policy

From Florida, A Reminder About Freedom of Expression

The Florida Center for Investigative Reporting published allegations this week that the terms “climate change” and “global warming” were banned from state government communications in Florida, including state-agency sponsored research studies and educational programs. The Washington Post followed with claims, for example, that a researcher was required by state officials to strike such words before submitting for publication a manuscript about a epidemiological study.
No evidence of a written policy or rule has been reported, and state officials have denied any policy of the sort. Meanwhile, the media are hunting through Florida websites trying to find state documents produced during the administration of Gov. Rick Scott with contents that would contradict the charges of an unwritten policy, imperfectly enforced.
The controversy is one in a string of recent events reminding us how much scientists rely on their freedom of expression. Most often the problem has been the freedom of government scientists to speak about their work with the public. Lately this has caused a media blizzard in Canada.
Science ethicists may argue one way or another about where the limits of public expression are for government scientists when they contradict policy goals. And certainly—as well seen most obviously in the Cold War—such goals can include national security concerns. But the AMS stance on the filtering or tampering of science for nonscientific purposes is quite clear in the Statement on Freedom of Expression:

The ability of scientists to present their findings to the scientific community, policy makers, the media, and the public without censorship, intimidation, or political interference is imperative.

Freedom of expression is essential to scientific progress. Open debate is a necessary part of science and takes place largely through the publication of credible studies vetted in peer review. Publication is thus founded on the need for freedom of expression, and it is in turn a manifestation of freedom of expression.
One might think the job of journals is to screen out unwanted science, but it’s quite the opposite. Papers are published not because they are validated as “right” so much as they are considered “worthy” of further scientific consideration. In addition, the publication process itself—which AMS knows well in its 11 scientific journals—is not just for authors to report and interpret their work. It relies on free discussion. The peer review process usually allows reviewers maximum protection of anonymity to preserve the ability to speak freely about the manuscripts being scrutinized. The papers that pass review are then the starting point for documenting objections, alternative interpretations, and confirmation, among other expressions that only matter if made accessible to other scientists through peer reviewed journals.
The AMS Statement recognizes that such freedom implies responsibility:

It is incumbent upon scientists to communicate their findings in ways that portray their results and the results of others, objectively, professionally, and without sensationalizing or politicizing the associated impacts.

Scientists are not the only ones to treasure such freedoms, of course. Society benefits from the progress of science every day. This only happens when scientists freely, promptly, and prolifically report what they find—and that means exactly what they find, not what they are told to find. The alternative is to compromise the pursuit of truth and the very foundations of our health and prosperity.
We all become victims when science is not shared and cannot flourish. The fact that climate change has deep social, economic, and political implications today means it is even more important to recognize that with increasing value of climate change science comes the increasing temptation for policy makers to co-opt and alter that science. As the AMS Statement warns, the principles of free expression “matter most—and at the same time are most vulnerable to violation—precisely when science has its greatest bearing on society.”
 

An Invitation to the AMS Washington Forum

By Shawn Miller, Chair, AMS Board on Enterprise Economic Development
Fellow stakeholders in the weather, water, and climate enterprise, as chair of the AMS Board on Enterprise Economic Development (BEED), I would like to invite you to participate in the 2015 AMS Washington Forum, April 21-23 at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Building, 1200 New York Avenue NW in Washington, D.C.
Organized by the AMS BEED, the purpose of the annual AMS Washington Forum is to provide an opportunity for members of the weather, water, and climate community to meet with senior federal agency officials, congressional staff, and other community members to hear about the status of current programs, learn about new initiatives, discuss issues of interest to our community, identify business opportunities, and speak out about data and other needs.
The 2015 AMS Washington Forum will focus on end users of weather, water, and climate data, returning to the theme of past years’ User Forum events conducted by the AMS. As the enterprise evolves and adapts to changes in budgets and cost-sharing paradigms, heightened attention to the needs of its end users is key to success for all stakeholders. Particular attention must be given to key areas of industry, such as health and the various modes of transportation. The 2015 forum will promote dialogue between the enterprise and its end users toward that end. Several special topics are planned for interactive panel discussions, including an overarching theme session; hospital preparedness in the wake of extreme weather and climate events; weather data needs relating to rail, trucking, and marine transportation; and water resources and related user needs. The forum will also feature speakers on the topics of national/international water rights issues, the intersection between legal and science issues, and commercial weather satellites. Complementary to the session topics on specific user needs, senior leaders from agencies including NOAA, NASA, and other enterprise stakeholders will look ahead and provide updates on current programs and provide insights on new science initiatives and directions. We will also invite leaders from the Office of Management & Budget and the Office of Science & Technology Policy, and from Congress, who will discuss the latest weather-, water- and climate-related programs and legislative initiatives to better serve the American people.
Seating is limited for this exciting event, so preregistration is strongly recommended. Please watch the AMS_PSL list for announcements, or send an e-mail to Gary Rasmussen ([email protected]) to be added to the announcement list. Thank you for your time and attention, and I hope to see you in Washington this April!

A Question for the Experts

There have been many thoughtful questions raised throughout this weekend’s AMS Student Conference, but one question posed at the communications breakout session on Saturday proved particularly challenging for the panelists. A student asked, “How do you educate the public that doesn’t have access to television or social media? How do we educate the homeless about severe weather events?”
Here were the responses from the panelists:
Marshall Shepherd, Univ. of Georgia: I think you’re hitting on a key question. The homeless question…that’s tough. These are the people who aren’t watching, necessarily. That really involves grassroots efforts. TV stations can be involved in galvanizing and organizing. So, for example, I teach a class at the University of Georgia on urban climate, and one of the projects I ask students to do is look at tornado sirens in the Athens/Clark County region. One of the things we found was that the way the tornado sirens were distributed, there were significant parts of the population—particularly those who were underserved or lower income—who didn’t even have sirens where they lived.
So I think there’s a whole notion of increased social sciences and environmental justice and all types of issues that we all have to be aware of and address.  I don’t know the answer to that question you asked, and I think there’s an opportunity.
Ginger Zee, ABC News: I’ve done four stories on that same thing of the sirens, because there’s no federal law, state law, no county law in any state that says there has to be one. I grew up in Michigan and we had them in every single town. It’s amazing to me that there are places that don’t have them, especially in places that really need them but don’t. Requiring outdoor warning systems—I don’t know if that’s going to happen; it’s not going to be funded.
I think the community outreach part is probably your best bet. You guys remember in Virginia this year, there was a camp with a bunch of kids outdoors and a long line of storms on the ground for three hours. It’s amazing to me that they still didn’t have warning. That can’t go on.  There was one kid who died. That shouldn’t have happened, because once they got indoors they were safe inside. If that was a fire and they didn’t have a smoke alarms, we would not be having the same discussion. They would have been sued like crazy.
Weather has grown…our ability to forecast has grown and now the whole policy part of it has to catch up. I think that will take time.
Keli Pirtle, NOAA: The National Weather Service works with local emergency managers to help prepare communities through the Storm Ready program.  I would hope that a shelter, like a homeless shelter, would have a NOAA Weather Radio. That’s a hope more than a reality, I’m afraid.  We can encourage people—churches, nursing homes, schools—to have multiple ways to receive information, to have a plan. A homeless person on the street, they’re in touch with others. I would hope the network on the street would get them the information, but it’s certainly an area where we desperately need to improve.
Jorge Torres, KOB-TV: And I agree with that. At our station, we’re partners with the Red Cross, and with the Roadrunner Food Bank of New Mexico, which helps feed the hungry because New Mexico is, I believe, the number one state in the country for childhood hunger. So we do have outreach programs with the lower-income communities. But that’s not in the form of weather [information] mostly, it’s in the form of talking to them. I do think you bring up a good point that those who don’t watch us, can’t watch us. They’re the ones who deal with the elements much more—the homeless especially—than the rest of us because we have a roof over our head and they don’t.

Take This Survey and Help R2O

by William Hooke, AMS Associate Executive Director and Senior Policy Fellow
The AMS and its Policy Program invite you to take on-line survey on R2O: here are four reasons why you should.
“Research-to-operations.” “R2O.” “Applied research.” “Development.” “Technology transfer.” A rich nomenclature has grown up to describe the process and activities by which people and institutions take basic scientific understanding – pure knowledge – and turn it into practical products and services that people want or need. Making the leap from Maxwell’s equations for electromagnetic waves to the radio and then television. Conjoining Boolean algebra and understanding of semi-conducting materials to develop computers and smartphones. Seeing in Bernoulli’s equation the possibility of flight, and inventing the airplane. Discovering the equivalency of matter and energy; then going from E=mc2 to nuclear power – and so on. The process is often thought of as purely technical, but there’s also a social component to uptake of new ways of doing things – and more jargon: bridgers; translators; boundary organizations.
R2O is generic. It challenges every field of endeavor and every application: What good are lasers? Now that we’ve mapped the human genome, what does that tell us about health and disease? We can now locate ourselves on the surface of the planet to within a meter or so. Is that valuable? The photoelectric effect? Curious… but can we apply it to our advantage? Fullerenes are interesting carbon structures – but might there be commercial applications of buckyballs and buckytubes in either electronics or nanotechnology?
Meteorology provides its own examples. Computers can perform trillions of computations per second. How might we harness that capability to predict weather numerically? We can measure infrared and microwave radiances from space. Can we use that to infer ground, water, and atmospheric temperatures? Can we accomplish that well enough to put data into those numerical weather models? And what about radars for aircraft detection? Perhaps if we made them even more sensitive, they’d detect rain or snow. Or clouds themselves. Or the wind field within clouds. We’ve improved the physical aspects of weather forecasts (such as the severity of storms, their onset, motion, and dissipation); how can we apply social science to characterize weather impacts and help individuals and communities take effective action?
But R2O is not only pervasive. It is difficult. Vexing. Time-consuming. It can offer huge payoffs, but it’s also expensive. And it’s risky. For every success, there may be dozens, even hundreds of failures, dead ends. It’s complex, and sometimes feels more like an artistic endeavor than the basic science it feeds on. The difference between what works and what doesn’t is poorly understood. The R2O terrain is so difficult that it’s been referred to as “crossing the Valley of Death.[1]”
Enough context. You’ll find the link to the AMS Policy Program R2O Survey here [2]. We’re hoping you’ll take time to contribute, for four reasons:
R2O matters. Simply put, it’s the key to realizing societal benefit from R&D. The International Council for Science (ICSU) has long argued that the greatest challenge facing 21st century science and technology is “the widening gap between advancing scientific knowledge and technology and society’s ability to capture and use them.[3]” Without R2O the potential benefit from national investments in science is compromised. The world urgently needs scientific understanding of natural resources, natural hazards, and threats to the environment to be translated into action.
The survey has an important audience, and it will change behavior and outcomes. That starts with you. You’ll have access to the results, including others’ inputs, and they’ll have access to yours (without attribution, if you so desire). It will be impossible for you to participate in this survey without becoming more intentional yourself about the uptake and use of your work to make a better world. But it extends as well to national-level leadership. Congressional staffers and executive – branch policy officials are aware of this site and can draw ideas from it as they formulate legislation and allocate federal-agency resources on R2O, especially as it bears on forecast improvement, but not limited to that arena. The more thoughtful and detailed your participation, the greater will be your impact.
Diverse cases provide fuller opportunities for learning. R2O projects are much like snowflakes in that no two are identical. The efforts are not like laboratory experiments which allow stepwise dialing through different inputs and variables to divine generalizations. What’s needed, then, is a rich diversity of cases or narratives, a blend of success stories and failures, and ventures in between, that allow general principles to emerge. Look at the results to date and you’ll find citations to the Clean Air Act, development for weather information processing systems, dual-polarization radars, satellite instrument applications, and more. Add from your own unique personal experience and our community will grow that much wiser.
Your participation will shape future surveys. The AMS Policy Program, under the leadership of Dr. Paul Higgins, is not simply carrying out a one-off survey, but rather developing a platform for drawing on the full resources of our community to think through a range of complex, timely, and important issues. The survey website captures this aspiration:

… Through this site, the AMS Policy Program creates a platform for scientists to engage in the policy process by providing opportunities for them to share their subject matter expertise and inform decision making on important issues for the community. We have informed policymakers, including decision makers in the Executive and Legislative branches, about this site. They are aware of this site and can actively peruse it for a better understanding of the relevant and important community issues.
This site is open broadly to all members of the weather, water, and climate community. It creates a public forum for sharing experience and expertise in these specialty areas of the AMS. Periodically we will host surveys on policy relevant issues within these areas. Please visit this site regularly to participate in current surveys and view past survey results. We hope that you find this public forum as a useful resource for engagement and information!

So, please, participate in this survey. And along the way, help us improve the saliency and utility of the surveys to come. Let’s master this technique for adding to the store of human knowledge and making a safer, more sustainable world.
Thank you!

[1]Want to learn more? See, for example, these links, for biology, for cybersecurity,  and for Earth observations.)
[2] This particular survey has been formulated and is being conducted by Dr. Shalini Mohleji, a Senior Policy Fellow at the AMS.
[3]From a 2006 ICSU CSPR Assessment Panel report, Priority Area Assessment on Capacity Building in Science page 5.
 
 
 

“Current” Affairs at the 2014 AMS Washington Forum

by Ellen Klicka, AMS Policy Program
Very exciting developments are about to unfold at the Southeast National Marine Renewable Energy Center (SNMREC) at Florida Atlantic University: Ocean current energy developments.
Florida-CurrentSAt this week’s AMS Washington Forum, Dr. Camille Coley, Associate Director at SNMREC, will discuss the process her center is pioneering to get the nascent marine hydrokinetic industry off the ground and into the water, so to speak. Coley’s remarks are expected to touch on the realms of technology commercialization, environmental impacts, the federal regulation landscape, public-private partnerships, and the national energy agenda.
Leaders from the weather, water and climate enterprise are gathering for three days in Washington, DC, as they do every April, to discuss pressing issues, identify business opportunities and forge stronger relationships with federal policy makers. Due to the challenges marine hydrokinetics faces, the field serves as an informative microcosm of the multidisciplinary, multi-sector issues the AMS community shares. Such multifaceted explorations are typical of Washington Forum sessions.
Coley says harnessing offshore renewable energy sources could improve U.S. energy security. The oil price spike of the mid-2000s revived the U.S. Department of Energy’s original 1970s interest in what was then a fringe area of science involving the conversion of kinetic energy from ocean waves, tides and currents.
Resource assessments showed Southeastern Florida as a potential goldmine of ocean current resources, and the SNMREC was born in 2007. Wave and tidal energy technologies have seen a slightly clearer path from research to deployment because the action occurs near the shore in waters regulated at the state level, where establishing procedures can be a more nimble process than at the federal level. Currents strong enough to generate energy are found on the Outer Continental Shelf at least 12 miles offshore, in federal waters.
Nearly five years ago, SNMREC began working with the Minerals Management Service, now called the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), to obtain the first lease ever to be granted to install turbines on the Outer Continental Shelf. Both SNMREC and BOEM charted new territory as they took each step. In addition to applying for the permit under an interim policy set in 2007, BOEM conducted an environmental assessment and ensure compliance. The assessment surveyed areas of planned development for possible negative impacts on sea turtle, manatee, shark, deep water coral and other marine species populations. The Navy, NOAA, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and EPA all weighed in. Sensors and cameras have been installed to monitor the condition of the turbines and observe any approaching marine life.
The center expects the final green light this month and hopes to have pilot turbines in the water this year.
Coley notes lessons learned for future applicants seeking a BOEM license. Even with funding boosts from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, tight federal budgets have created challenges for public investment in research, development, pilot deployment and environmental impact checks. Private ocean current energy developers can’t obtain venture capital until the technology is proven. According to the Department of Energy’s Technology Readiness Level scale, which measures the maturity of technologies for application, ocean current energy scores a 4 on the scale from 1-9. Private financiers generally consider investing in technologies at level 8. Where will the money come from to drive ocean current energy up four more points? It’s the classic chicken and egg dilemma that could strand this emerging industry in the “valley of death” unless policy makers intervene.Ocean-Current-TurbinesS1
According to Coley, a federal renewable energy standard, combined with loans or tax credits for marine hydrokinetic energy development, would create demand and a secure market for additional renewable energy capacity.
The credits could be analogous to the production and investment tax credits already established for wind power. Incidentally, the Senate Finance Committee is aiming for this week to begin its consideration of how and whether to extend a bevy of temporary tax breaks that lapsed at the beginning of this year, such as the wind production tax credit (PTC) and other clean energy incentives. To date, no federal incentive bills have been introduced to encourage development and commercialization of marine hydrokinetics.
Coley also recommends a reevaluation of the regulatory process to assist timely project development and ensure appropriate attention to environmental and community safeguards. She says future ocean current permit applicants would benefit from increased collaboration among public and private entities, including the electricity industry, research engineers, aquatic scientists, environmentalists and community stakeholders.
Coley will participate in the Washington Forum’s Water-Energy Nexus panel Thursday, April 3 from 10:30 am – 12:00 pm. Can’t make it to DC? Follow the conversation with the hashtag #AMSWF or join the AMS Washington Forum LinkedIn group.

The President's Climate Speech

by Paul Higgins, AMS Policy Program Director
In June, President Obama gave a long-anticipated speech laying out his vision for climate change risk management. The centerpiece of the approach is to use the EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. What those regulations will look like remains unclear, but the President’s intent to reduce emissions significantly, particularly from coal-fired power plants, is clear.
By all accounts, this wasn’t the approach the president wanted to take for climate change. He has said repeatedly and throughout his presidency that he favors a bipartisan solution that comes from Congress. After nearly five years and with the end of his second term approaching, the president appears to have concluded that the political divisiveness surrounding climate change makes congressional action unlikely.
How well the president’s approach will work is hard to know, of course, but it will be particularly interesting to see how this unilateral effort affects the politics of climate change risk management. There is a chance that the president’s plan will ultimately reduce the political divisiveness surrounding climate change, in part, because the approach itself is politically divisive.
Using the EPA to regulate emissions will not go over well with many in Congress. His opponents will likely find it easy to criticize, and score political points in so doing, on both philosophical grounds (i.e., based on a preference for less intrusive federal intervention) and because unilateral executive action is less democratic than including Congress in the creation of a new law. But the very fact that substantive arguments can be made for different approaches may provide an incentive for his opponents to develop and offer those alternatives. That could create an important opening that’s been largely missing for climate change over the last few decades.
Prior to the 1990, Clean Air Act Republicans and Democrats could more easily agree on an environmental problem yet disagree on the solution. Republicans tended to prefer market-based solutions while Democrats tended to prefer command-and-control regulation. Conservative philosophy convincingly won that debate because the market-based approach used in the 1990 Clean Air Act proved far superior as a tool for protecting the environment and maximizing the economic benefits of doing so.
Perversely, that philosophical victory for conservatives has made it harder for the two parties to agree on climate change risk management. There isn’t an easy way for the parties to distinguish themselves if they agree on the basics of the solution. Instead, the political incentive has been to disagree about whether there is a problem in need of a solution in the first place. Once the champions of climate policy coalesced on a conservative approach for addressing climate change, the choice for everyone else became too stark: go along with that approach or oppose climate policies altogether. If there isn’t middle ground and your opponent is for it, then few options are more politically effective than being against it.
Of course, the politics of climate change are, and will likely continue to be, challenging for other reasons, most notably because of the competing and incompletely reconcilable interests of those affected by policy options. But there is a wide range of potential solutions for helping to manage climate change risks. Critically, there is a policy option for virtually any political philosophy out there. For example, Congress could use a market-based approach to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while simultaneously using every penny that the government raises through such an approach to reduce existing taxes on wages, corporate income, or capital gains. The reduction in taxes that would result would be a major victory for conservatives that many Democrats could plausibly go along with. Yet such options haven’t been developed or seriously considered.
That a broad range of potential risk management strategies hasn’t been developed and explored by policy makers is a major breakdown in our policy process. That policy deliberations (and public debates) about climate science are routinely at odds with the assessments of the relevant subject matter experts is a major failure of our national dialogue on the topic.
These failures have resulted, in part, because the political incentives for developing and exploring policy options have been too weak. By moving to circumvent the current political impasse to climate policy through a unilateral approach (particularly one likely to face sharp political opposition), the president may create a new opportunity for a broader consideration of options. If that happens, whether or not the president’s proposed solution is sufficient, he may help to depolarize the politics of climate change and spur the consideration of new and meaningful approaches to climate change risk management.
AMS Policy Program Director Paul Higgins’s perspectives, including this column, will be appearing regularly in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.

Moving Forward, Again, on a National Network of Networks

by James Stalker, President & CEO, RESPR, Inc.
Since my last blog in The Front Page a little over a year ago about the effort to form a National Network of Networks, many changes have taken place.
First, the AMS NNoN ad hoc Committee completed its final report in 2013, which is available on the AMS website at http://ametsoc.org/boardpges/cwce/docs/NoN/2013-06-01-NNoN-Final-Report.pdf. A short summary article will appear in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society this fall.
While these are welcome developments, the network of networks initiative almost came to a screeching halt except for the work of the Weather and Climate Enterprise Commissioner, Matt Parker, who didn’t want it to go away. Matt asked me to chair the new Nationwide Network of Networks (NNoN) effort going forward. At that time, as the NNoN R&D/Testbeds Working Group chair for the previous three years, I was prepared for the seemingly inevitable end of the NNoN effort, but refused to accept it.
So, here we are now with renewed enthusiasm for the new NNoN initiative taking shape within a full fledged AMS NNoN Committee, under the AMS Board on Strategic Topics (BEST). Previous participants, particularly John Lasley, and the past NNoN ad hoc Committee chair, George Frederick, pooled together a committee of more than 30 people to resume the effort.
For those of you who are not familiar with the NNoN initiative, it all got started when the National Research Council (NRC) report titled Observing the Weather and Climate From the Ground Up: A Nationwide Network of Networks came out in 2009. The AMS NNoN ad hoc Committee further reviewed the recommendations of the NRC report and produced the aforementioned report of its own.
The ad hoc committee produced six specific recommendations, but the first and most important one is to organize a stakeholders summit to gain weather and climate community-wide support for the NNoN effort. The renewed NNoN initiative is, in fact, considering this recommendation in stride. It will hold a couple of mini-summit meetings in 2013 and 2014, before the culminating stakeholders summit in 2015.
In this regard, a meeting is scheduled to take place in Boulder, Colorado, on Monday, August 12, the day before the AMS Summer Community Meeting begins. Members of the weather and climate enterprise community are urged to attend this mini-summit to learn about the new NNoN direction and provide critical input.
One of the key tweaks in the approach of the new NNoN is the bottom-up approach, as opposed to the top-down approach of the earlier efforts. In other words, new network members joining the NNoN are consulted for their input before recommendations are suggested specifically for that network member. Another key tweak is that the new NNoN Committee is going to actually help network members implement the network-specific recommendations. Implementation services will require funding, and the new NNoN is exploring many possible ways to secure such funding.
The new NNoN effort is supported by three working groups: 1) an Implementation Working Group, 2) an Outreach Working Group, and 3) an Advisory Working Group. These working groups comprise multiple teams to provide the benefits network members are looking for. The upcoming BAMS article will detail the new NNoN initiative, including the working groups and the teams that comprise them.
Also, for further information and for expressing your interest to join the effort as a committee member, get in touch with me at [email protected] or any of the three working group chairs (Greg Partt at [email protected]; John Lasley at [email protected]; Don Berchoff at [email protected]).

AMS Names New Policy Program Director

Beginning this month, Paul Higgins has succeeded Bill Hooke as director of the AMS Policy Program. Hooke will move into a senior policy fellow position and also more fully embrace the position of associate executive director of the AMS that he has nominally held for several years (he will also continue writing his blog on science, climate, and policy, Living on the Real World).
“I have big shoes to fill,” Higgins said, “but the fact that those big shoes will be standing with me will be a great help.”
After spending a year on Capitol Hill learning about the policy process as an AMS-UCAR Congressional Science Fellow, Higgins joined the Policy Program staff in 2006 as senior policy fellow, and was named associate director of the program in 2010. In these roles he has coordinated the AMS Climate Briefing Series, supervised the AMS-UCAR Congressional Science Fellowship Program, and helped train Earth scientists to engage the federal policy process at the AMS Summer Policy Colloquium. He also studies climate policy options and conducts scientific research on the causes and consequences of climate change. His scientific research involves the study of the two-way interaction between the atmosphere and the land surface, and his policy research involves analyzing existing legislative approaches and developing risk-management strategies that can overcome contentious political obstacles to climate policy.
In 2011, he was selected as a Google Science Communication Fellows–one of twenty-one early- to mid-career Ph.D. scientists across the United States chosen to participate in a workshop that included hands-on training and brainstorming on topics of technology and science communication.

In looking forward, Higgins cites two primary challenges the Policy Program faces: 1) ensuring that policy choices take full advantage of the knowledge and understanding made possible by Earth observations, science, and services; and 2) making sure that policy makers understand how much the nation’s welfare depends on those observations, science, and services.

“Meeting these two grand challenges,” Higgins said, “will strengthen the AMS community and, more importantly, help the nation and the world avoid risks and realize opportunities related to the Earth system.”
Hooke joined the Policy Program (which was then called the Atmospheric Policy Program) in 2000 and had been its director since 2001 while also serving as a senior policy fellow. In that time he directed the AMS policy education programs, including the Summer Policy Colloquium and the Congressional Science Fellowship Program. His research interests include natural disaster reduction, historical precedents as they illuminate present-day policy, and the nature and implications of changing national requirements for weather and climate science and services.
“Serving as AMS associate executive director is a high honor,” Hooke said of his new role. “I hope to serve our community well.”
“This transition acknowledges that Bill has been very active in a variety of AMS initiatives, and allows him to more visibly represent the entire AMS,” said AMS Executive Director Keith Seitter. “Meanwhile, Paul brings new ideas and a fresh leadership to the Policy Program while becoming a member of the Society’s management team.”
 

AAAS Finds Some Good News in R&D Budget

by George Leopold, AMS Policy Program
Our friends at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) have sifted through this year’s federal R&D spending and next year’s proposed budget, and the numbers in some cases are pretty ugly.
Given the current political climate and budget sequestration, however, it could have been much worse. The best news, says Matt Hourihan, director of R&D Budget and Policy Program at AAAS, is that the Obama administration’s FY 2014 proposal would return caps on discretionary science spending to presequester levels.
The overall budget request for nonmilitary R&D spending approaches $70 billion. If enacted, and again that’s a big if, Hourihan says that would be an all-time high.
Now that the dust has settled over sequestration, let’s look back at fiscal 2013 federal appropriations and the impact of across-the-board budget cuts on science agencies. All but the Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (advanced manufacturing) took a hit, according to AAAS estimates. For example, the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) R&D budget declined an estimated 4% from the previous year while NASA funding dropped by an estimated 6.6%. Other science agencies like the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) were in the same range.
Overall, AAAS found, federal R&D spending will decline $9.3 billion in fiscal 2013 due to sequestration and other budget cuts. That 6.5% decline takes federal R&D spending back to 2002 levels.
For NASA, which of course plays a key role in Earth observation, the $749 million nominal cut from its fiscal 2012 budget pushes the space agency’s fiscal 2013 spending back to its 1980s spending levels, AAAS found.
As for next year, AAAS expects NASA’s R&D budget to increase by more than $1 billion (9.8%) over 2013 levels, accounting for about $11.6 billion of the proposed $144 billion federal R&D budget. The Commerce Department, which includes NOAA, is projected to account for only about $2.7 billion, while NSF would receive about $6.3 billion. (By stark contrast, and despite recent shifts toward civilian research, proposed military R&D spending next year would total $73 billion.)
Another piece of good news in the AAAS assessment is that NOAA’s R&D budget would be $733 million in 2014, a 27.7% increase over the 2012 budget. As we have noted, much of that would go for National Weather Service modernization programs, including computer modeling and networking. The emphasis here seems to be on technology for weather forecasting rather than for forecasters themselves.
Along with NOAA R&D, the U.S. Global Change Research Program and even USGS science programs might see a budget bump next year unless Congress decides otherwise.
Among the Obama administration’s investment priorities for R&D, AAAS found, was a shift “from D to R” with an additional correction toward “applied” research. Indeed, the proposed budget for nice-to-have but hard-to-fund basic research is expected to remain flat next year when adjusted for inflation.
NSF’s budget, which was heavily skewed by a huge boost from economic stimulus funding in 2009, could nevertheless benefit from an upward trend in what AAAS calls “general science.” The key focus will be on “cross-cutting innovation programs,” AAAS predicts.
So, it’s a mixed budget outlook for 2014, with sequestration likely to continue despite the fact that most budget proposals for next year seek to eliminate across-the-board cuts. The political rub, of course, is whether to cut “entitlement” programs (or what the supporters of these programs refer to as “earned benefits”) or raise taxes. Don’t expect much movement on that front any time soon.
Therefore, budget sequestration likely will remain, affecting not only federal R&D spending but most of the federal budget for the foreseeable future.
That’s why it is important for U.S. science agencies to continue working more closely to identify spending priorities before the Office of Management of Budget decides for them.
AAAS puts the question this way: “Has science hit a speed bump, or crossed over the Fiscal Cliff into Austerity Valley?” Answering his own question, AAAS budget analyst Hourihan concludes: Austerity is “the new normal.”
Parse the science organization’s budget estimates for yourself here.

Obama Backs Weather Funding in Opening Bid

by George Leopold, AMS Policy Program
While it remains far from clear whether the Obama administration will gain final congressional approval, its fiscal 2014 budget request released earlier this month does contain small increases for improving weather forecasting and climate research.
The White House budget request also reveals early attempts by science agencies to collaborate more closely in areas like Earth observation and climate research.
Given the pervasive uncertainty over federal spending–for instance, across-the-board budget cuts known as “sequestration” began to bite this week with the furloughs of U.S. air traffic controllers–the administration’s proposed $200 million increase for NOAA and the National Weather Service is welcome. It also indicates that NOAA’s core functions remain a budget priority for federal bean counters.
If approved–and at this point that’s a big if–NOAA’s fiscal 2014 budget would top out at $5.45 billion. That’s about $200 million more than the amount approved for this year. If nothing else, the administration’s opening bid in negotiations over NOAA’s budget is higher than some stakeholders expected.
Acting NOAA Administrator Kathryn Sullivan said in a statement that the agency’s FY14 budget request seeks to: “1) ensure the readiness, responsiveness, and resiliency of communities from coast to coast; 2) help protect lives and property; and, 3) support vibrant coastal communities and economies.”
Not surprisingly, Sullivan emphasized NOAA’s role last October in preparing for and responding to Hurricane Sandy. We’ll be hearing a lot more in upcoming budget debates about the need to continue investing in core NOAA functions like environmental monitoring.
Indeed, the lion’s share of NOAA’s budget request for next year–about $2.2 billion–goes to its National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service, or NESDIS, which operates most U.S. weather satellites. A key issue is whether NESDIS can shorten an expected gap in the coverage of its polar-orbiting weather satellites. Even with a budget increase, however modest, it remains unclear whether the first Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS-1) can be launched in time to reduce a coverage gap that, according to recent estimates, could last up to 53 months.
The design lifetime of the current Suomi NPP weather satellite is expected to end in 2016. According to NESDIS officials, NOAA remains on track to launch JPSS-1 during the first quarter of 2018. Additional funding in fiscal 2014 could reportedly speed up the launch of JPSS-2 to 2021.
Another priority is beefing up the National Weather Service’s supercomputer and networking infrastructure to improve its weather forecasting models as well as its climate research. According to budget documents, funding for climate research would increase to $143 million, with the overall funding request for NOAA’s Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research increasing to about $390 million.
Expect to also hear a lot more about collaboration as agencies like NOAA look to do more with less. To that end, NOAA’s Unmanned Aircraft Systems office is seeking an additional $2 million next year to acquire more low-mileage drones from the U.S. military “to accelerate next-generation weather observing platforms.”
Meanwhile, NASA’s fiscal 2014 budget request of $17.7 billion is $50 million below what the space agency received last year. Despite the reductions, the budget request does include $1.8 billion for Earth science programs such as Landsat and climate sensors for JPSS.
NASA said its budget request also includes funding to take over from NOAA responsibility for “key observations of the Earth’s climate,” including atmospheric ozone, solar irradiance, and energy radiated into space. Under the budget plan, the space agency would also “steward” two Earth observation sensors on NOAA’s space weather mission, Deep Space Climate Observatory, currently scheduled for launch in 2014.
Agency heads will begin defending their fiscal 2014 budget requests this week. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden is scheduled to testify on April 25 before the Senate Appropriations Committee panel overseeing space agency spending.
NOAA’s Sullivan is scheduled to appear before the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee on April 23.