Editors' Note

As the NWS works toward implementing the Interactive Forecast Preparation System, NOAA's NWS Focus will provide updates on the process. This issue covers the appointment of two managers to oversee the IFPS process, and we also offer two web links you may want to follow and read for general information on this program so critical to the future of NWS.

We're adding a new element with this issue called "Also on the Web," where we will point you to other articles or news of interest.

As always, we welcome your feedback and story ideas.

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Managers Named to Direct IFPS Deployment

NWS Director Jack Kelly has selected two managers to lead the deployment of the Interactive Forecast Preparation System (IFPS) for the NWS. Bob Glahn, of the Office of Science and Technology (OST), will be the IFPS Program Manager and Bob Landis, of the Office of Climate, Water, and Weather Services (OCWS), will be the Deputy IFPS Program Manager.

NWS is bringing the newest and fastest technology into the forecast office and integrating it into the forecast process. The Interactive Forecast Preparation System (IFPS) is sophisticated software that provides interactive tools which allow users to interpret and edit gridded fields of weather elements. As users prepare these gridded fields of weather elements they are stored in a digital database. Today, NWS products are largely prepared individually in textual or voiced form. In the future, WFO forecasters will concentrate on preparing a comprehensive digital database consisting of forecast weather elements, such as temperature and ceiling height. This database will be updated frequently, and graphical, voiced, and textual products will be prepared automatically by computer software. "This will promote consistency of products and opens the door for the NWS to distribute its products in much more detail and in more meaningful ways to customers," stated Bob Glahn.

In addition, the digital forecasts from each WFO will be collected into a NWS Forecast Database that will be provided to customers and partners in a multitude of ways. Glahn and Landis will provide a national focus to IFPS implementation and ensure that IFPS is implemented to meet our strategic goal to "Prepare and disseminate NWS forecast products in digital form" by 2003.

More information on IFPS can be found at http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/ifps/ifps.htm and http://www.werh.noaa.gov/AWIPS/ifps/why2.htm .

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The Guam WFO has been designated a 2001 Federal Energy Saver Showcase facility by the U.S. Department of Energy, Federal Energy Management Program.

NWS Architect/Facilities Engineer John Porter led a team composed of architects and engineers with the U.S. Navy in Pearl Harbor, DOE's Federal Energy Management Program, Steven Winters, Inc., (an energy consultant in Norwalk, CT), and Design Partners Inc., (an architectural firm in Honolulu) to maximize the sustainable features in the Guam project.

The Guam facility has many unique features planned to conserve energy, use fewer natural resources by using recycled materials to the extent possible, and protect the environment. It was designed to save approximately 31 percent in annual energy costs. The main structure is oriented to minimize afternoon sun, and natural daylight is maximized inside the facility to the fullest extent possible even though Guam is a tropical island. Porter quoted sources showing facilities utilizing daylight enhance productivity, increase morale, and reduce illness. The daylight is enhanced and controlled by the use of carefully-located and sized windows, glass block, clerestories, curved ceiling surfaces, deep overhangs, light colored paint, and window blinds. The lighting system compliments the daylighting with highly energy efficient lamps and a great degree of switching flexibility. Air conditioning system components were carefully chosen for energy efficiency, minimal maintenance, and controllability. Sustainable features were the key in the choices of even the office equipment, furniture, kitchen appliances, and solar hot water heater. Guam, a U.S. Territory in the western Pacific more than 8,000 miles from Washington, DC, is one of several weather offices operating outside of the U.S. mainland, in addition to those in Hawaii and Alaska. The NWS officially took over public weather forecasting and warnings in Guam when the military downsized in 1995.

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Mike Smith, of NWS's Office of Hydrologic Development Hydrology Lab, was recently invited to be Guest Editor of a special edition of the international Journal of Hydrology. The Journal of Hydrology is published in the Netherlands and is one of the leading publications for water resources research. The issue featuring Smith as Guest Editor will be dedicated to topics related to distributed river and flash flood forecasting and is expected to be published next year.

The invitation to become Guest Editor occurred after the editor for the Journal of Hydrology discovered that the NWS had co-chaired a session at the American Geophysical Union meeting in Boston May 29 to June 2, 2001. The session was entitled, "Lumped versus Distributed Models: Issues in Real World Applications." The use of distributed hydrologic models for river and flash flood forecasting is an active area of our research as well as in other academic institutions. You can find the Journal of Hydrology on-line at http://www.elsevier.nl/locate/jhydrol.

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President Announces Climate Change Technology Initiative

On June 11, 2001, President George W. Bush established the National Climate Change Technology Initiative as part of a comprehensive approach to advance the science of climate change. The President directed Commerce Secretary Don Evans to work with other agencies to set priorities for additional investments in climate change research.

The full text of the President's announcement is available on the White House web site at:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/06/climatechange.pdf. The announcement follows a Cabinet-level review of U.S. climate change policy ordered by the President three months ago.

The online document contains initial findings of the working group and outlines several directives by the President to the Secretaries of Commerce and Energy. Among these directives, the President requested an evaluation of the current state of U.S. climate change technology research and development and recommendations for improvement. The National Climate Change Technology Initiative also "will enhance coordination across federal agencies, and among the federal government, universities, and the private sector," according to the White House.

"Strengthening basic research and building public-private partnerships will bring cutting edge technologies to market," said Commerce Secretary Don Evans in a prepared statement following the President's announcement.

NWS Director Jack Kelly will be one of several presenters July 17, 2001, at an Energy Roundtable involving the private sector, academia and government at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, DC. The roundtable will be sponsored by the Departments of Commerce and Energy.

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OPM Creates New Job Series for IT Workers

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has created a new job classification to cover information technology workers. The Information Technology Management Series, GS-2200, replaces the Computer Specialist Series, GS-0334, which will be discontinued. All employees classified as computer specialists will be reclassified as IT specialists.

How this change will be implemented in NWS has not yet been determined. To see OPM's guidance on the new series, go to www.opm.gov.

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Tools for Collaboration: Newsgroups

What is a newsgroup exactly? For those of you that were around before NWS used Netscape Communicator as its e-mail client, newsgroups offer the functionality of what used to be called "bulletin boards" in cc:Mail. Other names for this same tool include online discussion groups, Web forums, and message boards. Each of these is basically the same thing-a place online to read and post messages of interest to a particular group or related to a single topic.

Newsgroups are an offline means of sharing information and collaborating than e-mail lists (as discussed in a previous NOAA's NWS Focus). Newsgroups allow users to ask questions and send postings, but these postings are sent only to the newsgroup and not to individual mailboxes. That way, only users who choose to read the newsgroup will see the messages, and mailboxes of uninterested users will not be inundated. Newsgroup readers receive no e-mail alerts of new postings, but must read the newsgroup postings on their own initiative. Within Netscape, users access newsgroups like any other "folder," but the messages are stored only on the server and not in local mailboxes.

Netscape Newsgroups are the electronic equivalent of public forums. As in any public forum, people are free to express their ideas and share thoughts. Discussion content is managed using the Netscape Messenger client, so users will find the Newsgroup interface to be familiar and easy to use. Attachments can be posted along with messages, just as they can in Messenger.

NWS newsgroups are hosted on a Collabra server offered by the NOAA's National Ocean Service. "Collabra is the fancy name that Netscape gives to newsgroups, which actually highlights one of the primary functions of newsgroups--collaboration," said Mark Schuyler, NWS Collabra Administrator. Newsgroups are password protected. In order to access the newsgroups participants must be NWS employees with Netscape "noaa.gov" e-mail accounts.

If you are interested in setting up a newsgroup, contact Mark.Schuyler@noaa.gov or the NWS Netscape Messaging Team.

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Also on the Web...

• ...Women in Science, an outgrowth of the adopt-a-school project started by NWS Cheyenne in 1998, recently resulted in three students in the program paying a visit to Vice President Dick Cheney. Read about it on the NOAA News web site.
• ...NWS Father/Son Forecasting Team of Mike and Darrell Huston were featured in a special Father's Day story in Access NOAA. Check it out by clicking here

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