Connecting Earth Observations to Decision
Making

Tsengdar Lee, Ronald J. Birk

The August 2002 special issue of EOM featured a series of papers focused on NASA Earth Science Enterprise science and applications. In this issue, the Earth science and applications community highlights several Earth science models, their predictive capabilities, and their connections to decision support for applications of national priority.

NASA’s mission is driven by the pursuit of science, exploration, and discovery
-- to understand and protect our home planet,
-- to explore the Universe and search for life,
-- to inspire the next generation of explorers
… as only NASA can.

Guided by this mission, NASA has established a set of goals that are outlined in the recently released NASA 2003 Strategic Plan (http://www.nasa.gov/ about/budget/content/strategi.pdf). In the NASA Strategic Plan, the Earth Science Enterprise (ESE) plays a leading role in the goal to “understand Earth’s system and apply Earth System Science to improve the prediction of climate, weather, and natural hazards.” The ultimate challenge of conducting research in Earth system science is to ensure that the resulting knowledge is used to enhance decision support for society. Federal agencies and international organizations use decision support systems (DSSs) to deliver Earth science knowledge and information that result in economic and environmental security for applications of national priority. Federal agencies integrating Earth science into their DSSs include:

-- The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which contributes to aviation management through the National Airspace System (NAS).

-- The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which contributes to disaster risk management through the Hazards US (HAZUS) system.

-- The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which contributes to air quality management through the Community Multi-scale Air Quality (CMAQ) system.

NASA conducts the research and development of the aerospace science and technologies that result in Earth observation systems and models of Earth system processes. A hallmark of NASA’s Earth science modeling program is the integration of the measurements of key parameters of Earth processes in science models. An objective is to enable models representing the best available understanding of the Earth system. The observations contribute understanding that is captured in algorithms and used to improve predictions of Earth process such as weather and climate. The observation and models that results from NASA research are connected to applications of national priority through assimilation into the policy and management decision-making processes of federal agencies and international organizations.
For 40 years, NASA has been developing the capability to use the perspective of space to provide global observations of the key parameters of our Earth system. NASA uses a systems approach to enable the measurements to be explored rigorously and scientifically. The NASA science community uses the measurements to advance global and regional models and improve predictive capability. Advanced computer technologies are used to visualize the resulting global observations and predictions to generate excitement about and understanding of our home planet. NASA has successfully developed and deployed a flagship Earth Observation System (EOS). As of April 2003, NASA has 18 Earth observation satellites in orbit. These remote sensing satellites are observing the Earth’s atmosphere, land surfaces, ice covers, ecosystems, gravity fields, and surface deformations. About 3 terabytes of data are collected daily and transmitted to Earth receiving stations. These measurements are filtered, assimilated, and digested into the Earth Observations System Data Information System (EOSDIS) through intelligent data assimilation and modeling processes. The resulting calibrated and validated measurements of key parameters of Earth processes are assimilated into Earth science models that are responsible for producing predictions and related knowledge useful in decision support systems. Since the Earth science research community cannot perform large-scale experiments on our environment, the Earth system model is the most optimal tool for Earth system scientists to use to perform simulations and produce “what if” scenarios of the evolution of our environment.
Earth science models represent a consolidation of scientific understanding of the range of physical processes associated with the Earth system. It is estimated that physical process field studies and routine observations must be conducted for at least 10 years before the physical process can be represented in an integrated Earth science model. In this issue of EOM, we present eight Earth science models. These include a global and regional weather prediction model, a near-term coupled atmosphere-ocean model, a seasonal-to-interannual prediction model, a long-term climate change model, a coastal biological-physical oceanography model, a land surface hydrology model, and a bio-geochemistry model. These models represent over 40 years of Earth science modeling advancement and the consolidation of scientific findings in many of the Earth science disciplines. These are the state-of-the-science research and operational models used in many decision support systems today.
In the paper NASA’s High-End Atmospheric Model for Climate and Weather Predictions, an advanced high-end atmospheric model designed to produce weather and climate predictions is introduced. Although it is still viewed as an experimental model, this has been the highest resolution global weather and climate model running routinely.
The papers Seasonal Climate Prediction and Predicting Seasonal to Interannual Climate Variations represent a class of climate models designed to predict seasonal to interannual climate variations. Since the seasonal variation of the climate system depends heavily on the ocean — which carries the memory of the past, and forces the future evolution of the climate system — coupled models are used for this type of prediction. These seasonal to interannual climate models have been used to guide water management, energy consumption prediction, and fishery production predictions.
Using Earth Science Tools to Improve Seasonal Climate Prediction for Agriculture addresses spatial resolution in global climate change research. The current climate change models do not have sufficient spatial resolution for regional assessments. Due to the lack of computational resources, techniques have been developed to downscale the global model outputs to a regional spatial scale. The downscaled information can then be used in agriculture decision-making.
In Using Regional Atmospheric Models for Commercial Applications, a regional weather forecast model is introduced. The model is used commercially and operationally at many installations, including the Kennedy Space Flight center.
The papers Modeling the Coastal Ocean Processes Within the U.S. Continental Margins, Incorporating the Land Data Assimilation System into Water Resource Management and Decision Support Systems, and Biospheric Monitoring and Ecological Forecasting represent specific purpose models. These models range from coastal ocean modeling and regional water monitoring to agriculture production prediction. These NASA-supported models are producing predictions for specialized purposes.
It is easy to see from the broad range of applications that use Earth science model products that it will be helpful to have an integrated framework for Earth system modeling. The benefits of a common framework are the driver for the next phase of the consolidation of Earth system science research results. As stated in the ESE Research Strategy (available at http://earth.hq.nasa.gov/visions /researchstrat/ResearchStrat.doc): “The ultimate challenge of Earth System Science is to consolidate the scientific findings in the different disciplines into an integrated representation of the coupled atmosphere, ocean, ice, land and biosphere system.” The integrated Earth system model — currently consisting of coupled atmosphere, ocean, and land components — is used to contribute to science-based assessments of potential future changes. In the next 10 years, additional components will be added into the integrated Earth system model. These components will include ice, biosphere, solid earth, and chemistry transport models. NASA has already started projects to build a national Earth System Modeling Framework (ESMF). Through this modeling framework, various Earth science models will be able to communicate and exchange information inputs from Earth observation systems and outputs to decision support systems. The ESMF provides a unified external interface to serve a range of applications for Earth science model predictions. We are on a path towards creating a comprehensive description of the whole Earth model and an end-to-end system ranging from satellite data acquisition, data analysis, and modeling, all the way to the decision support systems.

Dr. Tsengdar Lee is the acting program manager for the Global Modeling and Analysis Program in the Research Division of the Office of Earth Science at NASA headquarters. He is responsible for the development of a high-end climate and weather modeling medium. He may be reached by telephone at (202) 358-0860, or via e-mail at [email protected].

Mr. Ronald Birk is the Director of the Applications Division for the Office of Earth Science at NASA. He is responsible for overall leadership in the Applications Program in collaboration with the Research and the Advanced Technology Programs to accomplish the mission of the Enterprise and the Agency. He contributes to the national applications, integrated systems management, and education components of the program. He may be reached by telephone at (202)358-1701, or via e-mail at [email protected].

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