OAR FY 2002 Budget Highlights
NOAA's Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research(OAR), also known as "NOAA Research," requests $330.2million (M) in the research budget activity of Operations, Research and Facilities (ORF), $10M in the Procurement, Acquisitions and Construction (PAC) account, and $5M in the Facilities ORF account in FY2002. The FY2002 request reflects an increase of $15.6M over the FY2001 appropriation.
FY 2002 Program Changes
Climate Observations and Services: NOAA requests $13.0M to advance the Climate Observations and Services (COS) program. An additional $1.6M is requested under the PAC appropriation for the Comprehensive Large-Array data Stewardship (CLASS) initiative. NOAA plans to develop climate services with initial emphasis on building an ocean observing system to address scientific and operational aspects of climate. The funds will be managed by OAR, NESDIS, and NWS.
- Regional Assessments, Education and Outreach: to use climate variability information by regional and local managers and decision-makers to maximize economic gain and mitigate potential harmful impacts.
- Climate Change Assessments: to contribute a leadership role in the North American Assessment of Surface-level Ozone and fine particles for the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
- Weather-Climate Connection: to expand NOAA's diagnostic and modeling efforts to understand the relationship between sub-seasonal tropical variability and changes in the frequency, location, and intensity of extreme weather events over the U.S.
- Carbon Cycle: to establish a network of more densely spaced airborne and tall-tower based sampling sites over North America. This multi-agency program will complement local scale process research managed by other agencies and provide an estimate of the magnitude of regional terrestrial carbon sinks on a continental scale.
- Ocean System for Improved Climate Services: to fully fund the implementation and maintenance of a global operational ocean observing system by enhancing its present components and establishing new ones. Additional funding is requested to fully support the U.S. commitment to provide and maintain one-third of the Argo global array of 3,000 profiling floats to observe the ocean's upper layer in real time.
Weather Research: NOAA is requesting an increase of $2.2M for the third year of the U.S. Weather Research Program to extend hurricane track predictions out to 120 hours and to improve hurricane landfall prediction accuracy, which will lead to more accurate predictions for emergency preparedness.
Marine Environmental Research Base/Coral Reef Watch: NOAA requests a $0.5M increase to conduct research in coral reef ecology. The Atlantic Oceanographic & Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) in Miami, FL, will manage this research effort in conjunction with National Undersea Research Program (NURP) field observations at the Caribbean Marine Research Center to better understand ecosystem responses. NOAA also requests a $0.5M increase to restore the FY2001 reduction to the Marine Environmental Research base, which affected AOML and the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle, Wash. The funding will be used to collect critical contaminant data needed for health-related decisions and to collect critical fisheries oceanography data in the Gulf of Alaska and the Bering Sea.
Marine Aquaculture Program: NOAA requests a decrease of$4.8M for the DOC/NOAA aquaculture effort. The remaining $3.6M in funds for aquaculture will allow us to support DOC Aquaculture Policy Goals and conform to the National Aquaculture Development Plan soon to be released by the Joint Subcommittee on Aquaculture. Efforts will continue at the same level years.
Ocean Exploration: NOAA requests an increase of $10.0Mwithin this new line item. Combined with the $4.0M appropriated in FY2001, this will provide a total program funding of $14.0M t ohelp establish NOAA's leadership in this major initiative of ocean exploration. Four NOAA line offices and external partners will work within a cross-agency, multi-institution partnership to undertake six expeditions to explore regions, such as the Gulf of Mexico and in the Pacific off the coast of Alaska. The themes of the project include discovering new resources, ocean acoustics, our maritime heritage, the census of marine life, and exploring new frontiers.
Boulder Facilities: NOAA proposes an increase of $1.0M to fund the full-year operational cost for the David Skaggs Research Center in Boulder, Colorado.
PAC Account: GFDL High Performance Computing: NOAA requests an increase of $2.9M to support the full-year lease and to provide software support for a supercomputer located at the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) in Princeton, NJ.
FY 2002 Terminations
Programs proposed for termination include: Central California Ozone Study; Ice Physics Research (Thayer School of Engineering, Dartmouth); STORM (U. of Iowa); Ballast Water Technology Development; Tsunami Warning and Environmental Observatory for AK (TWEAK); Lake Champlain Study; Aquatic Ecosystems - Canaan Valley Institute; Southeast Atlantic Marine Monitoring and Prediction (U. of North Carolina); Hypoxia Research; and National Center for Natural Products (U. of Mississippi).