National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Organization and Missions

NOAA’s role is to assess and predict environmental changes, protect life and property, provide decision makers with reliable scientific information, manage the nation’s living marine and coastal resources, and foster global environmental stewardship.

NOAA’s budget ($3.33 billion for fiscal year 2003) is included in the appropriations bill for the Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State. The key components within NOAA are: the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Services (NOAA Satellites and Information); National Marine Fisheries Service (NOAA Fisheries); National Ocean and Coastal Services (NOAA Oceans and Coasts); National Weather Service (NOAA Weather Service); Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (NOAA Research); Office of Marine and Aviation Operations (NOAA Marine and Aviation Operations); NOAA Finance and Administration; and the NOAA Corps. NOAA’s goals require complete intra-office cooperation and collaboration with local, state, other federal agency, and international programs for success.

Ecosystem Management

NOAA’s first goal is to protect, restore, and manage the use of coastal and ocean resources. During the first decade of the 21st century, the greatest challenge will be to implement an integrated ecosystem management approach to all of NOAA’s living resources responsibilities by all NOAA components.

Coastal areas are among the most developed regions in the nation. Coastal counties are growing three times faster than other counties, adding more than 3,600 people a day to their populations. Every year, 180 million tourists visit America’s coastal communities. Coastal waters support more than 28 million jobs and generate more than $54 billion annually in goods and services. The commercial fishing industry contributes more than $28 billion a year to our economy while more than 17 million Americans spend about $25 billion a year on recreational marine fishing activities.

NOAA Fisheries is responsible for the protection and sustainable development of U.S. territorial waters—more than one-fifth of the world’s most productive marine waters. To maintain sustainable fisheries, NOAA studies the life history, stock size, and ecology of economically important fishes and the effects of climate and ocean processes on fish populations.

An ecosystem approach to management will require better understanding of the pressures—both natural and human-induced—that change ecosystems. Increasingly, international cooperation will be required to protect large marine ecosystems and areas beyond our national jurisdiction. Monitoring and observing these ecosystems and communities will provide basic understanding of habitats and human activities that affect them. For example, tuna and swordfish stocks fished in the waters of the Western Pacific under U.S. jurisdiction are healthy and yield enormous returns to the nation. Northern Pacific groundfish stocks remain the most productive and wealthiest in U.S. waters. Restoration of many depleted fish stocks such as New England groundfish, Gulf of Mexico red snapper, and Atlantic bluefin tuna is showing signs of significant progress.

Many federally protected marine animals, including whales, dolphins, sea turtles, and many stocks of salmon are affected by fisheries and other human activities as well as by environmental change. The Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act are essential tools NOAA Fisheries uses domestically, and in guiding international cooperative programs, to protect and restore marine species. The California gray whale became the first marine mammal to be removed from the list of endangered species. Many endangered and threatened Pacific salmon stocks now are under federal protection.

NOAA Oceans and Coasts provides the nation with reliable and timely information to promote the sensible and sustainable use of coastal resources. Through the National Marine Sanctuary and National Estuarine Research Reserve programs, NOAA ensures the long-term enjoyment, preservation, and study of these unique natural and cultural areas. Today, 18,000 square miles of ocean and coastal waters in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and the Great Lakes are protected under the sanctuary program, and 440,000 acres across a wide range of coastal and estuarine habitats are protected as research reserves.

The ecosystem management concept includes understanding climate variability and change to enhance society’s ability to plan and respond. Given the stresses of population growth, drought, increasing demand for fresh water, and emerging infectious diseases, decision makers need reliable climate information to guide them in managing resources to maximize benefits and minimize the impacts of climate variations.

NOAA Research uses a closely coordinated network of 12 federal environmental-research laboratories, 11 joint or cooperative institutes, 30 Sea Grant colleges and universities, six National Undersea Research Centers, the Office of Ocean Exploration, Arctic Research, and the Office of Global Programs to develop innovative technologies and observing systems.

Environmental, economic, and public safety challenges require high-quality research underpinning environmental assessment, prediction, and ecosystem management missions. NOAA researchers explore from the surface of the sun to the depths of the ocean. Research is in three major areas: atmosphere, climate, and ocean and coastal resources. NOAA Research provides products and services that describe and predict changes in the environment.

Research results allow decision makers to make effective judgments to prevent the loss of human life and conserve and manage natural resources while maintaining a strong economy. NOAA Research also administers collaborative, long-term partnerships between NOAA and participating universities and other nonprofit institutions. These mutually beneficial partnerships include 11 Joint Research Institutes affiliated with the NOAA Research Laboratories, 30 Sea Grant programs coordinated under the National Sea Grant College Program, and six regional National Undersea Research Centers directed by the National Undersea Research Program.

The NOAA Corps

Much of NOAA’s oceanographic, atmospheric, hydrographic, fisheries, and coastal data is collected by NOAA ships and aircraft. NOAA’s fleet of platforms is managed and operated by the NOAA Office of Marine and Aviation Operations (NMAO). NMAO is staffed by civilians and officers of the NOAA Corps, the smallest of the nation’s seven uniformed services. In addition to carrying out research and monitoring activities critical to NOAA’s mission, NOAA ships and aircraft provide immediate-response and damage-assessment capabilities for dealing with natural or unpredictable disasters such as hurricanes and oil spills. NOAA Corps officers—all of whom are scientists or engineers—operate and manage the ships and aircraft, and also support NOAA programs ashore with an important blend of operational, management, and technical skills.

NOAA’s service to society’s need for weather and water information has the most direct effect on the greatest number of people every day. Hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis, floods, and other severe weather events cause an average of $22 billion in damage every year to the U.S. economy. Economic sectors and the public are increasingly using NOAA weather, air quality, and water information to improve their operational efficiencies and manage environmental resources.

Strategically positioned to conduct sound science and provide integrated observations, predictions, and advice to decision makers, NOAA bridges weather and climate time scales, collecting environmental data, and issues forecasts and warnings that protect life and property, and enhance the U.S. economy. Weather and climate industries account for about one-third of the nation’s gross domestic product—$30 trillion.

Meteorologists and hydrologists at NOAA’s National Weather Service field offices and river forecast centers use New Advanced Weather Interactive Processing Systems to provide more timely and precise severe weather forecasts, watches, and warnings. Nine national centers (including the Tropical Prediction Center/National Hurricane Center and the Storm Prediction Center) utilize high-speed computer and communication systems that allow forecasters quick access to weather data from radars, satellites, and automated surface-observing systems. NOAA Weather Radio broadcasts provide the general public with up-to-the-minute area weather reports and emergency information.

Space Assets

The National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NOAA Satellites and Information) operates the nation’s geostationary and polar-orbiting environmental satellites, and manages the processing and distribution of the millions of bits of data and images these satellites produce daily. The prime customer is NOAA’s National Weather Service, which uses the data to create daily forecasts and, when necessary, special advisories for the public and the media.

NOAA’s operational environmental satellite system is composed of two types of satellites, geostationary operational environmental satellites (GOES) for national, regional, short-range warning, and “now-casting,” and polar-orbiting environmental satellites (POES) for long-term global forecasting. Both types of satellites are needed to provide a complete global weather-monitoring system.

GOES satellites circle the Earth in geosynchronous orbit at the equatorial plane of the Earth, their speed matching its rotation, allowing them to hover about 23,000 miles above the surface, over one position, and giving all of them full-disc views of the Earth. Collectively, they provide a constant vigil for the atmospheric “triggers” preceding and/or related to severe weather conditions such as tornadoes, flash floods, violent thunderstorms, and hurricanes, monitoring their effects and tracking their movements.

GOES-12 overlooks North and South America and most of the Atlantic Ocean; GOES-10 monitors North America and the Pacific Ocean basin. The two operate together to send a full-face picture of the Earth, day and night.

Complementing the geostationary satellites are two polar-orbiting satellites: NOAA-16, launched in September 2000, and NOAA-17, launched in June 2002. Constantly circling the Earth in sun-synchronous orbit (at a 450-nautical-mile altitude), these satellites support large-scale long-range forecasts and are assigned numerous secondary missions.

NOAA, internationally as well as domestically, is working to cost-effectively increase the number, breadth, accuracy, and availability of observation systems. To improve accuracy and timeliness of prediction capabilities and services will require NOAA to invest in new technologies, techniques, and weather and water forecast modeling. Improving the performance of the suite of weather, water, air quality, and space weather predictions will reduce uncertainty and increase the economic benefits to the nation. All will enhance the nation’s preparedness for responding to hazardous weather and water-related conditions. In the U.S. agricultural sector alone, better forecasts can be worth $300 million annually.

NOAA’s GOES and POES satellites will be augmented by satellites in the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program, which transferred to NOAA from the Air Force in 2002. NOAA’s Satellite Operations Control Center in Suitland, Md., now is the primary site for controlling all U.S. weather satellites. The transfer to joint operations represents development of a single, integrated satellite system.

An advanced, high-spectral-resolution infrared sounder will fly aboard satellites of the future; the first of these would be available for launch in 2008.

NOAA Satellites and Information also operates national data centers that manage the largest collection of atmospheric, geophysical, and oceanographic data in the world. These sources develop environmental data provided for forecasts, national-security purposes, and weather warnings to protect life and property. These forecasts also contribute to the national economy by providing environmental data useful for decisions on energy distribution, the development of global food supplies, and the management of natural resources.

This network will enhance our ability to protect lives and property, expand economic opportunities, understand climate variability and change, and promote healthy ecosystems.

Transportation systems are the United States’ economic lifelines. As U.S. dependence on surface and air transportation grows over the next 20 years, and as maritime trade doubles, better navigation and weather information will be critical to protect lives, cargo, and the environment.

NOAA and its research partners are constantly improving the numerical models used to predict and analyze marine weather events. NCEP (the National Centers for Environmental Prediction) produces computer-based daily forecasts of the ocean state that include information on waves, winds, currents, water levels, and salinity over the global oceans as well as U.S. coastal areas and the Gulf Stream.

NOAA provides accurate navigation information and products that reduce risks to life, cargo, and property. NOAA Oceans and Coasts is updating its hydrographic surveys of the nation’s busiest and most critical waterways, converting marine charts from paper to computer-readable digital raster format—and working toward the next generation of electronic navigation and charting systems.

NOAA Oceans and Coasts also provides navigators, coastal resource managers, and port and harbor users with tide predictions, tidal current tables, and real-time water levels and currents, and has helped develop comprehensive Physical Oceanographic Real-Time Systems (PORTS), currently in 10 major U.S. ports, to aid in the safe and cost-effective shipping of $500 billion worth of cargo annually.

In addition, NOAA satellites provide search-and-rescue operations that have been instrumental in saving an estimated 14,000 lives since the inception of the Search and Rescue Satellite Tracking (SARSAT) system. Ships and boats, aircraft, and since July 2003, individual hikers, bikers, and campers can carry Personal Locator Beacons that will give emergency rescue officials their precise location anywhere on Earth.

Environmental Stewardship

NOAA pollution-response Scientific Support Coordinators orchestrate all science-based activities during and after oil and hazardous materials spills. They provide vital weather, tide, current, and environmental information to spill-response decision makers. The coordinators also create computer models to predict the path and impact of spills, and help in the development of realistic plans and scenarios for pollution-response drills and training. As a designated natural resource trustee, NOAA also helps determine spill-related damages to natural resources so that restoration can be started and compensation can be sought from the party or parties responsible.

Looking to the future, NOAA Oceans and Coasts will expand advanced technology monitoring and observation systems to provide accurate weather and oceanographic observations, marine, aviation, and surface transportation-related observations, hydrographic surveys, and precise positioning coordinates.

NOAA will establish an environmental literacy program to educate present and future generations about the changing Earth and its processes, to inspire our nation’s youth to pursue scientific careers, and to improve the public’s understanding and appreciation of NOAA’s missions. Building from NOAA’s Education Web sites which provides lesson plans for teachers and study materials for students, the goal is to improve everyone’s understanding of the natural environment and human response to natural hazards. NOAA wants to provide state and local natural resource managers with the access and knowledge to use information needed to reduce significant human impacts on the environment and (b) respond to storm warnings and environmental change.

Contributing to Homeland Defense

Additionally, NOAA possesses more than 80 capabilities that support America’s efforts to prepare for and, if necessary, respond to terrorist attacks. Best known are NOAA’s hazardous materials spill response capabilities, atmospheric waterborne dispersion forecasting, vessel monitoring systems, and support for communities and first responders.

NOAA also provides rapid on-site weather forecasts to support emergency operations from floods to forest fires and civil emergency alert relay through NOAA Weather Radio. When the need arises, NOAA is also ready to provide ships, aircraft, global observation systems, and professional law enforcement officers.