EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Environmental Assessment and Prediction Mission
Advance Short-Term Warning
Implement Seasonal to Interannual Climate Forecasts
Predict and Assess Decadal to Centennial Change
Promote Safe Navigation
Environmental Stewardship Mission
Crosscutting Initiatives
Reducing Costs and Improving Effectiveness
Budget Request--
Traditional Structure
Budget Request--
Strategic Plan Structure
Supplementary Tables
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Predict and Assess Decadal to Centennial Change
Total Request: $86,922,000
NOAA requests $86.9 million to address this strategic goal, a net decrease
of $0.8 million from FY 1999 base. The six research objectives of this goal
are to:
- characterize the agents and processes that force climate change;
examine the role of the ocean in influencing change;
- ensure a long-term climate record;
- guide the rehabilitation of the ozone layer;
- provide the scientific basis for improved air quality by understanding
and monitoring surface ozone; and
- improve predictive model scientific assessments, and human impacts
information related to long-term change.
These objectives will be accomplished largely through the efforts of
the NOAA Climate and Global Change Program and the Office of Oceanic and
Atmospheric Research.
Within the OAR line item, the total request is $71.9 million, which includes
$1.0 million for GLOBE and $1.0 million for the Health of the Atmosphere
program.
In FY 1999, requested augmentation to NOAA's research will largely be
concentrated under the objective entitled "Provide
the Scientific Basis for Improved Air Quality." Base funding in
this area includes characterizing rural ozone episodes and making needed
upgrades to critical air quality monitoring networks.
The FY 1999 increase will allow a new focus on the science needed for
decisions associated with the recent rulings on new lower U.S. ozone and
fine particulate matter standards, including measurements, modeling, defining
chemical composition, and regional transport of ozone and fine particulate
matter.
Also included is a net decrease of $2.8 million for program reductions,
terminations and distributed infrastructure changes.
In late 1995, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
released findings that, due to global warming from greenhouse gases, average
global surface temperature may increase 1 to 3.5 degrees Celsius (1.8 to
6.3 degrees Fahrenheit), and sea level may rise 50 to 95 centimeters (20
to 37 inches), by the year 2100. These global trends will significantly
affect both natural processes and societal systems, including agriculture,
energy, and the world-wide transmission of diseases. NOAA global climate
change research accomplishments contributed to the 1998 IPCC
special report, "The Regional Impacts of Climate Change: An Assessment
of Vulnerability," which incorporates new information to address the
nature of human and environmental vulnerability to potential changes in
climate. Recently, NOAA scientists provided input to the preparation for
and served as the science advisor to the U.S. delegation at the Third Meeting
of the IPCC in Kyoto, Japan (December 1997) and were instrumental in maintaining
a strong emphasis on the role of scientific input to the deliberations that
will follow the Kyoto meeting and the continued global scientific research
required to provide that input.
Decisions on actions to mitigate anticipated changes on the order of
decades to centuries will not receive domestic and international backing
unless they are supported by demonstrable, objective, credible and sound
science. NOAA provides decision-makers with scientifically informed options
for these types of decisions, focusing on climate change and greenhouse
warming, ozone layer depletion, and air quality improvement.
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