Oceans 2003 Marine Technology Society (MTS)/ Institute for Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) September 25, 2003, San Diego, Calif. VADM Conrad
C. Lautenbacher Jr. (Ret.) WELCOME Many agencies, industry groups, academics and organizations are represented here. Each of these entities conducts meaningful ocean science and achieves advances in technology, however, I think we can all agree that these accomplishments are largely the result of partnerships. I know NOAA shares these victories with those agencies, industries and academics here today. Advancement in ocean science is a product of the ocean community, not one entity. I am
sorry that Admiral James Watkins was unable to make it here today
as he has been such a champion for the oceans as Chair of the U.S.
Commission on Ocean Policy. Welcome Honorable Leon Panetta, and thank
you for your dedication as Chair of the PEW Oceans Commission. We look forward to the release of the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy report this fall. NOAA has supported the Ocean Commission on many levels. We expect these efforts to provide very helpful direction on how to move forward into the next 30 years of ocean and coastal governance, stewardship, research, and education. NOAA's priorities are closely aligned with the Commission’s priorities, which include: ocean literacy, advancement of ocean exploration and research, enhancement of earth observation systems, and an ecosystem-based approach to managing coastal and ocean resources. In fact, NOAA has conducted a similar type of re-evaluation. NOAA’S
STRATEGIC PLAN – FOUR STRATEGIC GOALS The NOAA strategic plan is centered around four strategic goals 1)
ECOSYTEMS: To protect, restore, and manage the use of coastal and
ocean resources through ecosystem-based management. These goals represent the backbone of all of NOAA’s mandates and initiatives. We are aligning our budget structure and tracking our performance in the context of these goals. As our partners and customers, you should know where you fit into this system. Since this panel is focused on ocean science and technological advancements, I thought I would walk through each of these strategic goals and include an example of some of our new initiatives that help us achieve that goal. You will notice that many of the images on these slides include technologies that were developed by our partners—many of whom are in this audience. We often use your technologies and apply them to our mission. In many cases it is the industry and academic advancements that give NOAA the tools we need for environmental management. ECOSYSTEM-BASED
MANAGEMENT Several species of marine turtles are listed under the Endangered Species Act. Turtles are commonly caught in shrimp nets and often killed. Turtle Excluder Devices (TEDs) have been used by shrimpers to reduce turtle bycatch in U.S. fisheries. Recently, fishermen have gotten involved to improve this technology by creating a large hooped hard TEDs. Just this summer, Cajun fishermen took the initiative to develop this new “Coulon TED” to reduce shrimp loss from nets while still releasing turtles in the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic fisheries. In order to prevent marine mammal mortalities and harm, NOAA has developed two technologies to help prevent whale entanglement:
NOAA
Improves Ecosystem Health Through Locating and Removing Marine Debris
NOAA
is collaborating with agency, academic, and industry partners to develop
a nested-search technique to locate marine debris, which we tested
in July of this year. Ocean circulation models predict where debris
would be likely to concentrate and space-based instruments locate
these actual convergence zones more precisely. These instruments included
Synthetic Aperture Radar, radar altimeter, sea-surface temperature
radiometer, and ocean color radiometer. An aircraft was equipped with
sea-surface temperature and ocean color radiometers to locate the
features identified in the satellite data. It was also equipped with
visible and thermal imagers and the Fish LIDAR to detect objects floating
in the water. This three-part nested approach will have great utility
in locating marine debris and removing it from the ocean. Over the last year under NOAA Assistant Secretary Dr. Jim Mahoney’s leadership, NOAA has worked hard with several other agencies to develop a national Strategic Plan for the Climate Change Science Program. This 10-year strategic plan couples science and technology, and is built on four pillars: research, observations, decision support, and communications. It is an unprecedented effort to address the scientific uncertainties of climate change related to aerosols, sources and sinks of the carbon cycle, the climate observing system and climate models. Another important element of the plan is to enhance Earth observations and data management systems to assist in filling critical data gaps. It is important to note that we are not only building a plan, but we are getting results. Here are examples of what NOAA has accomplished since we received new money in Fiscal Year 2002 for climate science research. NOAA
Develops Integrated Observations to Increase Our Knowledge on Climate
Science Argo
Floats Argo
focuses on seasonal to decadal climate variability and predictability,
but aims for a wide range high-quality global ocean analyses. Floats
cycle to 2000 m depth every 10 days, with a 4-5 year lifetime for
individual instruments. All Argo data is publicly available in near
real-time via the GTS, and in scientifically quality-controlled form
with a few months delay. Global coverage should be achieved during
the Global Ocean Data Assimilation Experiment, which together with
CLIVAR (Climate Variability and Predictability) and GCOS/GOOS (Global
Climate Observing System/Global Ocean Observing System), provide the
major scientific and operational impetus for Argo. The design emphasizes
the need to integrate Argo within the overall framework of the global
ocean observing system. NOAA has made great strides in our weather and climate forecasting ability. This past summer, NOAA brought online the second largest supercomputer in the world dedicated to bringing the nation faster and more exact weather and climate predictions. It is ranked #26 on the list of the World’s Top 500 Supercomputers (European Center for Medium Range Forecasting has a similar IBM system and ranks #15). It is a high performance computing system designed, installed and implemented to run more sophisticated numerical models of the atmosphere and oceans to improve weather, climate, flood and ocean forecasts. This initial system provides NOAA with 2.5 times the computational power of its previous system, and by 2009, will provide at least 48 times the computing power of the previous system. With this new capability, NOAA can improve local and national forecast accuracy, as well as extend watch and warning lead times for potential severe weather. This
new technology does more than improve weather forecasts for our citizens,
it also provides the high resolution data needed for NOAA to analyze
ecosystem scale changes. By improving our climate observations through
the supercomputer, NOAA can support environmental, economic and community
planning and minimize the impacts of climate variability, especially
on freshwater supply, water quality, and coastal ecosystems. Technology
to Complement Ship-based Surveys Semi-autonomous
sensors Multibeam Echosounders were once the domain of national Navies and other major institutions. Development of smaller systems has led to a revolution in the amount of data acquired (and needing processing!) for a variety of purposes. Similar growth has been seen in Acoustic Doppler Current Profiling (ADCP) and Conductivity-Temperature-Depth (CTD) instrumentation. However, these sensors still need too much manual intervention in planning, acquisition, and processing stages to be true "off-the-shelf" systems for worldwide deployment. Inter-operability and system integration must be taken to the next level to ensure that GOOS and other large-scale operational measurement systems can meet the infrastructure needs of this century. Fisheries habitat, obstruction detection, and other high-resolution mapping needs are predicated on the understanding of the oceanographic properties. Data
acquisition platforms Smaller AUVs are easier to deploy, less dangerous to surface craft, and thus more likely to be used in estuaries and coastal regions. Flexibility in payloads may have to be eliminated, but purpose-built AUVs that are relatively inexpensive would not require flexibility to be marketable to institutions that have specific needs. Smaller requisite infrastructure would also help these facilities fund the operation and maintenance at acceptable levels, and the larger community of users could help refine the requirements and possible uses of these platforms. The National
Underwater Research Program and other NOAA programs are actively pursuing
our first round of AUV implementation, to study oceanographic properties
in an operational sense as well as investigate AUV use for autonomous
high-accuracy mapping. Earth
observing is a particularly good example of a NOAA priority whose
activities cut across the agency and whose benefits serve the larger
NOAA mission. However, collectively, we can and we must do much more. The forces of social change and global development present a number of serious issues for the world's leaders, decision-makers, and international societies. We are facing a future that requires advancing our existing observing systems to the next level of Earth Observation that is, to build a system of systems that will give us the tools we need to "take the pulse of the planet." You are the people who can help us achieve this landmark in earth sciences. Earth
Observation Summit Thirty-four nations and over twenty International organizations pledged to develop and link observation technologies for tracking changes to the Earth’s environment in every corner of the world. The Earth Observation Summit goals were to improve observations to gain a broader understanding of Earth systems for numerous applications – economic, social, and scientific - as well as addressing the challenges posed by climate change. One of the practical outcomes of the Summit was the establishment of the intergovernmental ad hoc Group on Earth Observations, or GEO. I have been designated the lead U.S. representative to the Group on Earth Observations, which has been charged with putting together a plan for implementing this historic undertaking. Our first meeting was held the day after the Earth Observation Summit and the next meeting is planned for November 28 and 29 in Baveno, Italy. It will be important to have input from all stakeholders to this plan and we look forward to engaging you on this issue in the future. By the spring of 2004 when the Ministerial level group meets again in Tokyo, Japan, the GEO will have developed a five-chapter framework outline for the ten-year implementation plan for a comprehensive, coordinated earth observation system. This plan will address the architecture of the system, capacity building, data utilization. It is
important to note that I am the United States government’s representative,
but the Untied States position will represent all agencies and interests
and require a considerable degree of interagency coordination. Faced with the collapse of the then largest fishery in the world—sardines--Scripps pioneered ocean observation through the California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations (CalCOFI) and created a unique West Coast database containing the results of this 50-year systematic ocean monitoring program. CalCOFI has served as the backbone and model initiative to move earth observation forward. NOAA (and its predescessors), Scripps and the California Dept. of Fish and Game have been CalCOFI's traditional partners, and all three are now expanding it to include other West Coast states, academic federal and private parties to create the Pacific Coastal Observing System (PaCOS). NOAA Fisheries provided new funding of $540,000 to Scripps in fiscal year 2003 to support the development of PaCOS, expanding its capabilities and utility. This comprehensive California Current observation system was needed because the dynamics of current flow, marine populations and ecosystems cannot be accurately interpreted from regional monitoring programs, without considering the dynamics of the larger system. NOAA Fisheries is planning PaCOS as an ecosystem observing element of the IOOS for the EEZ of the west coast of the U.S. PaCOS
encompasses the entire west coast, North to South, integrates existing
observations systems, and very importantly, creates a large partnership
of academics, agencies, and private research institutions. The PaCOS
observing system will consist of coast-wide fisheries and protected
species surveys, and sentinel ecosystem observing lines. This system
will place all species observations into an appropriate context for
understanding and predicting the effects of fishery removals on the
CA current marine ecosystem. To fill these observation requirements
for federally managed species, PaCOS plans to contribute to existing
west coast Regional Associations to strengthen these systems. None of us are in this alone. We must continue to strengthen our interagency, academic, and industry partnerships to leverage the support we need to move forward in the field of ocean science. The public needs to understand the full value of ocean science advancements, and how they add to our understanding of the oceans and atmosphere. We need to invest in an education effort to communicate the real economic benefits in products and services of such an observing system to win the support of US citizens. We are in the business of outsourcing much of this work and we look to industry to lead the charge in filling these technology gaps. I challenge this audience to help NOAA meet this larger ocean science and technology challenge. Thank you again for this opportunity to share our priorities at NOAA. I look forward to working with all of you to move ocean science forward in the future.
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