National Space Weather Program Assessment Finalized

Abstract

On 11 July, Samuel Williamson, federal coordinator for meteorology at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, released the “Report of the Assessment Committee for the National Space Weather Program.” A year in the making, the report provides the first comprehensive review of the program's achievements since its inception, and offers recommendations for its success over the next decade, including the appointment of an executive secretary to strengthen the program's leadership. Founded in 1995, the National Space Weather Program (NSWP) is a federal initiative consisting of seven agencies whose overall objective is to speed improvement of space weather services, such as forecasts and warnings, space exploration, and computer models that help provide a fundamental understanding of space environment processes, to name a few. Since its inception, the NSWP has produced a number of notable achievements, namely a fundamental change in how researchers study the Earth's space environment. In the past, scientists often studied components of the Sun-Earth system—our planet's atmosphere, the Sun's atmosphere—separately, but now they use a more integrated approach that looks at the system as a whole, rather than a collection of parts. The report uses the NSWP's past accomplishments as the foundation for identifying future needs, explained Delores Knipp, professor of physics at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado. “Policy considerations and understandings related to space weather and national interests continue to evolve in important ways. The space weather community needs guidance on the way forward,” she said. Chaired by Louis Lanzerotti, professor of physics at the Center for Solar-Terrestrial Research at New Jersey Institute of Technology and the editor of this journal, the committee—Delores Knipp, Daniel Baker, director of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics and professor of astrophysical and planetary sciences at the University of Colorado, Boulder; Tamara Jernigan, principal deputy director of Physics and Advanced Technologies at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California; Ray Williamson, research professor of space policy and international affairs, Space Policy Institute at George Washington University, Washington, D.C.; and Brig. Gen. Simon Worden, director of NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California—spent a year meeting with relevant agency officials, visiting key sites related to space weather, soliciting comments from the research and user community, and reviewing documents, reports, and presentations on the state of the space weather discipline. On the basis of their findings, the committee made specific recommendations to strengthen the NSWP in four key areas: to centralize program management and set national funding priorities; to establish maintain space-based sensors between the Earth and Sun as well as ground-based magnetic observatories in the U.S. and other countries; to strengthen the science-to-user chain; and to emphasize public and user awareness of space weather by quantifying the national benefits that occur because of NSWP's existence and enhance educational programs for people pursuing space weather professionals. In particular, committee members decided that accomplishing the first goal necessitates establishing an executive secretary in the Executive Office of the President, as is currently done for several other critical cross-agency activities of the Federal government. Lanzerotti presented a summary of the results on 18 July at the meeting for the Interdepartmental Committee for Meteorological Services and Supporting Research held at the Office of the Federal Coordinator for Meteorology, in Silver Spring, Maryland, and on 19 July at the meeting of the National Space Weather Program Council. A more detailed feature story about this report will appear in a future Space Weather article. “The fact-finding is done, the report is written,” said Knipp. “The NSWP plays a role in the nation's safety and security—but it is usually in the background. However, if the forecasts for heavy space weather in the next solar cycle bear out, we need to be prepared to be at the forefront.” Knipp and her colleagues hope that this report will generate discussion within the White House's Office of Science and Technology as well as its Office of Management and Budget. The full report is currently available on the Office of the Federal Coordinator for Meteorology Web site at http://www.ofcm.gov/r24/fcm-r24.htm. Tracy Staedter is a freelance science writer for the American Geophysical Union.