A National Climate Service: Functions, Composition, and Location

1. A National Climate Service: Functions, Composition, and Location Edward Miles, Amy Snover, Lara Whitely Binder, E.S. Sarachik, Philip Mote, and Nathan Mantua

2. Outline • Why a National Climate Service (NCS)? • What is a NCS? • What functions should it perform? • What services should it provide? • What performance metrics are to be employed? • How should it be designed? • Moving toward implementation (2007-2009) All questions answered from perspective of a RISA program of the NOAA Climate Program Office (CPO) with 15 years experience.

3. Why a National Climate Service? Why a climate service? • Growing awareness within research and resource management communities that climate variability and climate change are affecting natural and socioeconomic systems. These impacts vary from region to region given variations in climate patterns and natural/socioeconomic systems • Recognized need (and demand) for spatially-relevant research on climate and climate impacts. Demand for this information evidenced by (and due in part to) RISA work across the U.S. • Need for reliable and responsive technical support for the resource management community (if we are going to get broader use of forecasts)

4. Why a National Climate Service? Why a climate service at the national scale? • Climate information is a public good (very important information for public natural resource management) • Need for a global observations network • Need to connect: • nationally/internationally organized climate variability and change research communities to place-based translation and delivery of climate information • basic and applied research on climate and climate impacts to operational entities

5. What is a National Climate Service? • A national climate service (NCS) integrates • climate observations, • research on climate dynamics and impacts, • outreach/decision support At global, national, and regional scales to produce and deliver information on climate variability and change that is useful to decision-makers. • Stakeholders thought of as a continuously involved constituency. • Research should represent a balance between what stakeholders need for managing resources and what experts see as necessary for developing deeper understanding of the coupled climate/resource system.

8. Functional Elements and Relationships of a National Climate Service Global Level Global Research Global Observations National Level Regional Observ. Regional Research Regional Level USER Regional Modeling Global Modeling

9. What Performance Metrics are to be Applied? • Degree of collaboration between: • Regional research teams and NCS member agencies • Regional research teams and observations component • NCS and regional stakeholders (users) [all NCS functions] • Relevance and quality of regional research efforts. • Relevance and quality of decision support and decision tools. • Evidence of impact on regional planning and decision-making by user communities. • Assessed via periodic detailed systematic investigations

10. Regional Structure Global observation networks State Climatologists National Structure National Climate Service Interagency Partnership directed by NOAA Climate Program Office Regional System Level Regional offices of NCS partner agencies + NOAA RISAs Dept of Agriculture Dept. of Defense Dept. of Homeland Security Dept. of Interior Environmental Protection Agency Dept. of Health and Human Services Dept. of Housing and Urban Development National Oceanic and Atmospheric Admin. Stakeholders (End Users) Stakeholders (End Users) Nat’l Integrated Drought Inform. System The NCS Operating Environment: A Macro View Regional Climate Centers Congress

11. Planning for the Evolution of the NCS • NCS begins in OAR with leadership of CPO, but cannot remain there indefinitely. • Reason is that OAR not an operational organization. • Question then is how do we spin off a fully operational NCS when it matures?

12. Planning for the Evolution of the NCS • NCS begins in OAR with leadership of CPO, but cannot remain there indefinitely. • Reason is that OAR not an operational organization. • Question then is how do we spin off a fully operational NCS when it matures?

13. Moving Towards Implementation NIDIS, 2007

14. WGA (2004), NIDIS Act (2006), USGEO (2006)Preceded by: Western States Water Policy Commission (1998), National Drought Policy Commission (2000) Federal, State, Local, Tribal, Regional/Watersheds

16. NIDIS VISION and GOALS • “A dynamic and accessible drought information system that provides users with the ability to determine the potential impacts of drought and the associated risks they bring, and the decision support tools needed to better prepare for and mitigate the effects of drought.” • Implementation requires: • Coordinate a national drought monitoring and forecasting system • Foster, and support, a research environment that focuses on risk assessment, forecasting and management • Creating a drought early warning system • Providing an interactive drought information delivery system for products and services—including an internet portal and standardized products (databases, forecasts, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), maps, etc) • Designing mechanisms for improved interaction with public (education materials, fora, etc)

17. Challenge: Diverse Temporal and Spatial Scales Droughts span an enormous range of time scales, from short-term “flash droughts” that can have major agricultural impacts to multi-year or even decadal droughts (1930s, 1950s, etc.) Paleoclimate evidence suggests that in the last 1000 years parts of the U.S. have experienced “mega-droughts” that persisted for decades. Droughts • Other climate modes Slide 9

18. Making NIDIS Operational • The NIDIS Project Office: Structure, implementation teams and governance (incl.Exec. Council) • National • Engaging the preparedness communities • Monitoring and forecasting: gaps and capacity • Education and Outreach • Integrated research for generating drought risk scenarios • The Drought Portal • Regional/State DEWS Pilots: Goals, Design, Implementation, Evaluation, Transferability • Partnerships: Federal, State, Tribal, Local, Watersheds

19. Governance Structure for NIDIS Implementation NIDIS Executive Council Co-chairs: Director, NOAA Climate Program Office (or designee) Director, National Drought Mitigation Center (or designee) NIDIS Program Implementation Team (NPIT) Working-Level Partner Representatives Coordinate and develop evaluation criteria for all NIDIS activities including pilot project selection Chair: NPO Director • NIDIS Program Office • (NPO Director) • Coordinate NIDIS-relevant cross-NOAA • and Interagency drought-related activities • Develop a national presence for NIDIS • (e.g. formal links to National Governors Ass’n) • Participate in GEOSS / IEOS NIDIS Technical Working Groups Federal, Regional, State, Tribal and Local Partner Leads Embedded in national and regional, and local NIDIS Activities Develop pilot implementation and transferability criteria Co-Chairs selected by NPIT Public Awareness And Education U.S. Drought Portal Engaging Preparedness Communities Interdisciplinary Research and Applications Integrated Monitoring and Forecasting National Integrated Drought Information System Drought Early Warning System Design, Pilots, and Implementation

20. NIDIS Data information and assimilation and model: U.S. Drought Portal The USDP will provide county, regional and national drought-related products (analysis, forecasts, and research) to a variety of users, ranging from individuals whose livelihood is impacted by drought to large corporations, water managers and the research community through a dynamic, Internet-based drought portal. What is a Portal? Sites on the World Wide Web that typically provide personalized capabilities for their visitors. U.S. Drought Portal US GEO Context:

21. NDMC 2006

22. NOAA Service Requirement across scales Outlook Guidance Threats Assessments Time Scale Forecasts Watches Warnings & Alert Coordination Climate Suite of cooperatively defined User and Stakeholder Information Needs Weather Product Source Discover Development Proof ofConcept Experimental Operational Research Knowledge Operations Slide 11

23. The NCS Stepping out on Design, Vail Workshop, Summer 2008

24. Peculiarities of Bureaucracy in U.S. (Rourke, 1984). • System doesn’t generate enough force at any point in chain to allow a divorce of politics from administration (like in UK, for instance). • Agencies must supplement resources from hierarchy with those they can garner on own as result of mobilizing allies into constituencies. • Agency heads seeking autonomy, security, & prestige (ASP dynamic). This a search for development of consensus necessary to allow survival, program formulation & implementation. • So system = an unruly horse: agency heads & staff mobilize constituencies against both Exec Branch & against Congress, but not simultaneously. Sometimes constituencies capture agencies; sometimes agencies get too powerful (FBI under Hoover)……. • System one of antagonistic cooperation in which lateral alliances common. This enormously time-consuming.

25. Peculiarities of U.S. Bureaucracy, cont’d. • Since U.S. system one of antagonistic cooperation, policy decisions & actions are the results of 2 basic contending forces: 1. Needs & aspirations of constituencies; 2. Authority and expertise of bureaucrats re issues. • “Even though they may be created to achieve some major public good, executive agencies often come to regard preserving their own organizational well being as the most important of public goods”. • Expertise a fundamental source of power for bureaucratic orgs as result of: 1. Control of information and official routes to policy advice; 2. Legislated power to implement policy decisions; 3. Discretionary authority re implementation (agency rule-making). • Expertise leads to autonomy, but autonomy raises issues of accountability & effectiveness.

26. Peculiarities of U.S. Bureaucracy, cont’d. • Irreversibility a major hazard of bureaucratic policy-making because course of action arrived at only after elaborate consultation & accommodation among diverse org interests. This consequence is source of great inertia. • Other sources of agency power & influence: 1. Size & capabilities of external constituencies; 2. Priority of task--leads to variation in scope of program & size of budget; 3. Leadership & public relations capabilities. • 4. Org domain--leads to impacts & political salience.

27. Institutional Challenges in U.S. Policy Making (Fiorino, 1995) • Institutional fragmentation in U.S. inherent in system--designed as system of checks & balances by framers of U.S. Constitution. • Agencies are fractionated collections of interests, roles, & specialists internally, each with own version of agency’s mission & core values. This condition produces multiple advocacy & multiple values in large & complex decisions. • Ultimate result is that system can achieve a certain level of coordination, but no comprehensive integration across policy fields. • Executive (White House) control--Constitution, power of appointments, and control over budget (OMB).

28. The Players • NASA, DOE, NSF not attending. EPA present &participating actively. • Kerry/Snowe Senate Draft Bill combining package including: 2ND Nat’l. Assessment, NCS as Fed interagency partnership with NOAA leadership (based on Miles et al design), etc. • NOAA, NWS, Interior (USGS, NPS, Bureau of Reclamation, BLM), Agriculture (Forest Service, Fish & Wildlife). • Most agencies & private sector opposed & pushing back. No clear outcome to discussions.

29. Stepping Out, cont’d. • Steering Com proposing creation of four “Tiger Teams” to meet in fall to evaluate pros & cons of four alternative designs: 1. a federation (inclu private sector); 2. a non-profit; 3: an interagency partnership, led by NOAA; & 4. expansion of the NWS into a weather & climate service. • Steering Com getting around conflict by prohibiting recs. • “Tough love” statement to NOAA, that if it wants to lead the NCS, it must get its internal house in order.

30. So Where Do We Go from Here?? • Climate Working Group of NOAA, in report to SAB, says internal reorg necessary in NOAA. Need collab discussion among agencies about roles in NCS; hinting that, for system to work, White House has to be involved. • Also suggesting interface with a federated structure for connecting with users & research community, but not clear how this system would work. • Defined large budget.

31. Towards a Solution: Proceeding from Two Ends • NOAA working on defining internal org. CPO convincing Interior & USDA to support. NASA, DOE, & NSF formally silent. EPA seems inclined to support. Some in private sector annoyed. Process stuck. Moves to get OSTP to convene discussions in role as facilitator. OSTP appears to be willing. • Legislative options now on fast track: Kerry/Snowe again? Hall of Texas in what seems to be attempted end-run by NWS? Dicks of WA in Bill bearing many hallmarks of Miles et al, HR 2306, now being marked up by Science & Tech Com of House. Is this the inside track? $2b over 5 yrs, beginning in 2011. • Word from D.C. is that odds on creation of NCS this session. We’ll see!