What Is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration?

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, known as NOAA, is a scientific and regulatory agency of the United States Department of Commerce responsible for monitoring and forecasting the conditions of the oceans, the atmosphere, and near-Earth space. It was created by executive reorganization in 1970, combining three older bodies: the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, founded in 1807 and the oldest scientific agency in the federal government, the Weather Bureau established in 1870, and the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries. Its mandate spans observation, prediction, stewardship of coastal and marine resources, and the operation of much of the national environmental data infrastructure.

For engineers, NOAA matters less as a policy institution than as an operator of large technical systems. It commissions and flies weather satellites, runs a national radar and surface observation network, maintains research vessels and aircraft, operates supercomputers for numerical weather prediction, and curates archives measured in tens of petabytes.

Organization and Mandate

NOAA is organized into line offices, each with a distinct operational role. The National Weather Service issues forecasts and warnings for the United States, its territories, and adjacent waters. The National Ocean Service handles nautical charting, geodetic reference frames, coastal mapping, and tide and current prediction. NOAA Fisheries manages living marine resources under statutes including the Magnuson-Stevens Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act. The Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research runs laboratories and cooperative institutes that develop the models and instruments the operational offices later adopt, and the Office of Marine and Aviation Operations crews the fleet of ships and aircraft, including the WP-3D Orion hurricane research aircraft.

Observing Systems

The National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service acquires and operates the country's civilian environmental satellites. Its geostationary GOES-R series provides continuous imaging of the Western Hemisphere at 30-second to 15-minute cadence along with lightning mapping, while the polar-orbiting Joint Polar Satellite System supplies the sounding data that global forecast models depend on most heavily. NESDIS notes in its description of what the service does that satellites contribute the large majority of data assimilated into modern weather prediction. Ground and ocean systems complete the picture: the WSR-88D Doppler radar network, the Automated Surface Observing System, radiosonde launches, moored and drifting buoys operated through the National Data Buoy Center, and the United States contribution to the international Argo profiling float array.

Modeling, Data, and Standards

Observations feed numerical models run on NOAA's high performance computing systems, including the Global Forecast System, the High-Resolution Rapid Refresh for short-range convective forecasting, the Hurricane Analysis and Forecast System, and coupled ocean and wave models. Outputs are disseminated as open data, and the National Centers for Environmental Information act as the nation's environmental data archive, holding records that range from seafloor bathymetry to solar activity and providing the long time series used in climate assessment. NOAA also maintains reference infrastructure that other engineering work depends on, notably the National Spatial Reference System that defines horizontal and vertical datums for surveying, and the Space Weather Prediction Center that issues geomagnetic storm alerts relevant to power grid and satellite operators.

Applications

NOAA data, systems, and services support work in a range of fields, including:

• Aviation, marine, and surface transportation weather routing
• Electric utility load forecasting and geomagnetic disturbance planning
• Emergency management, flood forecasting, and hurricane evacuation planning
• Surveying, geodesy, and positioning through the National Spatial Reference System
• Fisheries management, aquaculture siting, and marine protected area design
• Offshore energy development and coastal engineering
• Climate research, reanalysis products, and environmental impact assessment