SAN FRANCISCO – The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration intends to dramatically increase commercial weather data purchases, Taylor Jordan, Commerce Department assistant secretary for environmental observation and prediction, said Jan. 28.
“We’re going to be looking at a high ceiling in billions of dollars over 10 years, which is going to show our commitment and our need for these data sources going forward,” Jordan, who is also director of the Office of Space Commerce, said at the American Meteorological Society annual meeting in Houston.
The NOAA strategy being developed will give commercial data providers a longer-term view of NOAA’s needs than the current program, which relies primarily on five-year indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contracts.
“We need to expand that timeline from a few years up to 10 years,” Jordan said. “We’re looking at going as big as we can for as long as we can.”
Open Communications
As part of its commercial strategy, NOAA will publicly discuss the types of datasets the agency will need in the future. “We want to be more transparent with industry on our needs for critical observations and provide enough lead time for industry to go there,” Jordan said.
In a few years, for example, NOAA will seek commercial radio occultation data in tropical, equatorial orbit to replace observations currently being provided by the Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere and Climate-2 (COSMIC-2), launched in 2019.
COSMIC-2 “is going to degrade over time as it reaches the end of its expected life,” Jordan said. “As we have no plans for a COSMIC-3, and we will not, we will continue to buy commercial data for that specific orbit.”
In addition to radio occultation for terrestrial and space weather applications, NOAA is evaluating data gathered by commercial microwave sounders and global navigation satellite system reflectometers.
A pilot program to evaluate commercial wildfire data is slated to begin in June, said Natalie Laudier, Products and Piloting Branch chief in the National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service Systems Architecture and Engineering Office. “The goal is to assess products like multispectral infrared imagery for wildfire decision making. We’ll look at fire detection, intensity monitoring and mapping.”
Through its new strategy, NOAA seeks flexibility to respond quickly to emerging data providers and data products. In some cases, the agency may begin working with companies before their satellites reach orbit.
“If you’re going to be on orbit in six months, nine months, 12 months, let us know,” Jordan said. “We will start planning when we can ingest those datasets into our NWP [numerical weather prediction], first to demonstrate and then to move into an operational buy.”
Data as a Service
NOAA also seeks flexibility to purchase data as a service.
“We want to want to move into a more flexible construct, where we’re able to pay as we go,” Jordan said. “We’re going to have to get very creative with how we do that. If we’re able to pay as we go, instead of having to obligate all the money upfront, we might be able to work on a faster timeline.”
