Report from the Forum on Earth Observations IV

 The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) was pleased to be a Cooperating Partner for the Forum on Earth Observations IV, organized by the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies and the Alliance for Earth Observations, held in Washington, D.C. on June 9, 2010.  The Forum focused on climate, energy and national security and the critical need for environmental information to address these growing challenges.   

The four morning speakers emphasized the importance of today’s environmental information, as well as the imperative need to continue to collect such data.  “We are now on the cusp of a global revolution in the use and application of land surface imagery for environmental monitoring and adaptation to changing climate conditions,” the first speaker, Senior Advisor for Climate Change at the Department of Interior, Thomas Armstrong, said.  “At the end of the day, it is the observations that will make a difference.  It’s the observations that will be the lifeblood of our decision-making.”  Armstrong highlighted the Interior Department’s initiative to establish, via public-private partnerships, nine regional centers across the US to provide information to decision-makers that they do not have today to help them address climate change.

“The politics of climate change lags the science.  That does not mean that the science is complete,” said House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies Chairman Alan Mollohan.  “We face critical choices on energy and climate, and both will affect our national security for decades to come, and both are intimately connected to our economic prosperity.”   He said the Fiscal Year 2011 budget, which requests increases in Earth observation funding despite the national economic situation, demonstrates the Administration’s understanding of the need for Earth observations.

Addressing the economic opportunities presented by climate change, Carbon War Room CEO Jigar Shah spoke of the efforts of this global nonprofit organization to identify and promote market-driven solutions to climate change and create a post-carbon economy. Shah, who is also CEO of SunEdison, addressed individual responses to climate change, and suggested that solutions like solar energy can be implemented incrementally.  

Monica Medina, Principal Deputy Undersecretary for Oceans and Atmosphere at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) called Earth observation-based data the ultimate tool for greenhouse gas emissions monitoring.  She emphasized that today, we can verify on a continental scale, but what we need is accurate and verifiable information on regional scales.  Medina also highlighted NOAA’s efforts to establish a National Climate Service to deliver the data to public and private sector users.

The first panel, “Responding to the Urgency of Climate Change – the New Information Demands and the Melting Arctic,” was moderated by Sherri Goodman, Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Board Secretary of the CNA Corporation.  She highlighted the increasing recognition by the national security community of the threat posed by climate change, and said that there is a concerted, serious effort to develop a government-wide network to address climate and the environment.  Navy Oceanographer Rear Admiral David W. Titley said the Arctic is a strategic challenge, one with many stakeholders, and the time to address it is now. Titley, who heads the Navy’s Climate Change Task Force, noted the interdependency of observations and models and said an observation system that produces credible forecasts is needed.  The Navy, NOAA, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and NASA are looking at how to put together a unified model – both research and operations -- for an air, land, and ocean prediction system.  

Julie Gourley, Senior Arctic Official of the US at the Department of State, spoke about the Administration’s Arctic policy, as well as the Interagency Policy Committee it established to take a wide-ranging review of everything the US Government is doing in the Arctic.  In addition, the US participates in the science-focused Arctic Council, an intergovernmental forum of all eight Arctic nations, and the only diplomatic group that addresses the whole Arctic.  University of Calgary Professor Robert Huebert highlighted the transformational nature of the Arctic, which, as it and its resources becomes more accessible, will be the site of more issues of sovereignty and stumbling blocks to cooperation.  Martin Jeffries, Program Director of the Arctic Observing Network (AON) at NSF, said we know the Arctic is changing rapidly because of observational capabilities, but the changes are happening more rapidly than policymakers can respond.  A better observation capability is needed so that long term science observations are vital to Arctic research.  Jeffries highlighted current efforts to study environmental changes in the Arctic, and emphasized that interagency cooperation is key to such efforts.  

Raymond L. Kolibaba, Vice President, Northrop Grumman Information Systems, spoke at lunch about the progress that has been made over the last several years in this realm on both the industry and the environmental community side.  He highlighted that there were many more users and stakeholders at this Forum than attended the first one in 2003.  Based on Northrop Grumman’s legacy building decision support and related systems for the military and intelligence communities, and working with other groups in the environmental community, they focus on a systems approach, rather than solely a science-driven approach.  Such an approach starts with the user needs and requirements that then drive the data, modeling and uncertainty assessments underpinned by science.  This approach also drives the roles and responsibilities along the normally accepted roles that various organizations play.  Kolibaba then introduced Wouter Veening, CoFounder and President for the Institute for Environmental Security.  Veening focused on the different approaches to climate change taken by Europe and the US, for instance, whether or not a legally binding treaty on emission reduction targets and timetables, is the right approach, or the role of lifestyle changes as well as technological solutions.  The US wants to put domestic legislation into place first, while Europe takes the opposite approach, which makes the timing of collaboration problematic.  


The second panel covered the current plans and ongoing challenges in monitoring carbon.  Moderator Phil DeCola, Chief Science Officer, Sigma Space Corporation, commented that both carbon and monitoring are dirty words.  Ralph Keeling, Director of the CO2 Program at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, explained why.  While routine monitoring feeds into scientific research and improves measurements, funding organizations do not consider proposals for such monitoring.  Keeling said the US Government needs to recognize that routine monitoring is valuable but not easily supported, and proposed an inter-agency effort to support long-term monitoring.  David J. Dean, Senior Advisor, Office of the Under Secretary for Science, Department of Energy (DOE), explained that DOE’s interest is monitoring carbon emissions on a regional scale to verify country reports, in response to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.  He said that DOE has asked the national labs and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to scope and demonstrate a system that can measure greenhouse gas emissions, but stressed that such a system requires a long term commitment.  

The next speaker, Jack Kay, Associate Director for Research, Earth Science Division, NASA Science Mission Directorate, remarked that carbon monitoring work has taken place for over a decade at NASA, in conjunction with other agencies, and over the next seven years, NASA missions will enable global carbon monitoring on land, ocean and atmosphere.  NASA continues to develop partnerships with other agencies, in order to integrate airborne and in situ measurements into their programs.  The last speaker, Michael Woelk, President and CEO of Picarro, said that there is a disconnect between carbon inventories and observations.  He noted that the 150 stations around the world monitoring carbon are outside urban areas.  However, monitoring capabilities need to be in the urban areas because that is where the emissions are.  The key question is who is going to fund and operate them.

For the third panel, “Supporting a Broader US Climate and Energy Strategy,” moderator Jim Lewis, Director and Senior Fellow, Technology and Public Policy Program, CSIS, asked the panelists to address what is needed in the future to support a climate and energy strategy.  Jim Ludes, Executive Director of the American Security Project, said the value of additional science is incredibly important to the debate over climate change policies.  Science and Earth observations will be vital to assessing the impact of any climate bill on the price of carbon and the economy, but the US does not have all the capability it needs to do this.  T. W. Scott, Vice President, Mission Operations and Services, Raytheon Intelligence and Information Systems, said that much work still needs to be done on research-to-operation concepts.  In addition, improved models and other decision support tools are needed.  The US is not dealing with this at an enterprise level.  Compton Tucker, Advisor, US Global Change Research Program, stated that few argue against climate records from satellites, and these observations must be continued, especially for national security as it relates to climate change.  He said the question is not research to operations, but research and operations – both are required.  In addition, trained people and a free and open data policy are needed.  The resources necessary to address climate are not available now, but many components from NASA, NOAA and, to some extent, USGS will be in place this decade.  Tucker is using commercial imagery in his research and said any serious climate study should use commercial data with high spatial resolution to verify the data.  

Neil Rondorf, Vice President, Maritime Renewables, Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) commented that cheap energy is demanded as if it is a constitutional right and therefore has become an artificially controlled commodity.  Renewable energy has to compete against this, but the cost of not funding these technologies needs to be examined.  Melinda Marquis, Renewable Energy Project Manager, NOAA Earth Systems Research Laboratory, said the grand challenge is to monitor and mitigate climate change and develop a carbon-free system using weather-driven sources, such as wind and solar energy.  One problem is that the electric grid system was built for a fossil fuel base that is dispatchable.  Additionally, the observations needed to help integrate renewable resources into the electric grid system are not available.  For example, a large amount of energy from wind farms in the west cannot be used because NOAA does not have the forecast that the industry requires.  A similar situation occurs with solar energy due to a poor understanding of clouds.  She said NOAA is developing a strategy on its role in nonrenewable energy to improve its forecasts.  Summing up the panel discussion on resources, organization and strategy, Lewis said that there was some agreement among the panelists that more resources are needed, but that those resources need to reflect new priorities, and more efficiency is required.  There was not a good sense of what a government structure should look like.  However, all agreed a strategy is needed.  In a study he is leading at CSIS, Lewis said he is promoting Earth observations as a new priority in the space program and is looking at governance structures.

CSIS recently released a report which recommended that climate change take precedence in U.S. space plans, and a robust and adequate Earth observation architecture should be the new priority for space funding.  In 2008, a CSIS report recommended that the U.S. develop an overall plan for an integrated, comprehensive, and sustained Earth observation system, establish a governance structure to support it, and double funding for Earth observations.

Lyn Wigbels,
Senior Associate, CSIS Space Initiatives