Environmental Information for Naval Warfare (2003) / Chapter Skim
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4. Improving Environmental Information by Reducing Uncertainty
4. Improving Environmental Information by Reducing Uncertainty
Pages 70-109
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From page 70... ...
4 improving Environmental Information by Reducing Uncertainty As discussed in the previous chapters, the meteorological and oceanographic (METOC) enterprise can be viewed as an organized effort to provide information useful to naval operations about the current and future state of the environment.
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From page 71... ...
By examining such tactical decisions involving environmental information one can gain insight into how more complex situations may be dealt with. In the following example from mine warfare (modified from an example presented at the Symposium on Oceanography and Mine Warfare organized by the National Academies' Ocean Studies Board, in Corpus Christi, Texas, in September 1998; see National Research Council, 2000)
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To · 1~V ~opn~ca~ea or rigorous ettort to quantify It is interesting to note, however, that if the opposing forces understood the nature of the seafloor and incorporated consideration of ~~ ~ ~ ~ ~~~ ~~~ ~1 llllvl-111~1 1llullner 1mo men mine-laying plans, a more efficient use of the limited number of mines available could have been Hived A~ Inn in Fi~llr`~ d_O he ~~n~.tq.rtnintv tq.vtq.n in In inform..~1 mine- ;~ ~~V~l~l llC~V~ IJ~l1 acmevea. ~~ sullen In Figure 4-2, by concentrating mine laying in areas with a lower density of naturally occurring mine-like objects, opposing forces would eliminate the most obvious Q-route, forcing coalition forces to expand additional resources to identify and eliminate mines.
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Foremost among these is the decision to balance the benefit of reducing uncertainty against the cost. In more complex decisionmaking scenarios involving environmental uncertainty, cost versus benefit will become a more important factor.
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Sonar was used to locate underwater mines, to enable safe navigation of amphibious forces to reach the shoreline, during exercises in support of "Millennium Challenge 2002" (Photo courtesy of the U.S.
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Figure 4-3 illustrates several aspects of this. For sonar systems the useful environmental databases are typically bathymetric charts, GDEMs, DDB (Digital Data Base)
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in 2004 (Photo courtesy of the U.S.
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Cost of Uncertainty In this section the goal of the METOC enterprise is assumed to be to reduce uncertainty (i.e., lack of knowledge about the nature of environmental conditions at some future time or different location) due to environmental processes, with the operational cost of that uncertainty providing guidance to optimum strategies.
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, amphibious assault ships have provided transportation and support to the mine countermeasures units operating out of Naval Station Ingleside and Naval Air Station Corpus Christi (Photo courtesy of the U.S.
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ROC analysis is based on contingency tables, matrices that compare the joint probability of the prediction and occurrence of events (see Table 4-1~. For example, if wave heights were correctly predicted to be too large for a SEAL operation, the forecast would be counted as a "hit," while correct prediction of low-wave energy (no warning)
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From page 80... ...
that the actual wave height will be greater than the threshold. Thus, if these same circumstances occurred many times, in 9 percent of these cases our prediction would be in error, and we would count these cases in a contingency table as cases of "incorrect go" (Table 4-1~.
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For this operation, the threshold for operational safety is l.Sm, so the METOC decision would be a "go". However, it can be seen that 9 percent of the time, wave heights above threshold limits would be encountered.
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The relative costs for "incorrect go" and "incorrect hold" depend on the impact of this variable on operations and the current risk attitude. Although it is impractical to capture all potential costs or benefits associated with even a simple military operation, some minimal assumptions must be made.
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From page 83... ...
In fact, the question is not whether to invest in one variable such as wave height, but instead how to prioritize investment across the many variables and processes that affect naval forces. Continuing the case of the SEAL infiltration, it needs to be recognized that the mission is dependent on the environment in many ways.
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For instance, it may be possible that the naval METOC enterprise now predicts environmental conditions at large spatial and temporal scales sufficiently well for most purposes that further investment would have small impact on the cost of uncertainty, compared to other uses of R&D funds. Even the process of estimation of confidence intervals will raise questions that have been ignored for too long.
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and the Croat Air Force designed to practice intelligence gathering. Supporting multinational forces is an ever-increasing demand for the U.S Navy METOC enterprise (Photo courtesy of the U.S.
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. This is especially true for those who would like to view oceanographic data products with meteorological data products and for those interested in integrating data products generated by the Naval METOC enterprise with those generated by other DOD services or by non-DOD.
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TEDS is composed of a METOC database and a set of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) that provide storage for and access to dynamic
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environmental data currently collected but discarded after primary use; (2) data that can be collected by sensors devoted to other uses, such as intelligence gathering, surveillance, or reconnaissance; (3)
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While the above references refer to the use of optical data, similar signatures are also available from active sensors (principally radar) and from other passive bands.
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Adding Data Collection Capabilities to Navy and Marine Platforms A simple mechanism for the improvement of naval METOC data collection capability could be the addition of small automated sensors on a range of naval platforms. Naval surface ships, submarines, and aircraft log millions of miles per year in all of the world's oceans.
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Naval Forces is personnel. METOC officers gain a great deal of knowledge related to the meteorology and oceanography of the regions they visit, as do the enlisted personnel who support them.
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There is, however, a great deal of research being undertaken in the mining of textual databases with significant progress being made, and it is not unreasonable to think that in the not too distant future (less than 10 years) sufficient progress will have been made for the naval METOC community to make more effective use of these data.
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Whereas in the past the decision cycle for warfare operations might have been weeks to days, in the 21st century the decision cycle for many naval operations is compressed into hours and sometimes minutes (see Figure 4-5~. Rapid Environmental Assessment Versus Optimized Environmental Characterization Discussions throughout this study often return to the fundamental utility of environmental data and use of such data by warfighters as an exploitable component of modern warfighting doctrine.
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From page 95... ...
in order to compute predictions about the future environmental state of the battlespace and receive continuous updates of battlespace conditions from REA sensors in order to dynamically update battlespace forecasts. Such forecasts not only are useful for planning scenarios but may also ultimately find use during naval combat operations to dynamically modify warfighting strategy in order to gain continuous tactical advantages or minimize threats to fleet assets.
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Understanding the environmental thresholds for a variety of naval platforms will be key to how to enhance current efforts to provide timely and valuable information to U.S. Naval Forces (Photo courtesy of the U.S.
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minimizes the need for rapidly updated environmental data since weapon delivery depends on accurate target locations rather than specific environmental conditions (such as an ability to see the target) .8 However, some warfare operations have become more dependent on timely environmental information (e.g., timecritical strike, special warfare operations, ship self-defense, weapons of mass destruction, etc.~.
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Rapid assessment and ingestion/processing of near real-time environmental data would have similar benefits to dispersion models used to determine "red zones" of weapons of mass destruction. To make REA a reality across multiple mission areas, there is a broad spectrum of R&D issues that need to be addressed by the METOC community and these issues need to be integrated into the overall mission of naval METOC.
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From page 99... ...
development and dissemination of relevant derived products, and 7. personnel training in the use and significance of environmental data REA Parameters Defining appropriate REA parameters requires close integration among the naval METOC community and it customers, the warfighters, as well as sensor developers.
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Quality Control and Quality Assurance of REA Data Acquiring large quantities of environmental data will require development of new algorithms to assess and assure data quality. While this process might be
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Quality control and quality assurance schemes will also aid in verification and validation of high-frequency forecast models. Processing and Analysis of Data Present capabilities in the naval METOC community to provide REA are evolving, and several successful trial programs are being evaluated (e.g., Distributed Atmospheric Mesoscale Prediction System, or DAMPS, and NFN)
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Personnel Training As the sophistication and complexity of forward-deployed REA sensors, sensor arrays, processing/analytical capabilities, and forecast products increase, there will be an increasing need for highly trained analysts to accompany the fleet in order to provide interpretive expertise. The naval METOC community should attempt to identify or develop personnel for these roles and implement career reward systems for those individuals who may serve in these billets.
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. sis is a distinct field from Bayesian decision theory)
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Bayesian statistical theory measures the quality of an estimator based on repeated sampling in which the parameters also vary according to the prior distributions. Most beginning statistics courses focus on frequentist methods such as the t test and analysis of variance.
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This provides a natural hybrid modeling method that could have fishery applications. Limitations of Applying Formal Decision Theory The case for Bayesian methods presented above must be tempered with some limitations of any formal approach to decision theory.
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Transition probabilities are also problematic. The outcome of an observation can often depend on the system used or a tactical decision aid whose performance is questionable given an environmental database.
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Formally speaking, a Bayesian model is a closed system of undeniable truth, lacking an exterior viewpoint to make a rational model assessment or to construct estimators that are robust to the model-building process. To do so and retain the Bayesian structure requires constructing an even more complex Bayesian model that includes all reasonable alternatives to the model in question and then assessing the posterior probability of the original model in this setting.
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. ONR should expand this initiative to cover other environmental problems and processes in order to more directly support operational challenges facing the fleet and Marine Corps and the METOC community supporting them.
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Once a decision for additional information has been made, it seems sensible to assume that the cost of acquiring those data is a function of their availability. It appears that too often data collected previously, whether for other purposes or not, are not made use of by the METOC community.
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