Concepts for Organizational Structure and/or Responsibility (cont’d)

“Climate research and monitoring capabilities should be balanced with the requirements for operational weather observation and forecasting within an overall U.S. strategy for future satellite observing systems….

• The Executive Branch should establish a panel within the federal government that will assess the U.S. remote sensing programs and their ability to meet the science and policy needs for climate research and monitoring and the requirements for operational weather observation and forecasting.

• The panel should be convened under the auspices of the National Science and Technology Council and draw upon input from agency representatives, climate researchers, and operational users.

• The panel should convene a series of open workshops with broad participation by the remote sensing and climate research communities, and by operational users, to begin the development of a national climate observing strategy that would leverage existing satellite-based and ground-based components.” (p. 5)

Issues in the Integration of Research and Operations for Climate Research. Part I. Science and Design (2000)

“Research studies on the socio-economic aspects of climate and climate modeling should be undertaken at appropriate institutions to design the institutional and governmental structures required to provide effective climate services. The assessment should include:

Improving the Effectiveness of U.S. Climate Modeling (2001)

1. an examination of present and future societal needs for climate information;

2. a diagnosis of existing institutional capabilities for providing climate services;

3. an analysis of institutional and governmental constraints for sustaining a climate observing system, modeling the climate system, communicating with the research community, and delivering useful climate information;

4. an analysis of the human resources available and needed to accomplish the above tasks; …

5. recommendations on the most effective form of institutional and governmental organization to produce and deliver climate information for the public and private sectors.” (pp. 7-8)

“Budgets for mission operations and data analysis should be included as an integral part of mission and/or program funding. Reviews, including NASA’s nonadvocate review, which is required to authorize project funding, should include assessment of the data analysis elements, including archiving and timely provision of data to users. While reviews of some projects already follow this recommendation, its implementation is not uniform across all NASA programs. The appropriate balance between hardware and software investment is best determined jointly by NASA managers and the user communities involved in the mission.” (p. 5)

Assessment of the Usefulness and Availability of NASA’s Earth and Space Science Mission Data (2002)