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NOAA Strategic Goal: Crosscutting

JIMO, located on the Scripps La Jolla campus, is a joint institute between NOAA and the University of California's Scripps Institution of Oceanography. JIMO is collocated with the NOAA Southwest Fisheries Center and maintains collaborative programs with several of the NOAA Laboratories across the country, representing a wide range of mutual interests. The overall goal of JIMO is to create a center of excellence in which the state of the art observation capabilities such as platforms (surface, subsea, and air/spaceborne), sensors, and systems architecture of both NOAA and Scripps are utilized to fill pressing research needs. The specific themes reflect the particular strength at Scripps in the areas of coupled ocean-atmosphere climate research, blue water and littoral oceanography, marine biology/biological oceanography, marine geology and geophysics, and ocean technology. It also lends the strength of the Scripps large fleet of surface and subsurface platforms to the success of observation-based science for NOAA.

NOAA Strategic Goal: Climate Variability and Change

NOAA is installing the U. S. Climate Reference Network across the country, to measure weather and climate. About 110 stations are envisioned for the network and more than 80 stations are presently operating in 40 states, including California. The network is intended to operate for many decades, providing highly accurate and well-documented measurements of key variables such as air temperature and precipitation. Data is used operationally to put climate anomalies into historical perspective and to detect climate change. The effort is supported by the NOAA Research Climate Observation and Services Program and the Air Resources Laboratory, which designed the stations and has been assembling, calibrating, deploying, and maintaining the network sites in collaboration with NOAA’s National Environmental Satellite and Data Information Service. A list of the operational sites and links to their data are available at this URL: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/crn/hourly.

To carry out NOAA’s mission to provide climate forecasts and products, the Climate Program Office supports research projects across the nation conducted by investigators outside the federal government, within the federal government, and in NOAA Cooperative Institutes. This research is accomplished through the strong support of the academic and private sectors, as well as NOAA and other federal laboratories. The research contributes to improved predictions and assessments of the effects of climate variability over a range of time scales from season to season, year to year, and over the course of a decade and beyond. Grants Recipients: University of California, Stanford University, California State University, University of California Santa Cruz, University of California Santa Barbara, International Council of Local Environmental Initiatives, Hydrologic Research Center

The Trinidad Head Observatory is one of five baseline observatories supported by NOAA's Climate Observations and Services Program and operated by the NOAA Research Earth System Research Laboratory, located in Boulder, CO. The observatories are part of a global network of observatories monitoring atmospheric constituents that cause climate change and depletion of the ozone layer. The observatories are located in Barrow, Alaska; Mauna Loa, Hawaii; South Pole, Antarctica; Trinidad Head, California; and cape Matatula, Island of Tutuila, American Samoa. The Trinidad Head Observatory was installed in 2001 to monitor the air entering the west coast of the United States that is now being impacted by effluents of anthropogenic aerosols and gases from the burgeoning Asian economies. The observatory is operated in cooperation with Humboldt State University. Ozone is measured at the surface at Trinidad Head and in the total column above the observatory. For more information, please visit http://www.cmdl.noaa.gov/obop/index.html

The Earth System Research Laboratory operates nine stations as part of its integrated surface irradiance study (ISIS). The stations perform long-term, accurate measurements of the down welling broadband solar and ultraviolet-B radiation. Solar radiation is the driving energy for geophysical and biological processes that control weather and affect planetary life. One of these stations is located near Hanford, California. Information about these stations can be found at http://www.srrb.noaa.gov.

NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) contributes to a consensus seasonal forecast and other products for the fire season for California and other states. This new climate decision-support tool provides information for a seasonal fire danger outlook, used by the National Interagency Coordination Center for fires to make proactive short- and long-range decisions for strategy development and resource allocation, and to improve efficiency and firefighter safety.

NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) scientists are working with U.S. Bureau of Reclamation reservoir managers in California to develop ways to use climate information in management of the Colorado River and its large reservoirs. For example, in the past, ESRL has co-sponsored one-day Colorado River Basin Outlook briefings in Salt Lake City, Utah for water managers, decision makers, and planning groups in the region to provide an assessment of current and projected climate conditions and water availability impacting the lower and upper Colorado River Basins.

NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) has been studying the impact of El Niño/Southern Oscillation on the U.S. Pacific West Coast (where the effect is known to be large) and is seeking to improve seasonal precipitation forecasts for this region. This research is being conducted jointly with the National Weather Service staff who are responsible for operational seasonal forecasts and with scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. ESRL works closely with the U.S. Geological Survey, the University of California system, and NOAA's Climate Program Office California Applications Project. Efforts to develop a predictive understanding between climatic variability and human diseases such as western equine encephalitis and West Nile encephalitis represent a continuing collaboration with scientists from the University of California at Davis and UC-San Diego.

NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) operates a Cooperative Global Air Sampling Network to measure the distribution and trends of carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4), the two gases most responsible for human-caused climate change. Samples are collected weekly at 45 fixed locations and on several commercial ships. The air samples are delivered to the ESRL laboratory, located in Boulder, CO. The observed geographical patterns and small but persistent spatial gradients are used to better understand the processes, both natural and human induced, that underlie the trends. Samples have been collected from Point Arena, CA, since 1999. The samples are collected by employees of Point Arena Lighthouse Keepers, Inc., a non-profit organization that maintains and operates the lighthouse. The samples collected at Point Arena represent air that has been over the Pacific Ocean, upwind of North America, for days or weeks. These measurements help determine the magnitude of carbon sources and sinks in North America.

NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) makes measurements of the column amounts of ozone between the earth's surface and the top of the atmosphere at a number of locations around the United States, including Hanford, CA. The observations are obtained with ground-based spectrometers that measure the attenuation by ozone of ultraviolet light. This integrated ozone amount is critical in determining the amount of ultraviolet radiation reaching the earth's surface. Excess ultraviolet radiation is responsible for human skin cancer and is also harmful to other biogenic organisms. Column ozone measurements monitor changes in the stratospheric ozone layer resulting from human-produced chlorine and bromine compounds that destroy ozone. With controls now in place on the manufacture and use of these ozone destroying compounds, it will be important to monitor the ozone layer for the expected recovery and determine whether other factors such as long-term climate change are influencing this recovery.

The Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) is involved in the archiving of its climate model data at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, located in Livermore, CA. Model data is archived for the purpose of intercomparison of climate model data obtained from other national and international climate modeling institutions around the world. Archived data will also be used in the next Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report.

NOAA Strategic Goal: Weather and Air Quality

Computer systems developed by the NOAA Research Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) are in operation at all NOAA National Weather Service (NWS) field offices, six of which are located in California. ESRL has been the prime developer of the data ingest and display components of the NWS weather display and text generation system known as AWIPS (Advanced Weather Information Processing System). This system integrates meteorological, hydrological, satellite, and radar data. ESRL also developed the Interactive Forecast Preparation System Graphical Forecast Editor, a system that allows forecasters to display and manipulate forecast depictions of sensible weather (temperature, wind, precipitation, etc.), and use these to generate text and graphical forecasts for the public and other customers. NWS field offices are using this system to produce gridded forecast products, which allows forecasters to convey more information to the customers than they did in the past.

The Hydrometeorology Testbed (HMT), is an ongoing field study of winter storms that impact the West Coast. Its aim is to improve the ability to forecast damaging weather on the U.S. West Coast in land falling winter storms that develop over the Pacific Ocean. Based in the Russian River basin near Santa Rosa and the American River basin near Sacramento and conducted from December to March of each cool season, HMT is a collaborative effort between NOAA's Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research and the National Weather Service and other government and university entities. Researchers make use of data collected by numerous instruments on the ground, as well as satellites, and model output. For more information see http://www.etl.noaa.gov/programs/2006/hmt/.

THORPEX is an international research program to accelerate improvements in the accuracy of 1 to 14 day weather forecasts. Such projects encompassed improving weather model errors, development of ensemble global numerical weather models, and THORPEX mission planning. Through grants that support THORPEX, NOAA's U.S. Weather Research Program provides funding to the Science Applications International Corporation (Mclean, Virginia), Colorado State University (Boulder, Colorado), University of Wisconsin (Madison, Wisconsin), University of Maryland (College Park, Maryland), and the Naval Research Laboratory (Monterey, California).

The United States Weather Research Program (USWRP) brings together Federal agencies with the academic and private sectors to move research ideas and technologies into operational weather forecasts. As part of the Joint Hurricane Testbed project, the USWRP provides grant funding to the Science Applications International Corporation (Mclean, Virginia), the Naval Research Laboratory (Monterey, California), University of Rhode Island (Kingston, Rhode Island), University of Miami (Miami, Florida), the National Center for Atmospheric Research (Boulder, Colorado), Colorado State University (Boulder, Colorado), and the University of Western Ontario (Canada). The Joint Hurricane Testbed Project is working to upgrade the hurricane numerical model prediction system and improve hurricane analysis and prediction.

The Tsunami Research Program at the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL), headquartered in Seattle, Washington, seeks to mitigate tsunami hazards to California, Washington, Oregon, Hawaii, and Alaska. A tsunami is a series of very large ocean waves caused by underwater earthquakes, landslides, volcanic eruptions, explosions, and even meteor impacts. Capable of flooding hundreds of meters inland past the typical high-water level, the fast-moving water associated with an inundating tsunami can crush homes and other coastal structures. More common occurrences, and devastating in an economic sense, are false alarms that lead to expensive evacuations of coastal areas. Research and development activities focus on improved tsunami warning information, including inundation maps for coastal communities and advanced observation and modeling technology to increase the speed and accuracy of tsunami forecasts and warnings. PMEL has developed and deployed an array of early warning buoys in the Pacific to increase the reliability of tsunami warnings. This array consists of six moored buoys located at key deep water sites to improve risk assessment from tsunamis associated with major earthquake hazard areas around the Pacific Basin. Responsibility for maintaining the buoys has now been transitioned to the National Weather Service National Data Buoy Center. These activities are undertaken as part of the National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program, a state/federal partnership created to reduce the risks of tsunamis to U.S. coastal areas.

NOAA Strategic Goal: Ecosystems

In collaboration with scientists from the Tahoe Limnological Laboratory, a Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory scientist is developing models of Lake Tahoe sediment accumulation, mixing and geochemistry as a means of chronicling the impact of watershed alteration and recent accelerated nutrient additions to this fragile ecosystem.

NOAA’s National Sea Grant College Program is a federal-university partnership that integrates research, education, and outreach (extension and communications). Sea Grant forms a network of 32 programs in all U.S. coastal and Great Lakes states, Puerto Rico and Guam. California is served by two Sea Grant College Programs: the California Sea Grant College Program, based in La Jolla at the University of California, and the Southern California Sea Grant College program, based at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. The California Sea Grant College Program annually funds nearly 50 concurrent research and outreach projects, which are competitively selected to address a wide range of problems and opportunities. The program supports an additional 25 outreach and applied research projects through its Extension Specialists and Marine Advisors. Current projects focus on fisheries and fisheries habitat, ballast water management, seafood safety and quality, coastal water quality, aquatic nuisance species, wetland and salmonid habitat restoration, marine aquaculture, coastal ocean processes, new marine products, ocean engineering and instrumentation, marine affairs, oyster disease, marine biotechnology, and marine reserves. For more information see http://www.csgc.ucsd.edu. Southern California Sea Grant College Program research targets issues specific to the urban ocean and densely populated southern California, including: beach contamination, human impacts on protected areas, ports and harbors, and climate change. Southern California Sea Grant K-12 education programs increase science literacy among urban students, and encourage teachers to adopt science education curricula. Many southern California institutions receive research funding through the Sea Grant College Program, including the University of Southern California, California State University at Fullerton, and California State University at Long Beach. For more information see http://www.usc.edu/org/seagrant/seagrant.html.

NOAA's Undersea Research Program (NURP) is a unique national service that provides undersea scientists with tools and expertise that they need to work in the undersea environment, from the shoreline to the deep sea. Each year, the program supports 200 or more undersea research projects related to NOAA's mission as steward of oceanic resources and environments, including research to support NOAA's management responsibilities in fisheries (stock assessment validation, understanding essential fish habitat), corals, and other coastal resources. NURP is comprised of a network of six regional centers and a national technology institute. Based at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, NOAA's Undersea Research Center for the West Coast and Polar Regions (WCPR) supports undersea research and scientific investigation along the western coast and the polar regions of the United States. Developing a greater understanding of the habitats and life cycles of fisheries, which are a tremendously important resource in these regions, is a priority at WCPR. Other significant areas of research include 1) the sea floor ridges off California, Oregon and Washington, which are the closest of any spreading ridges to US ports and 2) polar regions, which hold great economic and strategic importance and are likely to be strongly impacted as a result of global climate change. For more information see http://www.nurp.noaa.gov/westpola.html.

NOAA’s Office of Ocean Exploration (OE) supports activities that search and investigate the oceans for the purpose of discovery. OE missions fit into four areas: (1) mapping the physical, biological, chemical and archeological aspects of the ocean; (2) understanding ocean dynamics at new levels to describe the complex interactions of the living ocean; (3) developing new sensors and systems for ocean exploration, and; (4) reaching out to the public to communicate the benefits to current of future generations of unlocking the secrets of the ocean. In 2004-2007, OE is providing multi-year funding to Inflection Media, the University of California, and Monterey Peninsula College for ocean exploration and education projects.

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Updated June 8, 2006