83rd Annual

Tuesday, 11 February 2003: 3:00 PM
Future Workforce Requirements for NOAA Research in Coastal Prediction
David Rogers, NOAA/OAR, Silver Spring, MD
Over the next decade, NOAA anticipates expanding its research in coastal prediction through the US Weather Research Program (USWRP), GLOBEC, etc., etc. Some of this research is conducted in-house in several of the Environmental Research Laboratories (ERL); other research components are conducted through competitive extramural research programs with the academic and private sectors. Personnel with graduate degrees in Atmospheric and Ocean Science, Physics, Mathematics, and Computer Science will be needed as program managers as well as "bench scientists." This workforce will need to be knowledgeable in oceanic, atmospheric, and hydrologic dynamics; numerical circulation modeling; autonomous observing systems; and information management systems. Coastal prediction research will be increasingly coordinated with the evolving operational needs of NWS, NOS, NESDIS, and NMFS. It will include major coastal oceanic and atmospheric data assimilation experiments on all USA coasts in association with OCEAN.US. While it is difficult to estimate precisely the future workforce size in coastal prediction research, it is safe to say that at present there are approximately 10 man-years of effort in ERL and another 10 man-years of effort in extramural research which will probably increase several-fold within a decade.

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