Improve Sector-Relevant Information in Support of Economic Productivity

Minimizing economic loss while maximizing economic gain from routine and high-impact weather-related events are critical to maintaining global competitiveness and securing national infrastructure. Today transportation is disrupted by storms, hurricanes, and flooding causing delays, loss of lives and cargo. Weather accounts for 70 percent of all air traffic delays, costing billions of dollars to the economy. Many forms of renewable and alternative energy are weather and water-driven, requiring accurate, reliable forecasts to make critical production and management decisions. Extreme weather, like hurricanes, can disrupt oil and gas production, while the transmission of energy is vulnerable to extreme temperatures and geomagnetic storms. Space weather activity can also interfere with communications and transportation systems causing disruption and major economic loss. In the agriculture sector, global food supplies are highly sensitive to weather, water, and climate, impacting everything from crop yields to the health of livestock. While developing and honoring appropriate boundaries between NWS services and those provided by America's weather and climate industry, this goal seeks to provide environmental information to help America's industry better anticipate, plan, and make key decisions to increase economic productivity and protect lives and livelihoods.

• Measures of Success: Gains in efficient renewable energy production; fewer weather-related aviation delays; mitigated economic loss in the agriculture sector; greater reliability in navigation services due to space weather forecasts and warnings; increased preparedness and response to maritime emergencies; increased value of the services provided by America's weather and climate industry

Objective: Strengthen use of weather-related information for informed decision-making and risk management

Achieving this objective will require many of the strategies from other goals, along with the following:

• - Partnerships: Proactively work with America's weather and climate industry to develop and implement complementary information services and decision tools to meet sector needs
• - Sector-relevant Data: Make accessible data and information based on sector-relevant thresholds, impacts, and parameters using tools such as the 4D Cube
• - Sector Knowledge & User Needs: Expand knowledge of sectors needs through collaboration with the private sector and other agencies
• - Decision Support: Explore opportunities to increase weather, water, climate, and space weather interpretive support to other government agencies supporting energy, agriculture, transportation, emergency management, or homeland security

- Targeted areas for improvement include:

• - Renewable Energy: Engage the renewable energy sector and other agencies to expand observations, improve short-range to seasonal forecasts, and promote technical exchange and research, benefitting renewable energy production and transmission
• - Aviation: Be FAA's lead federal partner, working nationally and internationally with public and private sector partners to achieve space weather needs and support a weather-safe national airspace
• - Surface Transportation: Improve impact of road-weather forecasts on safety and road accessibility by increasing understanding of user needs, increasing decision assistance, and by strengthening partnerships with state and federal transportation agencies and private sector
• - Marine Weather & Transportation: Increase engagement and collaboration with NOAA and marine transportation community to better understand user needs and improve the relevancy of marine weather and oceanographic data and information
• - Agriculture: Participate in national and international efforts to tackle global food supply and water resource challenges by contributing modeling and prediction capabilities

Objective: Improve forecast skill to accuracy and confidence levels required for decision-making and risk management

Achieving this objective will require many of the strategies from other goals, along with the following:

• - Observations: Expand observations for roadways, marine, and aircraft; polar, planetary boundary layer, and space
• - Modeling & Prediction: Extend temporal scales of weather prediction, from hours to weeks, with improved accuracy and confidence to support decision-making and mitigate economic loss

Targeted areas for improvement include:

• - Space Weather: Improve forecasting at global and regional scales for geomagnetic storms, solar flares, and other particles by expanding observations; developing Earth system models coupling atmosphere, ionosphere, and magnetosphere; and improving data assimilation for application in energy, transportation, telecommunications, and other industries
• - Energy: Provide weather, water, ocean, and climate information to meet energy sector needs by expanding observations in the planetary boundary layer, improving models at needed temporal and spatial scales, and quantifying forecast uncertainty
• - Aviation: Improve modeling and predictions for aviation parameters; develop tools for new forecasters; and integrate the 4D Cube to support a weather-safe national airspace
• - Marine Weather & Transportation: Provide accurate, timely coastal and ocean data, forecasts, and warnings, based on coastal wave modeling research; new and integrated observations; global and regional coupled modeling