’t think the National Academies could be any clearer than that in voicing

its concern.

So at today’s hearing, I want to get answers to the following questions:

• When the Decadal Survey panel says that the Nation’s Earth observation satellite programs ‘‘are in disarray,’’ what does that mean in specific terms?

• What is the impact of that disarray, and why does it matter?

• And, what needs to be done to fix the situation?

Of course, in these times of tight budgets, some will look at the Academies recommendations and simply say ‘‘we can’t afford to do more than we are now.’’

However, the simple fact of the matter is that the Nation is getting ready to

spend a lot of money to deal with climate change in the coming years.

We will continue to need good data to make sure that those investments are wise

ones and that we are getting the intended results.

I’m worried that we are going to be ‘‘flying blind’’ if we don’t ensure that the Nation’s environmental satellite system is up to the task of collecting critical climate

science data. . .and the Decadal Survey is sounding the alarm that unless we take

steps to reverse the current decline, we aren’t going to have the satellite system we

will need in the coming decade.

Well, we have a lot to discuss today.

I again want to welcome our witnesses, and I now want to recognize Ranking

Member Hall for any opening remarks he would care to make.

Mr. HALL. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for calling today’s

hearing to examine the recently released Decadal Survey on Earth

Sciences, produced by the National Academies. This report, which

provides strategic advice to the government on the scope and goals

of future Earth-observing missions, especially those flown by NASA

and NOAA, will need great help to guide the federal investment decisions now and in the years ahead of us.

I want to begin by thanking Dr. Anthes and Dr. Moore and all

your colleagues that served with you on the National Academies

committee. Drafting the first ever of such a report could not have

been easy, but I am certain that the community is stronger, and

I thank you for it, and perhaps more cohesive as a result. And I

11

hope you will tell your friends and colleagues that we are grateful

for their very hard work.

Governor Geringer, thank you for taking time from your very

busy schedule today to describe how remote sensing data and products are used by industry and government. I want to add, parenthetically, that in my State of Texas and for many residents in

the western states, monitoring and measuring drought conditions

is rapidly gaining importance.

During the last Congress, I was able to work with my friends

here in the House to draft and pass a bill establishing the National

Integrated Drought Information System, and I am glad that the

President agreed to sign it into law. But having said that, to many

in this room, weather forecasting products are about all we understand. Governor—we look forward to your testimony, and those of

you who ran your governments about the numerous other applications of remote sensing information.

Beyond articulating the science questions and missions, the Survey challenges the government to reassess the amount of funding

dedicated to Earth science. It urges government to increase investment in NASA’s Earth sciences program by $500 million a year,

about a 33 percent increase over current levels.

This presents the Administration and Congress with a tremendous challenge. It is no mystery to everyone in this room that

NASA is struggling to afford its current slate of programs, from

human space flight to aeronautics, astrophysics, planetary sciences,

and redirecting funding from any of these activities is not an option. We need all of them. Either NASA maintains the status quo

with, perhaps, marginal adjustments in content to its Earth

sciences program or its top-line funding should be increased. And

I strongly prefer the latter. I think that is what we have to do. We

have to increase these fundings.

The report also recommends new missions for NOAA that would

total $565 million over the next 10 years. I hope the witnesses will

help us understand what weather forecasting improvements these

missions would provide and why the Decadal Survey recommends

them.

In closing, Mr. Chairman, I do want to be clear. I support the

Decadal Survey and its recommendations. It lays out a course of

research that should be followed. It raises questions that are of immediate importance to our way of living, and, if truly implemented,

it will provide planning tools that will help future generations monitor and mitigate the effect of changes to Earth’s weather system.

Unfortunately, in the current budget climate, I fear we cannot fully

implement the recommendations. And in that vein, I intend to ask

hard questions today about which of the recommendations and missions are most important.

I look forward to hearing from our witnesses and yield back the

balance of my time.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Hall follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE RALPH M. HALL

Mr. Chairman, thank you for calling today’s hearing to examine the recently released Decadal Survey on Earth Sciences produced by the National Academies. This

report, which provides strategic advice to the government on the scope and goals

12

of future Earth observing missions, especially those flown by NASA and NOAA, will

be help guide federal investment decisions now and in the years to come.

I want to begin by thanking Dr. Anthes and Dr. Moore, and all your colleagues

that served with you on the National Academies committee. Drafting the first-ever

such report could not have been easy, but I am certain the community is stronger,

and perhaps more cohesive as a result, and I hope you’ll tell your friends and colleagues that we are grateful for their hard work.

Governor Geringer, thank you for taking time from your busy schedule to be with

us today to describe how remote sensing data and products are used by industry

and government. I want to add, parenthetically, that in my State of Texas, and for

many residents in the western states, monitoring and measuring drought conditions

is rapidly gaining importance. During the last Congress I was able to work with my

friends here in the House to draft and pass a bill establishing the National Integrated Drought Information System, and I’m glad the President agreed to sign it

into law.

But having said that, to many in this room, weather forecasting products are

about all we understand. Governor, we look forward to your testimony about the numerous other applications of remote sensing information.

Beyond articulating the science questions and missions, the survey challenges

government to reassess the amount of funding dedicated to Earth science. It urges

government to increase investment in NASA’s Earth Sciences program by $500 million a year, about a 33 percent increase over current levels. This presents the Administration and Congress with a tremendous challenge. It’s no mystery to everyone

in this room that NASA is struggling to afford its current slate of programs, from

human space flight to aeronautics, astrophysics, planetary sciences, and

heliophysics. Redirecting funding from any of these activities is not an option. Either NASA maintains the status quo, with perhaps marginal adjustments in content

to its Earth Sciences program, or its top-line funding should be increased. I strongly

prefer the latter.

The report also recommends new missions for NOAA that would total $565 million over the next ten years. I hope the witnesses will help us understand what

weather forecasting improvements these missions would provide and why the

Decadal Survey recommends them.

In closing, Mr. Chairman, I do want to be clear; I support the Decadal Survey

and its recommendations. It lays out a course of research that should be followed.

It raises questions that are of immediate importance to our way of living, and if

fully implemented, it will provide planning tools that will help future generations

monitor, and mitigate the effects of changes to Earth’s weather systems. Unfortunately, in the current budget climate I fear we cannot fully implement the recommendations and in that vein I intend to ask hard questions today about which

of the recommendations and missions are most important.

I look forward to hearing from our witnesses and yield back the balance of my

time.

Chairman GORDON. Thank you, Mr. Hall.

I ask unanimous consent that all additional opening statements

be submitted by the Committee Members to be included in the

record. Without Mr. Sensenbrenner’s objection, so ordered.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Costello follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE JERRY F. COSTELLO

Good Morning. Thank you Mr. Chairman for calling this hearing to examine the

findings and recommendations of the National Academies report ‘‘Earth Science and

Applications from Space: National Imperatives for the Next Decade and Beyond,’’

also known as the Decadal Survey.

Today’s report represents the first decadal strategy developed for Earth Science.

The Survey Panel has made a series of recommendations to address the perceived

problems regarding our nation’s system of environmental satellites. I am aware that

budgetary constraints and programmatic difficulties at the National Aeronautics

and Space Administration (NASA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have contributed to the degradation of our Earth observation

programs, specifically the NOAA satellites for data collection and forecasting.

I recognize that our nation’s ability to pursue a visionary space exploration agenda depends on its success in applying greater knowledge of the Earth and I look

forward to hearing the panel’s recommendations. Further, I am interested in hearing the witnesses’ thoughts on how the U.S. Government should proceed with fundVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:39 May 12, 2007 Jkt 033104 PO 00000 Frm 00016 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 C:\WORKD\FULL07\021307\33104 SCIENCE1 PsN: SCIENCE1
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ing for Earth Science and Climate Science Research for the upcoming fiscal year

and beyond.

I look forward to the testimony of today’s witnesses.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Mitchell follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE HARRY E. MITCHELL

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Last week, we heard from some of the world’s top scientists about the growing

threat of global warming who reported to this committee some of the important findings of the International Panel on Climate Change.

I think many of us were concerned about what they had to say, and troubled by

the scientific data that demonstrates the threat of global warming and climate

change isn’t simply a threat—it’s happening all across the world.

I got a sense from my colleagues at that hearing that many in this Congress on

both sides of the aisle believe that the United States has an important and unique

role to play in solving the climate crisis.

The United States is a world leader in scientific discovery and innovation, and I

think that most of the American people would agree that we should use our unique

spirit and ingenuity for good.

We have especially succeeded when it comes to space exploration. We put a man

on the Moon, have discovered so much about our galaxy, and the universe. We have

worked with the international community to build a space station.

Yet not all of the important things we have discovered are about space. We have

also learned about ourselves, and the planet Earth.

NASA and NOAA satellites have been instrumental in monitoring so many things

about the Earth. Everything from temperatures and wind patterns to changes in

land, ocean tides, and glacial features—and so much more.

The Earth observation systems we use are critical to enhancing our understanding of the planet, and critical to understanding how global warming is affecting all of us.

The Decadal Survey report that these observation systems are at ‘‘the risk of collapse’’ and are in ‘‘disarray’’ is unacceptable. The report makes clear that the state

of these systems is because of ‘‘major shift in priorities’’ by the Administration. If

that’s the case, it’s time for new priorities.

I’m encouraged by the recommendations of the Decadal Survey panel that we

should invest in the technology that will grow our ability to make further scientific

discoveries, and I look forward to hearing their testimony today.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Ehlers follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE VERNON J. EHLERS

It takes a tenacious group of people to scrutinize our Earth observational challenges and to make recommendations on what we might do to ensure we are able

to improve our forecasting and observational capabilities. I am pleased the members

of the Decadal Survey committee were up to the task. The findings of the report

are a wake-up call and will help scientists and policy-makers consider future missions flown by NASA and NOAA in addition to understanding the consequences of

gaps in our observational capabilities.

I am especially concerned about the future capabilities of the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) and am glad that the

Decadal Survey Committee has not endorsed many of the proposed cost-cutting

measures to limit the escalating costs of the program. I realize NPOESS has been

plagued by cost-overruns, but I believe we have to carefully weigh the long-term impact of removing NPOESS sensors on our global environmental monitoring capabilities. NPOESS oversight will continue by this committee and we welcome your survey’s wisdom in determining the most strategic future for the program.

Finally, coherent integration is imperative in successful observation, and I look

forward to learning more about how we can ensure that the consumers of Earth observation information can use this data. I thank our witnesses for being here today

and look forward to their testimony.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Neugebauer follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE RANDY NEUGEBAUER

Mr. Chairman:

14

Thank you for holding this hearing. I welcome the opportunity to take part in this

important discussion and look forward to hearing from our distinguished panelists.

As we discovered from the hearing last week, climate change is an extremely important issue, yet controversial at the same time. While most of us agree that global

warming is occurring, there are disputes regarding the cause and degree of this

change. Part of this disagreement stems from the evolving nature of science.

Science is a process of constant re-evaluation of old hypotheses and theories, collection of new data, and continuous development of new models and approaches to

critical questions. In order to properly understand climate change, it is critical that

we have access to accurate data and technology. Therefore, I look forward to hearing

the expert testimonies and recommendations of the panelists regarding the satellite

technology we need to continue to gather accurate Earth, atmospheric, and climate

data.

For many years the U.S. has led the world when it comes to space exploration

and scientific development. I look forward to working with my colleagues in this regard to ensure that the U.S. will continue to be a global leader of research, technology, and innovation.

We in Congress, and in this committee especially, are called upon to make scientific and environmental policy that will affect our economy; our security; and our

general welfare; and not just for us, but for future generations of Americans, as

well.

Thank you.

Chairman GORDON. We are fortunate to have three distinguished

witnesses at today’s hearing. I will now yield to Representative

Udall to introduce the first witness.

Mr. UDALL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning.

It is my privilege to introduce Dr. Richard Anthes today. He is

the President of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, otherwise known as UCAR, a non-profit consortium of 70

member universities that award Ph.D.s in atmospheric and related

sciences. He is the co-chair of the National Research Council’s

Earth Science Decadal Survey. Dr. Anthes is a highly-regarded atmospheric scientist, author, educator, and administrator who has

contributed considerable research to the field. He has published

over 100 peer-reviewed articles and books and participated on or

chaired over 400—excuse me, 40 different U.S./national committees. Dr. Anthes is currently President of the American Meteorological Society. His many research contributions involve particularly

the areas of tropical cyclones and mezoscale meteorology, including

the development of the first successful three-dimensional model of

the tropical cyclone, which evolved into one of the world’s most

widely used mezoscale models, the Penn State NCAR Mezoscale

Model, which is now in its fifth generation.

Welcome, Dr. Anthes.

Dr. ANTHES. Thank you very much, Congressman Udall. I don’t

think I have ever been introduced by a Congressman before, and

that saves me 30 seconds of my five minutes.

I would like to start out with——

Chairman GORDON. If you don’t mind, sir, let us go ahead, and

we will recognize the other witnesses——

Dr. ANTHES. Oh, okay.

Chairman GORDON.—and then we will begin with you. But you

are correct, you were well introduced there.

Our second witness is Dr. Berrien Moore, who is the other cochair of the National Academies’ Decadal Survey. Dr. Moore is a

Professor and Director of the Institute for the Studies of Earth,

Oceans, and Space at the University of New Hampshire. Welcome.

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Our third witness is former Wyoming Governor, Dr. Jim—I

mean, rather Jim Geringer. Governor Geringer has been very active in the Alliance for Earth Observations, and he was the force

behind the Western Governors Association call for a National Integrated Drought Information System.

I want to welcome each of you and look forward to your testimony.

You will each be given five minutes for your spoken testimony.

Your written testimony will be included in the record for the hearing. With my friend, Mr. Rohrabacher’s indulgence, I will say that

we will try to be liberal with your five minutes, because this is very

important, and we want to hear from you.

When all three of you have completed your testimony, we will

begin with questions. Each Member will have five minutes to question the panel.

Doctor, we will begin with you.

STATEMENT OF DR. RICHARD A. ANTHES, PRESIDENT, UNIVERSITY CORPORATION FOR ATMOSPHERIC RESEARCH

(UCAR); CO-CHAIR, COMMITTEE ON EARTH SCIENCE AND APPLICATIONS FROM SPACE, NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL,

THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES

Dr. ANTHES. Okay. Thank you very much.

Mr. Chairman, Ranking Minority Member, and Members of the

Committee, thanks for inviting us here to testify here today.

I would like—this is one of my favorite rooms in the whole world,

because of that—the statement, ‘‘Where there is no vision, the people perish,’’ from Proverbs 29:18. I think that is what we need to

keep our eye on, not the individual observations, not the individual

dollars, but we really do need a vision for Earth science and applications from space. And I just love that saying. It is a perfect lead

in.

Our vision from our Decadal Survey is carried over, actually,

from the Interim Report. And I want to read it to you. I think it

is very important. I believe in it deeply. ‘‘Understanding the complex, changing planet on which we live, how it supports life, and

how human activities affect its ability to do so in the future is one

of the greatest intellectual challenges facing humanity. It is also

one of the most important challenges for society as it seeks to

achieve prosperity, health, and sustainability.’’

So this is the dual message, the dual vision of our report, that

understanding the Earth is one of the most exciting intellectual

challenges we can think of. And it is also critically important for

applications of immediate and long-term benefit to humanity.

As detailed in our report and further emphasized by the latest

issue of the IPCC, which came out a couple weeks ago, our society

is faced with a number of profound scientific and societal challenges, including climate change and all of the aspects of the climate change that is occurring at an unprecedented rate. And yet,

at a time when the need has never been greater, we are faced with

an Earth observation program that will dramatically diminish in

capability over the next five to ten years.

As you mentioned already, our Interim Report said that the system of U.S. environmental satellites was at risk of collapse. This

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judgment was based on the observed precipitous decline in funding

and the consequent cancellation, descoping, and delay of a number

of critical missions and instruments.

Otherwise, let me interject here and deviate from my prepared

talk a little bit.

This is not primarily about money and decreasing budgets. It is

primarily about doing the job that needs to be done for society, and

the modest investments that are required will repay themselves

many times over. So please focus on the benefits to society, the intellectual challenges, and what we are proposing as a balanced system rather than the declining budgets.

So I have been asked, you know, what will we lose if we don’t

do what the Decadal Survey mentions. And I think my colleague,

Dr. Moore, will give you some examples, but let me just give you

some examples that are not really in the Survey.

Weather forecasts and warnings may start becoming less accurate. We have seen a tremendous run-up of increased accuracy in

weather forecasting and warnings over the last 30 years, primarily

because of Earth observations from space. The Hurricane Katrina

forecast was incredibly accurate, saving, perhaps, 100,000 lives,

one of the few bright spots in that whole tragic episode. But we are

actually in danger, if the observations continue to decrease, of losing that improving weather forecasts and warning capabilities.

Very serious.

The Earth is warming because of a small imbalance in radiation

between the sun and the Earth, a very small difference between

two very large terms. What is coming in from the sun, a huge number and what is going back out to space. We need to measure that

small imbalance very accurately. We need to measure what is coming in from the sun and what is going out from the Earth so that

we know whether the Earth is going to warm up faster, whether

it is going to slow down in its warming up, and finally, when we

reach a new equilibrium and there is no more change. Climate

models have improved steadily over the past years, but they are far

from perfect. They don’t do very well on regional scales, which is

what we are really interested in. Is the dryness in the west going

to continue? Are hurricanes going to become more frequent or more

intense? Those kinds of things. So we need the observations to improve the climate models. We could never rely on models without

observations.

Sea levels are rising, and the ice around the Earth is melting.

But how fast? Is this going to accelerate—these things going to accelerate or decelerate, slow down? We have got to measure sea

level and the ice around the Earth, especially in Greenland.

As I mentioned, there is controversy about whether the frequency

and intensity of tropical storms or hurricanes is going to increase

or decrease. We simply don’t know. And without observations, we

won’t be able to resolve that critical issue.

And finally, Earth science is built fundamentally on observations,

not theory and not models. And it will—it is impossible for me to

sit here and predict what discoveries won’t be made in the next 20

years if we don’t have observation. I can’t do that, but I can surely

say that if the present trend of decreasing observations continues,

we will—the rate of scientific progress will be greatly slowed.

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So the plan we recommend calls for undertaking 17 new NASA

and NOAA missions from the period 2008 to 2020 as well as restoring some of the capabilities lost on NPOESS and GOESS.

Our recommendations for NASA can be implemented in a costeffective manner. I think my colleague, Dr. Moore, will talk about

this. We are merely—to do the required program, and again, the

required program is what is important, not the money, we need to

simply restore the NASA Earth sciences budget to what it was five

years ago.

Finally, implementing these missions will not only greatly reduce

the risks to the people of our country in the world of natural hazards of all kinds, it will support more efficient management of natural resources, including water, energy, fisheries, ecosystems that

support the economy and our lives and—so that the cost of this

program is repaid many times over.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to appear before you

today, and I look forward to any questions that you might have.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Anthes follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF RICHARD A. ANTHES

Mr. Chairman, Ranking Minority Member, and Members of the Committee: thank

you for inviting me here to testify today. My name is Richard Anthes, and I am the

President of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, a consortium of

70 research universities that manages the National Center for Atmospheric Research, on behalf of the National Science Foundation, and additional scientific education, training and support programs. I am also the current President of the American Meteorological Society. I appear today in my capacity as Co-Chair of the National Research Council (NRC)’s Committee on Earth Science and Applications from

Space: A Community Assessment and Strategy for the Future.

The National Research Council is the unit of the National Academies that is responsible for organizing independent advisory studies for the Federal Government

on science and technology. In response to requests from NASA, NOAA, and the

USGS, the NRC has recently completed a ‘‘decadal survey’’ of Earth science and applications from space. (‘‘Decadal surveys’’ are the 10-year prioritized roadmaps that

the NRC has done for 40 years for the astronomers; this is the first time it is being

done for Earth science and applications from space.) Among the key tasks in the

charge to the decadal survey committee were to:

• Develop a consensus of the top-level scientific questions that should provide

the focus for Earth and environmental observations in the period 2005–2020;

and

• Develop a prioritized list of recommended space programs, missions, and supporting activities to address these questions.

The NRC survey committee has prepared an extensive report in response to this

charge, which I am pleased to be able to summarize here today. Over 100 leaders

in the Earth science community participated on the survey steering committee or

its seven study panels. It is noteworthy that this was the first Earth science decadal

survey, and the committee and panel members did an excellent job in fulfilling the

charge and establishing a consensus—a task many previously considered impossible.

A copy of the full report has also been provided for your use.

The committee’s vision is encapsulated in the following declaration, first stated in

the committee’s interim report, published in 2005:

‘‘Understanding the complex, changing planet on which we live, how it supports

life, and how human activities affect its ability to do so in the future is one of

the greatest intellectual challenges facing humanity. It is also one of the most

important challenges for society as it seeks to achieve prosperity, health, and

sustainability.’’

As detailed in the committee’s final report, and as we were profoundly reminded

by the latest report from the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the

world faces significant and profound environmental challenges: shortages of clean

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and accessible freshwater, degradation of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, increases in soil erosion, changes in the chemistry of the atmosphere, declines in fisheries, and above all the rapid pace of substantial changes in climate. These changes

are not isolated; they interact with each other and with natural variability in complex ways that cascade through the environment across local, regional, and global

scales. Addressing these societal challenges requires that we confront key scientific

questions related to ice sheets and sea level change, large-scale and persistent shifts

in precipitation and water availability, transcontinental air pollution, shifts in ecosystem structure and function in response to climate change, impacts of climate

change on human health, and occurrence of extreme events, such as hurricanes,

floods and droughts, heat waves, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions.

Yet at a time when the need has never been greater, we are faced with

an Earth observation program that will dramatically diminish in capability

over the next 5–10 years.

Last April, my co-chair, Dr. Berrien Moore, came before Congress to testify in response to release of the committee’s 2005 interim report. His testimony highlighted

the key roles played by NASA and NOAA over the past 30 years in advancing our

understanding of the Earth system and in providing a variety of societal benefits

through their international leadership in Earth observing systems from space. He

noted that while NOAA had plans to modernize and refresh its weather satellites,

NASA had no plans to replace its Earth Observing System platforms after their

nominal six year lifetimes end. He also noted that NASA had canceled, scaled back,

or delayed at least six planned missions, including a Landsat continuity mission.

This led to the main finding in the interim report, which stated ‘‘this system of environmental satellites is at risk of collapse.’’

Since the publication of the interim report, the Hydros and Deep Space Climate

Observatory missions were canceled; the flagship Global Precipitation Mission was

delayed for another two and a half years; significant cuts were made to NASA’s Research and Analysis program: the NPOESS Preparatory Project mission was delayed for a year and a half; a key atmospheric profiling sensor planned for the next

generation of NOAA geostationary satellites was canceled; and the NPOESS program breached the Nunn-McCurdy budget cap. As you have all heard, the certified

NPOESS program delays the first launch by three years, eliminates two of the

planned six spacecraft, and de-manifests or de-scopes a number of instruments, with

particular consequences for measurement of the forcing and feedbacks that need to

be measured to understand the magnitude, pace, and consequences of global and regional climate change. It is against this backdrop that I discuss the present report.

As you will see in the report, between 2006 and the end of the decade, the number

of operating missions will decrease dramatically and the number of operating sensors and instruments on NASA spacecraft, most of which are well past their nominal lifetimes, will decrease by some 35 percent, with a 50 percent reduction by 2015

(see Figure 1 below). Substantial loss of capability is likely over the next several

years due to a combination of decreased budgets and aging satellites already well

past their design lifetimes. This will result in an overall degradation of the

system of Earth observing satellites, with the following potential consequences:

• After decades of steady improvement, weather forecasts, including those of severe weather such as hurricanes, may start becoming less accurate, putting

more people at risk and diminishing the proven economic value of accurate

forecasts.

• The ozone hole in the stratosphere has apparently reached its maximum intensity. Models predict it will start to slowly recover. Without observations we

may not be able to verify its recovery or explain why it is occurring.

• Earth is warming because of a small imbalance between incoming solar radiation and outgoing radiation from Earth. Measuring this small imbalance is

critical to determining how fast Earth is warming and when the warming will

stop. Without the measurements we are recommending will not be able to

quantify how this net energy imbalance is changing.

• Climate models have improved steadily over the years, but are far from perfect. We need observations of the Earth system, the atmosphere, oceans, land

and ice to verify and improve the climate models. These models have real impact on the U.S. economy, in predicting El Nin ̃ o and other seasonal fluctuations in climate, which are used in energy, water and agriculture management.

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• Sea level is rising and ice around the world is melting, yet there is uncertainty in how fast these are occurring and whether or not they are accelerating or decelerating. Without the observations we are recommending, we

will be unable to know for sure how these rates are changing and what the

implications will be for coastal communities.

• There is controversy about whether the frequency and intensity of hurricanes

are increasing as the climate warms; observations of the atmosphere and

oceans are required to resolve this important issue.

• The risk of missing early detection of earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic

eruptions will increase.

• Air quality forecasts, which require the global perspectives of satellites to

identify pollution transport across borders, will become less accurate, with

negative implications for both human health and urban pollution management efforts.

• Earth science is based fundamentally on observations. While it is impossible

to predict what scientific advances will not occur without the observations, or

what surprises (like the ozone hole) we will miss, we can be sure the rate of

scientific progress will be greatly slowed without a robust set of Earth observations.

In its report, the committee sets forth a series of near-term and longer-term recommendations in order to address these troubling trends. It is important to note

that this report does not ‘‘shoot for the Moon,’’ and indeed the committee exercised

considerable constraint in its recommendations, which were carefully considered

within the context of challenging budget situations. Yet, while societal applications

have grown ever-more dependent upon our Earth observing fleet, the NASA Earth

science budget has declined some 30 percent in constant-year dollars since 2000 (see

Figure 2 below). This disparity between growing societal needs and diminished resources must be corrected. This leads to the report’s overarching recommendation:

‘‘The U.S. Government, working in concert with the private sector, academe, the

public, and its international partners, should renew its investment in Earth observing systems and restore its leadership in Earth science and applications.’’

The report outlines near-term actions meant to stem the tide of capability deterioration and continue critical data records, as well as forward-looking recommendations to establish a balanced Earth observation program designed to directly address

the most urgent societal challenges facing our nation and the world (see Figure 3

below for an example of how nine of our recommended missions support in a synergistic way one of the societal benefit areas—extreme event warnings). It is important to recognize that these two sets of recommendations are not an ‘‘either/or’’ set

of priorities. Both near-term actions and longer-term commitments are required to

stem the tide of capability deterioration, continue critical climate data records, and

establish a balanced Earth observation program designed to directly address the

most urgent societal challenges facing our nation and the world. It is important to

‘‘right the ship’’ for Earth science, and we simply cannot let the current challenges

we face with NPOESS and other troubled programs stop progress on all other

fronts. Implementation of the ‘‘stop-gap’’ recommendations concerning NPOESS,

NPP, and GOES–R are important—and the recommendations for establishing a

healthy program going forward are equally as important. Satisfying near-term recommendations without placing due emphasis on the forward-looking program is to

ignore the largest fraction of work that has gone into this report. Moreover, such

a strategy would result in a further loss of U.S. scientific and technical capacity,

which could decrease the competitiveness of the United States internationally for

years to come.

Key elements of the recommended program include:

1. Restoration of certain measurement capabilities to the NPP, NPOESS, and

GOES–R spacecraft in order to ensure continuity of critical data sets.

2. Completion of the existing planned program that was used as a baseline assumption for this survey. This includes (but is not limited to) launch of GPM

in or before 2012, securing a replacement to Landsat 7 data before 2012.

3. A prioritized set of 17 missions to be carried out by NOAA and NASA over

the next decade (see Tables 1 and 2 below). This set of missions provides a

sound foundation for Earth science and its associated societal benefits well

beyond 2020. The committee believes strongly that these missions form a

minimal, yet robust, observational component of an Earth information system that is capable of addressing a broad range of societal needs.

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4. A technology development program at NASA with funding comparable to and

in addition to its basic technology program to make sure the necessary technologies are ready when needed to support mission starts over the coming

decade.

5. A new ‘‘Venture’’ class of low-cost research and application missions that can

establish entirely new research avenues or demonstrate key application-oriented measurements, helping with the development of innovative ideas and

technologies. Priority would be given to cost-effective, innovative missions

rather than ones with excessive scientific and technological requirements.

6. A robust NASA Research and Analysis program, which is necessary to maximize scientific return on NASA investments in Earth science. Because the

R&A programs are carried out largely through the Nation’s research universities, such programs are also of great importance in supporting and training

next generation Earth science researchers.

7. Sub-orbital and land-based measurements and socio-demographic studies in

order to supplement and complement satellite data.

8. A comprehensive information system to meet the challenge of production,

distribution, and stewardship of observational data and climate records. To

ensure the recommended observations will benefit society, the mission program must be accompanied by efforts to translate raw observational data

into useful information through modeling, data assimilation, and research

and analysis.

Further, the committee is particularly concerned with the lack of clear agency responsibility for sustained research programs and the transitioning of proof-of-concept measurements into sustained measurement systems. To address societal and

research needs, both the quality and the continuity of the measurement record must

be assured through the transition of short-term, exploratory capabilities, into sustained observing systems. The elimination of the requirements for climate researchrelated measurements on NPOESS is only the most recent example of the Nation’s

failure to sustain critical measurements. Therefore, our committee recommends that

the Office of Science and Technology Policy, in collaboration with the relevant agencies, and in consultation with the scientific community, should develop and implement a plan for achieving and sustaining global Earth observations. This plan

should recognize the complexity of differing agency roles, responsibilities, and capabilities as well as the lessons from implementation of the Landsat, EOS, and

NPOESS programs.

Mr. Chairman, the observing system we envision will help establish a firm and

sustainable foundation for Earth science and associated societal benefits through

the year 2020 and beyond. It can be achieved through effective management of technology advances and international partnerships, and broad use of satellite science

data by the research and decision-making communities. Our report recommends a

path forward that restores U.S. leadership in Earth science and applications and

averts the potential collapse of the system of environmental satellites. As documented in our report, this can be accomplished in a fiscally responsible manner, and

I urge the committee to see that it is accomplished.

Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. I am prepared to answer any questions that you may have.

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Supporting Tables and Graphics

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BIOGRAPHY FOR RICHARD A. ANTHES

Since 1988 Dr. Richard Anthes has been President of the University Corporation

for Atmospheric Research (UCAR). He is a highly regarded atmospheric scientist,

author, educator and administrator who has contributed considerable research to

the field. UCAR is a non-profit consortium of 70 member universities that award

Ph.D.s in atmospheric and related sciences. UCAR manages the National Center for

Atmospheric Research, in addition to collaborating with many international meteorological institutions.

Dr. Anthes has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles and books and participated on or chaired over 40 different U.S. national committees. His many research

contributions in the areas of tropical cyclones and mesoscale meteorology include the

development of the first successful three-dimensional model of the tropical cyclone

which evolved into one of the world’s most widely used mesoscale models, the Penn

State-NCAR mesoscale model, now in its fifth generation (MM5). In recent years he

became interested in the radio occultation technique for sounding Earth’s atmosphere and was a key player in the highly successful proof-of-concept GPS/MET experiment. This grew into an internationally sponsored project called COSMIC (Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere and Climate) which recently launched a globe-spanning constellation of six satellites, expected to improve

weather forecasts, monitor climate change, and enhance space weather research.

Dr. Anthes has also received numerous awards for his sustained contributions to

the atmospheric sciences. In October 2003 he was awarded the Friendship Award

by the Chinese government, the most prestigious award given to foreigners, for his

contributions over the years to atmospheric science and weather forecasting in

China. He is Co-Chair of the National Research Council’s Committee on Earth

Science and Applications from Space: National Imperatives for the Next Decade and

Beyond. Dr. Anthes is currently President of the American Meteorological Society.

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Chairman GORDON. Thank you. Right on time.

Dr. Moore.

STATEMENT OF DR. BERRIEN MOORE III, UNIVERSITY DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR, DIRECTOR, INSTITUTE FOR THE

STUDY OF EARTH, OCEANS, AND SPACE, UNIVERSITY OF

NEW HAMPSHIRE; CO-CHAIR, COMMITTEE ON EARTH

SCIENCE AND APPLICATIONS FROM SPACE, NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL, THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES

Dr. MOORE. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Minority

Member, and Members of the Committee, thank you inviting—for

inviting me to testify today.

I would like to repeat what my colleague, Rick Anthes, said. At

a time when the need has never been greater, we are faced with

an Earth observation program that will dramatically diminish in

capability over the next five to ten years.

Now we can ask, ‘‘Why did this occur?’’ Simply stated, the NASA

Earth science budget declined, in real terms, by a third from the

year 2000 to now. And as you well know, technical and managerial

difficulties in the NPOESS program offset the budget increases for

NOAA’s planned satellites over the same period. And regardless of

where or whether blame is placed, we are still in the same situation. That is where we are.

The Survey set forth a strategy for a strong, balanced national

program in Earth science to reverse this trend. It recommends, as

Rick said, that the Nation commit to leadership in Earth’s observations in part through implementing a series of 17 missions carefully chosen to augment and replace our aging satellite fleet. The

set of recommended 15 new missions to NASA may seem large numerically, but we believe that through focusing on smaller missions

and avoiding large, multi-instrumented platforms, a robust strategy for the future of Earth science can be achieved with reasonable

investments. As Rick Anthes just said, the program could be restored if we could just simply get back to the year 2000 levels.

I would like to call attention to what happened. It is in my written testimony. To show this 33 percent decline in real terms from

2000 to the present.

What about the future?

Is the President’s fiscal year 2008 budget adequately preparing

us for the future?

In short, no.

The President’s budget provides only a brief respite to a dramatically diminished observational system. The respite, lasting until

2010, does allow us to move forward with plans to measure global

rainfall, the Global Precipitation Mission, and general land cover

characteristics to the Landsat, but by 2012, the budget will leave

NASA’s Earth science with nearly 50 percent less buying power in

comparison to the year 2000 and unable to pursue the critical topics just described by my colleague. The fall by 2012 will put us at

a 20-year low in real terms for Earth science.

NOAA’s budget also appears to be inadequate to solve the cost

of growth within the NPOESS and GOES–R programs and to mitigate some of the NPOESS losses by reinstating the solar and Earth

radiation measurements, which, as Rick just said, are central to

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the climate system. Reinstating the high-resolution measurements

of the atmospheric ozone profiles, a key measurement to allow to

understand the post-CFC era, and realizing an operational active

radar-based measurement of sea surface winds.

Can anything be done now about the Committee’s recommendations for the next decade?

Definitely, yes.

For instance, the Survey presented a set of guidelines for managing the implementation of the new missions that included early

investments in technologies. This is an opportunity for the new

decade, starting now. NASA should consider investing $10 million

per year per mission across the first half of the 15 missions. That

takes an investment of $70 million. With that investment, we could

actually begin to implement the Decadal Survey right now.

It would also send a message that we are proceeding to develop

the needed and recommended Earth observing program. These investments would avoid technological surprises that have plagued

other programs. And I think that, in itself, is a reason to go forward with that kind of technology-based building.

Now how can we justify increasing resources in this time of particularly difficult budget issues, as Congressman Hall noted?

I believe it is because of the benefits: more reliable forecasts of

infectious diseases; the identification of active faults and the monitoring of crustal movements to improve building code designs in

earthquake-prone regions; better weather forecasts, particularly for

severe storms; climate predictions based on better understanding of

carbon sources and sinks, ocean temperature, ice sheet volume

changes, and, as we have noted, the inputs from the sun and the

thermal response of the Earth; enhanced precipitation and drought

forecasts to improve water quality management and water resource

management; and improved land-use agriculture to ocean productivity forecasts for better planning harvest cycles; and finally, more

reliable air quality forecasts to enable effective urban pollution

management and to protect the elderly and other populations at

risk.

Thank you very much, and I will be happy to answer any further

questions.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Moore follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF BERRIEN MOORE III

Mr. Chairman, Ranking Minority Member, and Members of the Committee: thank

you for inviting me here to testify today. My name is Berrien Moore, and I am a

Professor of systems research at the University of New Hampshire and Director of

the Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space. I appear today, like Dr.

Anthes, in my capacity as Co-Chair of the National Research Council (NRC)’s Committee on Earth Science and Applications from Space.

As you know, the NRC is the unit of the National Academies that is responsible

for organizing independent advisory studies for the Federal Government on science

and technology. The NRC has been conducting decadal strategy surveys in astronomy for four decades, but this is the first decadal survey in Earth science and applications from space.

On March 2, 2006, I testified before this committee at a hearing entitled, NASA’s

Science Mission Directorate: Impacts of the Fiscal Year 2007 Budget Proposal. At

that hearing, I showed the table below, which is taken from the 2005 Interim Report

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1 Note that the Glory mission was subsequently restored. The latest plan for LDCM is to implement the mission as a free-flyer. 2 National Research Council, Earth Science and Applications from Space: Urgent Needs and

Opportunities to Serve the Nation, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., 2005.

of our study. This table shows the effects of the FY ’06 budget.1 I then discussed

my concerns about the proposed cuts in the FY ’07 budget, especially the continuing

reductions in funding for Research and Analysis, which I believed was having a very

negative effect on a program already pared to the bone.

Since my appearance, there have been further cancellations and delays of NASA

missions and dramatic and deleterious changes in plans for the next generation of

NOAA meteorological satellites, especially regarding their capability to support the

needs for prediction, assessment, and mitigation of the effects of climate change.

With this as background, I will now turn to the questions posed to me in advance

of this hearing.

1. How did the Decadal Survey committee determine the priorities that it

recommended the Nation pursue in Earth and climate science research

and applications?

As noted in testimony of my co-chair, Dr. Richard Anthes, the Decadal Survey’s

vision, which was first expressed in the committee’s 2005 Interim Report,2 is for a

program of Earth science research and applications in support of society. The

present report reaffirms this vision, the fulfillment of which requires a national

commitment to a program of Earth observations from space in which practical benefits to humankind play an equal role with the quest to acquire new knowledge about

the Earth.

The Interim Report described how satellite observations have been critical to scientific efforts to understand the Earth as a system of connected components, including the land, oceans, atmosphere, biosphere, and solid-Earth. It also gave examples

of how these observations have served the Nation, helping to save lives and protect

property, strengthening national security, and contributing to the growth of our

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3 It has been estimated that one third of the $10 trillion U.S. economy is weather-sensitive

or environment-sensitive (NRC, Satellite Observations of the Earth’s Environment: Accelerating

the Transition of Research to Operations, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C.,

2003). 4The Panel Chairs were members of the Executive committee.

5The term space weather refers to conditions on the Sun and in the solar wind,

magnetosphere, ionosphere, and thermosphere that can influence the performance and reliability of space-borne and ground-based technological systems and that can affect human life

and health. 6There is no single definition of chemical weather, but the term refers to the state of the atmosphere as described by its chemical composition, particularly important variable trace constituents such as ozone, oxides of nitrogen, and carbon monoxide. Chemical weather has a direct

impact in a number of areas of interest for this study, especially air quality and human health.

economy3 through provision of timely environmental information. However, the Interim Report also identified a substantial risk to the continued availability of these

observations, warning that the Nation’s system of environmental satellites was ‘‘at

risk of collapse.’’ As noted above, in the short period since the publication of the Interim Report, budgetary constraints and programmatic difficulties at NASA and

NOAA have greatly exacerbated this concern. At a time of unprecedented need, the

Nation’s Earth observation satellite programs, once the envy of the world, are in disarray.

The decadal survey was led by an Executive Committee that drew on the work

of seven thematically-organized study panels:4

1. Earth science applications and societal needs.

2. Land-use change, ecosystem dynamics, and biodiversity.

3. Weather (including space weather5 and chemical weather6 ).

4. Climate variability and change.

5. Water resources and the global hydrologic cycle.

6. Human health and security.

7. Solid-Earth hazards, resources, and dynamics.

As described in Chapter 2 of our final report, each of the panels used a common

template in establishing priority lists of proposed missions (see Table 1 below). The

potential to deliver tangible benefits to society was an overriding consideration for

panel deliberations.

Because execution of even a small portion of the missions on the panels’ short

lists was not considered affordable, panels worked with each other and with members of the Executive Committee to pare the number of missions; they also developed synergistic mission ‘‘rollups’’ that would maximize science and application returns across the panels while keeping within a more affordable budget. Frequently,

the recommended missions represented a compromise in an instrument or spacecraft characteristic (including orbit) between what two or more panels would have

recommended individually without a budget constraint.

All the recommendations offered by the panels would merit support—indeed, the

panels’ short lists of recommendations were distilled from the over 100 responses

that we received in response to a request for mission concepts, as well as other submissions—but the Executive Committee took as its charge the provision of a strategy for a strong, balanced national program in Earth science for the next decade

that could be carried out with what are thought to be realistic resources. Difficult

choices were inevitable, but the recommendations presented in this report reflect

the committee’s best judgment, informed by the work of the panels and discussions

with the scientific community, about which programs are most important for developing and sustaining the Earth science enterprise.

The recommended NASA program can be accomplished by restoring the Earth

science budget in real terms to the levels of the late 1990s.

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2. What are the practical benefits of the research and applications activities that your Decadal Survey recommended?

Our report presents a vision for the Earth science program; an analysis of the existing Earth observing system and recommendations to help restore its capabilities;

an assessment of and recommendations for new observations and missions needed

for the next decade; an examination of and recommendations concerning effective

application of those observations; and an analysis of how best to sustain that observation and applications system. A critical element of the study’s vision is its emphasis on the need to place the benefits to society that can be provided by an effective

Earth observation system on a par with scientific advancement.

The integrated suite of space missions and supporting and complementary activities that are described in our report will support the development of numerous applications of high importance to society. Expected benefits of the fully-implemented

program include:

• Human Health

More reliable forecasts of infectious and vector-borne disease outbreaks for

disease control and response.

• Earthquake Early Warning

Identification of active faults and prediction of the likelihood of earthquakes

to enable effective investment in structural improvements, inform land-use

decisions, and provide early warning of impending earthquakes.

• Weather Prediction

Longer-term, more reliable weather forecasts.

• Sea Level Rise

Climate predictions based on better understanding of ocean temperature and

ice sheet volume changes and feedback to enable effective coastal community

planning.

• Climate Prediction

Robust estimates of primary climate forcings for improved climate forecasts,

including local predictions of the effects of climate change; determination in

time and space of sources and sinks of carbon dioxide.

• Freshwater Availability

More accurate and longer-term precipitation and drought forecasts to improve

water resource management.

• Ecosystem Services

More reliable land-use, agricultural, and ocean productivity forecasts to improve planting and harvesting schedules and fisheries management.

• Air Quality

More reliable air quality forecasts to enable effective urban pollution management.

• Extreme Storm Warnings

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Longer-term, more reliable storm track forecasts and intensification predictions to enable effective evacuation planning.

3. How consistent is the President’s FY 2008 budget request for NASA and

NOAA with the recommendations of the Decadal Survey Committee?

It is important to note we were, of course, not privy to the details of the President’s fiscal year 2008 budget, which was developed prior to the release of our final

report. The NRC report is a forward-looking document and therefore focuses primarily on the new missions; whereas, the Interim Report dealt with the difficulties

and challenges of the Earth observing programs at NASA and NOAA, as they existed in early 2005.

Let me address first the President’s FY ’08 budget request for NASA Earth

science. It is a mixture of some good news and bad news. The primary good news

is the small bottom line increases for 2008 and 2009. These increases address the

needs of currently planned missions already in development, the completion of

which is consistent with the decadal survey’s baseline set of assumptions.

Unfortunately, the out-year budgets reveal fundamental flaws in the budget and

NASA’s Earth science plans—the budgets are totally inadequate to accomplish the

decadal survey’s recommendations.

In 2010, the Earth science budget begins to decline again and reaches a 20-year

low, in real terms, in 2012. This decline reflects that the 2008 budget contains no

provision for new missions, nor does it allow us to address the significant challenges

facing our planet. The 2008 budget also ignores our repeatedly stated concern about

declines in the Research and Analysis portion of the Earth science budget. The Interim Report raised this concern about the FY 2006 budget and the importance of

a robust Research and Analysis program is reaffirmed in the final report, but regrettably, the FY 08 budget for R&A is 13 percent below the FY ’06 budget in real

terms. These disturbing broad trends are captured in Figure 1.

Before turning to NOAA, I want to emphasize that the problems in the out-years

appear to be due entirely to the lack of adequate resources. In fact, at a NASA townhall meeting that followed the release of our report on January 15, 2007 at the 2007

annual meeting of the American Meteorological Society, the head of NASA’s Earth

Science program stated that the recommendations in our report provided the roadmap for the Earth Science program we should have.

The NOAA NESDIS budget picture is also a mixture of some good and bad news.

In this case, the budget takes a small downturn in FY08, followed by significant

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7 In a typical hurricane season, NOAA’s forecasts, warnings, and the associated emergency responses result in a $3 billion savings. Two-thirds of this savings, $2 billion, is attributed to the

reduction in hurricane-related deaths, and one-third of this savings, $1 billion, is attributed to

a reduction in property-related damage because of preparedness actions. Advances in satellite

information, data assimilation techniques, and more powerful computers to run more sophisticated numerical models, have lead to more accurate weather forecasts and warnings. Today,

growth in FY09–FY10, before turning down again in FY11 (Figure 2). It remains

to be seen whether this ∼$200 M/year growth in FY09 and FY10 can enable restoration of some of the lost capabilities to NPOESS and GOES–R. There appears to be

no budgetary wedge for new starts. Finally, for a variety of reasons, the NOAA

NESDIS budget is far from transparent, especially in the out-years, and the level

of detail that is readily available makes it difficult to respond adequately to Committee’s question.

4. What will be the impact if present trends in Earth and climate science

research and applications investments continue?

As detailed in our report and as summarized by my co-chair, between 2006 and

the end of the decade, the number of operating U.S. missions will decrease dramatically and the number of operating sensors and instruments on NASA spacecraft,

most of which are well past their nominal lifetimes, may decrease by some 35 percent. If present trends continue, reductions of some 50 percent reduction are possible by 2015.

Were this to pass, we would have chosen, in effect, to partially blind ourselves

at a time of increasing need to monitor, predict, and develop responses to numerous

global environmental challenges. Vital climate records, such as the measurement of

solar irradiance and the Earth’s response, will be placed in jeopardy or lost. Measurements of aerosols, ozone profiles, sea surface height, sources and sinks of important greenhouse gases, patterns of air and coastal pollution, and even winds in the

atmosphere are among the numerous critical measurements that are at risk or simply will not occur if we follow the path of the President 2008 budget and the proposed out-year run out.

Taking this path, we will also forgo the economic benefits that would have come,

for example, from better management of energy and water, and improved weather

predictions.7 Again, as my co-chair notes in his comments and testimony, without

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NOAA’s five-day hurricane forecasts, which utilize satellite data, are as accurate as its threeday forecasts were 10 years ago. The additional advanced notice has a significant positive effect

on many sectors of our economy. See statement and references therein of Edward Morris, Director, Office of Space Commercialization, NOAA, Hearing on Space and U.S. National Power,

Committee on Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, U.S. House of Representatives, June 21, 2006. Available at: http://www.legislative.noaa.gov/Testimony/morris062106.pdf 8 Ibid.

action on the report’s recommendations, a decades-long improvements in the skill

in which we make weather forecasts will stall, or even reverse; this may be accompanied by diminished capacity to forecast severe weather events and manage disaster response and relief efforts. The Nation’s capabilities to forecast space weather

will also be at risk, with impacts on commercial aviation and space technology.8

The world is facing significant environmental challenges: shortages of clean and

accessible freshwater, degradation of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, increases

in soil erosion, changes in the chemistry of the atmosphere, declines in fisheries,

and the likelihood of significant changes in climate. These changes are occurring

over and above the stresses imposed by the natural variability of a dynamic planet,

as well as the effects of past and existing patterns of conflict, poverty, disease, and

malnutrition. Further, these changes interact with each other and with natural variability in complex ways that cascade through the environment across local, regional, and global scales. In summary, absent a reversal of the present trends for

Earth observation capabilities, we see the following:

• Weather forecasts: After decades of steady improvement, weather forecasts,

including those of severe weather such as hurricanes, may become less accurate, putting more people at risk and diminishing the proven economic value

of accurate forecasts.

• Earthquakes, tsunamis, landslides, and volcanic eruptions: We risk

missing early detection of these and other hazards. We also lose our ability

to assess damage and mitigate the loss of further human life once they have

occurred. Satellite monitoring of volcanic plumes, for example, has a very real

impact on air traffic control.

• Water resources: We lose many of the needed observations to monitor the

health of our water storage reservoirs, and predict droughts with sufficient

time to mitigate their impact.

• Oceans: Sea level is rising and ice around the world is melting, yet there is

uncertainty in how fast these are occurring and whether or not they are accelerating or decelerating. We will become less able address these issues, and

assess their implications for our coastal communities.

• Climate: We are losing critical observations of the Earth system, the atmosphere, oceans, land, and ice needed to verify and improve the climate models.

These models will be increasingly important to the U.S. economy because they

best capture the likely patterns of future climate change and variability.

• Ecosystems: We lose the ability to assess the health of our forests, wetlands,

coastal regions, fisheries, and farmlands and to determine the impact and effectiveness of regulations designed to protect our food supply.

• Health: Land-use, land cover, oceans, weather, climate, and atmospheric information observations, now used by public health officials to determine the

effects of infectious diseases, skin cancers, chronic and acute illnesses resulting from contamination of air, food, and water are all at risk. As an example,

air quality forecasts, which use the global perspective of satellites to identify

pollution transport across borders, will become less accurate, with negative

implications for both human health and urban pollution management efforts.

I would like to thank the Committee for inviting me to testify, and I would be

delighted to answer any further questions.

Chairman GORDON. Governor.

36

STATEMENT OF HONORABLE JAMES GERINGER, DIRECTOR

OF POLICY AND PUBLIC SECTOR STRATEGY, ENVIRONMENTAL SYSTEMS RESEARCH INSTITUTE (ESRI)

Mr. GERINGER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee, Ranking Member Hall. I appreciate the opportunity to be

with you today.

I am Jim Geringer. As you have introduced me, I am with the

Environmental Systems Research Institute, a leader in geospatial

information systems. I served as Governor of Wyoming. I also represent the Alliance for Earth Observations, which is a group of people who are interested in an observation system of a totally integrated type that includes academia, non-profits, non-governmental,

as well as industrial members.

My past includes time as an ag-producer, a farmer. I have used

Earth observation information for several years and also worked on

the unmanned space program, launching, among other things, a

Global Positioning Satellite system that we knew as NABSTAR, at

the time.

I deeply appreciate what Dr. Moore and Dr. Anthes have put together through their committee. I serve on the Mapping Science

Committee also under the National Research Council. I am not associated with their activity, but I very well understand the quality

and breadth of reports that just—don’t just happen. It takes a lot

of effort.

My role here, I believe, is to speak from the practical point of

view, those who have to do something with the information. For all

of the college degrees that there might be, the Bachelors, the Masters, and the Ph.D.s, I think mine is more relevant as the BT, the

‘‘been there’’ degree.

As a former governor and ag-producer, my staff used to say, ‘‘It

doesn’t take a rocket scientist to be governor, but it helps.’’

One example I would give is what Congressman Hall already

brought up, the National Integrated Drought Information System.

My part of the Rocky Mountain west is still suffering from a significant drought. I know that we would certainly like to balance out

what New York is getting right now.

Drought can last long and extend across larger areas than hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, earthquakes, and it causes hundreds of

millions of dollars in losses, and it certainly dashes our hopes and

dreams. And when the 19 western governors got together and said,

‘‘We would like to support the use of satellite and other observation

information to lessen droughts’ impact on our region,’’ we requested

the NIDIS system, as it is called, because rather than spending billions of dollars, federal dollars, in particular, on drought assistance

after the fact, we would rather spend more on avoidance before the

fact.

The strongest case for NIDIS and then extending on through the

broader Earth observation activities is to enable risk management

by individuals to make better judgment and policy decisions by

business, by government, and shifting from our practice of reaction

and restitution to one of prediction and mitigation.

The Decadal Survey goes far beyond just climate change. It highlights many other Earth science areas of practical benefit. Looking

at what is happening with increased populations located in highVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:39 May 12, 2007 Jkt 033104 PO 00000 Frm 00040 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 C:\WORKD\FULL07\021307\33104 SCIENCE1 PsN: SCIENCE1
37

risk zones, such as earthquake faults or near sea coasts, the shortage of clean and accessible freshwater, the shortage of water, as a

commodity, will be the dominate issue from here forward, human

health and security, degradation of both terrestrial and aquatic

ecosystems, soil erosion, invasive species, and certainly our opportunity to do disaster—better disaster management. So all of those

are even beyond the climate change issues that have already been

raised.

There is also a concern that I would bring to you that the lack

of access to and the relevance of remotely-sensed data frustrates a

lot of users. We need to devote more time asking the users what

they need and help them find it. Many times it is available. They

just don’t know it is there. We need a streamlined process for accessing remotely-sensed data by the public, policy-makers, educational communities, as well as industry.

In terms of three broad areas of recommendation I would bring

to you, based on the Decadal Survey. Number one, enable the best

possible personal and policy decisions, the best information for all

kinds of people, providing our citizens with information, technology,

and tools to monitor and respond in their own way to our changing

world, protecting their lives, livelihood, and property. Number two,

provide an Integrated Earth Observation System, otherwise known

as IEOS, to assure U.S. competitiveness. Our American competitiveness is slipping without the projects and the missions described

by the two co-chairmen here. And number three, designate clear

leadership responsibilities to resolve the issues and attain the goals

identified in the Decadal study.

Our United States private sector capabilities lead all other nations today. With activities such as GoogleEarth, Microsoft, Yahoo,

and our own product at ESRI, providing online mapping sites using

remotely-sensed imagery that the public now takes for granted.

Other private sector companies, such as GeoEye and DigitalGlobe,

well known in Colorado, provide high-resolution imagery for tourism, real estate, insurance companies to use. It has enabled corrections to legal descriptions, settled land ownership disputes, Light

Detection and Ranging, or LiDAR, sensors are used to map terrain

and to define flood plain mapping and allow state and local governments to aid in their own development decisions.

There are so many sources that are brought to bear in addition

to satellite imagery to mitigate and respond to catastrophic events.

And I was also asked to specifically address how Earth observations are used in the agricultural sector. But first, let me address

how they are not.

Current Earth observations are highly fragmented, with different

systems that were set at different times by different organizations

and by different Congresses for different reasons, and few, if any,

of them are cross-correlated, especially within the federal space.

NOAA has their weather observations. The FAA has surface observations. The USGS has stream gauging, and the Department of Agriculture, through the NRCS, employs snow pack telemetry. We do

not have a coherent, integrated system to deliver each of the products so that we can tell their relationships and their interrelationships.

38

Satellite remote sensing, indeed, though, is broadly used in sustainable agriculture: forestry; responsible natural resource stewardship both in the public and the private domain; monitoring foreign

and domestic yearly yields on harvests of food and fiber to predict

where the balances and the imbalances might occur; measuring soil

erosion from wind and water; evaluating the impact of climate

change; detecting the presence of invasive species, plants, animals,

insects, and diseases that affect a wide range of agriculture; detecting and measuring contamination of soil, water, and air resources;

looking at landscape health; measuring resources involved with the

development of biofuels, and certainly with the shift from food production to biofuels being able to monitor that.

So remotely-sensed observations support the entire agriculture

value stream from monitoring and detecting change, identifying solutions, taking action, and then finding out, in return, what the result of those actions were.

There are many uses of agriculture in—such as hyperspectral imagery by individual farmers and ranchers all the way up to what

you are doing on this committee, Mr. Chairman and Members of

the Committee. Whatever the user is, they want objective, timely,

and accurate information. And timeliness is, by far, the most important, because the value of information is the highest when uncertainty is the highest, and it is certainly—uncertainty is certainly

common in agriculture.

One of the statements in the report says that satellites—and I

quote, ‘‘Satellite observations have spatial and temporal resolution

limitations and hence, alone, do not provide a picture of Earth’s

system that is sufficient for understanding all of the key physical,

chemical, and biological processes.’’ What we need is a system of

space, ground, airborne, and ocean-based sensors, both public and

private, that can gather complementary information and can be integrated with a minimum of duplication. In addition, we need a national network of web-based information integration of how our collective efforts, and I had proposed in the appendix attached to my

written remarks how we could integrate that through a geospatialenabled information system.

So to sum up, we can build on the Decadal Study results by ensuring that the United States has long-term Earth-observation capability and that it is maintained, certainly whatever we heard this

morning is we are not even maintaining; addressing the void in

leadership and how the vision can pull it all together; addressing

a single point of contact or program office within the Office of

Science and Technology Policy; improving our research to operations efforts across all agencies; establishing a common, integrated information infrastructure readily available through web

portals to the public and policy-makers alike; implement the U.S.

Integrated Earth Observation System, IEOS, which is part of the

Global Earth Observation System of Systems, or GEOSS; and then

begin a dialogue with the private sector, industry, academia, and

non-governmental organizations to assure that all observation assets respond to the needs of all of our various sectors, as well as

to consider new technology solutions. A high-level commission that

includes the private sector, non-governmental, and governmental

39

representatives, particularly state and local, could further examine

and develop an integrated plan for Earth observations.

Mr. Chairman, thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Geringer follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF JAMES GERINGER

Chairman Gordon, Ranking Member Hall, Members of the Committee, special

guests, ladies and gentlemen. I am Jim Geringer, currently Director of Policy and

Public Sector Strategy for Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI), the industry leader for geospatial information systems. I served as Governor of Wyoming

from 1995 to 2003. I am also a representative of the Alliance for Earth Observations, a nonprofit initiative to unite the private sector in the mission to promote the

understanding and use of Earth observations for societal and economic benefit. My

past includes time spent as an agricultural producer and user of Earth observation

information and several years with the unmanned space program configuring remote sensing satellites. I will relate some of my perspective from each of these roles.

We each benefit from Earth science, remote sensing and location-based information every day. Through TV, newspapers, PDAs and online information, we check

the weather, the latest headlines and map out where to meet someone for dinner.

On a broader scale, we can track indicators of change across our planet. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported that last year was

the warmest on record for the United States. My part of the Rocky Mountain West

continues to suffer extreme drought. Last week’s report from the Intergovernmental

Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) confirms what we already knew anecdotally—that

human activity is adversely affecting our climate.

Today’s discussion centers on Earth science and applications from space and the

requisite analytical tools that are necessary to make use of the data. As a former

governor, agricultural producer and now involved with geospatial technology, I support the programs dealing with Earth science, applications, and observational technologies for public use, business decisions, and everyday personal choices.

I thank Drs. Berrien Moore and Rick Anthes for their leadership as Co-Chairs of

the National Research Council (NRC) study, Earth Science and Applications from

Space: National Imperatives for the Next Decade and Beyond, which is the focus of

this hearing. I congratulate them and the other members of the Committee for an

exceptional report. I serve on a related committee under the NRC, the Mapping

Science Committee, so I know that the quality and breadth of reports such as this

don’t just happen; they require a very dedicated and concerted effort.

Response to the Report

Quoting from the report, ‘‘the United States’ extraordinary foundation of global

observations is at great risk. Between 2006 and the end of the decade, the number

of operating missions will decrease dramatically and the number of operating sensors and instruments on NASA spacecraft, most of which are well past their lifetimes, will decrease by 50 percent.’’ A fifty percent reduction in today’s space-based

information systems is in sharp contrast to ever increasing demand.

Quoting further, the Committee was ‘‘challenged by the rapidly changing budgetary environment of NASA and NOAA environmental-satellite programs. By definition, decadal surveys are forward-looking documents that build on a stable foundation of existing and approved programs. In the present survey, the foundation eroded rapidly over the course of the study.’’ It is difficult maintain your vision from

a crumbling vantage point.

I offer three recommendations to the Committee for your consideration and deliberation:

• Enable the best possible personal and policy decisions by providing our

citizens with information, technology and tools to monitor and respond to our

changing world, thereby protecting lives and property;

• Provide an integrated Earth observation system to assure U.S. competitiveness;

• Designate clear leadership responsibilities to resolve the issues and attain

the goals identified in the Decadal Study.

Enable the Best Decisions

The American people need and deserve the most comprehensive and timely information possible about our world. The value of objective, timely, and accurate information has never been higher. We all would like to have predictable certainty and

40

security, in our lives. The value of information is high when uncertainty is high.

Today nearly every issue we face has increasing uncertainty which drives the necessity for better information. We devote funding and resources to modern medicine to

keep our bodies healthy using the best information; likewise, we should have quality

information about our nation’s food supply, water supply, energy, climate change

and national security or face more and more uncertainty. In today’s world of RSS

feeds, 24-hour news channels and e-mails that propagate rumor far faster than

truth, information that is dangerously incomplete is being used to influence decision-makers. Today’s media and Internet capabilities can and should provide more

and better information. Remote sensing with the right analytical technology can

provide an objective and accurate assessment of the situation before decisions are

made with information that has not yet been validated.

We should develop a culture among agencies and levels of government to share

data, applications and predictions, then serve the results to the public so that we

individually and collectively are more self-reliant, less vulnerable and can assure

long-term sustainability for our world.

A policy-maker in Washington, a water resource manager in the West, a farmer

in Indiana each must have good information upon which to base decisions. We must

have access to the most accurate and comprehensive science information to develop

a policy of sustainability for ourselves and for future generations.

Earth Observations Are Vital to American Competitiveness

Integrated Earth observation capabilities are vital to American competitiveness.

The Decadal Survey helps us realize that the U.S. Earth observation capability is

not keeping up with expectations and our competitiveness is at risk. We must have

the global information infrastructure that is critical to our interconnected society.

Comprehensive science information ensures that decisions will be made based on

evidence rather than anecdotes. Long-term, sustained data is needed to identify

trends. Without U.S. long-term climate data, the IPCC assessment would not have

been possible.

Small satellites such as the Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC) from the

United Kingdom, Algeria, China, Nigeria and Turkey, provide information for disaster prediction and mitigation. But one of the most effective applications has been

the monitoring of opium production in Afghanistan. A constellation of low-cost satellites showed that the area under opium cultivation grew to a record 165,000 hectares in 2006 compared to 104,000 hectares in 2005. The U.S. is not alone in innovative approaches.

On June 21, 2004, the Western Governors unanimously adopted a report entitled,

Creating a Drought Early Warning System for the 21st Century: The National Integrated Drought Information System. I encourage the Members to download a copy

from http://www.westgov.org/wga/publicat/nidis.pdf. I was pleased to provide testimony on their behalf before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation, Subcommittee on Disaster Prevention & Prediction last April that helped

with the passage of H.R. 5136 authorizing NIDIS. Last week the President proposed

$4.4 million in the FY 2008 budget to fund it.

The strongest case for NIDIS is to enable risk management by individuals, businesses and governments, dramatically shifting from our practice of reaction and response to one of prediction and mitigation. Our competitive capability will increase

with better risk management. We cannot do this without accurate and regular satellite observations. With better sensors, data, applications, tools and ever-improving

technology we should reward risk management over resignation to the elements.

Of all the commodities sought in our marketplaces today, none will affect our competitiveness in the future more than water. Not oil or gold or pork bellies, but

water. Our municipalities must have timely information that enables water policies

that minimize or eliminate water shortages, farmers to plant alternative crops,

ranchers to locate alternatives for grazing, river barges to anticipate low flows in

navigable waterways, and health agencies to control disease.

Space sensors and satellite observations improve our understanding and response

to climate change to sustain international competitiveness. In today’s global economy, innovation is the key to competitiveness. The United States must stay at the

forefront of Earth observation and geospatial technologies to better forecast and

mitigate the impact of climate change, natural disasters and not only lead the competition but leave a more sustainable world for our children. The motivations and

aspirations of the next-generation workforce are being shaped today. We should be

setting a long-range vision in place to encourage today’s youth to pursue science,

math, technology and engineering professions to assure future innovation and competitiveness.

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Our commitment today to technology and greater knowledge of the Earth would

allow us to better protect life and property and create unprecedented opportunities

to promote economic vitality. The right instruments and information systems enable

our ability to make forecasts that help anticipate outbreaks of infectious disease, ensure adequate water availability and quality, or increase agricultural productivity.

The recommendations by the NRC report would enable a global view of issues and

activities. But a global view alone is not sufficient to make policy or decisions. We

need researchers, geospatial modeling and analysis that integrate pertinent sources

of data. We should promote the use of established standards and protocols to assimilate data from multiple sensors and sources—including commercial providers, State

and local governments, academia and international partners—and provide the data

through user-friendly web portals.

The U.S. private sector capabilities lead other nations. Google, Microsoft, Yahoo

and MapQuest provide online mapping sites with remotely sensed imagery that we

take for granted. In the private sector, companies such as GeoEye and DigitalGlobe

provide high-resolution satellite imagery. Tourism, real estate and insurance companies routinely use remote sensing information available online. High-resolution imagery has enabled corrections to legal descriptions and settled ownership disputes

of land parcels. Light Detection and Ranging, or LiDAR sensors are used extensively

to map terrain and elevation allowing state and local governments to aid in planning and development decisions.

Dr. Glenn Hill of Texas Tech University used 3–D imaging to catalog and preserve the archaeological heritage in Mesa Verde National Park. If space-based technology were developed to produce images of the quality created by Hill’s team, highdefinition 3–D images of entire national parks would enhance our ability to manage

our national parks. These and many other examples point out how public expectations continue to increase for good science and timely assessment.

I affirm the comment in the NRC report that ‘‘Satellite observations have spatial

and temporal resolution limitations and hence do not alone provide a picture of the

Earth system that is sufficient for understanding all of the key physical, chemical,

and biological processes.’’ We need a system of space, ground, airborne and oceanbased sensors, both public and private, that can gather complementary information

and can be integrated with a minimum of duplication. In addition we need a national network information integration that can be provided by collective efforts

such as a Geographic Information System for the Nation described in the paper attached to my written testimony as Appendix A.

Clear Leadership is Essential

Clear leadership is essential to resolve the issues and attain the goals identified

in the Decadal Study. The report before you calls for increased funding to improve

our current national Earth monitoring capability. Yes, funding is important but the

essential missing element is leadership. Scientific assessment, increased budgets,

improved technical capabilities, and coordinated public-private engagement must be

accompanied by designated, consolidated leadership. Critical elements including satellite and aircraft sensors, in situ instruments such as stream gauges, and

geospatial information systems, have been fragmented among our federal agencies,

always a secondary mission, never the priority responsibility.

Earth observation is not a priority mission for any designated agency at the cabinet level. Not within NASA, the Department of Commerce, the Department of Interior nor any other federal agency. The important technologies that enable us to

measure climate change and identify and monitor the impacts to our environment,

our lives and our livelihood are the sole responsibility of no one agency or person.

Our federal policy and programs are fragmented, even duplicative, and fall short of

national goals. Our Earth observation systems that might help mitigate such things

as drought or major disasters are neither efficient nor integrated. Consequently our

current laws and practices foster dependency rather than enabling risk management, creating expectations that the Federal Government will bail us out of any and

all misfortunes.

Who should be the lead agency or position for U.S. Earth observation capabilities?

What is our national vision for Earth observations? How are requirements from the

federal operational sector such as NOAA, USGS, USDA and EPA reflected in our

research and development programs within NASA and NSF? Are requirements from

the private sector being addressed?

Leadership is essential to:

• Protect these critical assets;

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• Develop a national Earth observation strategy to appropriately addresses climate change and other environmental challenges based on evidence over

anecdote;

• Assure economy and efficiency in agency plans and budgets;

• Allow a smooth transition from research to operations;

• Improve U.S. land-observing capabilities to an equal priority with atmospheric and ocean observations;

• Improve capability and cooperation among government, private sector, academia, and non-governmental organizations;

• Assure the much needed integration of our national and international Earth

observation systems;

• Develop the products needed to make the best decisions for our country and

future generations.

I support the report recommendation that:

The Office of Science and Technology Policy, in collaboration with the relevant

agencies, and in consultation with the scientific community, should develop and

implement a plan for achieving and sustaining global Earth observations. Then

a single point of contact or program office at the Cabinet level should be established to assure complementary rather than duplicative or fragmented effort for

all operational aspects of Earth observation and analysis.

I urge that the private sector—industry, academia, and non-governmental organizations—be consulted regarding an integrated plan for Earth observations through

a high-level Commission (e.g., Congressional or White House). Good ideas and best

practices abound outside of government.

The U.S. Integrated Earth Observation System (IEOS) would also advance our national capabilities. IEOS would be the U.S. component of the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS), which is now supported by more than 66 countries

and 46 international organizations. This U.S.-initiated effort is intended to allow

federal interagency and multi-national coordination to assure that disparate environmental-related data systems here at home and abroad are inter-operable and

compatible. A strong IEOS effort should be characterized by clear designation of responsibilities, enabled by a web-based system of rapid communication, and funded

across agency boundaries with a clear purpose. IEOS/GEOSS would improve the capabilities for today’s decision-makers by providing new information products. That

is not the case today. IEOS has neither been funded nor has program leadership

been designated.

We take for granted our capability to use credit or ATM cards almost anywhere

in the world. The financial and banking systems throughout the world are inter-operable—they exchange, transfer, translate, and deliver data that is used in decision

support tools. If insufficient funds exist, both the bank and the account holder know.

Decision support tools used by banks flag and even stop transactions. We should do

the same with today’s Earth observations systems. Unfortunately, they are not integrated. Our current systems do not allow users to easily access, integrate or deliver

data, nor do they include adequate decision support tools. We need a common integrated information architecture that IEOS/GEOSS would require.

Space-based assets made possible the discovery of the Antarctic ozone hole, enabled forecasting more than 40 hours beforehand as to where and when Hurricane

Katrina was likely to make landfall, and now help us to understand the evidence

and impacts of climate change. These same technologies are used by farmers, energy

executives, and coastal managers for their daily operational decisions.

Satellite Measurements for Agriculture and Other Areas

Mr. Chairman, I have generally covered all of the questions in your letter of invitation for me to testify. I submit these additional comments:

1. Describe the capabilities and applications made possible by data derived

from remote sensing satellites. What kinds of measurements are of chief

interest to each of the following communities:

• Agriculture

• Natural resource managers

• Municipal water supply managers

• Tourism and recreation officials

Each of these communities is heavily dependent on accurate weather and climate

forecasts provided by NOAA and private sector weather information companies.

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Earth observations are widely used for assessments of production and resource

conditions at a point in time. We need to move beyond the emphasis of a single

snapshot to the incorporation of observations made over time, analyzed by models

that can be used to predict yield or resources status as a consequence of future climate, management, biological or societal changes.

According to our U.S. Department of Agriculture, remote sensing associated with

sustainable agriculture, forestry, and responsible natural resource stewardship

would include:

• Monitoring domestic and foreign yearly yields and harvests of food, and fiber

production at field, local, regional and global scales.

• Measuring soil erosion from wind and water.

• Evaluating impacts of global change, especially climate.

• Detecting the presence of, and then monitoring the spread of invasive species

including plants, animals, insects and diseases affecting agriculture, forestry,

and natural resources.

• Detecting and measuring contamination of soil, water, and air resources, including dispersion of pollutants.

• Detecting indicators of landscape health such as the impacts of resource degradation on agri-ecosystems and natural ecosystems.

• Measuring resources involved in the development and production of biofuels.

• Evaluating the effect on food supplies of agriculture’s shift from food production to biofuels.

• Detecting and measuring the impact of, and the progress of recovery from, episodic catastrophic events such as drought, flood, hurricanes, tornadoes, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and wildfires.

• Detecting the effects of bioterrorism such as plant diseases, water-born pathogens and monitoring progress of remediation.

• Establish metrics for maintenance of soil quality, especially organic matter,

and chemistry.

• Detecting and measuring landscape factors indicating compliance with agreements between landowners/operators and federal and State agencies such as

the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), easements, timber sales, rangeland

management and public lands.

• Detecting and measuring landscape factors indicating compliance with international treaties and agreements.

• Identifying pathways that transport hazardous waste, and measuring the

amounts and ultimate fates of waste.

• Measuring the status and changes of habitat and effects on plant and animal

biological diversity.

• Understand the effect of energy development activities on or near critical

habitat for threatened and endangered species.

• Measurements to identify and quantify factors influencing water quantity,

water quality and air quality.

• Measuring carbon sequestration strategies to determine beneficial climate

change.

• Measuring the long-term effects of the increasing removal of ground water

from underground aquifers.

• Calculate the near-term and long-term effects of urban sprawl on agricultural

production, critical habitat and recreation opportunities.

Agricultural users require direct measurements from hyperspectral imagery to

identify ground cover or to the type and health of vegetation and soils, such as too

much or too little water, fertilizer or ripeness, on a short time scale of days to

weeks. Archived, these same parameters provide climatologists with longer-trend information, from seasonal to yearly variations such as El Nin ̃ o, for capacity planning

such as transportation and silo storage. The Drought Monitor is consulted by farmers, ranchers, and land managers especially in the West, and internationally by

those who seek competitive advantage in export markets or where they may gain

temporary advantage in their own country or region when drought would decrease

our exports into their countries.

Natural resource managers use direct measurement by hyperspectral imagery

from aircraft or from space to provide signatures of water resource conditions such

as algae and contaminants. These same measurements can provide forestry with

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tree type and conditions of their health. Measurement of atmospheric temperature

and moisture provide input to atmospheric forecast models that predict future temperature, precipitation, and severe weather, which could place healthy resources at

risk.

Municipal water supply managers also use atmospheric temperature and moisture

measurements to provide input to atmospheric forecast models that predict temperature and precipitation for planning in usage and supply.

Tourism and recreation officials assess atmospheric temperature and moisture

measurements to provide input to atmospheric forecast models that predict weather

and severe hazards for travel and tourist site conditions.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has recognized 26 Essential Climate Variables (ECVs) documented by the science community—26 measurements

that are critical to the models that forecast weather and climate.

NASA, the U.S. Geological Survey, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Commerce

and others are developing, deploying, and maintaining Earth observation data sets

used in key models and decision support tools.

2. How do these groups gain access to remote sensing data? Is special

training required to understand remote sensing data, and if so, how is

it derived? Do private companies provide value-added products for these

groups?

Groups access remotely sensed data several ways. The NOAA weather and climate forecasting services (National Weather Service, National Hurricane Center)

provide data and information through NOAA maintained portals and servers that

provide access to over 250 individual information products, including forecasts. Private sector companies (Accuweather, ZedX Incorporated, The Weather Channel) access and exploit this information for individual clients. Commercial companies such

as Google and ESRI provide online portals, and consulting and software solutions

used by many of the companies to visualize information for several of these markets

and to enable modeling and workflow analysis.

Raw remote sensing data by itself is not entirely useful. Training and education

vary by the level and sophistication of the end user. Ordinary citizens use data provided through many types of media. Capabilities range from basic literacy skills up

to doctoral research, certified professionals and technology aware managers. Special

expertise is required to turn data into actionable information. Public domain and

general information is provided through government agencies while tailored information for special and commercial users is provided by value-added companies.

User communities throughout the U.S. are generally fairly sophisticated, benefiting from training and information provided by NOAA, NASA, and NSF, the Air

Force, and professional societies such as the American Meteorological Society, the

National Association of Broadcasters. Individual companies such as ESRI also provide specialized training programs. There are thousands of registered meteorologists

and GIS professionals throughout the United States that are trained in the use of

the observations and the Earth science models that use them to create trends and

forecasts.

The number and diversity of players in the satellite observation field is growing.

New and emerging capabilities offered by GoogleEarth, Microsoft Virtual Earth 3–

D, ESRI’s Explorer and others deliver all types of data and information products

to a wide variety of users particularly through Internet-based web services and data

portals that allow many users to discover and extract information.

As a cautionary note—we risk becoming too complacent about having imagery and

maps right at our fingertips. Visualization is interesting but can be so shallow as

to be misleading. Development of good policy alternatives and decisions depend on

the quality and configuration of remotely sensed data. Data must be described in

terms of metadata, or its appropriateness for use. Compatibility of diverse date

sources is essential. The casual user of online free imagery may not realize how

much useful spatial and spectral information can come from satellite sensors and

used for analysis. The full value of remotely sensed data comes from computer programs and analytical models that extract and transform information from validated

and verified sources.

Academia plays a very important role in delivering information products and

training. Our universities not only provide vital research, but they are also developing the next generation of scientists, engineers and end users.

We don’t just need more data. We need more data that becomes information to

enable decisions. The Data was there that said that the nursing home in New Orleans was putting the residents at risk. But the data wasn’t available in the right

form and wasn’t used to make decisions, a tragic outcome for those who needed it.

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You as Members of Congress are enabled through a wide variety of information

through the Library of Congress that helps suggest a range of policy options that

you may use in legislative deliberations.

3. Based on your experience, how broadly are government and industry

using remote sensing data to plan and manage crop production and

other natural resources?

The most positive potential for government and industry alike is to leverage and

integrate information in a complementary way. The most negative potential is for

agencies to be fragmented in approach, duplicative in some efforts and void in others.Both government and industry use remote sensing data to plan and manage many

activities including crop production and natural resources. The U.S. Department of

Agriculture, for example, benefits greatly from access to a robust set of observations

and forecasts that are provided by a wide range of Earth observation systems (public and private). These are used by the Foreign Agriculture Service (FAS) to provide

the monthly global crop assessment products. These products are key to policy and

management decisions on agriculture worldwide. Business entities that advise the

agriculture community are critically dependent on NOAA and other sources of nearterm weather forecasts and seasonal to inter-annual forecasts of climate conditions

that are used in decisions of what to plant, when to plant, and when to harvest.

NASA’s MODIS satellite has been an invaluable source of information to detect

and fight wildfires in the West. Knowing where the active fire lines are helps protect the safety of our firefighters. The sensors help scientists monitor the extent of

irrigated agriculture and deforestation worldwide and provide data that private analysts use to predict the global agricultural production including which crops will be

in short or over supply.

As industries become more dependent on managing on small margins or managing against disaster risk, information from remote sensing will become even more

important. Weather risk managers seek to identify the economic consequences of adverse weather on enterprises and organizations by relating their revenues, margins

and costs to critical weather variables. A professional market exists that makes its

business in assuming this weather risk. In exchange for a premium or other benefits, these businesses take on this risk based on indices of pertinent weather variables, such as average temperature or rainfall.

A couple of years ago, the Metropolitan Area Planning Agency representing sixtyfour member organizations from five counties in Nebraska and Iowa contracted to

provide aerial data acquisition, digital orthophotography, and production services for

over 2,200 square miles in Nebraska and Iowa. It was a multi-sensor program involving a large consortium of government user communities. It included a combination of Lidar mapping, floodplain mapping, data for master planning, design and

construction projects, floodplain analyses, web services, highway and road design,

3D visualizations, GIS municipal requirements, and various engineering and public

works functions.

There is similar interest in managing the economic impact of extreme events—

earthquakes, hurricanes, monsoon and typhoons—by utilizing indices based on

windstorms, seismic magnitude and seismic intensity in ways that are very similar

to the way the weather risk market uses weather data. The risk-management business has strong interest in serious, systematic attempts to improve, expand and intensify the capture of data relating to our planet. We also see growing interest in

the risk management and insurance industries for understanding shorter-term

weather risk in terms of climate change. In sum, better, fuller data mitigates data

risk and model risk for the providers of risk capital.

Moving Forward

As noted earlier, the American people deserve the best and most comprehensive

information about our changing planet. Recent revelations about climate change,

particularly as affected by human activity, elevate the importance of ensuring national climate observing systems. We must approach our environmental security

with as much rigor and commitment as we approach homeland security.

We should build upon the Decadal Study results by:

• Ensuring that the U.S. long-term climate monitoring capability is maintained;

• Addressing the void in Earth observation leadership and vision;

• Establishing a single point of contact or program office within the Office of

Science and Technology Policy;

• Improving our research-to-operations efforts across all relevant agencies;

• Establishing a common integrated information infrastructure;

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• Implementing the U.S. Integrated Earth Observation System (IEOS) of the

Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS);

• Immediately beginning a dialogue with the private sector—industry, Academia, and non-governmental organizations—to ensure our satellite observation assets respond to the needs of various sectors as well as to consider new

technology solutions, such as the Geographic Information System for the Nation described in Appendix A.

• Establish a high-level Commission composed of private sector (industry, Academia, and non-governmental organizations) representatives to further examine and develop an integrated plan for Earth observations.

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BIOGRAPHY FOR JAMES GERINGER

• Native of Wheatland, Wyoming.

• B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Kansas State University.

• Veteran of 10 years active and 12 years reserve in the U.S. Air Force.

• Worked as project officer to launch several space based satellites for the unmanned space programs of the Air Force and NASA, including the Global Positioning Satellite System, remote-sensing early detection/warning systems,

the Interim Upper Stage for the Space Shuttle, the Mars Viking Lander, activation of the Peacekeeper missile system and disaster recovery from nuclear,

biological and chemical warfare.

• Served in the Wyoming Legislature from 1983 to 1994, including six years

each in the House and the Senate. Committee chairmanships included Appropriations, Judiciary and Management Audit.

• Contract administrator for the construction of a 1700 megawatt coal-fired

electric power generation plant near Wheatland Wyoming 1977–79.

• Went into full-time farming in 1980, continued through 1994.

• First elected as Wyoming Governor in 1994, reelected in 1998, completed second term in January 2003. Focused on improving education through standards, accountability and technology, modernized economic planning to extensively include technology, changed how natural resource agencies among

State, Federal and local governments worked together, implemented strategic

planning tied to performance based budgeting and upon leaving office, provided Wyoming state government with a budget surplus, one of very few

states to make that claim early in 2003.

• Emphasized community based solutions particularly for health and social

services and promoted the use of consensus building to resolve difficult issues.

• Past Chair of the Western Governors’ Association.

• Chairman of the Education Commission of the States.

• Served on the GeoSpatial One Stop Board of Directors, National Commission

on Mathematics and Science Teaching for the 21st Century, the National

Commission on Service-Learning, the National Commission on Teaching and

America’s Future, Chair of the National Governors Association Technology

Task Force and as charter member and current Chair of the Board of Trustees, Western Governors University.

• Current memberships: Mapping Sciences Committee under the National

Academy of Sciences National Research Council; Western Interstate Energy

Board; Association of Governing Boards for higher education; Operation Public Education; the Board of Governors of the Oquirrh Institute; and, Co-Chair

of the Policy Consensus Initiative.

• Joined Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) in the summer of

2003 as Director of Policy and Public Sector Strategies, focused on how senior

elected and corporate officials can enable productivity through technology

more effectively in business and government. Primary responsibility is to facilitate development of a policy for a decision support system for national location based information integration. ESRI, the world leader in location based

software and applications, is headquartered in Redlands, California.

• Recent keynotes include presentations on health care, health data standards,

alternative energy, education policy, natural resources, homeland security,

the importance of government services enabled through Internet portals, webbased infrastructure, e-government planning and sustainability of Earth’s resources.

• Received the National Association of State Chief Information Officers

(NASCIO) 2004 National Technology Champion Award.

• Governor Geringer and his wife Sherri have five children and ten grandchildren. They reside in Wheatland, Wyoming, the site of ESRI’s newest satellite office.

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DISCUSSION

CONSEQUENCES OF EARTH OBSERVATION DROP-OFF

Chairman GORDON. Thank you, Governor. And those were good

recommendations that we certainly want to put in the mix. Thank

you for that real-world suggestion.

Dr. Moore, as you showed us this—the budget, it demonstrates

that, really, these systems have been hit with a double-whammy.

One is the reduction in funding and secondly, just the ineptitude

at NPOESS. It is, you know—the waste of money there is so disheartening. It—this—that is a major priority for this committee

under Chairman Boehlert, he did his best to try to get a handle on

that, and I don’t think that we got good information, and he—I

think he would concur with that.

I have talked both with the Secretary of Commerce as well as the

President and CEO of Northrup Grumman. They tell me they are

on top of this now, and it is going to be our priority. And so I hope

we are going to see it brought back into line.

But let me—what I would like to ask you about is you mentioned

there were 17 replacement missions, although none of those are in

the budget for 2008, and it is—if history is any lesson to us, it is—

certainly, I think we can assume that all 17 won’t be in the future,

and very possibly, none.

So can you tell me—can you break that down in terms of what

we are going to lose in terms of just status quo if we don’t have

these 17 missions versus what we are going to lose in terms of

keeping up with the state-of-the-art?

Dr. MOORE. Yes. Congressman Gordon, let me first agree with

you that circumstances we face today are the result of a perfect

storm. A decline in the NASA budget and then the failure on the

NPOESS leave us in a very precarious position.

What are we not going to have?

We recommended earlier in our—early in the study, for the early

phase, an ICESat follow-on—the ICESat mission failed. There were

difficulties. And yet we know the ICE measurements are one of the

critical measurements as we look at the question of climate change.

The Earth radiation—this is fundamental to any climate model.

That was descoped off of the NPOESS system. And so now we are

vulnerable.

I think the issue of carbon sources and sinks, there is a mission

that is being developed, the Orbiting Carbon Observatory. But it is

sunlight-dependent, and it must operate in a very clear sky. When

you don’t study the carbon cycle, the sources and sinks, because of

photosynthesis, adequately with a sunlight-dependent mission. So

we have to have a follow-on that uses lasers. That is not in the

budget.

The issue of hyperspectral, for instance, in determining disease

outbreaks, this is something we have tried to achieve for a number

of years. That is not in the budget.

Air pollution modeling—monitoring, that is not in the budget.

And I want to go back to one thing that we mentioned earlier.

All we have to do is to get back to where we were. And so as a

percent of GDP, as a percent of the NASA budget, as a percent of

household income, that would be lower in the future than it was

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in the year 2000 and the year 1996. At that time, this country

thought that these measurements were important, and we have

just gone down this slide. And I think that the extraordinary thing

is we can achieve this robust program if we could just simply get

the budget restored back to where it was in the year 2000.

Chairman GORDON. Thank you.

Governor, do you endorse this proposal?

Mr. GERINGER. Chairman, yes, there are several features of this

proposal, in particular, the ones that call for innovation and creative approaches, and a formal planning and program office, such

as through the OSTP, to pull everything together to consolidate a

vision, in a practical way, put a process together to where it could

be administered to phase it and make it work.

Chairman GORDON. And Governor, as a Republican western governor, who, as you say, has seen this up firsthand, could you,

again, tell us what you think if—you know, we have all seen the

ad about pay me now or pay me later. I mean, in terms of money,

public and private dollars, in terms of suffering of folks, just at

least in Wyoming and the west, what is your opinion of what kind

of price are we going to pay if we don’t do this?

Mr. GERINGER. Well, the price you pay is tough to quantify, but

in terms of just what we enable other people to do, I guess my

focus would be on not the dollars that are spent but the frustration

of individuals who know what they could do if they had the tools

and the information to make decisions, to manage the risks, to

make their own business work.

Now we have five children, 10 grandchildren. They are all interested in what they might do. And instead of expecting a job, we

would like them to go out and make a job. Well, how do you make

a job if you don’t know the information required to plan your industry, to manage the risk, and to understand the marketplace? And

the marketplace is driven by a lot of external information, particularly derived from satellites, such as this. So it is—the cost is beyond dollar amounts. It is just in our ability to enable the next generation.

Chairman GORDON. Thank you.

My time has expired.

Mr. Hall.

PRIORITIES AND RECOMMENDATIONS OF DECADAL SURVEY

Mr. HALL. Governor, the Decadal Survey, as you know, recommends an increase of $500 million per year in NASA’s Earth

science budget to implement the Survey’s recommendations, but we

are told in what we hear and what we read and what seems to be

every—almost everyone’s understanding is that we are not likely to

see that large an increase in NASA’s budget any time in the near

future.

Given the limited funding situation, which of the missions recommended by the Decadal Survey do you believe are the most important for the Federal Government to implement?

Mr. GERINGER. Chairman—Congressman Hall, the—I don’t know

that I would pick out any one, but I would pick out an approach,

I guess is the best way to put it.

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The recommendation, and this is not a mission in particular, but

it is a recommendation where the—where OSTP pulls together everything, I think, is one of the lowest costs and probably a very significant cost-avoidance recommendation. So we can put together a

plan to achieve and sustain. I think the first concentration needs

to be on to sustain what we expect to be out there. Look at the predictive capabilities for today’s storm here in DC. If we lose that capability, I can’t imagine what would go on outside your doorstep

here.

The other things, and Dr. Anthes and I were talking earlier

about GPS systems, the Global Positioning Satellites that are up

there that can be used with suborbital sensors to detect changes in

the atmosphere, major density. It is a relative low-cost mission that

could be accomplished with existing satellites complemented with

a marginal increase in funding.

I particularly like one of the recommendations that says that the

three agencies, principle agencies, NASA, NOAA, and USGS,

should pursue innovative approaches. I think we need to cut them

loose and let them pursue some innovative approaches. That is one

of the things that has always benefited our economy and our competitiveness. Let us not be so rigid. Let us get them the tools, the

ability, and the funding to make it work in creative ways.

Mr. HALL. I will ask one other question of Dr. Anthes.

You made the statement that I agree with. You said we want to

get back to where we were. And we are in the second month of that

this year of wanting to get back to where we were prior to the November election. So I am going to—I think you made a good statement. You must be a Republican.

IMPROVEMENT OF WEATHER FORECASTS

Seriously, let me ask you this. Explain to us, with some kind of

concrete example, how the missions recommended in the Decadal

Survey is going to improve weather forecasts. And are we talking

about more accurate predictions, longer-range predictions, or some

other type of improvement——

Dr. ANTHES. Thank you very much——

Mr. HALL.—to get back where Dr. Moore says we ought to be?

Dr. ANTHES.—Congressman Hall.

I was referring to the non-partisan state of Earth

observations——

Mr. HALL. Okay.

Dr. ANTHES.—just for the record.

I appreciate that question.

I think this gives me an opportunity to talk about what we need

is a system of observations. It is not—we don’t have a silver bullet

out there to improve weather forecasting. It is very much like when

you go to the doctor for a check-up, you don’t just ask—he doesn’t

just ask you—or she ask you how much you weigh or how tall you

are or what your blood pressure is or what your cholesterol level

is or how fast you can do a treadmill or what your heart condition

is or your lung condition is. You need to know all of these things

about the body. So you need many different kinds of observations,

if, number one, you are going to understand the health of the body,

59

and number two, if you are going to make any kind of projections

about what your prognosis is for the future.

So weather forecasting is kind of like that. We don’t need just

temperatures in the atmosphere or just ocean temperatures or just

winds or just cloud cover. We need it all, because they all contribute independent information.

So what we are suggesting is this balanced set of recommendations, which includes winds, temperature, water vapor, ocean temperature. These are going to improve all aspects of weather forecasting from the two-week forecasts—by the way, I did a hearing

at the Senate just a week ago. When I got back to the hotel, I

looked at the long-range forecast, and I said to my colleagues here,

‘‘Tuesday is going to be a big storm event in the east. Watch out.’’

That is a—seven days in advance, and that is not bad. We stand

to lose that capability if the present trends toward observations—

loss of observations continue.

On the positive side, we are not anywhere near the limit in predictability, what we could do. Look at Katrina. Katrina, a wonderful forecast, but that was unusually good. We need to get every

hurricane forecast hitting—heading for the Gulf Coast, the East

Coast with that accuracy.

So it is not just a negative thing about forecasts getting worse

if we don’t get more—if we lose observations that there is a positive

benefit here of getting a balanced set of observations and improving our forecasts of tornadoes, hurricanes, extending the warnings

of severe events, and right into the interseasonal variability of climates, including the droughts that the Governor talked about.

Mr. HALL. How long would it take—excuse me. Is my time up?

Chairman GORDON. It has, but, sir, you go right ahead if you

need——

Mr. HALL. I just wanted to ask a follow-up. How long would it

take the average citizen, with all of those types of tests that—all

of us can understand any of them individually but not all of them

together. How long would it take until the natural—the average

citizen would see these improvements in daily operational weather

forecasts? And if accuracy is your main thrust, what about the

long-range, the timeliness of it?

Dr. ANTHES. Well, forecast improvements have been gradual, and

they will continue to be gradual. So the—but what happens is the

humans’ expectation grows as the accuracy gets better. So what we

take for granted now as a three—as a good three-day forecast, we

are now expecting that at six days or seven days. And so the expectations rise as the accuracy rises.

However, people who really look at this and depend on it for an

economic living know. They keep track of the scores, accuracy increases and such, because they are making decisions based on

probabilities. And so the people who really need it to make quantitative decisions are doing this right now.

For you and me, the public, it will be so gradual, it—you know,

you will wake up 10 years from now and we will have good twoweek forecasts instead of good week forecasts.

So it is gradual for the public. It is very valuable and well monitored for the decision-maker.

Mr. HALL. I thank all three of you.

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Yield back.

Chairman GORDON. The gentleman’s time has expired.

Mr. Udall is recognized for five minutes.

Mr. UDALL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I wanted—I want Judge Hall to know that we always take him

seriously.

DETAILS OF DECADAL SURVEY RECOMMENDATIONS

I did also, in the Decadal Survey recommendations, note that

there were over 100 proposed missions, and you all distilled it

down to 17, with the idea that they are integrated. And I am sure

there were some tough trade-offs there, but I think it is important

that the Committee understand that and the general public that

this is not just a wish list. This is a very focused effort to identify

where we would have the maximum return on our investment.

If I could, in that spirit, I wanted to talk about the opportunity

cost to explore that if we do not maintain a robust Earth-observing

system. And as I understand it, we need continuity in Earth-observing data over long time periods to improve smaller-scale regional climate projection models. And it seems to me that we are

going to need better regional information that would allow us to be

better prepared for changes in climate that are likely to occur, even

if we stabilize greenhouse gas emissions.

And then also, if we—and I shouldn’t say if. I want to say when

we adopt measures to limit greenhouse gases, we will need to

verify that the measures we adopt are, in fact, resulting in reduced

emissions and lower concentrations of greenhouse gases.

So what role would the Earth-observing system you are proposing play in fulfilling those needs? And is it going to be more difficult to—or take longer to accomplish these two things without an

Earth-observing system?

Maybe start with Dr. Anthes, and then Dr. Moore, you could follow on.

Dr. ANTHES. Well, that is a very excellent question. And the programs that we are proposing—first of all, it is a really good—you

noted that we went from over 100 proposed missions to 17. And one

of the criteria we had for prioritization was that it had to be affordable.

The second point is it is a balanced program. It supports climate

as well as weather. It supports industry, agriculture, water management, as well as science. And so the program we are proposing

is an integrated set of observations, and we think we need them

all for exactly the reasons that you iterated.

Mr. UDALL. Dr. Moore.

Dr. MOORE. Let me just draw attention to three points.

First of all, as you note, stabilization of greenhouse gas emissions

is going to be a very real challenge, but a challenge we must meet.

Stabilization of emissions does not lead to a stable concentration in

the atmosphere. Stabilization of emissions is a step towards stabilizing the concentration of the atmosphere. But stable emissions

will only lead to a constant growth of CO2, for instance, in the atmosphere. So that means that we have to face this question of climate change head on.

61

One of the missions that we recommend for the early timeframe

focuses on soil moisture. Soil moisture is, perhaps, one of the key

ingredients in climate models as well as in terms of what is really

important to the people who live based on—in areas based upon agriculture. But it also means that if you live in an area that is a

flood plain. So I—that is a key issue.

And the third is that the kind of missions that we recommended,

for instance, on CO2 where we looked at sources and sinks of carbon dioxide. Any kind of management system of greenhouse gases

is going to require the knowledge of what are the sources and sinks

for carbon dioxide. It is fundamental.

Mr. UDALL. Chairman Gordon, I know the clock isn’t running. I

am assuming I have got a minute or two left. Or I should say the

lights aren’t working.

ADDRESSING EMERGING REGIONAL AND GLOBAL

CHALLENGES

Chapter 2 in the report lists six emerging regional global challenges. To mention two of them, changes in natural systems due

to climate change and the role of ice sheets and the sea level rise,

and there are four other identified challenges.

Can we address those challenges if we don’t maintain an Earthobserving system? And maybe you could provide an example or two

that would illustrate our ability to respond to these challenges

would be limited by the lack of information from Earth-observing

systems if we don’t have those up in place.

Dr. ANTHES. Well, there is—we could all probably come up with

many examples. Let me just give one.

Sea level rise is one of the most important issues facing society,

particularly in the next generation and the generation after that.

For many years, the models of glaciers indicated a relatively slow

melt of the Greenland ice cap. But just in the last few months and

years, through measurements, very precise measurements of the

Earth’s gravity field, we could tell that the—Greenland was losing

mass at a far faster rate than the models of ice melt would indicate. And what apparently is happening, and I am not a

glaciologist, so bear with me, but apparently, it is the—water is

running down and causing slippage of the ice off the continent, and

perhaps a much faster rate of ice melt than we were predicting a

few—even a few years ago.

So if we suddenly stop measuring the Earth’s gravity or suddenly

stop measuring how fast the ice is melting, we don’t know whether

that is an anomaly, you know, that happened to be an anomaly

over the last couple of years, a rapid ice melt and is going to go

back to a slow melt, or it is going to continue to accelerate.

And so what we might be thinking is 100-year problem might

suddenly become a 25-year problem. We don’t know. But these are

the kinds of questions and—that we really need to stay on top of,

because we are going to have surprises.

Chairman GORDON. Thank you, Doctor.

The gentleman’s time is expired.

Mr. Bartlett is recognized for five minutes.

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ENVIRONMENTAL DATA AND ETHANOL USAGE

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you very much.

As you probably have noted in the papers, our zeal for producing

ethanol has driven the price of corn from $2.11 a bushel in September to $4.08 a bushel in December. This is very likely, I think,

to encourage farmers to take lands out of agricultural reserve, most

of which lands shouldn’t really be farmed, which is why they are

in there, but $4-a-bushel corn is going to be a big incentive to take

those lands out of the agricultural reserve and put them into production.

There are other reasons for being concerned about the use of fossil fuels. But if we limit ourselves just to the environmental effects,

clearly, we need to understand the environmental effects of CO2,

and we do, but there are also going to be big environmental effects

of taking these lands out of agricultural reserve and putting them

into production.

My question is how much will our decision-makers lose in quality

data for making decisions to how we need to move in the future

relative to this ethanol thing if we don’t have the additional programs that you all are encouraging?

Dr. MOORE. This is an area where I want to compliment NASA.

It does appear that the increase in 2008 and 2009, which is an increase of a downward trend, is to essentially address, as I have

mentioned in my testimony, the precipitation mission and the

Landsat. The Landsat satellite system will be fundamental in monitoring agricultural regions, absolutely fundamental. You need the

high resolution if you are to determine what type of crop is growing. And so this whole issue of biofuels will be very dependent upon

the Landsat system. For that, I think that NASA is doing a good

job at getting it back on track.

Mr. BARTLETT. Our public policy people are going to be caught

on the horns of a dilemma. Clearly, greenhouse gases are implicated in the increase to Earth’s temperature. And that is a big environmental concern. But all of life on Earth is dependent on about

the upper eight inches of topsoil. If you can’t grow food, you are not

here. And as we take this land out of reserve and put it in production, we are going to be losing more topsoil. And so our policy-makers are going to be faced with a tough decision. Do we save our topsoil by increasing CO2, which is the greater of those two evils? And

my concern is that we will need more, not less, information for

making those decisions.

And I would just like to get on the record my concern, and the

concerns of a great many people, that there are two environmental

concerns here that are kind of intentioned. And, you know, which

way are we going to go? And I think that will be largely dependent

on the quality of the information we get.

And so in a very real sense, this is more than just an academic

exercise. It will affect each one of us, not only by the quality of the

air we breathe, but potentially, by the volume of crops that we are

able to grow.

Mr. GERINGER. Mr. Chairman, let me—I think it was more of a

statement than a question, but let me respond anyway.

You asked what would happen.

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One of the things that agriculture uses, one thing that a governor uses is as much information as it can. Having been in politics

for a number of years, I am struck by how, in the absence of information, we make decisions anyway. Anecdotes serve us well, don’t

they? It is easier to make a judgment based on an anecdote from

a story back home, absent any other information.

So now let me turn it around and say if we had better information, such as what Landsat-5 and Landsat-7 started but are not

going to continue, and certainly the granularity and the detail that

we need today just to make individual decisions in agriculture production for individuals and then to take that beyond and say what

has been the impact of increasing ethanol or other renewable fuel

production as an offset to, say, food supply or the loss and erosion

of topsoil? What are the practices that happened? How do we know

that they are happening, other than anecdote, if we don’t have a

broader view that only satellite imagery can provide, as well as

ground-based information?

So you need a combination. We are not going to be able to even

evaluate the shift of production from food to fuel if we don’t have

the sensors in place.

Chairman GORDON. Thank you, Doctor—Governor, and thank

you, Dr. Bartlett.

Mr. BARTLETT. Mr. Chairman, I know my time is up, but I would

like unanimous consent to submit a question for the record, if I——

Chairman GORDON. Certainly.

Mr. BARTLETT.—might.

Chairman GORDON. Certainly.

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you, sir.

Chairman GORDON. Dr. Wu.

Mr. WU. Thank you very much.

And my mom always wished I had finished medical school, and

I have been upgraded. And I am going to tell her about this.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

First just a—drop-out is such a harsh word. I am on a leave of

absence from my medical school, which has now gone on for approximately—well, we are approaching the end of the third decade.

Chairman GORDON. Of course, that was after getting a law degree, too, so——

Mr. WU. And I am told—I am sure that if I just admitted my dire

mistake, they would let me back in, because the admissions committee there never makes mistakes.

WEATHER PREDICTION

But first, just a question of curiosity, for you gentlemen.

A meteorologist friend of mine said years ago that at five days,

the forecast is random. You might as well just, you know, just

throw it against the wall, but that was a few years ago. At what

point does your forecasts or any meteorologist’s forecasts just kind

of go random these days? And I am just kind of curious.

Dr. ANTHES. Well, that is an excellent question.

Years ago, there was some theory done on non-linear systems,

which said there was a predictability limit of about two weeks.

That was the theoretical limit. That is after two weeks, things were

deemed random.

64

We may be a little longer than that, but that is still the order.

We don’t see what we call the typical weather forecasts being accurate, ever, beyond more than a couple of weeks. Right now, we

have a pretty good scale out to seven to ten days.

Mr. WU. Seven to ten days? Okay. Yeah. My Blackberry gives me

six days, so it is within that margin.

Dr. ANTHES. Yeah.

Mr. WU. Yeah. Okay.

RESTORATION OF DROPPED NPOESS INSTRUMENTS

A more serious question. The Chairman referred earlier to the

NPOESS program. And my understanding is that because of cost

issues, cost overruns, that various instruments have been sort of

thrown off the bus. And they tend to be the climate instruments.

And Dr. Moore, you mentioned earlier that soil moisture is a very,

very important factor to track for climate change purposes. And it

also is the case that our military is very interested in soil moisture

for other reasons. So I assume climatologists have a very strong interest in soil moisture for one set of reasons, and the U.S. armed

forces have the same interest.

Now I think a list is coming of the various instruments, which

were tossed off the NPOESS for budgetary reasons, and I just

want—I am just asking you all, if you are familiar enough with it,

if you could identify the order in which you would bring the castoff instruments back. If you are not familiar with the hardware

enough, at least the data streams that you would like to see, the

cavalry coming, the data that you would like to see from NPOESS.

Dr. MOORE. Yes, Congressman Wu.

In the Decadal, we prioritize under a very limited basis. We recognized the budgetary difficulties. And the first was the Earth radiation budget instruments, that is to measure the solar radiance

and the reflected energy off the planet. The second was the profile

of ozone in the atmosphere, because we are in this period of regulation the fluorocarbons, and we are going to see, hopefully, the restoration ozone hole. Monitoring that profile, the different concentrations in altitude is the second priority.

Mr. WU. Would that be aerosols?

Dr. MOORE. No, that certainly is a priority, but now we are—we,

essentially, felt that, given the constraints of the budget on

NPOESS, that was about as far as we would recommend in terms

of restoration.

Is that all we need to do? Absolutely not.

Mr. WU. I am sorry. I am just trying to look on my list here, and

I am not finding an ozone meter, per se, but which instrument

would that be in?

Dr. MOORE. Yeah. It is called ozone—the OMPS instrument. It

is the limb-sounding aspect that was lost, the——

Mr. WU. OMPS limb.

Dr. MOORE. Right.

Mr. WU. Okay.

Dr. MOORE. That was lost, so that we are recommending to put

back on, and the series and the solar radiance monitor we are recommending to put back on.

65

With regards to the soil moisture, that was to be measured by

an instrument called CMIS. This is a follow-on to what is on the

Defense meteorological satellites right now. Given the fact that

that was the—descoped, we called for the preservation of sea surface temperatures and winds. And then we offset the loss of the soil

moisture by recommending a NASA mission in soil moisture.

And I must say that there are a lot of very important measurements. For instance, sea surface altimetry that Dr. Anthes spoke

about. The sea level height. That instrument is gone. We are trying

to compensate for that by recommending an altimeter to NASA. It

is true that most of the climate measurements were lost on

NPOESS, and I think that perhaps the best strategy is the program we are recommending to NASA.

Mr. WU. If you are pushing over to NASA, is that realistic, given

the budget crunch over on that side of the house, if you will?

Dr. MOORE. No, I——

Chairman GORDON. A quick answer, please, sir.

Dr. MOORE. I understand this budget issue and the budget

crunch, but the fact remains is that the observational needs exist.

And the budget was reduced over six years by a third. That seems

to have been an error——

Chairman GORDON. The gentleman’s time——

Dr. MOORE.—therefore, we need to restore that budget so that

we can meet the observational needs of the planet.

Chairman GORDON. The gentleman’s time has expired.

Mr. Rohrabacher is—has five minutes.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First, I would like to congratulate you on your report and the

hard work that went into this and the discipline necessary to actually come up with something that does not totally depend on what

I consider to be a trendy issue of the day, which is climate change

overall. You have made your arguments that included climate

change as a reason, but you have well outlined your—you know,

your—basically, the benefits that we will derive even if we don’t

have a global warming scenario. You have outlined the need for the

type of observation that you are advocating.

And let me also note that it is unfortunate that we lost—I guess

it was a $3 billion overrun for NPOESS. I mean, that is what we

are talking about. The $3 billion, let me note, Mr. Chairman, what

could we do with $3 billion? We could implement everything that

is being said today. The request, basically, today is let us make up

for the failure of NPOESS. That is basically what we are saying,

because that is a six-year—well, they are asking for $500 million

a year. It would put us back on schedule. And we lost $3 billion

from just the overrun costs.

Let me add, there are some questions as to the reason why

NPOESS failed. And some of the reasons—and I know people

aren’t going to want to hear this, but some of the reasons are additions to NPOESS, things that were added onto NPOESS that were

designed to prove climate change, which helped the failure of

NPOESS. So there is a cost when people go after things that

maybe trying to stampede the public into spending more money for

climate change that ends up a dramatic cost to other aspects of

what we would like to achieve.

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I was especially interested in the fact that this does measure sun

and solar activities, which I believe are the basis for a lot of the—

whether the human activity and carbon being put into the air, or

hydrocarbons being put into the air and greenhouse gases may well

explain why we have certain changes in climate and temperature

on the Earth.

Let me ask this about, you know—we—again, you have given me

a lot of information. And by the way, I would just say, again, I

thank you for that, because I was listening intently, and I think

you all made your point. And Governor, I am glad you were here

to make a—to really tell us what it—how we—this is going to be

cost-effective for humankind to know this, because it is. I mean, we

are talking—you are not talking about contributing just knowledge.

You are talking about contributing something that is going to

change people’s way of life for the better. And again, I think you

have made your arguments today.

RECORD OF HURRICANE AND CYCLONE INTENSITY

The—I guess I don’t—I was just taking notes while you were

going through here. I—let me ask you, Dr. Anthes, is that how you

pronounce it?

Dr. ANTHES. Anthes.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Anthes. Are there more cyclones and hurricanes today than there used to be?

Dr. ANTHES. That is a very good question, and it is a hot topic

of debate, I will put it that way.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. That is why I ask it.

Dr. ANTHES. We don’t—I, actually, started out as a tropical cyclone research meteorologist. And I must say, because of the observational record being particularly bad before the advent of satellites in the 1970s, we have maybe 70 years, 80 years, 90 years

of an incomplete—an imperfect satellite data record on tropical

storms. So frankly, you know, you will read papers on both sides

of this point.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay.

Dr. ANTHES. Frankly, I don’t know. I haven’t made up my mind

yet.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. All right.

Dr. ANTHES. And that is one reason for having these observations

from space so that we know whether trends of intensity is increasing or not, because I don’t think the evidence is conclusive yet.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Now I will have to say, I sat through hurricanes when I was younger, when I lived in North Carolina, when

I was in, like, sixth or seventh grade. And I read about the great

hurricanes that came through Florida and Galveston, Texas. We

know that they were very huge tropical storms then.

NEED OF SATELLITE SYSTEM FOR AGRICULTURAL

PRODUCTION

One question for the Governor, and then I guess I—my time may

be up.

Why is it—why do you see it being necessary to have a satellite

system that gives an overall view of, for example, agricultural proVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:39 May 12, 2007 Jkt 033104 PO 00000 Frm 00070 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 C:\WORKD\FULL07\021307\33104 SCIENCE1 PsN: SCIENCE1
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duction? Don’t we have enough computerization and records being

kept throughout the states and by the Federal Government based

on just the number of farmers and the type of bureaucratic efforts

that we make? Don’t we—isn’t that accurate enough to see how

many acres of corn we are growing?

Mr. GERINGER. Mr. Chairman, Congressman Rohrabacher, the—

we do accumulate a lot of information, and one of the points I made

is that we don’t know how to discover and serve that information

in a useful way. So that is part of the answer.

The other part of it is we don’t know the extent. And I will give

you a different example. It is not even in our country. There is a

consortium of countries that have put together a satellite constellation called the Disaster Monitoring Constellation. That is the

United Kingdom, Algeria, China, Nigeria—Algeria and Nigeria and

Turkey. Now they launched these—constellation of low-cost satellites to monitor for disaster prediction and mitigation. But what

they have done is they have started monitoring opium production

in Afghanistan. Now they don’t have quite the statistical reporting

system that we have in the United States on opium production, but

they have shown that in the 1 year from 2005 to 2006 that the

opium cultivation grew by about 60 percent in Afghanistan. That

affects us. It doesn’t affect agriculture. It affects everybody.

Now how do we truth what is reported on the ground through

statistical reporting services the soil condition, the erosion, you

know, the loss of forests and things like that? How do we truth

that up with what is reported on the ground of what the satellites

look at? The MODIS satellite is one of the key satellites that we

use for that kind of information, in addition to Landsat. So there

is—it is the ability to know what you have, the quality of the data,

how to use the data, and then how do you integrate it to where you

can make an overall decision, a systematic decision, not just a

knee-jerk type of one.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Well, thank you very much. And again, I

think you have made your case, and I appreciate good suggestions,

by the way, as well, not just making the case for the expenditure

but suggestions on how we can manage the system and do a better

job for—and be more effective for what we do spend.

So thank you very much.

Chairman GORDON. The gentleman’s time has expired.

And I will say that, Mr. Rohrabacher, your line of questioning always makes for a better hearing, and we thank you for it. But I

will point out one thing, that the knobs on the global warming instruments go both ways. So it is not just to prove it. It could be

also to disprove it.

The gentlelady from Texas, Ms. Johnson.

CONSEQUENCES OF GAPS IN DATA RECORDS

Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you very much.

And thanks to the witnesses for being here. It has been interesting. I guess I have a question that might be considered kind of

dumb.

But when we have interruptions of observation where—no matter what causes it, is it thought that we miss something in the

meantime, or does it interfere with how we work to certain points?

68

Dr. ANTHES. Well, that is—it is not a dumb question.

Explaining why gaps in the data record are important is not that

easy, but let me try.

If you are looking at a—say, a 20-year cycle, and you miss seven

years of that cycle, you are not going to be able to tell what that

cycle really is if you are missing seven years out of 20. So that is

one reason.

Another reason is a gap at the end of the record, in other words

stopping a measurement, is the worst gap of all, because you don’t

know whether the last little up tick or the last little downturn is

continuing for the—you know, into the future or not. If you look at

any record, you will see this kind of thing. If you stop at this point,

when you are going down and the gap starts, you don’t know

whether that turns around and starts coming up again or if it continues to go down.

So gaps are a very important problem in terms of understanding

cycles and trends of whatever it is, sea level, temperature, water

vapor, precipitation, drought frequency, whatever.

Ms. JOHNSON. So when you have great reductions in the budget

and perhaps gaps, is it worth the investment to start and stop,

start and stop, or—and do we get any real useful information, or

are we wasting money if we don’t do it any better?

Dr. MOORE. I think one of the challenges, and I believe the Governor noted this also, is the question of sustainability of the observation system. And that actually carries with it some real requirements.

Instruments don’t last forever, and that is why we have gaps.

One of the problems is that if you are measuring something like

temperature, and it is increasing slowly, and that instrument fails

and then we put another temperature instrument on orbit, if we

don’t overlap those two instruments, how are we then to interpret

what the new instrument says? For instance, maybe the new instrument shows temperature increasing even more rapidly. Is that

because it is a new instrument, or is that because of what the temperature is doing?

So the issue of sustainability is the—is right at the core of what

we are addressing.

Ms. JOHNSON. Um-hum. Thank you.

PHYSICAL IMPROVEMENTS VS. ENVIRONMENTAL

IMPROVEMENTS

There is no question in my mind about climate change. If you

live and breathe every day, you can observe it.

What—where my questions still are is if we don’t find much of

the reason and start to correct that, where do we go from here? I

went over and looked at the results of the tsunami. And as we returned, the latest rumor was that it might happen in California,

and so that was an urgency to see if they couldn’t get the observation network in place.

What comes next? I mean, we can observe, and we can predict,

and I know that we have lost—we have saved a lot of lives by predicting, but we haven’t done very well with property. I am fully

aware that if we had worked on levies when we were supposed to

back in New Orleans, it probably would not have been as bad. But

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predictably, would it have come? And—because, according to the

simulations that we had observed, it was coming. And I don’t know

whether we concentrate on making sure that levies are strong or

that we concentrate on changing something in the environment

where we can avoid some of the destruction if we had an idea of

what we needed to do.

Mr. GERINGER. Maybe I can answer it in a little different way.

I was visiting with the executive of King County, Washington

about a week ago, and he is taking an approach that if something

does happen, based on climate change and causes the sea level to

rise, what could be causing that, it could be the greenhouse gases.

So they are taking an approach from two different angles. One is

to reduce the amount of carbon that they use in King County,

which includes a significant part of Seattle, Renton you know,

those—where some of those companies are that we hear about, reduce the amount of carbon and at the same time, based on the prediction of sea level rise by 2050, raise their levies to where there

will be no flooding. And then with the carbon that they have offset,

that becomes a revenue-raiser for King County. They can sell and

trade carbon credits.

So they are doing two things. One is they are decreasing the

total amount of greenhouse gas, anticipating that there is still

going to be a rise in sea level, and over time, of course—and the

idea is that it flattens out or at least declines. So they are taking

an approach like that where they, from a practical point of view,

raise a little revenue but improve the situation as well.

Chairman GORDON. Thank you, sir.

The gentlelady’s time——

Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you.

Chairman GORDON.—has expired.

Mr. Bilbray is recognized for five minutes.

GLOBAL DIMMING

Mr. BILBRAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Gentlemen, I come from an air-regulatory background, the Air

Resources Board in California. And because of sensing and monitoring, we totally changed our strategy on air emissions. We had

grossly underestimated the evaporative emissions, and we couldn’t

figure out what—where all it was coming from until we figured out

it wasn’t coming out of the tailpipe.

I am—my interest here is what you are proposing is giving us

the tools to be able to develop and execute good policy.

And Governor, I think you are pointing out that remote sensing

gives us the ability to monitor where we may not have records. And

a good example is that the third world. So many people say the

third world is not a major factor here. It is because we don’t have

any air indexing in the third world. And remote sensing may be the

only way for us to detect what is going on there.

The question I have, Dr. Moore, would be one of the new factors

that have been thrown out is the concept of global dimming. And

some people may agree with it or totally ignore it, but I think that

we have got to remember that when Roger Revelle talked about

global warming 20 years ago, some people wanted to ignore him,

too. Does our—does the remote sensing that we are proposing here

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give us the ability to at least monitor, maybe, the effects of global

dimming and how particulate—suspended particulates may be affecting or moderating the climate change at this time?

Dr. MOORE. Yes, it does, Congressman. It directly addresses the

question.

And you are absolutely correct in noting that the question of

global dimming is fundamental to climate change. It is also fundamental to public health.

The issue of particulates and aerosols work the climate system

both ways, both as a warming and as a cooling.

One of the missions that we recommend, which is called ACE, directly focuses on this question of aerosols and their influence on

the climate system.

Second, we are also recommending a geostationary air quality

mission, which I think would address some of the question that

major urban cities are going to have as to how much of the pollution is local and how much of it is transcontinental.

Mr. BILBRAY. Okay. And that is essential data. I appreciate you

bringing that—you know, pointing that out, because one of the

problems I have had with federal policies on a lot of these issues

was like the—mandate. They thought it was good. Within 24

months, California knew that the federal mandate was an environmental negative, not a positive. And hopefully, I think it is essential, Mr. Chairman, that this issue will affect the total strategy. I

think a lot of people are saying, ‘‘Just do something about global

warming.’’ Well, we could be doing exactly the wrong thing at the

wrong time if we don’t get the right facts.

And in fact, right now, in California, we are moving strategies

ahead that assumes that the dirtiest technologies should be the

first eliminated. But that may be the worst thing we do.

So hopefully, you will be able to give us the information so that

we not only are well-intentioned, but we are smart in the way we

apply this. And that is what scares me to death is this rush to do

anything could end up creating more problems than an informed

and appropriate approach to it. And that is essential on this. And

I—and hopefully the data on global dimming can be settled before

we settle on a strategy.

Dr. Anthes.

Dr. ANTHES. Anthes.

Mr. BILBRAY. Anthes. Dr. Anthes, let me just say, I appreciate

you talking about the tropical storm issue, because, like my scientists at Scripp say, it is interesting that last year, global warming caused all of the big hurricanes, but this year, nobody talked

about it. Well, it must be global cooling, because we didn’t have

any. And I appreciate the fact that you keep things on a balanced

keel here, because it hurts the credibility of scientists when politicians start throwing around your data without having the facts.

But I have a question for you.

REMOTE SENSING AND EARTHQUAKE ACTIVITY

I come from the State of California. Hurricanes and tropical

storms haven’t historically been a problem for us because of the

cold water. That may change in the future. But you brought up the

issue of being able to detect tsunamis, earthquakes, and other reVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:39 May 12, 2007 Jkt 033104 PO 00000 Frm 00074 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 C:\WORKD\FULL07\021307\33104 SCIENCE1 PsN: SCIENCE1
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lated seismatic activity that normally isn’t an—remote sensing isn’t

a big deal out—except maybe observation. How long do you propose

to use remote sensing to predict earthquakes, which then result in

tsunamis and all of the other activity you were talking about?

Dr. ANTHES. Okay. Well, that is a really good question, and I am

not a geologist, so I will just have to—but the—one of our missions,

which measures, very precisely, very small displacements in the

surface of the Earth. If you do a time lapse of these—I have seen

these. If you do a time lapse of these, you can see the Earth breathing. In fact, I can show you valleys in California, which are

just——

Mr. BILBRAY. Much like the same way we measure El Nin ̃ o by

looking at the rise and fall of the ocean.

Dr. ANTHES. Of the sea surface height. Right. Well, the Earth is

actually changing its elevation by centimeters over time. And if you

see—well, first of all, by measuring these—where the Earth is

changing its elevation and pulsating, these are active geological

areas. These can help you, as I understand it, increase the probability of saying, ‘‘Well, an earthquake is going to occur here,’’ or

‘‘A volcano is going to occur there,’’ and of course, also then monitor

tsunamis when they actually occur because of the change of ocean

levels.

Chairman GORDON. Doctor, we are going to have a vote pretty

soon, so if you don’t mind, we are going to—I think we should move

on here.

Mr. BILBRAY. No, no. I just don’t know how you are going to

measure pulsating in Los Angeles. It always pulsates. So that is

just a given.

Thank you very much.

Chairman GORDON. Dr. McNerney is recognized for five minutes.

POTENTIAL FOR PRIVATE OR INTERNATIONAL PARTNERSHIPS

IN REMOTE SENSING

Mr. MCNERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I want to thank the distinguished panel for their work in this

area. I think it is a very important area.

I was intrigued by Dr. Anthes’ comments that some of the

work—some of the missions will be to identify the small difference

between radiation to the Earth from the sun and then radiation

from the Earth as a consequence of that. And I think that is a very

important thing.

I noticed last week my distinguished colleague from southern—

from Orange County asked some very pointed questions about

wanting to know how—exactly how much of the carbon dioxide in

the Earth’s atmosphere was created by human activity. And I know

that is a very complicated question, and the balance—or the issue

between science and politics is a tricky issue. And it is our responsibility to have sort of a responsible pathway between those. And

I think this is exactly one way that we can move forward to answering those kinds of very difficult and detailed questions.

So one of the things I want to know is is there any opportunity

in private and international partnerships to help us move forward

in this—in these kinds of missions.

Dr. Moore.

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Dr. MOORE. I think that there is, and in our Chapter 3 where

we talk about implementing the missions, the very first thing we

explore is leveraging foreign partnerships. And if you are, for instance, looking at something like the measurement of carbon dioxide that you mentioned and where is it coming from and where is

it going to, that is an ideal example of what we could do internationally. The—using a synthetic-aperture radar to get the slight

differences in the elevation of the planet and how those might lead

to earthquakes, that is another great example of where we could

collaborate internationally. Our European colleagues have made

great advances with synthetic-aperture radar. And so this would be

another, because these are global issues. They are not just issues

to one area of the planet. Earthquakes occur globally. CO2 occurs

globally.

Mr. MCNERNEY. How about the private partnership opportunities?

Dr. MOORE. I think the private partnership opportunities are extraordinary, particularly when you look at issues of land remote

sensing, hyperspectral imaging. That looks at the reflected sunlight

in many different wavelengths. This is a marvelous item for forecasting crop diseases. This is right on the border of what could be

done commercially, and I think the Governor has really spoken out

on this. This is a great opportunity.

Mr. GERINGER. One other comment I would make is if we don’t

keep up and we lose our edge in competitiveness, we lose two

things. With international cooperation, such as through the Global

Earth Observation System of Systems, we develop relationships so

that we can understand and trust what we are getting back. Otherwise, we could be excluded, and the competition, then, leads the

way. Who would we rely on to obtain the information we have no

capacity to produce? So we need that kind of participatory opportunity as well as the leadership to make it happen.

Mr. MCNERNEY. Okay. I yield the balance of my time.

Chairman GORDON. Thank you.

And the gentleman from Michigan, Dr. Ehlers, is recognized for

five minutes.

Mr. EHLERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First of all, Dr. Anthes, I am very pleased to hear your comment

about the Earth rising and falling several centimeters a day, and

now I know why I feel taller on some days than others.

I also presume that my weight varies, because I am further from

the center of the Earth.

At any rate, more seriously, I can believe that a physicist just

made this comment. I am very concerned about NPOESS, and we—

you have talked about that in response to some other questions. I

am very worried about the removal of some of the climate sensors.

And clearly, we are not going to be—not going to have an optimized

system. They are being removed simply because the cost of the

project got too great, and we had to get somewhere.

You have talked a bit—Dr. Moore, in fact, just mentioned in the

last question international work. What efforts are being made or

what do—efforts do you think should be made to try to get more

international cooperation in some of these satellites? I know other

nations are putting up their own satellites, but in a case like this

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where the entire international community would benefit from the

additional climate observations that NPOESS could make, do you

believe our nation should aggressively pursue the possibility of getting assistance, cooperation, and money from other nations? And

would we be likely to succeed in that effort?

I would appreciate any comments you have.

Dr. ANTHES. Well, I will take—a quick answer.

Absolutely, we should. We should try all of these avenues and

approaches.

The United States, historically, has been the world leader in observations from space. In fact, the Europeans probably, I could

argue, are making better use of the observations that we take than

we are making—them ourselves, and this gets to the Governor’s

comments about it is more than just observations. It is how you use

the observations.

International cooperation is a two-edged sword. It can save

money and distribute resources more equitably and cooperation

and sharing and all of that. But there are other issues that make

these international programs hard to manage. If one partner has—

runs into funding problems, it jeopardizes the mission. If a country,

which is friendly now, turns unfriendly 10 years from now, you

may not be able to get their data. There are ITAR issues about

transferring technology to foreign countries.

So yes, I agree we should pursue it aggressively. Probably it is

not a substitute for having our own, robust program. But we should

try to leverage the international partners wherever we can.

Mr. EHLERS. Other comments?

Dr. MOORE. Just to note that that appears to be part of the plan

to mitigate the NPOESS difficulties is to rely on the mid-morning

orbit from the Europeans. But I also second what Rick Anthes just

said, that it is a two-edged sword.

Mr. EHLERS. Now to what extent did your group, in doing the

Decadal Survey, consider these issues? Did you come up with any

particular recommendations on international cooperation and how

we should proceed with it?

Dr. ANTHES. Well, we said, basically, what you just said. We

should try every single opportunity that we can and try to reduce

this overall cost by seeking international partners. And we didn’t

go any further than that. We didn’t say mission number 13 should

be an international one——

Mr. EHLERS. Right.

Dr. ANTHES.—but all of them should be considered. And if the

international community comes up with one mission that reduces

the need for us to do the same thing, we should consider lowering

that in priority.

Mr. EHLERS. Do all nations freely share data with each other——

Dr. ANTHES. No.

Mr. EHLERS.—in these climate missions, or is it——

Dr. ANTHES. No.

Mr. EHLERS. Is it held very closely? Yes.

Mr. GERINGER. One comment I would make there, Congressman

Ehlers, is if we don’t have standardized protocols, data formats,

and how we store and access information like that, it is not a matter of who is willing to share. It is a matter of whether you physVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:39 May 12, 2007 Jkt 033104 PO 00000 Frm 00077 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 C:\WORKD\FULL07\021307\33104 SCIENCE1 PsN: SCIENCE1
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ically can or the technology isn’t there to extract or transform to

where you can use the data.

So the minimum we could do is establish standards and protocols, and that is where the Integrated Earth Observation System

was intended to head with the international cooperations. Just having the data in the format where you can use it is a simple step.

Mr. EHLERS. And the other problem is getting all of the data

down and analyzed quickly and properly. That is something I am

also concerned about with NPOESS.

I yield back, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman GORDON. Thank you, Dr. Ehlers.

I think our final questioner will be our Vice Chair, Mr. Lipinski.

IMPACT ON AMERICAN COMPETITIVENESS

Mr. LIPINSKI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I know we are running

short on time. I am going to make a quick question. I am not sure

it is going to be a quick answer.

But, Dr. Anthes and Dr. Moore, in the report, it says, ‘‘At a time

of unprecedented need, the Nation’s Earth observation satellite

programs, once the envy of the world, are in disarray.’’

I have a more general question. What impact does this have—

do you see this having an impact on American competitiveness? Do

you think it has a broader impact on our nation in that manner?

Dr. ANTHES. Well, that is a really good question.

The—one of the points we try to make in the Decadal Survey is

that these observations are useful to society and useful in management of resources, whether it is energy resources, water resources,

supporting agriculture. So it—there is an efficiency issue here that

we can become, as a nation, more efficient if we have these better

weather forecasts, seasonal outlooks, we know how to buy energy

and store it for the cold spells coming up. And so I think you can

make a very good case that these observations of the environment

do affect, in a positive way, the U.S. economy, making us more efficient and so thereby improving our competitiveness.

My colleagues may want to add to that.

Dr. MOORE. I think there is another issue, also, that the declining budgets for Earth science at NASA send a signal to our graduate students and to our undergraduates as to what fields should

they go into. And it is very tough to convince a young student that

this is the direction that you want to take your life, because they

say, ‘‘Well, there is no future in that.’’

So I think that there is a fundamental issue as to why students

may not be going into Earth science or mathematics or physics, because they look at the trend. They are quantifying.

Mr. LIPINSKI. Having spent a few years in graduate school on my

way to a Ph.D., finally, after many years, I understand the—you

know, what impact that does have on what people are—what students are pursuing.

Thank you.

Chairman GORDON. Well, let me just say, this really was an excellent panel. And I thank you very much for this very informative

meeting today. I want to particularly thank the Co-Chairs of the

Decadal Survey for not just today but for two and a half years of

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hard, but important, work. This is a—really, a product that we

need to have to try to move this decision-making process forward.

And Governor, you were a great breath of fresh air with the realworld approach, and let me please encourage you to continue to be

active in these issues.

I understand that everyone who has wanted to have questions

has done so.

Mr. Hall, once again, another good hearing. And if you have no

more questions, then we will adjourn this hearing.

[Whereupon, at 11:40 a.m., the Committee was adjourned.]

(77)

Appendix:

ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS

78

ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS

Responses by Richard A. Anthes, President, University Corporation for Atmospheric

Research (UCAR); Co-Chair, Committee on Earth Science and Applications from

Space, National Research Council, The National Academies

Questions submitted by Representative Ralph M. Hall

Q1. NASA’s experience with mission cost estimates is to be kind, not good. Many

missions have seen their costs exceed even the most generous estimates. What

level of confidence would you associate with the ‘‘rough’’ cost estimates ascribed

to each of the recommended missions?

A1. The Committee stands by its estimates. The level of confidence associated with

the cost estimates was given in Box 2–2 of the Decadal Survey report. The cost estimates are believed to vary from ± 50 percent for the smallest missions to ± 30 percent for the larger mission category. The survey report notes that, in general, cost

estimates depend directly on the exact measurement requirements for the eventual

missions. It also notes that the cost uncertainty rises for missions scheduled later

in the next decade and for missions with the greatest technology development needs.

One historically large source of cost uncertainty is associated with technology development. When a mission’s implementation depends on a technological advance,

there’s a risk that the mission will need to be delayed and that costs will increase

if the advance doesn’t proceed as expected. Effective mitigation of this cost risk involves early technology investment—and this is something that was strongly endorsed in our report. The committee suggests that NASA begin technology investments early to ensure the needed technologies are available before the mission implementation proceeds to the point where schedule delays incur large costs due to

the large number of individuals entrained by the project (the so-called ‘‘standing

army’’ problem).

Q1a. Do your cost estimates represent a full mission cost, to include the cost of building the satellite, launch services, operations, data analysis and research, and

reserves?

A1a. The estimates include pre-launch costs associated with the instrument(s), the

spacecraft and the launch vehicle, system engineering and spacecraft integration,

science algorithm and ground data system development, and education and outreach. Post-launch costs included mission operations, data downlink, processing and

archiving, science data development and validation. Post-launch activity duration

was assumed to be three years for the NASA-recommended missions and five years

for the NOAA-recommended missions.

These cost estimates do not represent a ‘full’ mission cost because they do not include the cost of the scientific analysis of the mission data. These costs were assigned to the mission-supporting part of the NASA and NOAA budgets.

Q2. You recommend that NASA increase its support for Research and Analysis to

a level commensurate with ongoing and planned missions. What metric should

NASA use to gauge R&A spending? Number of missions flying? Percentage of

total program funding? How would you characterize the level of R&A funding

currently provided in the Earth Sciences program?

A2. Historically NASA has invested approximately 50 percent of its funds for mission-supporting research. In the event that the NASA budget was restored to its

year 2000 funding levels, the committee is recommending that the R&A and mission

budgets be increased equally (i.e., maintain an approximate 50/50 split). This is our

suggestion for the zero’th order metric for gauging R&A spending. If you want to

consider metrics of the impact of R&A funding, some metrics for gauging this impact are the amount of satellite data available being used for analysis, the number

of researchers supported, the number of peer-reviewed publications resulting from

the missions, and the amount of satellite data being used effectively in weather forecast models and other applications.

Q3. In your testimony you state that the U.S. needs to continue to improve its climate

models because those models are used in predicting El Nin ̃ o and other seasonal

weather patterns important to energy, water and agriculture management. Specifically which recommendations in the Decadal Survey relate to improving seasonal weather predictions?

A3. The following missions are identified as improving seasonal weather predictions, having direct impacts on energy, water, and/or agriculture management:

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GPSRO (temperature and water vapor profiles), GRACE–II (changes in aquifers),

HyspIRI (nutrients and water status of vegetation, soil health), PATH (temperature

and water vapor profiles, sea surface temperature), LIST (global shifts in vegetation

patterns, effects of land management), SCLP (water storage in snowpacks), SMAP

(soil moisture effect on vegetation and freeze/thaw state), SWOT (lake, wetland, and

reservoir storage), 3D–Winds (three dimensional tropospheric winds, improves El

Nin ̃ o forecasts), and XOVWM (surface winds over oceans).

Q4. In your testimony you say that due to declining budgets for Earth-observing satellites, air quality forecasts will become less accurate in the near future. Please

elaborate on which satellites currently provide information important for air

quality forecasts and why you believe this capability will be compromised in the

near future.

A4. Air quality is determined by how much particulate matter (aerosols) and trace

gases (ozone, NO2 and volatile organics) are in the air. Air quality forecasting is a

relatively new field that combines chemistry and aerosol models with weather models, which are used to move pollutants around. Aerosol measurements are being

made by MODIS on Aqua and Terra, MISR on Terra, and OMI on Aura. Trace gas

measurements are being made by Aura. The Aura measurements include ozone,

NO2 and hydrocarbons (formaldehyde). These measurements are being used in air

quality forecast models on an experimental basis.

In the future, NPOESS will be making column ozone measurements with the

OMPS instrument, however without the OMPS-limb sounding capability, we cannot

estimate vertical profiles of tropospheric ozone. The OMPS limb instrument was deleted from the NPOESS payload in response to Nunn-McCurdy. OMPS will also not

produce NO2, hydrocarbons, or aerosols as Aura OMI does—the instrument is not

capable of making those measurements. We will still get some aerosol information

from VIIRS on NPOESS, but no information over clouds or bright surfaces (like

deserts) because VIIRS lacks the near UV channels used by OMI for those kinds

of aerosol measurements.

Q5. Acquiring, storing, and managing data comes at a significant cost. As we fly

more sensors and gather more and precise measurements, how likely is it that

the research community will argue that these capabilities must evolve into longterm data continuity missions? Of the seventeen recommended missions, how

many of these would be one-time only missions that would not generate demand

from the community for follow-on missions to maintain data continuity? Are

NASA and NOAA at risk of being tasked with flying a greater number operational missions and gathering an increasing number of data sets?

A5. This is a great question, and one I cannot easily answer because the answer

depends upon how useful the research observations are. Every research observation

should be considered as a candidate for ultimately becoming part of an operational

or sustained measurement system. The NRC has recommended in a previous report

(Satellite Observations of the Earth’s Environment-Accelerating the Transition of Research to Operations, NRC 2003) that an interagency transition office be set up that

carefully evaluates the potential for every research observation to become operational. Cost-benefit considerations obviously will determine which observations are

most valuable and should become operational. Not all research observations should

be expected to become operational or sustained.

Questions submitted by Representative Ken Calvert

Decadal Survey Recommendations

Q1. How should NASA and NOAA interpret the recommended mission list? Your report suggests this list as a minimum set and notes the imperative that each mission be flown. But based on the experience of other decadal surveys, NASA has

been able to fund only a fraction of recommended missions. Should NASA and

NOAA prioritize the missions in the order listed? If so, which mission do you

believe should be a priority?

A1. The Committee is acutely aware that evolving constraints have historically altered well-laid plans. To respond, we established a series of decision strategies and

rules to be used for guiding any programmatic restructure. The study of Earth is

a system science—the knowledge we seek derives from the mission set as a whole,

not any single mission. The current list thus includes no prioritization other than

a recommended ordering for launch, which itself is a prioritization. Changing the

program is not as simple as dropping one mission from the bottom of a list and reVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:39 May 12, 2007 Jkt 033104 PO 00000 Frm 00083 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 C:\WORKD\FULL07\021307\33104 SCIENCE1 PsN: SCIENCE1
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taining the others; any single change implies the need to readjust the overall program. For this reason, our guidelines clearly state that such programmatic changes

should be subject to advice from the broad community of Earth scientists and users.

At small budget deficiencies (e.g., ∼10 percent), the proposed schedule can be

stretched out. At larger deficiencies, the guidelines for adjustments to the missions

come into play.

We emphasize again that the Committee believes the proposed mission set is indeed one the Nation both needs and can afford. It is a minimum mission set in the

sense that its scope and budget meet an expectation of ‘‘reasonableness.’’ Anything

less than the proposed program falls short of what we believe this nation should

reasonably pursue; it would place us at risk for maintaining scientific progress and

achieving expected societal benefits. Additional budget enhancements should not be

ruled out, and would support an even stronger program, with missions of great scientific merit and substantial societal benefit readily identified as new resources

come available.

Q2. The Decadal Survey recommends restoring some climate sensors to NOAA’s

NPOESS program. This committee held three hearings on NPOESS in the

109th Congress and we learned that it’s a troubled program, nearly $3 billion

over-budget, and it faces tremendous technical challenges just to be able to meet

the Nation’s weather forecasting needs. Why should we add even more risk and

potential cost to this program by restoring the climate sensors? What is the value

to our citizens that would make the risk worth it?

A2. Important as weather sensors are, climate sensors are also important and cannot be neglected. Climate variability and change are among the most important environmental and societal factors affecting our future. So we have to meet the challenges of risk and cost of restoring key climate sensors. This may be accomplished

in part by restoring a few climate sensors to NPOESS, AND launching some new

missions as described in our report.

Climate monitoring requires a continuous series of high quality calibrated data.

The solar irradiance sensor and the Earth radiation budget sensor are key to understanding climate change and are part of an unbroken series of measurements starting in the early 1980s. The Committee recommended restoring these climate sensors

to NPOESS because under the current Nunn-McCurdy only the cost of the sensor

was required—the IPO promised to pay for integration—this is the lowest cost approach. But if further deterioration of the NPOESS program occurs, it makes more

sense to place these sensors on small spacecraft as has been done in the past (e.g.,

ACRIMSAT).

Venture Class Missions

Q3. Your report recommends creation of a new competed mission line (Venture class)

to replace the Earth System Science Pathfinder program, arguing that the latter

has become a ‘‘competitive means for implementing NASA’s strategic missions.’’

Could you elaborate on this criticism?

A3. The recommendation for a Venture class of missions is to encourage proposals

for exploratory missions that are ‘‘out of the box’’—ideas that the experts in NASA,

on our committee, or in the broader community have not yet thought of. These

should be creative, revolutionary ideas that could have transformative effects on

science and applications. Venture class missions are NOT intended as a way to implement any of the 17 recommended missions.

Weather Prediction

Q4. NOAA was a co-sponsor of the Decadal Survey, yet your report has only three

missions for NOAA compared to 15 for NASA. NOAA provides weather forecasts

and warnings for the Nation—given its vital role, why did you have so few recommendations for NOAA?

A4. There were a number of factors that led to this result. Missions that were assigned to NOAA were those that were relatively low cost, ready to go operational,

AND met a large number of the Panel’s prioritization criteria. The fact that the

NPOESS and GOES programs were (and still are) in a state of flux, with very uncertain budgets, was also a factor. Finally, the emphasis of the present plans for

NPOESS and GOES is on weather forecasts and warnings, and so many of our recommendations addressed other important Earth science issues.

Q5. In your testimony you state that due to declining budgets for Earth-observing

satellites, weather forecasts may start becoming less accurate. However, last year

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this committee heard from the federal agencies responsible for weather forecasting (NOAA and the Air Force) that maintaining operational weather forecasting capabilities is their top priority and that future plans for weather satellites such as NPOESS and GOES–R will be just as good as, if not much better

than, current weather satellites. Your claim contradicts these officials, so please

elaborate on why you believe weather forecasts may start becoming less accurate.

A5. Please let me be blunt here. Unfortunately, the recent track record of projections of the federal agencies responsible for space observing programs has not been

reassuring, and even now the future of NPOESS and GOES, the observational foundations of our weather prediction capabilities from space, are uncertain. The steady

increase of forecast and warning accuracies over the past 30 years has not been an

accident—it has been the result of more and better observations and models. If the

number of observations, which peaked in about 2006, continues to decline, at some

point the trend of increasing forecast accuracy will reverse and the forecasts and

warning accuracies will begin to decline. We do not know when or if this unfortunate point will be reached, but it is a risk as I stated unless we take action.

Q6. Please describe some examples of NASA research missions from the 1970’s or

1980’s that demonstrated capabilities now used for operational purposes.

A6. All of the current major operational satellite programs in NOAA can be traced

to NASA missions. The current Polar orbiting operational satellites (POES) were derived from NASA’s TIROS–N satellite launched in 1978. The NOAA GOES program

can be traced back to the NASA Synchronous Meteorological Satellite launched in

1974. Finally, the Landsat series of environmental sensors can be traced back to the

NASA Earth Resources Technology Satellite launched in 1972.

Q7. One key factor in the program design and cost of new missions is the availability

of expendable launch vehicles. NASA acquires launch vehicles for science missions from commercial providers. How well is your recommended mission set

matched to existing and planned commercial launch vehicle capabilities?

A7. Launch vehicle availability and cost have become moving targets. Launch vehicle costs, in particular, are very hard to pin down. The committee used the best

available launch vehicle cost information (based on recently launched and known

costs for currently planned missions). Specifically, the Decadal survey missions assumed the use of Pegasus, Taurus, or Delta II/IV launch vehicles. However, forwardlooking launch vehicle cost estimates are subject to a large degree of uncertainty.

Spiraling launch costs threaten the accuracy of any cost estimate until a contract

is signed, and represent a large uncertainty in any cost estimate.

The futures of the launch vehicles assumed by the panel are uncertain, and this

is a troublesome situation. If moderate capability launch vehicles are not available

at a reasonable cost, an important element of programmatic robustness—our decision to recommend more, smaller missions rather than fewer many-instrument missions—becomes compromised. Should Delta-II class launch vehicles become unavailable, for example, the likely mitigation would be to pursue ‘‘co-manifested’’ launches,

where multiple satellites share a larger launch vehicle. This is not as easy or

straight forward as it might sound, as larger launch vehicles generally have larger

vibrational loads during launch (meaning that the satellite structural design would

have to be adapted), and would require ride-sharing missions to utilize similar orbits.

The committee is aware of private sector efforts to build low cost launch vehicles,

which, if successful, will substantially mitigate these concerns. However, at present

such launch vehicles have not been demonstrated successfully. The availability and

cost of launch vehicles for scientific missions remains a serious concern of the committee.

Interagency Cooperation

Q8. What unique skills and expertise do you think NASA has in Earth-observing

systems, and are the necessary processes for interagency cooperation in place to

allow the country to benefit from those NASA capabilities? Can you please do

the same for NOAA?

A8. In answering this question, I must necessarily generalize my response. NASA

and NOAA, while having great records overall, do not have spotless records. Nevertheless, both agencies have many capabilities, skills, and expertise to be leveraged

for Earth observation systems.

NASA has a long history of pioneering Earth research observation from space and

in laying the groundwork for operational systems (see # 11, above). NASA expertise

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is primarily in technology, science, and engineering. NASA has demonstrated capability to manage technology infusions into missions, manage externally-developed

technology contracts, and manage commercial suppliers and partner contracts with

strong oversight. The more extensive competitive and peer-reviewed mission selection process at NASA has allowed for a more complete vetting of mission requirements, risks, and costs. NOAA has a strong history of operating ground systems for

its operational programs, distributing data to a wide range of users, and producing

decision-support tools and capabilities to directly serve well-specified needs. NOAA

mission implementation typically is provided by a commercial contractor, with varying degrees of oversight.

In terms of knowing and understanding their user communities, NASA is tightly

connected with the science and research community, while NOAA is more tightly

connected with its operational end-users (meteorologists, the public, and decisionmakers).

In order to use the strengths of both NASA and NOAA in a manner which maximizes benefit to society, interagency cooperation is essential. Currently, the necessary processes are not completely in place to optimize interagency cooperation.

That is why the Decadal Survey recommends that the Office of Science and Technology Policy, in collaboration with the relevant agencies, and in consultation with

the scientific community, should develop and implement a plan for achieving and

sustaining global Earth observations. This plan should recognize the complexity of

differing agency roles, responsibilities, and capabilities as well as the lessons from

implementation of the Landsat, EOS, and NPOESS programs.

Among the key challenges confronting the two agencies are (1) the need for longterm, continuous, stable research focused observations of the Earth system that are

distinct from the observations needed for operational weather prediction and (2) the

need to systematically develop future operational systems in addition to the one for

weather prediction. In order to address these challenges NASA and NOAA must improve their interaction early in the design process and overcome the natural disconnect that occurs because the two agencies have independent budget formulation

processes and accounting systems.

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ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS

Responses by Berrien Moore III, University Distinguished Professor, Director, Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space, University of New Hampshire;

Co-Chair, Committee on Earth Science and Applications from Space, National

Research Council, The National Academies

Question submitted by Chairman Bart Gordon

Q1. Please elaborate on the consequences of not executing the program recommended

by the Decadal Survey, especially with respect to the societal applications of the

observations and the importance of preserving particular time series, such as

total solar irradiance.

A1. The consequence is simply that without the information, and then the scientific

community will not have the basis for providing information to the country. It is

hard to point to a specific consequence since there will continue to be some information on the planet from other sources. It is a bit like the question, what are the

consequences if we did not conduct a census or monitor economic indicators. However, the question is certainly reasonable, and I shall address it by focusing on selected missions.

After CERES ceases on TRIMM and Total Solar Irradiance sensor on Glory, then

we would cease to have the most basic climate forcing information, Given the fact

that we ‘‘know’’ that the concentration of greenhouses gases will continue to increase

in the atmosphere for at least the next 50 years, and that this change will force

a change in the Earth energy balance, then we must monitor that energy balance

and the solar output, if we are going to be able to make credible climate statements

including forecasts. This is the reason, we recommend the CLARREO Mission.

Another example, the ASCENDS mission: We know without any question that the

atmospheric concentration of CO2 has risen by almost 40 percent since the middle

of the last century, and that the cause of this rise is primarily fossil fuel combustion

and secondarily land-use change. We also know that about 50 percent of the released CO2 from fossil fuel combustion and land-use change is no longer in the atmosphere because it has been sequestered by the land biosphere and the oceans in

approximately equal proportions. However, the proportional balance between land

and oceans varies in time and space. The current state of the science cannot account

for the growth rate and inter-annual variations of atmospheric CO2 with confidence.

The variability of the rate of increase in the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere

cannot be explained by the variability in fossil fuel use; rather it appears to primarily reflect changes in terrestrial ecosystems that are connected with large-scale

weather and climate modes. Finally and most importantly, we do not know the geographic distribution of the land and ocean sources and sinks of CO2. This uncertainty is important. As nations seek to develop strategies to manage their carbon

emissions and sequestration, the capacity to quantify the present-day regional carbon sources/sinks and to understand the underlying mechanisms are central to prediction of future levels of CO2, and thereby, informed policy decisions, sequestration

monitoring and carbon trading.

The current set of direct in situ atmospheric observations is far too sparse for this

determination; moreover, the upcoming Orbiting Carbon Observatory, which will be

a ‘‘Pathfinder’’ for ASCENDS, cannot make these measurements (because of limitations of sunlight) over many of the primary fossil fuel burning areas (Moscow, London, etc.) in the winter time nor is it able to make any nighttime measurements

and hence OCO will not be able to determine regional sources and sinks of CO2.

ASCENDS will provide the measurements necessary to make this regional determination.

Similar statements can be made for every mission—specific information is needed

(like sources and sinks for carbon dioxide) and specific missions are recommended

to obtain this information. We believe and the Survey documents that each mission

addresses important questions by society. Without the information, then we will be

less equipped to address a specific societal issue. We also framed the entire program

at a budget level for Earth observation that is comparable to the levels of the 1990s.

Questions submitted by Representative Ralph M. Hall

Q1. NASA’s experience with mission cost estimates is, to be kind, not good. Many

missions have seen their costs exceed even the most generous estimates. What

level of confidence would you associate with the ‘‘rough’’ cost estimates ascribed

to each of the recommended missions?

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Do your cost estimates represent a full mission cost, to include the cost of building the satellite, launch services, operations, data analysis and research, and reserves?

A1. We asked experts at Goddard, JPL, and Langley to provide informal cost analysis, not by particular mission advocates, but by seasoned mission planners who

evaluated the costs of all proposed missions in a consistent objective way. These cost

estimates were then reviewed by members of the survey team, some of who have

extensive industrial experience in spacecraft design. There were also external reviewers of the survey with mission management experience, and they did not find

the cost estimates to be unreasonable. The mission’s costs provided in Part II of the

Report, do not include ground costs such as data analysis and longer-term mission

management; however, these costs are included in the growth wedge that we recommend in the ‘‘Mission Supporting’’ portion of the budget in Chapter Two.

Most important, the Decadal Survey is informing NASA, NOAA, USGS; Congress,

and the American public what measurements need to be made and what missions

flown so that we can understand our planet and apply this understanding to societal

benefits—benefits that will repay the Nation many times over. This answer does not

change even if our cost estimates have small or modest systematic errors. Moreover,

we recommend in Chapter Three of the Decadal Survey steps to take if costs grow

beyond our estimates.

Q2. You recommend that NASA increase its support for Research and Analysis to

a level commensurate with ongoing and planned missions. What metric should

NASA use to gauge R&A spending? Number of missions flying? Percentage of

total program funding? How would you characterize the level of R&A funding

currently provided in the Earth Sciences program?

A2. I would recommend that we rest R and A, in real terms, to the level in 2000

budget. The accomplishments of the 1990s were extraordinary and, in fact, this is

what we are exploiting today.

Q3. Acquiring, storing, and managing data comes at a significant cost. As we fly

more sensors and gather more and precise measurements, how likely is it that

the research community will argue that these capabilities must evolve into longterm data continuity missions?

A3. Most of them since the data needs are on-going. This is the simple fact of our

situation on the planet. I do believe that costs can be driven down by better management and through technological advancements. We must avoid the NPOESS approach and the mismanagement.

Q3a. Of the seventeen recommended missions, how many of these would be one-time

only missions that would not generate demand from the community for followon missions to maintain data continuity?Are NASA and NOAA at risk of being

tasked with flying a greater number of operational missions and gathering an

increasing number of data sets?

A3a. I believe that almost all will need to become ‘‘operational.’’ We believe that the

country needs to recognize this need and to consider new organizational structures

for meeting this need in a reliable, cost-effective manner.

Q3b. Are NASA and NOAA at risk of being tasked with flying a greater number of

operational missions and gathering an increasing number of data sets?

A3b. Yes, but we also believe that we can do a much than the performance of the

recent past. We simply must recognize the challenge before us.

In sum, we are in need of knowledge of the Earth. We know that there is that

the planet’s environment is changing on all spatial scales including global, and

change is rapid, likely more rapid than at any time in human history. Many of these

changes are occurring because of human activity. These human-induced changes are

over and above the stresses imposed by the natural variability of a dynamic planet.

The changes cascade through the Earth’s environment in ways that are difficult

to understand and often impossible to predict. At the least, these human-driven

changes in the global environment will require that societies develop a multitude

of creative responses including strategies for mitigation and adaptation. The linked

challenges of confronting and coping with global environmental changes and addressing and securing a sustainable future is daunting and immediate, but they are

not insurmountable. The challenges can be met, but only with a new and even more

vigorous approach to observe and understanding our changing planet.

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Questions submitted by Representative Ken Calvert

Decadal Survey Recommendations

Q1. How should NASA and NOAA interpret the recommended mission list? Your report suggests this list as a minimum set and notes the imperative that each mission be flown. But based on the experience of other decadal surveys, NASA has

been able to fund only a fraction of recommended missions. Should NASA and

NOAA prioritize the missions in the order listed? If so, which mission do believe

should be a priority?

A1. We believe that the list represents the appropriate balance of missions in

roughly the appropriate order (considering costs, technology issues, and science balance). We recognize that there could be a ‘‘number of missions’’ shock, and we could

have ‘‘packaged’’ the missions on three larger platforms and reducing our recommended missions to three, which could have avoided this ‘‘number of missions’’

shock. This, however, would not have been wise since it would not produce a robust

program. We also note that the missions listed in the last time-frame (2016–2020)

would likely be revisited by the next ‘‘Decadal Survey,’’ which is consistent with

other Decadal Surveys. We believe that we have the right order, but again, as we

note in our recommendations, the order could be varied slightly because of emerging

science or policy priorities or because of technological readiness. We again stress the

importance of embracing the Survey and beginning work on approximately half

(seven to eight missions) of the missions at roughly $10M per mission per year to

address key technological issues or costs concerns. Start these now with extended

Phase A efforts—not simply ‘‘study’’ contract. Finally, we would like to again warn

against growing any of the missions by increasing the requirements—this warning

is made in the Survey, and we already hear reports that it is happening. We must

not let the perfect become the enemy of the good.

Q2. The Decadal Survey recommends restoring some climate sensors to NOAA’s

NPOESS program. This committee held three hearings on NPOESS in the

109th Congress and we learned that it’s a troubled program, nearly $3 billion

over-budget, and it faces tremendous technical challenges just to be able to meet

the Nation’s weather forecasting needs. Why should we add even more risk and

potential cost to this program by restoring the climate sensors? What is the value

to our citizens that would make the risk worth it?

A2. We understand that the NPOESS program is a great disappointment. The possible causes for the programmatic difficulties are discussed in Chapter Three of our

Report. We also recognize that the cost-benefit ratio of NPOESS compared with

POES and DMSP is very troubling. NPOESS was sold as both a climate and weather program, and it seems appropriate to retain some climate capability. Moreover,

we believe that our recommendations are not expensive and are, in fact, probably

in the noise of the planned program and would not increase the program risk. This

said, we share the Congress’s disappointment and concern (see Response to Question #4 below) in the NPOESS program. Finally, the failure of the NPOESS program to meet the originally observational schedule and plan increases the importance of the recommended NASA missions.

Venture Class Missions

Q3. Your report recommends creation of a new competed mission line (Venture class)

to replace the Earth System Science Pathfinder program, arguing that the latter

has become a ‘‘competitive means for implementing NASA’s strategic missions.’’

Could you elaborate on this criticism?

A3. The criticism is four-fold. First, beyond the Glory, Landsat Continuity Mission,

and the GPM, there is no planned program except for the Earth System Science

Program. This makes no sense—a program must have planned priorities missions

that address recognized needs. This we have tried to set forth in the Decadal Survey. The second problem is that it is very difficult to address the technology needs

for a program that is primarily composed of unnamed missions, such as the Earth

Science Pathfinders: How can one know in what technologies to invest? Thirdly,

there are missions, which are needed that are more expensive than the ESSP missions, and yet nothing is provided for these medium to larger class missions. Finally, the promised timeliness (one or two missions every three years) for the ESSP

program is a broken promise.

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Weather Prediction

Q4. NOAA was a co-sponsor of the Decadal Survey, yet your report has only three

missions for NOAA compared to 15 for NASA. NOAA provides weather forecasts

and warnings for the Nation—given its vital role, why did you have so few recommendations for NOAA?

A4. We restricted greatly our recommendations to NOAA because of the damaging

cost-growth of the NPOESS and GOES programs. We simply could not see the logic

in asking NOAA to do much beyond the modest but high priority recommendations

that were made to NOAA in the Decadal Survey (see again my Response to Question #2). We would also point out that Chapter Three contains additional NOAAfocused recommendations (e.g., production of Climate Data Records from NPOESS).

The programmatic failure of NPOESS is very damaging.

Q5. Please describe some examples of NASA research missions from the 1970’s or

1980’s that demonstrated capabilities now used for operational purposes.

A5. For this early period, one would site primarily the Landsat plus the early

NASA missions in both polar orbit and geostationary (e.g., cloud imaging) that set

the stage for POES (and DMSP) and GOES. More recently, the ocean topography

mission (TOPEX), the AIRS instrument (measuring humidity and temperature profiles) on EOS/Aqua, the TRIMM mission, and the sea surface winds from QucikScat

are all being used operationally.

Launch Vehicles

Q6. One key factor in the program design and cost of new missions is the availability

of expendable launch vehicles. NASA acquires launch vehicles for science missions from commercial providers. How well is your recommended mission set

matched to existing and planned commercial launch vehicle capabilities?

A6. This is a very important question. There are many reasons (robustness, reduction in risk, smooth(er) budget ramps, flexibility) that support our recommendation

to fly smaller, less complex payloads rather than the larger platforms such as

NPOESS. The one drawback is the reduce launch capabilities (e.g., no more DeltaIIs) that may face the USA in the future coupled with the ‘‘skyrocketing’’ (pardon

the pun) launch costs. This is a national problem that goes beyond the Decadal Survey, but it certainly has a negative impact on the mission recommendations of the

Survey. This issue should be addressed.

Interagency Cooperation

Q7. What unique skills and expertise do you think NASA has in Earth-observing

systems, and are the necessary processes for interagency cooperation in place to

allow the country to benefit from those NASA capabilities? Can you please do

the same for NOAA?

A7. Focusing on the word ‘‘unique’’ somewhat restricts my response. NASA has a

unique technological capability in both breadth and depth, in both the development

of technologies and the management of technologies. Part of the NPOESS problem

is that this capability was not adequately exploited. There are indications that the

NASA–NOAA interaction is moving back to a position whereby NASA can better assist NOAA in developing and applying advance space-based technologies, but for

NPOESS it may be too little too late. NASA also has a solid scientific staff, but it

is not unique. In fact, the university community collectively is far stronger.

For NOAA, the ‘‘unique’’ capability is the ‘‘operational’’ infrastructure to exploit

space-based date for weather forecasting. This is of very high quality and a unique

national asset. I think that the NASA–NOAA (and with the Air Force and Navy)

interaction through the Joint Center for Satellite Data Assimilation forms a firm

foundation that assist NOAA’s capability (and the DOD’s) to forecast the weather,

but this could be improved and expanded upon-particularly in the area of climate

research.

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ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS

Responses by James Geringer, Director of Policy and Public Sector Strategy, Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI)

Questions submitted by Representative Mark Udall

Q1. The Decadal Survey report discusses issues beyond the climate change issue,

such as population increases near earthquake faults, shortages of clean and accessible fresh water, degradation of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, increased

in soil erosion and declines in fisheries. Do the Recommended space missions

help address such non-climate challenges and societal benefits? What other societal issues should be addressed?

A1. The Decadal Survey report highlights many other Earth science areas of practical, economic and societal benefit. The recommended space missions help address

such non-climate challenges. However, NASA’s budget priorities focus on just a few

larger missions such as the Global Precipitation Mission (GPM) and Landsat Data

Continuity Mission (LDCM) which seems to preclude other important environmental

observations such as crustal stress and soil characterization.

The Decadal Survey does recommend missions that would monitor crustal movements and determine changes in strain and stress through the earthquake cycle. We

should also enable better assessments of potential and actual damage from natural

disasters and help target mitigation, recovery and relief activities.

Earth observation can dramatically benefit the competitiveness of our U.S. economy. Ocean observations are vital to transportation and trade. Improved weather

forecasting enables more efficient energy use. Success of the emergence of carbon

trading market will significantly depend upon our ability to monitor for compliance

and improvements. Change detection that is possible only with remote sensing allows better and more timely policy decisions.

The NASA budget request does not appear to contain sufficient funds in the 2008–

2012 timeframe to seriously begin any of these important missions. Instead, nearly

all of the funds available for mission development are directed at just the two missions, the Global Precipitation Mission and the Landsat Data Continuity Mission,

both follow-ons of previous missions. The LDCM is not widely supported as the type

of satellite that would recognize trends in today’s global setting. For instance, trends

in world population growth would point to two very pressing needs: adequacy of food

and water. Space missions should be tied to real world problems, not just arcane

research goals.

Access to NASA data has been an issue. We need a more streamlined process to

enable public access to remotely sensed data for the public, educational communities, agricultural producers and industries.

Compliance with industry standard file formats along with well-documented interpretation of these remotely sensed data products would enable utilization of data

to support weather forecasting, disaster management, and commercialization.

Based upon anecdotal information, a number of people are not happy with the

configuration and approach being taken for the LDCM. I have received letters from

academics, scientists and policy-makers, including the Chair and Vice-Chair of the

Western Governors Association who want specific water monitoring capability enabled with a thermal sensor which is not now included in LDCM planning. With

what appears to be a growing disagreement on LDCM capabilities and cost, I recommend that a roundtable be convened by a neutral third party to examine the

Landsat Data Continuity Mission approach. An organization such as the Institute

for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES) could bring together the interested scientists and other parties to arrive at a community consensus.

Q2. What kind of Earth- and ocean-based systems are needed to complement the

space missions?

A2. We need a system such as the Integrated Earth Observation System (IEOS),

consisting of space, ground, airborne and ocean-based sensors, both public and private, that can gather information and integrate it for researchers and decision-makers alike with a maximum of efficiency and a minimum of duplication.

The President’s FY 2008 budget recommends partial funding for the proposed Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) to develop regional networks of remote

ocean sensors, including biological sensors, that would monitor the general health

of the ocean. Much more is needed so that we can better manage our coasts, improve hurricane and tsunami predictions, and improve marine operations. IOOS

would include space, land, ocean and airborne sensors and application programs.

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An excellent example of what IEOS and IOOS should be is the National Weather

Service (NWS) within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

(NOAA). The NWS provides the world benchmark for collecting and integrating

weather observations from various sources across the globe to produce critical information that protects U.S. citizens and property. The forecasts that result from combining observations from space-based satellites, ocean buoys, ground-based systems

and aircraft impact U.S. citizens daily in a wide variety of ways. The integrated information approach of the NWS should be scaled up to include other programs within and across several federal agencies.

Meaningful data gathering systems are possible at much less cost than space

based platforms. Constellations of lower cost satellites have the potential to deliver

more data more often at less cost than single, complicated, one-of-a-kind expensive

satellites.

Ocean based systems of observation such as Royal Caribbean’s ‘‘Explorer of the

Seas’’ with its ocean and atmospheric sciences labs are an excellent example of low

cost but very effective private partnership that should be encouraged and extended

to other cruise ships and ocean going platforms. They provide an excellent means

to verify on-the-water observations and collect long-term data sets at a fraction of

the cost of other methods. One person who has been the visiting scientist three

times aboard ship and has experienced it all first hand, describes it as a ‘‘very neat

and a great way to improve ocean literacy!’’

Q3. In your testimony, you identified leadership issues as impediments to effectiveness of the U.S. Earth Observations Program and to executing the vision and

recommendations of the Decadal Survey. How should these issues be addressed?

A3. We must answer the simple question ‘‘Who’s in charge?’’

Current Earth observation systems are highly fragmented with different systems

that were set at different times by different organizations and overseen by different

Congresses for a variety of different reasons. Few are cross-correlated to complement each other’s efforts. We do not have a coherent, integrated system to gather

data, disseminate it through public portals for research and analysis, analytical

tools to determine proper choices that can enable public policy-makers and private

business leaders make better decisions. We risk becoming dependent upon other

world countries to be the primary source of our data.

For example, the USDA is no longer using Landsat imagery for operational monitoring applications because of the data gap. Our current capability provides no global coverage for crop estimates and food production, no adequate revisit cycle for

verification and trend analysis and it is not the best value for USDA. The solution

for USDA/Foreign Agricultural Service is to contract with India to obtain imagery

supplemented by information from commercial sources such as GeoEye.

We have recommended the convening of a high level commission that would have

specific timelines and tasks to recommend action, legislation and funding that would

be carried out by a cabinet level agency. Creation of an IEOS program office would

enable us to forecast events in our oceans and on land even before we see changes

in the atmosphere. Connecting disparate observations into national systems would

enable us to anticipate and even prevent key environmental problems or at least

detect them earlier to mitigate the effects. We should leverage the time and resources already invested in systems development, data collection and analysis, and

modeling to create a comprehensive and actionable vision of our world.

I support the Decadal Survey recommendation for establishment of an office of coordination within OSTP. But we need more than coordination. We need leadership

enabled with authority and motivated by passion, not just another block on the organizational chart. As part of a national strategy, we should address how to more

effectively move from research to operations. Our global competitiveness depends on

how quickly and effectively we act.

Questions submitted by Representative Ken Calvert

Q1. In the agricultural industry, to what degree is remote sensing data conveniently

available to individual farmers to help them plan and manage their crops?

A1. A moderate amount of remote sensing data are conveniently available, however,

the raw data are of limited use unless they are incorporated into a decision support

tool that merges the data with other information in the context of a farmer’s needs.

Also, the remote sensing data must be timely and of a sufficient scale to make them

useful in an agricultural setting.

A wide range of remote sensing data from government sources is available to

farmers. This includes information on weather and climate, imagery of fields and

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roads (base data layers), elevation, and hydrology. The private sector is another important source of data. Private companies tend to specialize in custom data that are

more current and of higher resolution. For example, a farmer may request that high

resolution aerial imagery be taken of farmland at a specific time in the growing season. Meteorological data from the National Weather Service and private sector

sources is accessed by farmers on a regular basis.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture sponsors the National Agriculture Imagery

Program (NAIP), which acquires imagery during the growing seasons in the continental United States. Other federal agencies and a number of private sector companies develop a range of remote sensing data that is used for agricultural purposes.

Q2. Can they get the data off the Internet?

A2. Yes, but with a very significant caveat; namely, Internet access and speed.

Remote sensing data are available by way of the Internet from public and private

sources both within and outside the United States. Remote sensing data from government sources are typically available at no or low cost. Private sector data are

normally available for a fee.

The primary sources of information from the Federal Government are the U.S.

Department of Agriculture (USDA), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). The National Aeronautics and

Space Administration (NASA) is often a partner contributing to the development of

these data through the development, launch, and operation of satellite systems.

Some state agencies also make remote sensing data available.

Examples of government data used for agricultural purposes are:

USDA

• Digital quadrangles and mosaics via the National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP).

NOAA

• Weather and forecast information from the National Weather Service

USGS

• LandSat Imagery (base maps)

• Orthoimagery (Digital Ortho Photos, base maps)

• Elevation (Digital Elevation Models)

• Hydrography

• Land Cover (MODIS)

Examples of Internet-based information resources from the private sector or foreign governments are:

• High resolution aircraft-based imagery from numerous private sector sources

• High resolution satellite-based imagery from DigitalGlobe (U.S.)

• High resolution satellite-based land imagery from SPOT (France)

Information is of little value if agricultural producers don’t have access or sufficient bandwidth. The National Agricultural Statistics Service most recent survey

shows that 51 percent of U.S. farms have Internet access. The percentage increases

to 72 percent at the highest level ($250,000+ income) but the number of producers

at that level is small. Most producers who have Internet access use a dial-up modem

which limits information and usage. The Pew Internet and American Life Project

found that agricultural producers and rural communities do not have the broadband

access that has become a basic necessity for economic development, small business

growth, and education.

People in urban areas are twice as likely to have broadband access as their rural

counterparts.

Actions by Congress should promote open access, meaningful competition, and innovation at the federal and State level for high-capacity rural broadband Internet

access through public and private investment partnerships.

Q3. Is it routinely provided by the government through a private sector source?

A3. At present, the process of accessing data is cumbersome and time consuming.

If farmers are to make more routine use of government data, the process for identifying and accessing it must be streamlined. There are great benefits to farmers in

making use of remote sensing data for farm management and precision agriculture.

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A direct benefit would be more efficient use of fertilizers and pesticides. It is important for federal agencies to make use of state-of-the-art data storage and delivery

mechanisms to make data readily available to farmers and to private sector firms

who provide information services to the agricultural sector.

Few farmers have the capacity to directly download and analyze remote sensing

data. To be useful, a decision support tool is required to format the data, integrate

it with other information, and display it in a useful format. A private sector company that specializes in providing this service for the agricultural industry is ZedX

Inc. (www.zedxinc.com). Their decision support system called ‘‘AgFleet’’ is used to

manage more than 15 million acres of agricultural land in North America. The tool

makes use of remote sensing and other data from government and private sector

sources to guide decisions about planting, harvesting, and application of fertilizers,

pesticides and other chemicals. Crop consultants and dealers of seed, fertilizer, pesticides, and other agricultural chemicals typically provide this analytical service to

farmers. The service allows them to determine what products should be applied

when, where, and at what concentrations, and to track the financial costs and benefits of their farm management practices.

Q4. Can you offer an estimate of the percentage of farmers that access this type of

data on a periodic basis?

A4. At present, a relatively small percentage of farmers nationally make use of advanced precision agricultural techniques which require access to remote sensing

data on a periodic basis. This applies primarily to grain crops. A larger percentage

of farmers make some use of remote sensing imagery as base data layers for farm

management purposes. Again, few farmers make direct use of remote sensing data

on a regular basis. Most often, crop consultants, major suppliers of seed and chemicals, and agricultural extension services develop information products for farmers

that often incorporate remote sensing data.

Timeliness, availability, and cost of information are the major determining factors

in the use of remote sensing data in agriculture. If timely, high quality data were

available to farmers at low or no cost from either government or private sources,

the number of farmers making use of precision agriculture practices would increase

greatly. This would increase the profitability of farm operations by increasing crop

yields and reducing expenses associated with agricultural chemicals. It would also

decrease residues on agricultural products, and would minimize the runoff of chemicals into waterways.

As Congress considers the new farm bill, it should consider ways to encourage federal agencies to make high quality remote sensing data more readily available to

farmers, and it should provide incentives for farmers to make use of precision agriculture techniques and decision support tools.

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