STATEMENT OF
SCOTT B. GUDES
ACTING UNDER SECRETARY FOR OCEANS AND ATMOSPHERE
AND ADMINISTRATOR
ON THE ROLE OF THE NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION IN REDUCING UNCERTAINTIES RELATED TO CLIMATE CHANGE IN THE ARCTIC
BEFORE
THE SENATE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
IN
FAIRBANKS, ALASKA
May 29, 2001
Thank you, Senator Stevens, for inviting me to testify about the research that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is doing on climate change, and how climate change is affecting the Arctic region. It is a pleasure for me to visit Alaska once again, and to share with you our interests in the dramatic environmental changes occurring in the Arctic, especially in Alaska - the U.S. Arctic. NOAA has a long history of awareness of the issue of climate change and its impacts on society. Since the mid-1970s, NOAA has sought to understand the mechanisms that control the Earth's climate. Our initial focus was on the equatorial Pacific Ocean and after several decades of observation and research, we know enough about the El Nino-Southern Oscillation phenomena to be able to predict it and to anticipate impacts in the U.S. and Latin America. Our more recent efforts have contributed to discovery of other climate cycles and modes of variability. Most recently, we have become aware of the Arctic Oscillation and its Atlantic component, the North Atlantic Oscillation. The Arctic Oscillation may well be the second most important mode of climate variability, after El Nino, in shaping our country's weather and climate.
Over the last few years, NOAA has increased its involvement in Arctic science and the sponsorship of activities designed to improve our awareness of the Arctic environment and how it is changing. I will describe these activities, identify the key gaps in our knowledge and capabilities, and indicate a possible future direction for NOAA's activities to reduce uncertainties about climate change in general, and in the Arctic.
When I refer to the Arctic, I include the entire Bering Sea and Aleutian Island region, as well as the Arctic Ocean and its surrounding seas, and, of course, all the land traditionally included in the Arctic, as well as the atmosphere overlying these areas.
Observed Arctic Changes and Their Relationship to NOAA's Mission and Expertise
Other presentations at this hearing have described the dramatic changes that have occurred in the Arctic over the past few decades. A great many of these changes have occurred in the atmosphere, the ocean, and cryosphere, including sea ice. Detecting and anticipating these physical changes fall squarely within NOAA's mission to observe and predict the evolving state of the oceanic and atmospheric environment. NOAA now believes the Arctic Oscillation, described to you yesterday, is nearly as important as the El Nino phenomenon in controlling temperatures in the eastern U.S. Other factors, such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and the recently described Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation also may be significant modes for influencing our nation's weather and climate. Evidence suggests that changes in these modes of atmospheric and oceanic circulation are the principal ways through which changes in global climate are manifested. NOAA is responsible for weather and climate observations and forecasts for the U.S., and for contributing to understanding climate variability and change on global and regional scales. The linkages between the Arctic Oscillation and other modes of variability in the atmosphere and oceans are the subjects of current NOAA research.
The observed changes in sea ice relate strongly to several NOAA missions. Sea ice cover in the Arctic is a key variable in controlling the radiative balance of the Earth. Sea ice reflects much of the incident radiation during the Arctic summer and restricts loss of heat from the ocean in the Arctic winter. Better representing sea ice extent, concentration, and thickness in climate models is an emerging research priority for NOAA. Increased absence of ice is likely to increase opportunities for marine transportation and this may increase demands on NOAA's nautical charting program and the National Ice Center. If this occurs, then Arctic coastlines are likely to become more at risk from maritime accidents. If so, NOAA's hazardous materials response activities may be called upon. Absence of shore fast ice is one cause for the increased coastal erosion that has occurred in several of Alaska's coastal communities. NOAA's ongoing efforts in storm surge prediction and mitigation could contribute to this issue in the Arctic. Changes in sea ice also affects the habitat and subsistence use of many marine mammals in the Bering Sea and Arctic. NOAA has trust responsibility for several of these species
We believe that ocean regime shifts observed in the Bering Sea should also be included among the critical changes in the Arctic over the past few decades and we have strong suspicions that these play a critical role in stock abundances of the commercial and forage fish in the Bering Sea.
The point of this discussion is to make it clear that NOAA's activities are central to the need for timely and high quality science and services related to Arctic change. NOAA's current activities are responsive to this need, but we hope to do even better in the future.
NOAA Activities in the Arctic
In the broadest sense, NOAA spends about $30 million per year for on-going Arctic activities, many of which are part of broader programs that provide observations, data, analyses, and forecasts. These programs are spread among all five of our line offices and include a mix of research and operational activities. Listed below are the highlights of these that are relevant to the topic of this hearing.
• Atmospheric Trace Constituents (Barrow Observatory): Continuous and discrete measurements of atmospheric trace constituents (for example, greenhouse gases) that are important to understanding global change.
.
In 1999, NOAA organized the Arctic Research Office and received funding for the Arctic Research Initiative into our requested budget. With these steps, NOAA declared its awareness of the importance of the Arctic and particularly the Alaskan Arctic in several science issues relevant to NOAA's missions. In particular, NOAA's Arctic science interests include weather and climate, marine ecosystem productivity, and long-range transport of contaminants. Activities in all of these areas were supported with Arctic Research funds. It is important to note that NOAA's Arctic Research program is implemented in close cooperation with the Cooperative Institute for Arctic Research (CIFAR) at the University of Alaska. This cooperation has been fruitful in several ways, but most importantly in ensuring that research priorities are set based on the intersection of NOAA's mission priorities and the knowledge of scientists with first hand experience in the Arctic. In FY2000, NOAA, NSF, and CIFAR had the opportunity to collaborate with a new organization, the International Arctic Research Center (IARC), also at the University of Alaska. This NOAA/CIFAR/IARC collaboration provided a unique opportunity for organizing a very significant research effort focused on the Arctic. The combined resources of the IARC and of NOAA's Arctic Research program were brought to bear on research themes closely related to the topic of this hearing. Specifically, several projects each were supported under the following themes: Detection of Arctic Change; Arctic Paleoclimates; Interactions/Feedbacks and Modeling of Arctic climate; Changes in the Arctic Atmosphere; and Impacts to Arctic Biota and Ecosystems. Overall, thirty-nine individual research projects and a few supportive workshops and data management activities were funded for two years. NOAA acknowledges the willingness of the National Science Foundation to support the second year of many of these activities through its cooperative agreement with the IARC.
As an outgrowth of discussions among NOAA, the IARC, and the National Science Foundation in FY2000, we agreed that the IARC could be the site for the Secretariat of a new international activity, the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, or ACIA. The ACIA is being conducted by scientists from all eight Arctic countries as an activity of the Arctic Council. During the recent period of leadership of the Arctic Council by the United States, the US offered to lead this assessment. NOAA is the minor co-sponsor of the ACIA, while the National Science Foundation is providing the major support to the ACIA through the IARC. The Secretariat for the ACIA is located at the University of Alaska and is headed by Dr. Gunter Weller, who is also Director of NOAA's Cooperative Institute for Arctic Research. The ACIA will result in 2004 in a summary of knowledge regarding past climate variability and change over the entire Arctic, projections of Arctic climate variability in the future, and an evaluation of the impacts of climate variability and change on the biological environment, human uses of the environment, and social structures. The Arctic Council will use this summary of knowledge to prepare a policy report discussing actions that governments should consider in response to anticipated changes in Arctic climate. More information on ACIA can be found on its website at http://www.acia.uaf.edu .
While the main product of the ACIA will not be available until 2004, its first outcome is a key report on Arctic climate modeling. The following quote from the report's summary is quite revealing:
The Arctic is recognized as the area of the world where climate change is likely to be largest, and is also an area where natural variability has always been large. Current climate models predict a greater warming for the Arctic than for the rest of the globe. The impacts of this warming, including the melting of sea ice and changes to terrestrial systems, are likely to be significant. The projections of future changes are complicated by possible interactions involving stratospheric temperature, stratospheric ozone, and changes in other parts of the Arctic system. For this reason, current estimates of future changes to the Arctic vary significantly. The model results disagree as to both the magnitude of changes and the regional aspects of these changes.
The report goes on to state that models indicate a warming of the Arctic of 2 to 6 degrees Celsius by 2070, but with considerable uncertainty. These uncertainties stem from our assumptions about the future, from the models themselves, and from inherent limitations in our ability to predict climate. We know that the Arctic undergoes considerable climate variation on decadal and longer time scales (e.g., the warming of the 1930's and cooling over the next few decades) and this must be considered in addition to any anthropogenic change.
In the current fiscal year, NOAA continued to emphasize Arctic environmental change and initiated an additional ten projects that will provide new information on Arctic Ocean circulation, atmospheric advection of heat and moisture, and the role of sea ice and snow cover in influencing the state of the Arctic Oscillation. These projects are planned to continue through FY2002. The NOAA/CIFAR collaboration was again utilized to implement these projects. Another benefit of this collaboration that deserves mention is the ability to provide support to the most capable scientists who are interested in research in the Arctic. Over the years, support has been provided to scientists from NOAA, from other federal agencies, from several of our institutional academic partners, and from other academic and research organizations. Many projects have involved foreign collaborators as well.
NOAA was given an unexpected opportunity this year to evaluate how changes in the higher latitudes impact marine ecosystem productivity. NOAA was asked by the Congress to evaluate the possible role of climate and ocean regime shifts on populations of Steller Sea Lions. Once again, NOAA turned to its collaboration with CIFAR to define and implement a research program. Twelve projects were selected for funding utilizing the standard peer review practices that characterize all of the NOAA/CIFAR activities. Six of these projects have the goal of evaluating existing data to determine if there is any evidence that climate variability or ocean regime shifts could be wholly or partly responsible for the dramatic decline in the population of Steller Sea Lions in the Aleutian Islands and western Gulf of Alaska. This decline occurred over the past 30 years, a period in which at least one major ocean regime shift has been recorded and the Arctic Oscillation shifted to its high index state. The project reports will be available in about 2 years. NOAA is also supporting the collection of new data in key regions in the Aleutian Islands and near Kodiak that will allow future evaluation of the role of ocean conditions in the population dynamics not only of Steller Sea Lions, but also the mammals, birds, and fish that inhabit these regions.
Remaining Knowledge, Information and Data Gaps
RECENT CLIMATE ASSESSMENTS
Over the past several months two state-of-knowledge assessments have been completed addressing climate change and climate impacts both globally and nationally. On a global basis, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has assessed the science of climate change and the potential impacts of such changes. On a national basis the full report of the National Assessment of Climate Change Impacts has just been released. It focuses on the impacts of climate change within the borders of the United States. These reports outline our present state of knowledge about how the climate has changed in the past, whether it is presently changing, what may be causing these changes, what is likely in the future given various scenarios of changes in atmospheric composition, and the potential economic and ecological impacts of these changes. All of these reports also find that significant climate change and impacts are emerging in Arctic areas, and particularly in Alaska. Moreover, all projections suggest that these areas will continue to see larger changes in climate than the rest of the planet.
The United States National Assessment outlines a national research strategy that would help us reduce the uncertainties about climate change impacts, and the IPCC report also identifies key uncertainties. One of NOAA's concerns relates to potential surprises that are possible due to incomplete understanding of the climate system. Some examples of these have been proposed with some rationale for their occurrence such as: a complete shutdown of the North Atlantic Circulation which transports heat to the high latitudes, large releases of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere as the climate warms (currently frozen in the arctic tundra), major changes in circulation and precipitation due to an ice-free arctic, significant changes in the strength of El Nino due to warming of the Pacific Ocean, and others. A better understanding of the science will minimize the risk of such unanticipated climate change.
Since the assessments have already been the subject of several Congressional hearings, and are the focus of an ongoing National Academy of Sciences analysis I will not elaborate on their findings. Instead, I will emphasize how NOAA is helping to reduce remaining uncertainties about climate change and climate change impacts.
REDUCING UNCERTAINTIES ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE
It is important to realize that the climate change issue is being addressed within NOAA using the well-proven scientific method of beginning with reliable observations, then developing theories about the nature and behavior of the observations, and lastly testing the theories by making predictions about the relationships among the observations. Traditionally, in laboratory experiments it is relatively easy to control for all relevant factors except the one being tested. This helps scientists evaluate theories, but in nature the ability to control relevant factors is severely constrained. Instead, theories are tested by comparison with the existing collection of past observations or proxy data from tree rings or ice cores, for example. This requires a comprehensive collection of reliable historical data. Moreover, it becomes critical to know which variables need to be monitored and with what frequency, spatial extent, and accuracy. Fortunately, the work over the past century, and the assessments of the last decade, have provided considerable insight as to what needs to be monitored. They have also provided insights as to how best test and develop our theories about the operation of the climate system and its impact on society and the environment. As an operational agency, NOAA's ongoing programs, as described above, will serve to advance our state of knowledge about climate and reduce uncertainties about climate change and its impact. They will fill important information gaps required for informed decisions by governments, industry, and the public. NOAA's role in addressing climate variability and change, and reducing uncertainties contributes to the interagency U.S. Global Change Research Program.
I would be remiss however, if I did not emphasize some of the greatest challenges NOAA faces related to increasing our understanding of climate change and its impacts are in the Arctic including Alaska. These challenges include deployment of observing systems under harsh conditions, improving global climate modeling by adding regional (including the Arctic) and inter-decadal skill, and providing access to the vast array of data and information collected by NOAA.
KEY MEASUREMENTS FOR UNDERSTANDING CLIMATE CHANGE
One of the most important lessons we have learned from the last decade is that a single comprehensive observing system for global change is not the right approach. The attempt to satisfy too many requirements can result in an observing system that is neither optimally useful nor sustainable. A special need in the ongoing development and implementation of observing systems during the next decade will be the development and implementation of hierarchical observing strategies, methods, and tools that integrate local, regional, and global scale data. NOAA intends to formulate an observing strategy for the Arctic.
Temperature and Precipitation
Our longest instrumental surface weather records are derived from two basic NOAA weather networks, the Cooperative Weather Observing Network (COOP) and the First-Order Automated Surface Observing System (ASOS). Data from these networks have been painstakingly analyzed by numerous scientists to tease out a long-term record of climate variation and change. There are numerous difficulties in using these data for the purpose of documenting climate variations and changes, as apparent by the relatively large uncertainty band related to observed global temperature changes during the past Century, e.g., 0.4 to 0.8C/100 years and mid-to-high latitude changes in precipitation, e.g., a 5-10% increase in precipitation.
The uncertainty can be much greater for poorly monitored high latitude regions such as Alaska, where the warming is estimated to be several times larger. Large uncertainties arise because of the additional cost of monitoring in remote and harsh environments. As a result, Alaska has the lowest density of surface temperature and precipitation observations of all states. The lack of an optimized observing network for monitoring decadal climate variations and change and the low density of stations leads to substantial uncertainties. For example, in Alaska, all the ASOS sites are located at major airports near urban areas, and in the Arctic, the urban warming influence can confound our interpretation of the changes we see. The ASOS network, together with the volunteer COOP network, helps define the climate across the state from a total of just over 100 stations, in contrast to areas in the lower 48 states where we have over 1000 stations for similar sized areas.
Up until this past year these two networks have been the basis for virtually all our information about changes in temperature and precipitation. NOAA has recently been provided funds to begin operation of a surface observing network for temperature and precipitation that meets the climate change monitoring requirements developed by the U.S. National Research Council and the World Meteorological Organization. A Climate Reference Network is now being developed, and one of the first Climate Reference Stations is now being installed near Barrow, Alaska, the location of NOAA's benchmark observatory for measuring changes in atmospheric constituents. Completion of this network will ensure that NOAA's ability to precisely measure temperature and precipitation change, including changes in extremes. Changes in precipitation extremes are expected to be quite pronounced in Alaska and other high latitude regions as temperatures increase, but these changes can be especially difficult to monitor.
In addition to observations in Alaska, climate-quality data is needed for temperature and precipitation over the Arctic Ocean as well. NOAA's Arctic observing strategy will include this requirement.
Atmospheric Constituents
Quantifying the trends, sources and uptakes of long-lived greenhouse gases is fundamental to our understanding of current and future climate. The measurements taken at our Barrow site, one of our four benchmark greenhouse gas monitoring sites, provides one of the most important sets of measurements to monitor changes in greenhouse gas concentrations. We have recently received much needed funding to begin improving our greenhouse gas monitoring capability at these sites. There are numerous questions about the trends and radiative effects of these gases that NOAA will be addressing over the next few years. For example, how is atmospheric carbon dioxide taken up by the oceans and land, why has the rate of increase of the potent greenhouse gas methane changed, what is the relationship between the ozone hole recovery and increases of greenhouse gases? On this latter point multiple data sets reveal that there has been a cooling trend in the lower stratosphere over the past two decades. Model simulations point out unequivocally that the global-mean lower-stratospheric cooling is due to decreases in stratospheric ozone, increases in gases like carbon dioxide, and increases in stratospheric water vapor. It now appears possible that this cooling may delay the recovery of the ozone hole.
There are several important additional steps that we are building into our long range plans. This includes enhancing our monitoring capability for carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide and other trace atmospheric constituents that are radiatively active. This will require additional investments in our benchmark stations and the planning and implementation necessary to begin measurements from space. Maintenance and dissemination of gas standards must also be enhanced as we also collect data from around the world from dozens of international sites.
It is very important to begin a long time-series of measurements of carbon dioxide from tall towers to determine the uptake of carbon dioxide by forests and soils. Four new towers are planned (for various forest-cover regions), adding to the existing two. This expansion will provide an initial estimate of uptake by North America. We would like to institute three new chemical monitoring sites in the Pacific to give information about the contents of the chemical mix of the Asian plume as it is transported eastward. This will provide greater detail than is possible with only one existing site, in Hawaii.
One of our key uncertainties related to understanding climate change relates to our incomplete knowledge about changes in radiatively active anthropogenic aerosols. This is a complex issue because aerosols like those produced by burning high sulfur fossil fuels produce micron size particles that reflect solar energy back to space and cool the planet, but they also interact with the formation of clouds, affecting their lifetimes and radiative properties in ways we do not fully understand. To make matters more complex there are other aerosols produced by humans that tend to radiate back to earth more radiation than they reflect back to space (soot or carbonaceous aerosols), contributing to a warmer planet. Unfortunately, long-time series of these measurements are difficult because they vary greatly in space, unlike greenhouse gas measurement. NOAA has convened an interagency workshop to evaluate ways we could begin a long-time series of these measurements. We are exploring the feasibility of including some of these instruments aboard our future satellite missions.
Cryospheric Indicators, e.g., snow cover and sea-ice extent and thickness, permafrost, lake- and river-ice
NOAA's polar orbiting satellite data and surface-based observations have been used to show that major changes in the cryosphere are now underway, and even larger changes are projected to occur this Century in the high latitudes including Alaska. The lake and river ice season (now estimated to be 12 days less compared to the 19th Century), permafrost, sea ice, and snow cover extent are all estimated to be decreasing. Further, the surface reflectivity of these regions is a major climate feedback. NOAA's research has shown that the melting of ice in high latitudes has likely contributed to about 50% of the warming during spring in the mid- and high-latitudes. Reliable time series of cryospheric variables are necessary to test the predictive skill of our models. Massive losses of snow cover and sea ice are likely-irreversibly large, so it is very important that we accurately measure and model this change. This takes on added importance since the impacts of these changes are already apparent in the Arctic, and likely to become more significant.
NOAA's researchers, the Snow and Ice Data Center and NOAA's Operational Satellite Processing Center are working to ensure that a seamless record of changes in the arctic can be preserved as there are multiple demands and uses of these data.
Ocean temperature, salinity, and circulation
To project the pace of changes in sea-ice, sea-level, and other aspects of climate it is critical to couple the fast-response of the atmosphere with the sluggish response of the oceans. The measurement of ocean temperature, salinity, and circulation are now a primary goal of NOAA's participation in the National Ocean Partnership Program (NOPP). To advance this goal, NOAA in partnership with other nations, is deploying an array of oceanographic profiling floats, called Argo, that provide information about ocean temperature, salinity, and circulation from the ocean surface and subsurface waters.
NOAA is working to accelerate the deployment of the profiling floats, as we now have evidence to suggest that the ocean's heat content has increased substantially since over the last half of the Twentieth Century. This increase in ocean heat content is consistent with several of climate model simulations of Twentieth Century Climate when these models are forced with increases in greenhouse gases, estimates of changes in anthropogenic sulfate aerosols and changes in other climate characteristics, like volcanic aerosols. It will be very important to understand how much heat the oceans are taking on as changes in greenhouse gas concentrations increase. NOAA is working to define an ocean observing strategy for the Arctic that will complete the global strategy. New technologies will be needed for observations in ice-covered areas and international cooperation will be essential for access to critical areas of the Arctic under national jurisdiction.
Clouds and water vapor
One of the most important aspects of uncertainty continues to arise because of inadequate information about clouds and water vapor. This includes cloud amount, type, height, the phase state (ice or water), and the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere. Water vapor is the most prevalent greenhouse gas and there are important feedbacks between rising temperatures related to increases in carbon dioxide and increases in atmospheric water vapor. Unfortunately, the Global Upper Air Network just established by the Global Climate Observing System of the World Meteorological Organization is failing due to lack of support. At the present time only about half of the global network is reporting data, even after the WMO had identified a set of key stations across the world as key indicators and markers of climate change. NOAA is exploring ways in which we can help to correct this situation since we are very much dependent on a global network of climate-quality upper air measurements of water vapor. We are also working to provide high-altitude balloon-borne measurements of water vapor in the stratosphere at our baseline observing network sites at Barrow, Hawaii, American Samoa, and the South Pole.
Cloud-related characteristics from satellite measurements are critical for global coverage, and these must complement surface measurements to ensure adequate calibration. NOAA is now working to develop automated cloud information that extend our current monitoring capability above 12,000 feet.
Sea level
As ocean temperatures warm and glacial ice melts, global average sea level is increasing. Sea level rise during the 20th Century is estimated to be between 0.1 and 0.2m, and is projected to increase between 0.1 to 0.9m by the end of the 21st Century. Generally, increases in sea level are expected to be higher in high latitudes. NOAA maintains a global network of tide gauges which have provided the data to calculate global sea-level rise, but there are many local and regional variations. High quality tide-gauges are a high priority within NOAA to ensure adequate reference points to gauge sea level changes.
NASA, in cooperation of our French partners, has been flying a satellite altimeter as part of their Topex/Poseidon mission which provides high precision global sea level data when calibrated with tide-gauges. The instrument has proven to be very reliable and is ready to transition from a research experiment to regular operations. NOAA is working with NASA and international partners to begin an orderly transition from research to operations to ensure global coverage of changes in sea-level.
Paleoclimatic data
One of the most important developments in the recent few years has been the ability of researchers to assemble paleoclimatic data from tree rings, corals, historical records, bore holes, and ice cores to develop a 1000 year record of northern hemisphere temperatures. These data show that temperature increases during the 20th Century have been larger in the Northern Hemisphere than any time during the past 1000 years. Much work remains however. Important regional information is sparse, there are large uncertainties between some of the data sets. For example, temperatures inferred from the conduction of heat from the atmospheric surface layer to deeper layers within the earth's crust show larger increases of temperature compared to temperatures inferred from the other proxy data. Understanding these differences will improve our confidence regarding the causes of recent temperature increases and the sensitivity of climate to changes in atmospheric composition and other factors. Lastly, data from the southern hemisphere has not yet been compiled, and some of the records from which our scientists derive important information are disappearing. Critical glaciers in tropical climates are melting away as temperatures increase. NOAA is working with other agencies, like NSF, to accelerate our efforts to collect valuable paleoclimatic data.
Weather and climate extreme events
At the present time, NOAA is working to adequately monitor changes in weather and climate extremes. Billion dollar weather and climate disasters are affecting the U.S. at increasing rates, and many of these are related to excessive precipitation events and major storms. But at the present time, we have conflicting analyses related to whether there have been substantial increases in the intensity of many important extreme weather and climate events. For example, some analyses reveal a major increase in the intensity of severe North Pacific storms, but other analyses do not confirm such increases. Meanwhile, we have strong evidence to indicate that heavy and extreme precipitation events are increasing in many areas, but as I have indicated measurements in the high arctic, including Alaska, are confounded by an inadequate number of observing sites, imperfect measurement systems, and measurement biases. We know that changes in extreme weather and climate events are often the determining factor related to the economic and ecological impacts of climate change. For these reasons, NOAA is placing a high priority on adequate investments to help ensure our observing systems provide the information necessary to systematically monitor changes in climate extremes and weather events.
IMPROVED MODELING CAPABILITIES
Testing our theories about climate change and projecting future climate cannot proceed without climate models. Today, NOAA Research is continuing to use climate models to simulate past climate, especially the climate of the last century and the past 1000 years, where we have sufficient observations to test our ideas about the behavior of climate. NOAA is working to add Arctic processes to its existing global climate models. One of the major issues we are addressing relates to the amount of computer power necessary to provide the climate model simulations necessary to meet the demands for multiple simulations based on various scenarios of future emissions of anthropogenic atmospheric constituents, the multiple simulations required to bound the uncertainty of climate due to its chaotic nature, and the need to achieve greater regional and temporal resolution. More computer hardware is only part of the answer. NOAA closely coordinates its modeling activities with other agencies, and is stepping up its efforts to train scientists throughout the climate community to assist us on this national problem, through NOAA's Climate and Global Change Program. In addition, we believe that it is also important to ensure that an adequate supply of computer students engage in this challenging problem of optimally configuring computer models for state-of-the-science computation, storage, and data access. NOAA is providing scholarships to those scientists interested in working in these fields.
Lastly, a very recent National Research Council report outlined a strategy to improve our modeling capabilities in this nation. NOAA believes such a strategy would go a long way to reducing uncertainties about regional climate change in the Arctic.
IMPROVED INFORMATION ABOUT FUTURE CLIMATE
There are two areas that NOAA will be emphasizing in the immediate future to help business, industry, state and local governments, and individuals minimize the risk of climate change and maximize its potential benefits. This relates to the use of Climate Normals for planning and design, and improved access to data and information.
Climate Normals
Climate normals have been used by millions of users over the past few decades to assist with design and planning for a wide-variety of applications. Traditionally, the Official U.S. Climate Normals are calculated by the NOAA every ten years, and by international agreement they reflect the climate over the past 30 years. Important research questions remain as to the appropriate historical period to use for planning over the lifetime of new structures. For example, how many years of the climate record should be used to project the kind of climate conditions a new structure is likely to encounter? Over the past few years, as the climate has been significantly changing many users are finding that the traditional climate normals are not capable of bounding the conditions they are experiencing. This is leading to design failures. As a result, NOAA has taken initial steps to provide users with information more suited to a changing climate. We have developed models and software which begin to integrate historical climate data with various user-defined and model scenarios of future climate. Recently the National Homebuilders Association worked with scientists at NOAA's National Climatic Data Center to develop a new Air Freezing Index, which based on the Association's figures has saved over $300 million annually in building costs, and over 300,000 MW of energy each year since using the index to re-engineer building codes. Last year, the National Climatic Data Center developed a prototype of the Next-Generation Normals which was used in the National Assessment of Climate Change. Over the next few years NOAA will be issuing updated Climate Normals, and we are committed to making this information more useful to our users in a changing climate.
Data and Information Access
NOAA has responsibility for providing long-term stewardship and access to all the nation's atmospheric and oceanic data. This is an enormous responsibility, which is heightened by what many of our constituents have recently emphasized. The number one priority for them over the next several years is more effective access to more than 1 petabyte of data that NOAA has in its archives. This amount of data is equivalent to the data stored on over 100,000 modern personal computers. NOAA also has millions of pages of historical data not yet computer accessible. Many of the records hold the key to documenting past climate variability and change. Our users have also told us that the environmental data we store has now taken on such economic applicability that they consider our environmental data as important as economic data to effectively manage and operate their businesses.
NOAA is committed to making the data readily available. Over the next five years, NOAA's data volume is expected to increase five times. The challenge for us is not only to be able to preserve the data, but to provide effective access to these data. NOAA is committed to addressing this challenge and we will be working very closely with regional and local interests to ensure that our services are as effective as possible.
Future NOAA Activities in the Arctic
NOAA expects to continue all of the operational activities described earlier and improve and enhance the quality and utility of our services whenever possible. As one example, the Alaska Region of the Weather Service in cooperation with the IARC is beginning to define activities that will become the Alaska component of NOAA's climate services program.
For the long term, NOAA intends to continue to focus its Arctic Research Initiative on the three major areas of weather and climate, marine ecosystem productivity, and long-range transport of contaminants. Using existing resources, NOAA can continue a viable program in these areas by focusing on one at a time for two year funding periods. Specifically during 2003, NOAA will use these existing resources for synthesis and reporting of the outcome of the several projects funded in FY2000 through FY2002 under the Arctic Research Program, the joint CIFAR/IARC activity and the special funding for climate impacts on Steller Sea Lions. In addition, the first drafts of chapters in the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment should be available for review in 2003. We expect this synthesis activity to provide significant new insight and knowledge that will provide guidance for future Arctic research.
In particular, this synthesis effort will provide a background for NOAA's future emphasis on the Study of Environmental Arctic Change or SEARCH. This is a new effort being planned by nine federal agencies under the auspices of the Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee with the active involvement of a science steering committee. The SEARCH program will consider all portions of the Arctic environment (atmosphere, ocean, land, ice, biosphere) and seek to understand the longer-term changes that have occurred and to anticipate the changes that may occur over the next several decades. It will attempt to link these Arctic changes to the global climate system and to consider the social and economic implications of Arctic change not only to Arctic resources and residents, but also to the more populated mid-latitude regions. The SEARCH program is based on the knowledge that, while the Arctic may seem distant to most people, it is connected to the rest of the world and that processes in the Arctic have far reaching and significant impacts.
Because the Arctic may be affected most strongly by climate change under the global warming scenarios of the IPCC, we must build the high quality data base needed to describe how the environment of the Arctic evolves over the next several decades. NOAA intends that its role in SEARCH focus on such sustained observations of the sea ice, atmosphere, and ocean, including its biota. As mentioned earlier, special strategies and technologies are needed for climate observations in the Arctic. NOAA intends to develop these as its participation in the SEARCH program evolves. Because we suspect that changes in the Arctic atmosphere will affect lower latitudes, we need to increase our effort to relate Arctic change to changes throughout the northern hemisphere. It is possible that changes in the Arctic can even influence the global ocean circulation and the distribution of heat and moisture from the tropics to the poles, and NOAA has to be concerned over this as well.
I have already discussed the current imperfect nature of climate modeling, yet the use of models is essential in evaluating our possible future. NOAA will work with its interagency partners to improve the reliability of climate models, and to develop regionally focused models that will allow us to see more clearly what might happen in the Arctic and elsewhere. While models allow us to think ahead, a well founded observational program is essential for observing climate change as it happens and so increase our ability to adapt to near-term changes and evaluate the performance and requirements of models of the more distant future. NOAA's focus on sustained observations, simultaneous analysis of the resulting data, and development of data-based climate services is a logical evolution of NOAA's historic missions and provides a solid core for other SEARCH and climate and global change objectives.
NOAA is particularly pleased to be working closely with the other agencies to build a complete picture of the Arctic environment. It will take a few years of planning and budgeting for NOAA to be able to do all that it should under SEARCH and other programs, but the process is well underway. In two years, NOAA will have important new information on Arctic Ocean circulation, atmospheric transport of heat and moisture, the role of sea ice and snow cover on the state of the Arctic Oscillation and other important modes of climate variability, and an analysis of the role of ocean variability in productivity of marine mammals and other species. Appended to this testimony are brief descriptions of each project funded in FY2001 under the Arctic Research Program, and the special funding for Steller Sea Lions and climate variability.
In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, let me state that NOAA is committed to providing the required observations, data analysis, data access and archiving, and modeling capability to minimize unacceptable risks related to an uncertain future climate. We have outlined a significant number of items that challenge our existing understanding and we will be placing special emphasis on them in the future. The risk of failure could prove enormously costly. We look forward to continuing to work with you on these issues, as they are of one of the great challenges of the 21st Century for this nation, as well as the residents of Alaska.