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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 Wisconsin. 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 Wisconsin

NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) operates trace gas monitoring sites at tall television transmitter towers in Wisconsin, Maine, and Texas. The sites were established to extend ESRL's monitoring network into the interior of North America in order to provide data to aid estimation of the net carbon balance of the continent. Variations of trace gases, especially carbon dioxide, are largest near the ground, so existing tall (> 400 meters) transmitter towers are utilized as platforms for in situ and flask sampling for atmospheric trace gases. The tower site in Wisconsin is located within the Chequamegon National Forest, near Park Falls. The tower is owned by the State of Wisconsin Educational Communications Board, and access is provided for ESRL activities free of charge, except the cost of utilities. ESRL monitors carbon dioxide concentrations on the tower at several heights up to 400 meters above the ground, and also measures wind speed and direction, temperature, humidity, rainfall, solar radiation and barometric pressure. In addition, the exchange of carbon dioxide between the atmosphere and the forest is measured in order to quantify the role of the forest in the regional carbon dioxide budget. ESRL is collaborating with the USDA Forest Service Forest Sciences Laboratory (Rhinelander, WI) on the measurements at this site. Work by ESRL at the Wisconsin tower has been the catalyst for a larger program in the region to understand the carbon balance of the forest. This program, called the Chequamegon Ecosystem-Atmosphere Study, is funded by NOAA, DOE, NASA and USDA and involves researchers from several universities and federal laboratories. The goal is to determine how management (e.g., selective harvest), past land use, and climate changes affect the carbon balance of the forest.

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 Madison, Wisconsin. Information about these stations can be found at http://www.srrb.noaa.gov.

NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) operates a new and growing small aircraft-based North American network of sampling sites (Carbon America) to measure vertical profiles of important greenhouse gas concentrations. Air is sampled above the surface up to approximately 25,000 feet above sea level using a reasonably small, light, and economical automated system developed by ESRL researchers. These air samples are delivered to the ESRL laboratory in Boulder, Colorado for measurements of carbon dioxide, methane, and other greenhouse gasses. This data will improve global carbon cycle models. Weekly sampling is conducted from Phillips, WI.

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, three of which are located in Wisconsin. 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.http://www.crh.noaa.gov/grb

The NOAA Profiler Network (NPN) consists of 35 unmanned Doppler Radar sites located in 18 U.S. states. One NPN site is in Wisconsin. The NPN provides critical upper-air wind and temperature data to the National Weather Service, other NOAA entities, the military, universities, researchers and forecasters in the private sector. The NPN has been fully operational since 1992. Data from the NPN are directly associated with improved weather forecasting which saves lives and helps protect property. The NPN is particularly important in forecasting tornadoes and NPN data is also used to route aircraft for increased safety and fuel economy. The NPN continuous measurement of winds are used by the U.S. Departments of Defense, Energy, and Homeland Security. For more information visit www.profiler.noaa.gov

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, NOAA 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, CA).

NOAA Strategic Goal: Ecosystems

The Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory's Marine Instrumentation Laboratory has deployed and is maintaining a real-time network of shore-based meteorological instrument packages including locations at Milwaukee and Kenosha. The meteorological observations obtained from the network are being used in GLERL's Great Lakes Coastal Forecasting System to improve nowcasts and forecasts of wind, waves, water levels, and circulation. In addition, the National Weather Service has committed resources to support the network and forecast offices in Chicago, Milwaukee, and Grand Rapids are using the observations to improve marine forecasts and warnings. The Milwaukee and Kenosha stations measure/record wind speed, wind gust, wind direction, and air temperature at 5-minute increments and this information is updated hourly at http://www.glerl.noaa.gov/metdata/mil/ and http://www.glerl.noaa.gov/metdata/ken/.

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. Wisconsin Sea Grant supports a statewide program of basic and applied research, education, and technology transfer dedicated to the wise stewardship and sustainable use of Great Lakes and ocean resources. More than 150 faculty, staff, and students are currently participating in Wisconsin Sea Grant-funded projects throughout the system. Advisory Services specialists around the state convey research needs and research results between the academic community and coastal resource users. Wisconsin Sea Grant currently supports research, outreach, and education projects designed to enhance Great Lakes sport and commercial fisheries, advance Wisconsin's multimillion-dollar aquaculture industry, respond the invasions by zebra mussels and other costly foreign aquatic nuisance species, explore aquatic applications of biotechnology and other advanced technologies, conduct Great Lakes-related socioeconomic studies, investigate the potential health risks of scuba diving, and track the sources and cycling of PCBs and other toxic contaminants in Great Lakes systems. For more information see http://www.seagrant.wisc.edu.

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. NOAA's Undersea Research Center for the North Atlantic and Great Lakes (NAGL), one of the six NURP regional centers, is housed at the University of Connecticut. The NALG Center supports undersea research off the U.S.’s northeastern coast (i.e., Gulf of Maine, Georges Bank and the Southern New England Coast including Long Island Sound) and in the Laurentian Great Lakes. The center’s research focuses on ecosystem response to human induced stress such as fishing and pollution and the role of habitat in sustaining fisheries and biological diversity. Underwater diving technologies available through NAGL include occupied submersibles, remotely operated vehicles (ROV's), and Nitrox scuba. For more information see http://www.nurp.noaa.gov/natlan.html.

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Updated June 8, 2006