The Continued Evolution of NOAA's Observing System Investment Assessment Process

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) relies on Earth observations from more than 200 observing systems developed and fielded over many years. In satisfying specific observing requirements, each system contributes to the overall accomplishment of NOAA's mission, which in some cases, involves fulfilling international commitments. Breaking from traditional acquisition approaches, NOAA now evaluates observing system options based on their ability to satisfy multiple observing requirements with acute consideration of inter-dependencies among systems and the potential benefits of an integrated system of systems.

With approximately 50% ($2B) of NOAA's annual budget spent on developing, acquiring, deploying, and maintaining operational and research environmental observing systems, NOSIA-II is successfully providing an effective observing system portfolio management approach. With budgetary pressures and the increasing size, complexity, and rising costs of both individual systems and the observing enterprise as a whole, the question of which systems or combination of systems yields the greatest value is still paramount. To answer these questions, NOAA examines fly-in/fly-out or implementation/retirement schedules for observing systems, budget trades among entire observing programs, investment trades among proposed observing architectures, and experimental trades among among observed environmental parameters.

Since 2005, NOAA's Technology, Planning, and Integration for Observations (TPIO) Division has been developing, implementing, and improving a methodology to evaluate proposed observing system investments and provide this information to NOAA leadership. TPIO's NOAA Observing Systems Integrated Analysis (NOSIA-II) is the continued maturation of the NOSIA-I pilot study completed in December 2011, the first Federal Earth Observations Assessment (EOA 2012) in July 2014. In June 2014, Completion of the NOSIA-II effort resulted in a first ever capability to link the impact of single and multiple observing systems and data sources on the key products and services NOAA produces within each of its mission service areas. The unprecedented success of the NOSIA-I, EOA 2012 and NOSIA-II efforts resulted in White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) directed use in the second Earth Observations Assessment (EOA 2016). The capability of determining the relative value and impact of observing systems across the enterprise provides NOAA leadership with valuable input to the observing system investment decision process. The AMS presentation will consist of an overview of the enhancements to the NOAA's Observing System Investment Assessment (NOSIA-II) capability since June 2014.