FY '99 OAR Budget Request

The mission of the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR) is to provide critical environmental research and technology needed to improve NOAA services and enable the Nation to balance a growing economy with effective management and prediction of our environment and natural resources. These capabilities directly contribute to the achievement of all of NOAA's seven Strategic Plan goals: Advance Short-Term Warning and Forecast Services, Implement Seasonal to Interannual Climate Forecasts, Predict and Assess Decadal to Centennial Change, Promote Safe Navigation, Build Sustainable Fisheries, Recover Protected Species, and Sustain Healthy Coasts. To accomplish these goals, OAR supports a world-class network of Federal scientists and laboratories (the Environmental Research Laboratories) and university/private-sector researchers through the National Sea Grant College Program, National Undersea Research Program, and Joint and Cooperative Institutes. Through these programs, OAR provides the research and technology development necessary to improve NOAA's weather and climate services, solar-terrestrial forecasts, and marine services. OAR's activities provide the scientific basis for national policy decisions in key environmental areas such as climate change, disaster reduction, air quality, non-indigenous species and stratospheric ozone depletion.

In addition, OAR's research promotes economic growth through the development of marine biotechnology, aquaculture, and environmental observing technologies. OAR budget activity supports a number of NOAA-wide program endeavors, including the U.S. Weather Research Program component of NOAA's Natural Disaster Reduction Initiative (NDRI), Health of the Atmosphere Program, Climate and Global Change Program, High Performance Computing and Communications (HPCC) and Global Learning and Observations to the Benefit the Environment (GLOBE), a program that increases our understanding of the Earth through a worldwide network of schools collecting environmental data.

The OAR FY 1999 base reflects the transfer of the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory (GLERL) to NOS.

For FY 1999, NOAA requests $251.2 million for OAR. This is a net decrease of $21.1 million below FY 1999 base funding and consists of program increases of $12.3 million and program decreases of $33.4 million.

Detailed Program Changes

Climate and Air-Quality Research - A total of $123.8 million is requested for this subactivity, an increase of $9.0 million over the FY 1999 base. OAR's climate and air-quality research improves our understanding of oceanic and atmospheric processes by monitoring and developing predictive capabilities of such processes. This improved understanding helps to provide sound scientific advice to managers of our Nation's oceanic and atmospheric resources.

An increase of $1.0 million is requested for the Health of the Atmosphere program. This program conducts research aimed at (1) characterizing ozone episodes in rural areas, where crop and forest damage is of concern, and (2) detecting improvements in air quality that result from actions taken under the Clean Air Act Amendments. This funding increase will support a third research task, enabling NOAA to provide the scientific input for decisions associated with the new air quality ruling recently issued by EPA calling for lower ozone and particulate matter standards. NOAA research addresses key issues related to the successful application of the ruling by (1) providing scientific understanding of the natural and human-influenced factors that affect ozone and particulate matter and (2) delineating the atmospheric interrelations between the two standards. NOAA's research would save money by avoiding the over-regulation or mis-regulation associated with the implementation of lowered standards. Cost savings would also accrue by distinguishing natural (and therefore, uncontrollable) exceedances from human-influenced ones.

NOAA proposes a $1.0 million increase for the Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) Program to support continued growth in the number of participating U.S. schools and the breadth of science data being collected for the international science community. The GLOBE Program is an increasingly valuable contributor to environmental science education for K-12 students in America.

NOAA requests a $2.0 million increase for the Climate and Global Change Program to expand climate assessment activities particularly in the area of regional applications. These funds will (1) augment current efforts to develop regionally specific seasonal-to interannual forecasts over North America and, (2) determine the impacts of the sources and sinks of atmospheric carbon dioxide.

NOAA requests an increase of $5.0 million for the High Performance Computing and Communication Program to lease or purchase a massively parallel processing (MPP) computer. There are three major developmental activities for this next generation MPP computer. First, as part of the mission to observe and predict the weather, the MPP will be used to conduct data sensitivity analyses necessary to test and evaluate various observing system designs for identifying the most cost-effective mix of sensors and measurements necessary to develop the next generation weather observing networks. Second, software will be developed to ease the conversions of numerical software routines to run on a number of massively parallel, scalable architectures. Third, in Boulder, Colorado, the Forecast Systems Laboratory will continue to collaborate with NOAA components, as it does with the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) to work toward implementing state-of-the-art numerical models for weather and climate prediction and assessment, such as a national domain mesoscale model with resolution as fine as 5 kilometers to more accurately predict such features as heavy snow bands, regions of intense convection and heavy rain.

Atmospheric Programs - This subactivity includes research programs that will provide the Nation with increased lead times and more accurate forecasts and warnings of severe weather and geomagnetic storms that annually cause hundreds of deaths and billions of dollars worth of damage. Research is focused on developing better observing tools, understanding the processes that cause weather and solar-terrestrial phenomenon, and applying that information to improve warnings and forecasts. NOAA requests $45.0 million for this subactivity, a net decrease of $2.5 million from the FY 1999 base.

The $1.0 million increase in NOAA's Atmospheric Programs will be directed to improved observations and short-term forecasting important to the NDRI, including the interagency U.S. Weather Research Program (USWRP).

NOAA requests an increase of $0.3 million to fund 24-hour-per-day, 7 day-per-week forecaster staffing at the Space Environment Center's (SEC) Space Weather Operations (SWO) in Boulder, Colorado due to the urgency of meeting increased customer demand occurring as the solar cycle approaches it's maximum in the year 2000.

NOAA does not propose additional funding in FY 1999 for the Mt. Washington National Resource Center in New Hampshire, (which was funded at $3.8 million in FY 1998).

Ocean and Great Lakes Programs - Programs in this subactivity represent NOAA's efforts to better understand and predict changes in ocean and Great Lakes environments, ensure optimal use of those environments and their resources, and promote economic growth in marine industries. The research efforts help to establish a sound scientific basis for management decisions on development and use of coastal, estuarine, and Great Lakes resources. NOAA seeks to understand and predict physical, biological, and chemical processes and their interaction with contaminants in the near-shore zone. In addition, these programs investigate the factors affecting the recruitment of young fish and shellfish into economically significant stocks, predict environmental conditions in the oceans and Great Lakes, and seek to understand the processes and significance of deep-sea venting to the global budgets of greenhouse gases. A total of $69.6 million is requested for this subactivity, a net decrease of $25.5 million from the FY 1999 base.

Within the Marine Environmental Research line items, OAR requests the following increases and decreases:

An increase of $1.6 million to launch new mariculture efforts to successfully "farm" native commercially fished species. The technology developed will also be useful in enhancement or stocking efforts of highly exploited wild fishes. This effort promises to strengthen the U.S. fisheries industries by increasing the availability of desirable ocean fishes, relieving pressures on wild stocks, and restoring already depleted stocks.

OAR requests an increase of $0.4 million as a part of a $1.4 million NOAA-wide program to assess hypoxic conditions in the northern Gulf of Mexico. (Related funding appears under the National Ocean Service budget activity.) With this funding, NOAA directly responds to the urgency related to the causes and effects of this condition. This is a critical part of NOAA's efforts under the National Oceanographic Partnership Program (NOPP).

Reduced funding is requested to continue NOAA's efforts in preventing and controlling the introductions of nonindigenous species into the marine and Great Lakes coastal environments (-$0.7 million). These efforts are part of NOAA's response to the National Invasive Species Act (NISA). The reduction includes discontinuing the Chesapeake Bay Ballast Demonstration. The requested funds will support NOAA activities as co-chair of the Aquatic Nuisance Species Task Force, which includes support for regional research and a national ballast water technology demonstration project. These activities will enable NOAA to work with state, local and industry partners to reduce the environmental, economic and social impacts of nonindigeous species.

The Marine Environmental Research line item includes $9.7 million in proposed program terminations for lower priority programs such as: Arctic Research; Tsunami Hazard Mitigation; Lake Champlain Study; New Hampshire Open Ocean Aquaculture; and the Aquatic Ecosystem, Water Quality, Atmospheric Research and facilities construction at the Canaan Valley Institute (see bracketed amounts in the accompanying table).

The Sea Grant College Program contains $5.8 million in proposed reductions, reflecting the discontinuation of lower priority activities. A decrease of $11.4 million is also proposed for the National Undersea Research Program (NURP). The Administration supports the NURP program at the $4.5 million level, and is recommending no funding for the Odyssey Maritime Center and or the Jason Foundation.

Acquisition of Data - NOAA is requesting a net decrease of $2.1 million for this subactivity in FY 1999.