    [House Hearing, 116 Congress]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                          A TASK OF EPIC PROPORTIONS:
                           RECLAIMING U.S. LEADERSHIP
                       IN WEATHER MODELING AND PREDICTION

    =======================================================================

                                    HEARING

                                   BEFORE THE

                          SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT

                                     OF THE

                          COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE,
                                 AND TECHNOLOGY
                            HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                         ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS

                                 FIRST SESSION

                                   __________

                               NOVEMBER 20, 2019

                                   __________

                               Serial No. 116-57

                                   __________

     Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology

     [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

           Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov

                               ______

                 U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
    38-332 PDF            WASHINGTON : 2020

                  COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY

                 HON. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas, Chairwoman
    ZOE LOFGREN, California              FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma,
    DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois                Ranking Member
    SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon             MO BROOKS, Alabama
    AMI BERA, California,                BILL POSEY, Florida
        Vice Chair                       RANDY WEBER, Texas
    LIZZIE FLETCHER, Texas               BRIAN BABIN, Texas
    HALEY STEVENS, Michigan              ANDY BIGGS, Arizona
    KENDRA HORN, Oklahoma                ROGER MARSHALL, Kansas
    MIKIE SHERRILL, New Jersey           RALPH NORMAN, South Carolina
    BRAD SHERMAN, California             MICHAEL CLOUD, Texas
    STEVE COHEN, Tennessee               TROY BALDERSON, Ohio
    JERRY McNERNEY, California           PETE OLSON, Texas
    ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado              ANTHONY GONZALEZ, Ohio
    PAUL TONKO, New York                 MICHAEL WALTZ, Florida
    BILL FOSTER, Illinois                JIM BAIRD, Indiana
    DON BEYER, Virginia                  JAIME HERRERA BEUTLER, Washington
    CHARLIE CRIST, Florida               FRANCIS ROONEY, Florida
    SEAN CASTEN, Illinois                GREGORY F. MURPHY, North Carolina
    BEN McADAMS, Utah
    JENNIFER WEXTON, Virginia
    CONOR LAMB, Pennsylvania
    VACANCY
                                     ------

                          Subcommittee on Environment

                    HON. LIZZIE FLETCHER, Texas, Chairwoman
    SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon             ROGER MARSHALL, Kansas, Ranking
    CONOR LAMB, Pennsylvania                 Member
    PAUL TONKO, New York                 BRIAN BABIN, Texas
    CHARLIE CRIST, Florida               ANTHONY GONZALEZ, Ohio
    SEAN CASTEN, Illinois                JIM BAIRD, Indiana
    BEN McADAMS, Utah                    FRANCIS ROONEY, Florida
    DON BEYER, Virginia                  GREGORY F. MURPHY, North Carolina

                             C  O  N  T  E  N  T  S

                               November 20, 2019

                                                                       Page

    Hearing Charter..................................................     2

                               Opening Statements

    Statement by Representative Sean Casten, Presiding Chairman,
      Subcommittee on Environment, Committee on Science, Space, and
      Technology, U.S. House of Representatives......................     7

    Statement by Representative Roger Marshall, Ranking Member,
      Subcommittee on Environment, Committee on Science, Space, and
      Technology, U.S. House of Representatives......................     7
        Written Statement............................................     8

    Written statement by Representative Lizzie Fletcher, Chairwoman,
      Subcommittee on Environment, Committee on Science, Space, and
      Technology, U.S. House of Representatives......................     9

    Written statement by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson,
      Chairwoman, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S.
      House of Representatives.......................................    10

    Written statement by Representative Frank Lucas, Ranking Member,
      Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of
      Representatives................................................    10

                                   Witnesses:

    Dr. Neil Jacobs, Assistant Secretary of Commerce for
      Environmental Observation and Prediction, performing the duties
      of Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere,
      National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
        Oral Statement...............................................    12
        Written Statement............................................    15

    Dr. Cliff Mass, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, University of
      Washington
        Oral Statement...............................................    19
        Written Statement............................................    21

    Dr. Peter P. Neilley, IBM Distinguished Engineer and Director of
      Weather Forecasting Sciences and Technologies, The Weather
      Company, An IBM Business
        Oral Statement...............................................    55
        Written Statement............................................    57

    Dr. Thomas Auligne, Director of the Joint Center for Satellite
      Data Assimilation, University Corporation for Atmospheric
      Research (UCAR)
        Oral Statement...............................................    65
        Written Statement............................................    67

    Discussion.......................................................    79

                 Appendix I: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions

    Dr. Neil Jacobs, Assistant Secretary of Commerce for
      Environmental Observation and Prediction, performing the duties
      of Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere,
      National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).........    90

    Dr. Cliff Mass, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, University of
      Washington.....................................................    96

    Dr. Peter P. Neilley, IBM Distinguished Engineer and Director of
      Weather Forecasting Sciences and Technologies, The Weather
      Company, An IBM Business.......................................   101

    Dr. Thomas Auligne, Director of the Joint Center for Satellite
      Data Assimilation, University Corporation for Atmospheric
      Research (UCAR)................................................   107

                Appendix II: Additional Material for the Record

    Letter submitted by Representative Sean Casten, Presiding
      Chairman, Subcommittee on Environment, Committee on Science,
      Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives...........   112

                          A TASK OF EPIC PROPORTIONS:

                           RECLAIMING U.S. LEADERSHIP

                       IN WEATHER MODELING AND PREDICTION

                                  ----------

                          WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2019

                      House of Representatives,
                           Subcommittee on Environment,
                   Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
                                                       Washington, D.C.

        The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 1:58 p.m., in
    room 2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Lizzie
    Fletcher [Chairwoman of the Subcommittee] presiding.

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Mr. Casten [presiding]. This hearing will come to order.
    Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare recess at
    any time. As some of you know, due to caucus votes at 3 p.m.,
    I'm going to try to keep my introductory remarks brief, and ask
    to submit the rest for the record, in order to get witness
    testimonies in as quickly as possible. The Chairwoman and
    Ranking Member of the full Committee have also agreed to submit
    their statements for the record.
        As we have previously discussed in this Subcommittee.
    Americans depend on the data and services provided by the
    National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, and
    the National Weather Service every day. Earlier this Congress,
    in this Subcommittee's hearing on the NOAA Fiscal Year 2020
    proposed budget, we heard from Acting Administrator Dr. Jacobs
    that the U.S. is not currently the global leader in weather
    forecasting. Considering how important accurate weather
    forecasting is to all Americans, this is extremely concerning.
        The National Integrated Drought Information System
    Reauthorization Act, NIDIS,which was signed into law in January
    2019, directed NOAA to establish the Earth Prediction
    Innovation Center, or EPIC. EPIC is tasked with creating a
    collaborative, community-driven, global weather research
    modeling system. The system will be publicly accessible,
    allowing those outside of NOAA to access and contribute to a
    community developed model. At today's hearing I look forward to
    a discussion with our distinguished panel of experts about how
    EPIC will leverage the skills and expertise across the public,
    private, and academic sectors of the United States weather
    community to bolster modeling and forecasting. Since EPIC is
    still in its infancy, this hearing will provide a timely
    opportunity to discuss the future of its organization,
    management, and governance, and examine each sector's vision
    and short- and long-term goals for EPIC.
        I cannot overstate the importance of improving U.S. weather
    modeling and prediction capabilities. EPIC represents what some
    experts in the weather community have claimed as America's last
    chance to get this right, and restore our leadership in global
    weather prediction. I look forward to today's discussion about
    how EPIC is going to accomplish this. Thank you.
        The Chair now recognizes Ranking Member Marshall for an
    opening statement.
        Mr. Marshall. Thank you for holding this hearing. I want to
    thank our witnesses for appearing before the Subcommittee,
    especially Dr. Jacobs, who is in front of all of us now for the
    third time this year in Congress. And thanks for all of you on
    the panel for sharing your perspectives.
        Weather prediction is something that affects the
    constituents of every Member up here, from the fields of Kansas
    to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Anticipating the strength
    and conditions of the next weather event can save lives and
    property, as well as be the difference between a profitable
    year for a farmer or a catastrophic loss. I'm proud to say the
    Science Committee acted decisively last Congress by passing the
    Weather Research and Forecasting Innovation Act, the Weather
    Act, and the National Integrated Drought Information System
    Reauthorization Act. The Weather Act was the first authorizing
    legislation to address weather forecasting in 25 years, and
    prioritized improving weather data, modeling, computing, and
    forecasting. I'd like to extend to my gratitude to Ranking
    Member Lucas for introducing what is now a law, and for his
    continued leadership on this issue.
        The NIDIS Reauthorization Act established the Earth
    Predication Innovation Center, EPIC, the topic of our hearing
    today. EPIC, when completed, will crowdsource the expertise of
    the private sector and the research communities to improve our
    forecasting models. This aligns with Congress' vision for the
    program by leveraging the weather enterprise to provide
    knowledge and skill on numerical weather prediction. The
    Federal Government should be doing more to utilize resources of
    private companies and university researchers, who are often the
    leading sources of innovations. In addition to having world
    class facilities and minds, private companies and academics are
    extremely flexible in research and development and cost
    effective in their methods. It is in the best interest of
    Kansas farmers, ranchers, emergency personnel, and everyday
    residents to have more accurate forecasts, and EPIC is an
    important step in the improvement of our forecasting ability.
        In 2012 Hurricane Sandy caused nearly $70 billion in damage
    as it made landfall in Cuba and the Northeast Coast of the
    United States. This was the catalyzing weather event which
    caused Congress to examine how we could improve weather
    forecasting. We don't know when the next superstorm will be,
    but it's my hope that, through EPIC, NOAA and the National
    Weather Service will be fully prepared to predict, respond, and
    recover from the next severe weather event. While NOAA has
    taken the initial steps to implement EPIC, we must see a
    stronger sense of urgency moving forward. Because it's designed
    as a community approach to weather prediction and modeling. I
    look forward to hearing how Dr. Mass and others have been
    involved in implementing the center, and getting their
    feedbacks on how to ensure a successful and timely completion.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Marshall follows:]

        Thank you for holding this hearing, Chairwoman Fletcher. I
    want to thank our witnesses for appearing before the
    subcommittee, especially Dr. Jacobs who is in front of the
    Committee for the third time this Congress, and all of you on
    the panel for sharing your perspectives.
        Weather prediction is something that affects the
    constituents of every Member up here. From the fields of Kansas
    to the Outer Banks of North Carolina, anticipating the strength
    and conditions of the next weather event can save lives and
    property.
        I'm proud to say the Science Committee acted decisively
    last Congress by passing the Weather Research and Forecasting
    Innovation Act (the Weather Act) and the National Integrated
    Drought Information System (NIDIS) Reauthorization Act.
        The Weather Act was the first authorizing legislation to
    address weather forecasting in 25 years and prioritized
    improving weather data, modeling, computing, and forecasting.
    I'd like to extend my gratitude to Ranking Member Lucas for
    introducing what is now a law and for his continued leadership
    on this issue.
        The NIDIS Reauthorization Act established the Earth
    Prediction Innovation Center (EPIC), the topic of our hearing
    today. EPIC, when completed, will crowdsource the expertise of
    the private sector and the research communities to improve our
    forecasting models. This aligns with Congress' vision for the
    program by leveraging the weather enterprise to provide
    knowledge and skill on numerical weather prediction.
        The Federal Government should be doing more to utilize the
    resources of private companies and university researchers, who
    are often the leading sources of innovations. In addition to
    having world-class facilities and minds, private companies and
    academics are extremely flexible in research development and
    cost-effective in their methods.
        It is in the best interest of Kansan farmers, ranchers,
    emergency personnel, and every day residents to have more
    accurate forecasts. And EPIC is an important step in the
    improvement of our forecasting ability.
        In 2012, Hurricane Sandy caused nearly $70 billion in
    damage as it made landfall in Cuba and the Northeast coast of
    the United States. This was the catalyzing weather event which
    caused Congress to examine how we could improve weather
    forecasting. We don't know when the next "superstorm" will be,
    but it is my hope that through EPIC, NOAA and the National
    Weather Service will be fully prepared to predict, respond, and
    recovery from the next severe weather event.
        While NOAA has taken the initial steps to implement EPIC,
    we must see a stronger sense of urgency moving forward. Because
    it is designed as a community approach to weather prediction
    and modeling, I look forward to hearing how Dr. Mass and others
    have been involved in implementing this center and getting
    their feedback on how to ensure a successful and timely
    completion.
        Thank you, Madam Chair. I yield back.

        Mr. Casten. If there are Members who wish to submit
    additional opening statements, your statements will be added to
    the record at this point.
        [The prepared statement of Chairwoman Fletcher follows:]

        Good afternoon, and welcome to the Subcommittee on
    Environment's hearing entitled "A Task of EPIC Proportions:
    Reclaiming U.S. Leadership in Weather Modeling and Prediction."
    I would like to thank all of our witnesses for being here today
    to discuss the current state and future of the Earth Prediction
    Innovation Center, or EPIC, and its role in improving U.S.
    weather forecasting capabilities.
        As we've previously discussed in this Subcommittee,
    Americans depend on the data and services provided by the
    National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the
    National Weather Service every day. Much of these data are
    utilized in the weather products offered by private companies,
    such as weather apps on our cell phones or local news
    forecasts. Earlier this Congress, in this Subcommittee's
    hearing on the NOAA Fiscal Year 2020 Proposed Budget, we heard
    from Dr. Jacobs that the U.S. is not currently the global
    leader in weather forecasting. Considering how important
    weather forecasting is to all Americans, this is extremely
    concerning.
        A devastating display of this was in 2012, when the U.S.
    model failed to predict Hurricane Sandy's sharp left turn and
    landfall over the East Coast. The European model got it right,
    demonstrating to the nation that U.S. weather forecasting
    abilities were far behind those of Europe. As we've discussed
    in this Committee, severe storms like Sandy are increasing in
    frequency and intensity due to climate change, making accurate
    forecasts even more critical.
        A major difference between the U.S. and the European
    systems is that in Europe, the entire weather community
    contributes to a single model. In the U.S., the public,
    private, and academic sectors operate in isolation from each
    other, each working on their own weather prediction research
    and contributing to their own models. Even within the federal
    government, multiple agencies work on their own models in an
    uncoordinated way, and resources and expertise are fragmented.
    As a result, the U.S. Air Force abandoned the U.S. global
    weather model in 2015, preferring the United Kingdom's Unified
    Model. It is of the utmost importance that the U.S. weather
    community immediately act to catch up with its European
    counterpart.
        Congress recognized the need to better leverage the skills
    and expertise across the public, private, and academic sectors
    of the U.S. weather community to create a single global model
    that is stronger than any of the individual models. The
    National Integrated Drought Information System Reauthorization
    Act, which was signed into law in January 2019, directed NOAA
    to establish the Earth Prediction Innovation Center, or EPIC.
    EPIC is tasked with creating a collaborative, community-driven
    global weather research modeling system. The system will be
    publicly accessible, allowing those outside of NOAA to access
    and contribute to a community-developed model.
        On top of improvements to global weather prediction, EPIC
    could also serve as a vehicle to improve other, specialized
    modeling systems, such as rainfall and flooding prediction.
    This has implications for places like my district, Texas's 7th
    Congressional District in Houston, that has been experiencing
    increasingly frequent and intense precipitation events in
    recent years. Leveraging the capabilities of the community to
    improve precipitation modeling could provide my constituents,
    and others who live in flood-prone areas, more precise
    information about the timing and intensity of forecasted
    rainfall, thus protecting lives and property. I know all of our
    constituents look to the Weather Service as the national
    authority in issuing life-saving forecasts, watches, and
    warnings. While EPIC is intended to leverage the expertise of
    the non-federal weather community, the provision of official
    watches, warnings, and forecasts should remain with the
    National Weather Service.
        At today's hearing, I look forward to a discussion with our
    distinguished panel of experts from across the U.S. weather
    community about how EPIC will combine each sector's expertise
    to bolster U.S. modeling. Since EPIC is still in its infancy,
    this hearing will provide a timely opportunity to discuss the
    future of its organization, management, and governance and
    examine each sector's vision and short and long-term goals for
    EPIC.
        I cannot overstate the importance of improving U.S.
    modeling and prediction capabilities. EPIC represents what some
    experts in the weather community have called America's last
    chance to get this right and reclaim our leadership in global
    weather prediction. I look forward to today's discussion about
    how EPIC is going to accomplish this.
        Thank you.

        [The prepared statement of Chairwoman Johnson follows:]

        Thank you, Chair Fletcher.
        We have had many discussions this Congress, and Congresses
    in the past, about the importance of accurate and timely
    weather forecasts.
        Weather forecasting is complex and relies on first
    collecting as many observations and data as possible that are
    then assimilated into cutting edge weather models that are
    tested and verified. NOAA, the lead civilian agency for
    operational weather forecasting, participates in all aspects of
    this process, including the development of our weather models.
    Despite being at the forefront of the development of numerical
    weather prediction, the accuracy of U.S. forecasts and
    numerical weather prediction has fallen behind that of other
    countries. But this isn't just a matter of pride; accurate
    weather forecasts save lives and protect property.
        We recently had a devastating tornado touch down in Dallas
    that ripped through densely populated areas of the Metroplex in
    and near my district. Fortunately, there were no deaths or
    severe injuries related to this outbreak, but the tornadoes did
    cause an estimated $2 billion in property damage.
        Timely forecasts, watches, and warnings from the National
    Weather Service were instrumental to keeping Texans safe during
    this tornado outbreak. Thank you to Dr. Jacobs and the
    dedicated employees at NOAA and the National Weather Service
    for their great work in protecting Americans every day.
        As Texans, Chair Fletcher and I are very familiar with
    extreme weather events, as are Ranking Members Lucas and
    Marshall. This Committee held a hearing earlier this year on
    how to improve the understanding and forecasting of extreme
    weather events in a changing climate. Many of the witnesses at
    that hearing shared that leveraging the capabilities and
    resources of our robust weather enterprise through a community
    approach would be critical to addressing extreme weather
    forecasting challenges. NOAA's Earth Prediction Innovation
    Center, or EPIC, has thepotential to support the goal of
    regaining U.S. leadership in global weather forecasting through
    a community driven approach.
        The Weather Research and Forecasting and Innovation Act of
    2017 was a significant step toward improving weather
    forecasting. This was followed by the National Integrated
    Drought Information System, or NIDIS Reauthorization Act of
    2018 that amended the Weather Act and authorized EPIC at NOAA.
        It is vital for Congress to conduct oversight of federal
    programs that we have authorized to ensure they are being
    implemented as Congress intended. Hearings like this are
    important if we are to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars. I
    am looking forward to hearing from a broad group of
    stakeholders from the weather community this afternoon on how
    we can leverage a program like EPIC to achieve a common goal of
    improving our weather forecasts to better protect our
    constituents.Thank you and I yield back.

        [The prepared statement of Mr. Lucas follows:]

        Thank you, Chairwoman Fletcher, for holding today's
    hearing. I've said before that the continued improvement of
    weather forecasting is one of the most important topics in this
    committee's jurisdiction. Accurate forecasting not only helps
    our businesses make strategic plans, but it helps us to protect
    lives and properties during severe weather events. We need an
    accurate and trustworthy system.
        The United States was once the world's leader in numerical
    weather prediction, but we can't credibly make that claim
    today. This was apparent in 2012, when American forecasts
    predicted Hurricane Sandy would weaken over the Atlantic, while
    the European forecast model correctly saw Sandy making
    landfall.
        Congress saw the need for rapid improvement in U.S. weather
    forecasts. In the supplemental appropriations package passed in
    response to Sandy in early 2013, Congress provided more than
    $20 million to NOAA to help improve forecast modeling and
    computing resource needs. While this assistance resulted in
    some improvements to our forecasting abilities, we needed to do
    more.
        This committee passed the Weather Act during the 115th
    Congress, which was signed into law in April 2017. The Weather
    Act, the most significant weather legislation passed by
    Congress in more than 25 years, provided authorities and
    direction for NOAA in its weather research and forecasting
    efforts. One of the most consequential provisions in the bill
    was direction for NOAA to begin purchasing more commercial data
    in creating forecasts. This came in response to a recognized
    need for NOAA to better utilize the knowledge and expertise of
    the private sector and the research community.
        An extension of the Weather Act was signed into law earlier
    this year. Included in this legislation was an authorization of
    the Earth Prediction Innovation Center - known as EPIC. This
    center represents a new way of weather modeling for NOAA by
    utilizing the computing resources and expertise of the academic
    community, private enterprise, and others who want to help the
    U.S. regain leadership. It will also utilize new computing
    resources, a significant reason why the U.S. has lagged in its
    forecasting abilities.
        The authorizing legislation for EPIC became law in January.
    While NOAA has taken initial steps to implement EPIC, progress
    has been slow. We must move forward quickly to implement this
    legislation and begin closing the gap with the Europeans,
    Canadians, and others who have surpassed us. Our panel of
    witnesses will help us identify potential bottlenecks in
    implementing EPIC and what we can do to help the process move
    forward quickly.
        Dr. Neil Jacobs is no stranger to our committee, and I want
    to thank him for again appearing before us today. He has made
    the quick and effective implementation of EPIC a personal
    priority. His education and professional background will be
    invaluable as we continue to improve the accuracy of our
    weather forecasts and I look forward to working with him on
    this effort.
        I again want to thank Chairwoman Fletcher for conducting
    today's hearing and I also want to thank Chairwoman Johnson for
    her shared commitment to helping the U.S. again be the world
    leader in weather forecasting.
        Thank you and I yield back.

        Mr. Casten. At this time I would like to introduce our
    witnesses.
        Our first witness is Dr. Neil Jacobs. He is the Assistant
    Secretary of Commerce for Environmental Observation and
    Prediction, performing the duties of Under Secretary of
    Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere. Prior to joining NOAA, Dr.
    Jacobs was the Chief Atmospheric Scientist at Panasonic
    Avionics Corporation. He was also the Chair of the American
    Meteorological Society's Forecast Improvement Group, and served
    on the World Meteorological Organization's aircraft-based
    observing team. Dr. Jacobs has a master's and doctoral Degree
    in atmospheric science from North Carolina State University.
        Our second witness, Dr. Cliff Mass, is a Professor of
    Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Washington. His
    specialty is numerical weather and climate prediction, and the
    meteorology of the western United States. Previously Dr. Mass
    was a faculty member at the University of Maryland's
    Meteorology Department. Dr. Mass is a Fellow of the American
    Meteorological Society, a member of the Washington State
    Academy of Sciences, and has published over 120 papers. Dr.
    Mass received his Ph.D. in atmospheric sciences from the
    University of Washington. Welcome.
        Our third witness, Dr. Peter Neilley, is an IBM
    Distinguished Engineer, and Director of Weather Forecasting
    Sciences and Technologies for The Weather Company. He
    specializes in developing state-of-the-science technologies in
    weather forecasting for public use and weather-dependent
    markets. Dr. Neilley worked as a scientist at the National
    Center for Atmospheric Research, and the Chief Scientist at
    Weather Services International Corporation. Dr. Neilley
    recently served on NOAA's Science Advisory Board's
    Environmental Information Services Working Group. He was a
    longtime member and Chair of the American Meteorological
    Society's Committee on Weather and Forecasting. Dr. Neilley
    holds a master's degree and a Ph.D. in meteorology from MIT.
    Welcome.
        Our final witness, Dr. Thomas Auligne, thank you, is the
    Director of the Joint Center for Satellite Data Assimilation, a
    research center based on a multi-agency partnership between
    NOAA, NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration), the
    U.S. Navy, and Air Force. He is responsible for the mission to
    accelerate and improve the quantitative use of satellite data
    in weather, ocean, climate, and environmental analysis and
    prediction systems. Dr. Auligne has held research positions at
    the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the European
    Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting, and Meteo-France.
    Dr. Auligne earned a master's in meteorology and a Ph.D. in
    atmospheric physics in France.
        As our witnesses should know, you will each have 5 minutes
    for your spoken testimony. Your written testimony will be
    included in the record for the hearing. When you all have
    completed your spoken testimony, we will begin with questions.
    Each Member will have 5 minutes to question the panel. We will
    start with Dr. Jacobs.

                      TESTIMONY OF DR. NEIL JACOBS,

                  ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF COMMERCE FOR

               ENVIRONMENTAL OBSERVATION AND PREDICTION,

              PERFORMING THE DUTIES OF UNDER SECRETARY OF

                COMMERCE FOR OCEANS AND ATMOSPHERE, NOAA

        Dr. Jacobs. Good afternoon, Chairman Casten, Ranking Member
    Marshall, and Ranking Member Lucas. Thank you for the
    opportunity to testify at this hearing. NOAA is entrusted with
    the responsibility to provide environmental information and
    prediction to the public to enable informed decisions on a
    range of phenomenon spanning a broad spectrum of temporal and
    spatial scales. Part of NOAA's core mission is to protect lives
    and property, and to safeguard the national economy. With such
    an important task, it is imperative that NOAA provide accurate
    and timely weather information. We strive to produce the best
    weather forecast in the world, underpinned by cutting edge
    research, collaborative external partnerships, and thousands of
    dedicated scientists.
        Following Hurricane Sandy, Congress provided supplemental
    funding for NOAA to take the first large step toward increasing
    computing capacity and improving its global forecast models.
    The desire to improve NOAA's weather mission culminated in
    congressional interest, and the passage of the Weather Research
    and Forecasting Innovation Act of 2017. This groundbreaking
    legislation contains a number of important directives for NOAA,
    including focusing transitioning research to operations, sub-
    seasonal and seasonal weather forecast improvement, and
    satellite data innovation. Since coming to NOAA, implementing
    the Weather Act has been my top priority.
        One section in the Weather Act I would like to draw
    attention to is the mandate to make NOAA's numerical weather
    prediction code publicly available. While NOAA complied with
    this directive in spirit, it has been unable to fully implement
    it. The existing version of the code is unique to NOAA
    computers. This means that, while the public would have access
    to the code, without access to NOAA's internal computers, they
    would not be able to actually run the model.
        To solve this problem, NOAA needs a strategy to allow for
    greater accessibility by the public. To achieve this NOAA, will
    need to port its weather model code to commercial cloud, where
    it can be hosted by one or more providers. Making NOAA's model
    code available to the public will allow external world class
    scientists and researchers the opportunity to collaborate on
    new improvements, and this is a new way of thinking. Instead of
    keeping research and development inside of NOAA, the entire
    weather enterprise will be able to work with us to improve our
    modeling system, thereby accelerating advancements to our
    mission of protecting life and property. This strategy is the
    core principle of NOAA's new Earth Prediction Innovation
    Center.
        Building on the tenets of the Weather Act, and recently
    authorized in the National Integrated Drought Information
    System Reauthorization Act of 2018, EPIC will serve as the core
    research to operations to research hub for building and
    maintaining a community modeling framework. EPIC's innovative
    structure will link scientists and software engineers in
    academia, the private sector, and partner agencies with
    research, development, and operational activities inside the
    agency. Doing so will help accelerate model improvements,
    enhancing NOAA's ability to provide accurate warnings of
    weather-based threats, and helping to re-establish the U.S.
    preeminence in numerical weather prediction.
        Once integrated into the infrastructure of NOAA, EPIC will
    be used with the Unified Forecast System to improve the
    forecast skill of NOAA and other modeling initiatives, such as
    climate and ocean models. EPIC's public accessibility through
    highly scalable commercial cloud-based HPC (high-performance
    computing) architecture will enable external research partners
    to develop, test, and provide feedback on the American modeling
    system. Structured as a virtual center, EPIC will also manage
    model evaluation, source code, and user training. Where
    appropriate, NOAA will look to partner with other Federal
    agencies and academia to further this initiative.
        The President's Fiscal Year 2020 budget proposed $15
    million for EPIC. NOAA recognizes that importance of the EPIC
    program and has already started implementing several steps to
    plan for its future. Last month NOAA held an industry day to
    engage outside collaborators, ranging from universities to
    cloud vendors. NOAA has also issued a request for information
    on governance structure of the program itself, and has
    conducted extensive market research with external stakeholders.
    With adequate funding, NOAA looks forward to issuing a request
    for proposals, and moving forward with this critical program.
        Chairman Casten, Ranking Member Marshall, Ranking Member
    Lucas, and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you again for
    inviting me to participate today, and I would be pleased to
    answer any questions you may have.
        [The prepared statement of Dr. Jacobs follows:]

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        Mr. Casten. Thank you. Dr. Mass, you're recognized.

                     TESTIMONY OF DR. CLIFFORD MASS,

                   PROFESSOR OF ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES,

                        UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON

        Dr. Mass. Thank you. Good afternoon, Chairman Casten,
    Ranking Member Marshall, Members of the Subcommittee. My name
    is Cliff Mass, and I am a Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at
    the University of Washington. The U.S. is behind in numerical
    weather prediction, and we are not catching up. NOAA's global
    model is either third or fourth in skill, behind the European
    Center, the U.K. Met Office, and often the Canadian model. The
    U.S. has the leading weather research community in the world,
    and our Nation invests heavily in weather prediction. We should
    be far ahead, consistent with the state of the science, but we
    are not, and our global model is not the only problem. U.S.
    weather prediction trails in other crucial aspects, including
    high-resolution ensembles, and model post-processing.
        In 2012 the Nation became aware of the problem during
    Hurricane Sandy, and Congress responded with additional funds.
    Seven years later objective numbers show that we are not
    catching up, and the cost to the American people of the
    stagnation is huge. State of the science forecasting will save
    lives, greatly aid the U.S. economy, and serve as the first
    line of defense for severe weather. So why is the U.S. failing
    in this crucial arena? The causes are duplication of effort,
    poor organization, and lack of leadership, plus insufficient
    computer resources.
        The enormous weather research resources of the United
    States are spread over too many modeling systems. NOAA has
    three groups working on such models, the Environmental Modeling
    Center, and NOAA's ESRL (Earth System Research Laboratory) and
    GFDL (Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory) labs. NASA and the
    Navy have both developed both global and regional models. The
    Air Force has acquired a foreign modeling system, and the
    National Center for Atmospheric Research, which encompasses the
    academic community, has developed another global modeling
    system, in addition to the well-known WRF (Weather Research and
    Forecasting) model.
        The U.S. research community has mainly worked with NCAR's
    (National Center for Atmospheric Research's) weather models,
    and NOAA has used its own. They are not generally working
    together, and thus NOAA has been cut off from the innovations
    and energy of the U.S. academic community. Such a division of
    effort has undermined U.S. weather prediction, resulting in a
    large number of subcritical, inferior efforts. But there's
    more. NOAA has been starved for computer resources, crippling
    research and testing, and blocking the operational application
    of promising approaches. My analysis, supported by colleagues
    at NOAA, is that the National Weather Service could effectively
    use 100 times its current computer allocation.
        All of these problems can be turned around quickly if our
    Nation reorganizes how we develop, test, and run numerical
    weather prediction models. And the key to it all is bringing
    resources and personnel together in one national effort. EPIC
    can be a big part of the solution. EPIC must become the center
    of U.S. model development and testing, and resources should be
    concentrated there. It must be a physical center located
    outside of NOAA, and serve all agencies and groups in the
    Nation.
        EPIC needs resources, independence, autonomy, stability,
    and, most importantly, responsibility to deliver the best
    modeling system in the world. It must be an exciting center of
    discovery, science, and technology that will attract the best
    scientists, and our best students. EPIC needs sufficient
    computer resources for development and testing. It must entrain
    the efforts and capabilities of the U.S. research community,
    most importantly that of the National Center for Atmospheric
    Research. Finally, EPIC must develop and support a national
    community model that is freely available to the Nation. EPIC
    can easily fail if it is not given primary responsibility and
    resources to create the best weather prediction system in the
    world. It will fail if its goals are too narrow, or designated
    to serve a single agency.
        Our nation was the first in numerical weather prediction,
    but we threw away leadership by dividing our efforts. It is
    time, through EPIC, to combine the national resources, and
    rationalize how we develop forecast models with extraordinary
    benefits to the American people. Thank you very much.
        [The prepared statement of Dr. Mass follows:]

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        Mr. Casten. Dr. Neilley, you are recognized for 5 minutes.

                   TESTIMONY OF DR. PETER P. NEILLEY,

               IBM DISTINGUISHED ENGINEER AND DIRECTOR OF

             WEATHER FORECASTING SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGIES,

                  THE WEATHER COMPANY, AN IBM BUSINESS

        Dr. Neilley. Thank you, Chairman Casten, and Ranking Member
    Marshall, and Ranking Member Lucas, and all Members of the
    Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to address the
    Subcommittee today. My name's Peter Neilley, and I am the
    Director of Weather Forecasting Sciences and Technologies at
    the Weather Company, part of IBM. I oversee a team of
    scientists and engineers that develop a broad suite of
    technologies that are used to create and distribute weather
    forecast products and services for both the U.S. and the rest
    of the world. The U.S. is fortunate to have the most vibrant
    weather enterprise anywhere in the world, with deep
    partnerships between Federal, academic, and private sectors
    creating the delivery services for the Nation. The Weather
    Company and IBM are proud to be active contributing members to
    that weather enterprise.
        Numerical weather prediction, or NWP, is the foundational
    technology used to create nearly all weather forecasts today.
    At The Weather Company we employ many of our own numerical
    weather prediction models, but are also heavily dependent on
    the forecasts from numerical weather prediction models by NOAA
    and others. Because of that dependency, The Weather Company has
    deep interest in the quality of numerical weather prediction
    forecasts produced by NOAA. Accordingly, I actively participate
    in numerous advisory boards, committees that discuss and make
    recommendations on means of improving numerical weather
    prediction capabilities for the Nation, including the Earth
    Prediction Innovation Center. The community workshop for the
    Earth Prediction Innovation Center held this past summer
    gathered nearly 300 stakeholders from inside and outside of the
    Federal Government to inform NOAA and the community on early
    ideas for implementing EPIC, and a summary report of those
    findings, I believe, was released just yesterday by NOAA.
        The U.S. has a rich history in developing and operating
    numerical weather prediction systems that date back to the
    1950s. Today numerical weather prediction capabilities are
    developed and deployed in numerous places, including NOAA, the
    Department of Defense, the Department of Energy, NASA, at
    National Science Foundation-funded institutions, academic
    organizations, and the private sector. Each corner of this
    numerical weather prediction community has created modeling
    capabilities tailored to the mission of each one of those
    individual institutions. Unfortunately, there is no overarching
    national strategy guiding the organization interaction of these
    activities, which has led to less than optimum efficacy in any
    one of them.
        Further, there is no obvious existing place within the
    enterprise where such a strategy might be formulated and
    executed. As a result, there is a very broad set of NWP
    capabilities across the Nation. Some of them good, but few of
    them as good as they could be. In fact, when compared to models
    developed by international counterparts in Europe and the U.K.,
    our global numerical weather prediction systems from NOAA and
    other members of our national enterprise are materially less
    accurate, and have been for decades. As a result, our Nation is
    significantly less prepared, and less resilient to the adverse
    impacts of weather and climate than we could be.
        Today I wish to convey four key points to the Subcommittee.
    First, under the leadership of Acting Administrator Jacobs, and
    his vision for EPIC, we have before us a generational
    opportunity to address the shortcomings of our Nation's NWP
    capabilities, and elevate them to the world's best.
        Second, EPIC, as proposed by Dr. Jacobs, envisions the
    creation of a state-of-the-science institution for the
    community, and by the community, where the numerical weather
    enterprise collaboratively works together using a common
    framework of tools and technologies. This would enable the most
    effective, and efficient, development of advanced numerical
    weather prediction capabilities in support of both NOAA, and
    all the other numerical weather prediction stakeholders across
    the Nation.
        Third, to execute this vision, NOAA must construct EPIC as
    a semi-autonomous and externally managed national institution
    that will establish, catalyze, organize, and manage a large and
    diverse scientific and technical community collaboratively
    working toward the betterment of NWP. NOAA would be a major
    constituent in the EPIC community, participating in both its
    government and scientific endeavors, but would only be one of
    the many stakeholders drawing value from its accomplishments.
        Finally, in order to achieve this vision, numerical weather
    prediction stakeholders across the Federal Government must
    embrace and actively participate in EPIC. As outlined in my
    written testimony, I think Congress plays an important role in
    fostering and incentivizing such participation, as well as
    helping to ensure the long-term success of EPIC. Thank you for
    the opportunity to address the Subcommittee today, and I also
    look forward to your questions.
        [The prepared statement of Dr. Neilley follows:]

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        Mr. Casten. Dr. Auligne, you are recognized for 5 minutes.

                    TESTIMONY OF DR. THOMAS AULIGNE,

            DIRECTOR OF THE JOINT CENTER FOR SATELLITE DATA

     ASSIMILATION, UNIVERSITY CORPORATION FOR ATMOSPHERIC RESEARCH
                                 (UCAR)

        Dr. Auligne. Good afternoon, Chairman Casten, Ranking
    Member Marshall, Ranking Member Lucas, and Members of the
    Subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I
    am Dr. Thomas Auligne, Director of the Joint Center for
    Satellite Data Assimilation at the University Corporation for
    Atmospheric Research. As a trained meteorologist, I care deeply
    about improving the quality of our weather models, which help
    build a weather-ready nation, and save lives and property. My
    experience in academia and operational centers gives me a
    unique perspective on the so-called valley of death separating
    research and operations.
        For more than 30 years, weather prediction in the United
    States has been trailing behind other international centers,
    most notably the European Center. Previous actions and
    additional funding have failed in regaining U.S. leadership.
    This leads me to propose a disruptive vision for EPIC,
    reconsidering organizational roles, governance, and funding
    models. My view is that only with radical change is it
    realistic to expect radical improvement.
        Drawing from my previous experience at the European Center,
    I have concluded that the secret sauce fueling their success
    story has the following ingredients: Focus, innovation,
    excellence, and accountability. While the U.S. weather
    enterprise is often described as the uncoordinated giant,
    plagued by fragmentation of resources, the Europeans rally
    behind the strength of a common goal. The success of EPIC lies
    in a clear, non-overlapping mission, with clear responsibility
    and accountability.
        EPIC should launch a focused effort with one goal, develop
    the best weather prediction system for the Nation. Success
    should be directly measured, and EPIC's director should be held
    accountable. We need a center of excellence, attracting the
    best talents that can drive the Center's goals, guide the
    community, and work toward operational requirements. This dream
    team will be supported by lean decisionmaking, efficiency-
    driven operations, and strategic allocations of resources. On
    this aspect, we need massive investment in high-performance
    computing, leveraging the elasticity of the cloud.
        EPIC should provide a collaborative environment, where
    scientists from the government, academia, and the private
    sector can gather to conduct innovative code development, and
    explore high-risk, high-reward research. This requires building
    a research model accessible by the entire community, and paired
    with an effective process to transfer research to operations.
        As EPIC focuses on encouraging and incorporating innovative
    science, it should also utilize an innovative business model. I
    am convinced that EPIC can draw from the success of the Joint
    Center for Satellite Data Assimilation. Its distributed
    structure, following a hub and spokes approach, increases the
    government's ability to engage world class scientists and
    engineers. Its agile team, at the intersection of multiple
    Federal agencies, is reinventing collaboration, and exploring
    innovative pathways. In fact, the Joint Center is already
    applying the European secret sauce to better assimilate
    observations to initialize model forecasts. This major science
    problem is the highest priority for EPIC.
        I dream of EPIC as an agile center, where scientists can
    focus on science, red tape is reduced to a minimum,
    decisionmaking is streamlined, and community collaboration is
    entirely result-driven. The implementation of EPIC should be
    delegated to a single trusted partner that has strong
    connections to the community and the government, building a
    bridge across the valley of death.
        In conclusion, EPIC represents a unique opportunity. We
    have one shot to get it right, and business as usual is not an
    option. We need to reinvent the way we transition weather
    research to operations. The breadth and depth of the U.S.
    research community is second to none. EPIC can use is ingenuity
    to reach, and even surpass, forecast improvement goals, and
    collectively reclaim American leadership in weather modeling
    and prediction.
        Thank you for your attention. I look forward to answering
    any question you have.
        [The prepared statement of Dr. Auligne follows:]

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Mr. Casten. Thank you. At this point we will begin our
    first round of questions. The Chair will recognize himself for
    5 minutes.
        I want to start by thanking you, Dr. Jacobs, for a really
    productive meeting we had in my office last week on NOAA, and
    the future of weather forecasting, the role of science, the
    Enlightenment. We had a wide-ranging conversation, I appreciate
    it. And I really just want to emphasize again how much I
    appreciate you taking the time, as we discuss in greater depth
    today the EPIC program, and the future of U.S. weather
    modeling. And I also want to make sure that we keep in mind the
    great work of the National Weather Service forecasters, and
    their efforts to ensure that communities receive timely and
    accurate forecasts of major weather events 24/7/365.
        To that end, Dr. Jacobs, I will again echo my concerns
    about NOAA's FY20 budget request to eliminate 110 full-time
    equivalents, and I just want to reiterate the ask I made in our
    meeting, and my subsequent letter, which I will use my power as
    Chair, with unanimous consent, to enter into the record. I just
    would ask that you follow up with the Committee on the issues
    raised in that letter. Thank you.
        Dr. Jacobs, in your testimony you discussed how, once
    integrated into the infrastructure of NOAA, that EPIC will be
    used within the Unified Forecast System to improve the forecast
    skill of NOAA's other modeling initiatives, including climate
    and ocean models, which, as a scientist myself, I geek out on
    how that would all work, and the idea of actually having a
    model that can both research and model many types of events,
    hydrological changes, sea level rise, fisheries, and harmful
    red tide. Can you help us understand, what is your timeline
    under which EPIC can improve these other economically and
    ecologically important forecasts, and especially with tying in
    near-term weather to crucial longer-term climate models?
        Dr. Jacobs. Sure. Thank you very much for the question.
    Very much appreciate the time we spent together, and appreciate
    your interest in NOAA and numerical weather prediction. The
    Unified Forecasting System is a way to sort of streamline our
    production suite. Inside of the National Center for
    Environmental Prediction, we run a lot of different models,
    from high-resolution short-range convection, to dynamic climate
    models, medium-range models, and then we have wave models,
    ocean models, hydrological, biological, ecological models.
    We're trying to get all of these in a unified system, and this
    sort of hinges on the NCAR/NOAA MOA (memorandum of agreement),
    where we were looking at a common code base, and a common
    infrastructure. The Finite Volume Cubed Sphere, FV3, dynamic
    core was actually written as a dynamic climate model, but we
    realized we could actually use it at high resolutions as a
    weather model. What's appealing to me here is when we can unify
    a lot of the code architecture, then we eliminate a lot of
    these redundant kind of parallel development programs, and have
    the same amount of people all focused on a unified forecasting
    system.
        The timeline is essentially--we really wanted to focus on
    the global model first because the global model provides the
    boundary conditions for all of the other models. In other
    words, if you're interested in looking at a forecast for
    harmful algal bloom, we have biological models for that, but
    those models depend on a hydrological model, which models how
    there's runoff, and, of course, that depends on the weather
    model, which forecasts precipitation. So the first sort of
    foundation of this is implementing the global model, and then
    all of the other models that use that for initialization will
    then be implemented.
        Mr. Casten. And, I'm sorry, just because I'm tight on time,
    and I want to get one more question in, any ballpark on
    schedule, or is it too soon to say?
        Dr. Jacobs. Well, we're already pretty far down the road in
    developing the Unified Forecast System. We're expecting--we've
    been--we've actually just had a public release of the
    seasonal--the sub-seasonal version of the code. It's on GitHub
    now, but it's supported yet for the community, so we're really
    trying to work on the model support for that. These upgrades
    will be coming out on GitHub as I speak. We're hoping to get
    the RFP (request for proposals) for EPIC out early next year.
        Mr. Casten. OK. Dr. Mass, with the little time I have left,
    I want to raise with you a conversation I had with Dr. Jacobs,
    given your numerical modeling background. I sit on the AI
    (artificial intelligence) Task Force on Financial Services, and
    we have this continuing conversation around--in a world of
    machine learning and AI, there's this tradeoff between
    precision and accuracy and transparency of algorithms. As we
    build out more and more sophisticated weather models, given
    your background in modeling, do you see tradeoffs coming in the
    weather forecast model as we get more precision with machine
    learning, but potentially start to separate from the
    fundamentals in the models that we've relief on that have some
    level of physical understanding? And is there anything that we
    should be concerned about as a Committee if that break happens?
        Dr. Mass. I don't know if concern is the right word, but I
    think the marriage of AI with modeling is very powerful. AI
    is--and machine learning's very powerful for quality control,
    but just as importantly for post-processing and model output,
    so you need both. You need the dynamical models, but you need
    machine learning on both sides, so--together they're much more
    powerful.
        Mr. Casten. OK. And I see I am out of time, so I now
    recognize Ranking Member Marshall for 5 minutes, who we have
    missed--Mr. Lucas, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
        Mr. Lucas. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the
    opportunity, and, Dr. Jacobs, you've been before the panels
    enough times to know that occasionally we ask about the same
    thing, we just come at it from slightly different angles. And,
    with that in mind and in spirit, I'd like to note that I am
    concerned that NOAA may be approaching EPIC implementation as
    something of a software issue, or the agency views the biggest
    challenge to improving weather forecasting is simply improving
    existing software. What assurance can you give the Committee
    that NOAA's engaging the academic community and the private
    sector to ensure that this is truly a community-based weather
    prediction model?
        Dr. Jacobs. Well, the primary assurance I can give you is
    that it'll have to exist outside of NOAA, and having the
    involvement of industry and academia is essential. This will
    all be built into the request for proposals. We had a big
    meeting in August. We just released the report of that meeting
    yesterday, and we had a lot of stakeholders from all the
    sectors involved and contributing, so the whole point and
    design of this is to--is a stakeholder-run program, with an
    operational outcome that NOAA should benefit from.
        Mr. Lucas. And along that line, Doc, I'm a Member of a body
    where there seems to be an ever-increasing turnover, so when I
    ask this, I ask this in the politest of terms. What assurance
    can you give the Committee that EPIC will continue past your
    tenure at NOAA?
        Dr. Jacobs. Well, once the RFP--once----
        Mr. Lucas. And I'm not predicting the length of anyone's
    tenure. I'm just asking about continuality.
        Dr. Jacobs. No, this was a top priority for me, and making
    sure this lives past my tenure is extremely important, and
    that's another reason why having it, you know, externally
    managed would ensure that if it's inside of NOAA, then NOAA,
    you know, has complete and total direction. If it's external,
    even if--I mean, I expect that NOAA will have a seat at the
    table in guiding what it does, but largely driven by external
    stakeholders will ensure that, even if I'm not at NOAA anymore,
    it will still be successful.
        Mr. Lucas. And along that line, if you could expand a
    little bit on your current acquisition strategy, and the
    timeline that we're very concerned about here about
    implementing EPIC?
        Dr. Jacobs. So there's the RFP, which we expect to go out
    early next year, first month or two, and then an additional--so
    there's two sort of acquisition strategies we're concerned
    about. One of them is where does EPIC live? We'll learn that
    when the award goes out. Then there's the acquisition of cloud-
    based compute resources. This is a little bit trickier. So we
    have a need to procure cloud-based resources, but right now,
    with the Federal acquisition regulations, it's very complicated
    for us to try to figure out how to buy cloud compute on a
    demand that fluctuates. It's not just like buying a rack of
    servers.
        Mr. Lucas. And as an elected official, I would be remiss if
    I didn't ask how universities, such as The University of
    Oklahoma, would have a chance to participate in EPIC?
        Dr. Jacobs. Well, my hope----
        Mr. Lucas. They're are homegrown questions, you know,
    wherever we come from.
        Dr. Jacobs. I, you know, so obviously their expertise is
    largely in convective weather forecasting, and there's a
    component of this that will deal with that weather forecasting.
    I would hope that they would be both contributing model
    improvements, as well as benefiting from some model
    improvements, as well as the Mesonet Program, and all of the
    different observing systems. We'll be able to test those in
    this open cloud-based architecture, which I think will benefit
    not just the forecasting, but the observation systems going
    into the models.
        Mr. Lucas. And one more time, touch on what you would
    define as the milestones that will reflect our progress toward
    closing the gap with the Europeans?
        Dr. Jacobs. So the first initial milestones of success
    would just be how many external stakeholders are using the
    code, so we would want to monitor how many downloads, what's
    the user interest? And after that we would, you know, we would
    hope that we would start to see contributions and improvements
    coming back, but the initial steps are just getting the
    external stakeholders engaged in the program.
        Mr. Lucas. And, Dr. Mass, you're not exempt from these kind
    of questions either. I ask this, and I think I know the answer,
    but I'm going to ask, does the broader weather research
    community support EPIC?
        Dr. Mass. I think the answer's clearly yes, but we want
    EPIC to be something that does serve the entire community.
    That's crucial.
        Mr. Lucas. Thank you, Doctor, and with that I yield back,
    Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Crist [presiding]. Great. Thank you very much. Thank
    you to the witnesses for being here today. We all appreciate
    your attendance.
        The ability to forecast hurricane tracks has greatly
    improved since the 1960s. Forecasting hurricane intensity has
    also improved, but less so than the track forecasts. In fact,
    in 2017 Congressional Research Service reported on forecasting
    hurricanes and found that the biggest challenge facing the
    National Hurricane Center is how to improve the ability to
    predict hurricane intensity. Being able to better predict how
    strong a hurricane will become, as well as when and where it
    will peak in intensity, is key for the district I represent
    along the west coast of Florida, which, as you know, is
    incredibly vulnerable to hurricanes year in and year out.
        So, Dr. Jacobs, given how costly hurricanes are to the
    United States, and in particular to Florida, how will EPIC
    improve hurricane intensity prediction, if it will?
        Dr. Jacobs. My expectation is that it will. The focus
    primarily for hurricane intensity is largely centered around
    two things: Two-way coupled modeling, with an emphasis on sea
    surface temperature, because that's essentially the fuel; and
    the physics in the model. So there's a deficiency in the model
    physics that needs a lot of research and improvement. EPIC will
    essentially be the external sandbox where stakeholders can test
    their improvements to both the physics, as well as the two-way
    coupling of the models, and then, additionally, new
    observations, new observing systems.
        So there's a lot of new observing systems coming online,
    not necessarily NOAA assets, but industry assets, and even
    academic devices, that we don't have the internal bandwidth to
    test the impact of those obs in our system, but we can test the
    impact of those observing systems in the proposed EPIC sandbox.
        Mr. Crist. Great. Would any of the other witnesses care to
    comment on how EPIC will improve hurricane prediction? Dr.
    Neilley?
        Dr. Neilley. Thank you, Mr. Crist. I think one of the
    critical ways in which EPIC can improve hurricane forecasting
    is by marriage of the Unified Forecast System with next-
    generation data assimilation techniques, particularly the types
    of technologies that are being developed in Dr. Auligne's
    group. There has been numerous scientific evidence that data
    assimilation, taking the observations that Acting Administrator
    Jacobs mentioned, and using them to initialize the model, can
    be one of the most important aspects of getting the hurricane
    forecast right. EPIC, if crafted correctly, is the cauldron in
    which entices all of these scientific capabilities to come
    together and be married to improve our weather forecasting
    capabilities.
        Mr. Crist. Great. Thank you very much. Any others? Yes.
        Dr. Auligne. Let me tag along to this response. So there's
    multiple evidence showing that, if we're looking at the quality
    of the forecasting, the skill of the initial conditions and the
    actual model are equally important, and data assimilation is
    handling the initial conditions for the model, so we're
    actually blending together observation and previous model
    forecasts to actually optimize these initial conditions, which
    due to the chaotic nature of the atmosphere, are propagating
    and amplifying in the forecasts, so it's actually a critical
    component of forecast accuracy.
        Mr. Crist. Great, thank you. I wanted to ask--I'm running
    out of time. I wanted to ask one additional question, if I
    might. In addition to weather forecasting, NOAA's also
    responsible for researching and modeling other types of
    environmental concerns, such as red tide and algae bloom,
    which, as you know, is of great interest in the Sunshine State.
    Dr. Jacobs, can you discuss how EPIC will help improve
    forecasting for red tide and other harmful algae blooms?
        Dr. Jacobs. So, as I was explaining earlier, a lot of these
    harmful algal bloom models depend on the atmospheric model
    forecast of precipitation and runoff to determine when there'll
    be triggers. Ultimately we are going to put in all of these
    secondary downstream models, so to speak, into the EPIC
    program. In conjunction with this, if we have an external
    repository for the modeling system, as well as the code that
    we're running on the cloud, we need to have an archive and
    repository for observations, and so building our observation
    system in the cloud is going to be essential both for
    initializing and verifying the models. And that's largely what
    NOAA's Big Data Project is focused on.
        Mr. Crist. Thank you very much, Dr. Jacobs. I would now
    like to recognize the Chair, Madam Fletcher.
        Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you, Mr. Crist, for sitting in
    the Chair. I believe my first order of business will be to
    recognize Mr. Murphy for 5 minutes.
        Mr. Murphy. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, gentlemen,
    for coming this afternoon. My area of expertise for the weather
    is looking up and seeing whether I need an umbrella or not, so
    thank you for giving me a heads up on that. Just one actually
    really kind of rudimentary question. Can someone just explain
    to me, in terms that I might understand, the difference between
    the European models and the American models? In other words,
    when I look at hurricanes, I live in eastern North Carolina, so
    we love to do the hurricane watch, and we see the American
    model is doing one thing, and then the European model is doing
    another thing. What's the fundamental difference between those
    two models?
        Dr. Jacobs. So I'm going to try to answer this real fast,
    and then hand it over to the rest of the panel, but the primary
    fundamental difference is how the European center does data
    assimilation, and that's basically how they generate the
    initial conditions in the model. They use a true what we call
    four dimensional variational data assimilation, and right now
    the NOAA modeling system uses a four dimensional ensemble
    variational assimilation, but it's not a--they don't truly vary
    time as the fourth dimension.
        Mr. Murphy. Is he being truthful?
        Dr. Auligne. Yes. So the principles--the fundamental
    equations are the same. The way that these models are
    implemented are quite different, like two car models can be
    quite different, although the principle of the car is the same.
    So, in terms of data assimilation, there's definitely a lot of
    emphasis in Europe on the algorithms, and the use of additional
    instruments, and more data, so that translates into actually
    additional forecast skills.
        Mr. Murphy. All right. Thank you. One other question. In
    medicine, we look forward to every new advancement, and what
    things are going to happen. But I will ask this question, and
    this is, you know, an honest, hard question. What is going to
    be our ROI (return on investment) on this? In other words,
    where are we now, stagnant now, and then if EPIC is fully
    instituted, how much more advanced do we truly, honestly,
    expect to be? In other words, what can we gain from this in
    implementing this system? Yes, sir, Dr. Mass?
        Dr. Mass. Well, there's no reason to think the European
    Center is as good as we can be. American research capabilities
    far exceed that of Europe as an aggregate, so our skill can be
    better than that. I think we could catch up within years if we
    just got the data assimilation right, and then, over a longer
    period of time, improve physics. I think we could be ahead of
    them in 3 to 4 years if we really put the energies into it.
        Mr. Murphy. All right. Just a follow-up question, because
    I'm a function over form kind of guy, when we have hurricanes
    coming toward the east coast, everybody acts the same. They buy
    their water, they get their bread. How is this going to make it
    any different? Again, I'm just looking, you know, I believe in
    research, I believe in the advancement of knowledge by all
    means, but how is it going to change the lives of the average
    American, say on the east coast, with hurricanes?
        Dr. Neilley. All people make decisions in all types of
    weather events, whether or not it's a hurricane, or a more
    mundane thunderstorm in the afternoon. Anytime you can make
    better decisions because you have better information, you're
    better off. There are estimates that the national economy is on
    the order of a trillion dollars dependent on weather, and by
    incrementally improving our weather forecast, if we can make
    that dependency down by, say, just 1 percent, that alone is a
    $10-billion payoff for our economy. I think that's the ROI that
    you asked for.
        Mr. Murphy. All right. Thank you. Chairwoman, I yield back
    my time.
        Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you very much. I will now yield
    myself 5 minutes for questions, and I apologize for just
    arriving, as I believe my colleague Mr. Babin did. We were
    voting in another Committee. But I'm really glad to be here to
    see all of you, and I appreciated your written testimony. I'm
    sorry I missed your initial comments, but I do have a couple of
    questions that I think haven't been covered yet.
        It's clear, from the written testimony, the recommendations
    from the Environmental Information Services Working Group, that
    a strong, accountable, and vision-oriented leadership and
    management is needed to ensure EPIC's success. To my
    understanding, there isn't a clear plan for that leadership, or
    management, or governance at this point, and so I want to ask
    all of you, what are your thoughts about who should lead EPIC
    and how it should be structured? And, Dr. Jacobs, I'd like to
    start with you.
        Dr. Jacobs. So I'm going to answer this question at a very
    high level, because, really, the point of EPIC is to have it
    governed by the weather enterprising community, so I'd be
    interested to hear what the weather enterprising community had
    to say. The request for proposals is going to have some
    guardrails, but part of what we're going to be asking in the
    RFP is also proposal of a governance structure. You know, NOAA
    obviously has to be involved, but we want involvement from
    private sector and academia.
        And ultimately EPIC may end up, you know, it could be, you
    know, end up at a university, it could end up at UCAR
    (University Corporation for Atmospheric Research), it could end
    up in industry, it could end up in some kind of combination of
    all of the above. The only things that I really would like are
    that its' got to be external to NOAA, NOAA's got to have a seat
    at the table, it's got to have an operational outcome for NOAA
    forecasting products in mind, and, other than that, a lot of
    the governance is going to be part of the proposal of wherever
    it ends up.
        Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you, Dr. Jacobs. Dr. Mass?
        Dr. Mass. Well, this is going to be a community modeling
    system, so the community needs to be there. There needs to be
    at least an advisory committee that's in place. There needs to
    be some kind of group that encompasses all the people that are
    putting money into it, so that'll be there. But there needs to
    be leadership. One person has to be responsible. There has to
    be a leader, a director of EPIC, somebody who's responsible,
    and if it doesn't work out, heads will roll, that person. So
    you need responsibility, one point of responsibility.
        Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you. Dr. Neilley?
        Dr. Neilley. Thank you. I think the most critical
    characteristic of a successful EPIC is the breadth of the
    science and diversity of science that takes place in it. In
    order to achieve that, EPIC has to be crafted in a way that the
    scientific community is enticed to participate, and is not sort
    of mandated or directed to participate. It is the place to go
    to conduct numerical weather prediction science in the world,
    and, as such, it will create, therefore, the best numerical
    weather prediction science, and come back to benefit NOAA and
    others.
        Who should lead EPIC is the institution that is best able
    to create that enticing institution that scientists want to go
    to, and that's who should lead them.
        Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you, Dr. Neilley. Dr. Auligne?
        Dr. Auligne. So I think that one of the main risks for EPIC
    is fragmentation. We want, first, to make sure we have a clear
    focus, and clear--as Dr. Mass was saying, clear accountability.
    We need to make sure we can define and measure success, and can
    have somebody accountable for it. Then we need to have these
    clear connections with the community, and clear connection with
    the government as well. So it can't be completely inside the
    government, because we're not trying to replace NOAA. We're not
    trying to replace the research and the R&D (research and
    development) in NOAA. We're trying to supplement, and really
    help the government with more agility, and more connection to
    the community. So that's basically what I think is required for
    the institution that would lead it.
        Chairwoman Fletcher. OK, thank you. And I want to follow
    up, Dr. Mass, on your comment about leadership, there needs to
    be clear leadership. Do you have ideas, or a vision, or a
    thought, of what that leadership should look like, not a
    specific person, obviously, but when we talk about what is the
    structure, and I'm going to circle back to Dr. Jacobs in a
    second, but what does that look like to you, or what should it
    look like, in terms of that leadership?
        Dr. Mass. Well, we can see that. We can see our
    competition, the European Center. They do have a leader, a
    scientific leader, that oversees the whole program. That's the
    responsible person. But they do have an advisory board that's
    there as well that represents all the various countries that
    are involved, and they have scientific advisory committees. So
    they give us somewhat of a pattern of what we could follow
    that's been highly successful.
        Chairwoman Fletcher. OK. Thank you. And, Dr. Jacobs, you
    mentioned in your testimony about the RFP, so I just wanted to
    get a follow up on that as well to know your thoughts about
    sort of a dedicated staff and leadership team, and if that is
    something planned, and if so, when it will be announced?
        Dr. Jacobs. So that's largely going to come out of the
    responses from the RFP, wherever the award goes, but, to Dr.
    Mass' point, I think we'll probably end up finding a--where we
    have some type of board, and then a single-point person who has
    autonomy, accountability, and control over the budget. Some of
    the things that I've seen have failed in the past were run by
    individuals who had complete autonomy, and no budget authority,
    so they couldn't actually execute great decisions.
        Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you, that's helpful. I have
    managed to go over my time already, so I'm going to yield back,
    and I'm going to recognize Dr. Babin for 5 minutes. Thank you
    very much.
        Mr. Babin. Thank you, Madam Chair, appreciate it, and
    appreciate all of you expert witnesses for being here. Dr.
    Jacobs, as you know, the 36th District of Texas, over in the
    southeast portion, was hit especially hard by Hurricane Harvey
    in 2017. Additionally, Tropical Storm Imelda dumped a record
    amount of rainfall in my district just a few months ago, in
    September. This storm came out of nowhere, with a severity that
    surprised everyone, and left most of my constituents without
    time to prepare for it.
        Let's jump ahead, hypothetically, just a few years into the
    future, where EPIC has been successfully implemented, and is
    operating. Can you walk us through the processes of a fully
    functioning EPIC as the storm approaches, and how the days
    leading up to, and immediately following a storm like Harvey or
    Imelda, and how that would be different?
        Dr. Jacobs. Sure. Thank you very much for the question.
        Mr. Babin. Yes, sir.
        Dr. Jacobs. So the fully successful EPIC will happen,
    pardon the pun here, but way upstream from these precipitation
    events. So what would happen is--when you look at the National
    Water Center, which is a fantastic center, they've got the
    National Water Model, it's, you know, it's a very successful
    program, but if there is one weak link in the National Water
    Model, it's that we have to forecast properly where the rain's
    going to fall, otherwise we don't know where the runoff is
    going to go.
        And so having EPIC be the center where we actually feed in
    inputs to improve the forecast of prediction of rain will then
    subsequently improve the prediction in the hydrological models.
    So a lot of this will happen months to years in advance, but
    you will see the improvements of those actual forecasts find
    their way down into, you know, things like, you know, not just
    hydrological models, but also biological and ecological models
    as well.
        Mr. Babin. Sure. OK. And I also serve as the Ranking Member
    of the Space Subcommittee here, with the privilege of
    representing Johnson Space Center. I know the impacts that one
    government facility can have on an entire region. As it stands,
    EPIC will be a virtual center that will have tremendous
    benefits by operating in the cloud, both in terms of cost and
    innovation. Again, looking ahead to years down the road, when
    EPIC will be running smoothly, and surely will be the gold
    standard at that time, is there a scenario where a physical
    center, rather than a virtual center, could be beneficial to
    EPIC's mission?
        Dr. Jacobs. Absolutely. Thank you for allowing me to
    clarify this. I have often referred to EPIC as a virtual center
    because EPIC, when it's listed in the budget proposal, was--as
    $15 million, and I didn't want anyone in the budgeting process
    to think I was planning to actually build a brick and mortar
    center for only $15 million. So, when we put out the RFP, EPIC
    will have to live somewhere. There will have to be people in
    seats, at computers, in some type of facility, whether it's a
    university or other, you know, other facility, there will have
    to be a physical center. In addition to that, if we have the
    opportunity to expand this program, it's entirely probable that
    we, you know, we would need an additional physical center for
    this somewhere.
        Mr. Babin. Right. Yes, sir. Dr. Mass?
        Dr. Mass. Well, even if we're very successful creating the
    best weather prediction system in the world, we're still going
    to need the computers. So if we don't have vastly increased
    computer resources, we're not going to be able to deliver the
    forecasts that we really want to. That's really important.
        Mr. Babin. I understand. Thank you. Well said. You know,
    I'll yield back, Madam Chair. Thank you very much.
        Chairwoman Fletcher. Thank you, Mr. Babin, and thank you to
    all of our witnesses. I know we just rushed in, and
    unfortunately, we have to go back and vote in our other
    Committee. I'm sorry to say, but since we have all come and
    gone from the hearing, I really appreciate all of you coming
    in, testifying, sharing your thoughts. I think this is really
    exciting to see what's happening, and I'm grateful for all of
    you participating today.
        Before we bring the hearing to a close, I also want to
    mention that the record will remain open for 2 weeks for
    additional statements from Members, and any additional
    questions that the Committee Members may have for the
    witnesses. But, for now, the witnesses are excused, and the
    hearing is now adjourned.
        [Whereupon, at 2:57 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]

                                   Appendix I

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                       Answers to Post-Hearing Questions

                       Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
    Responses by Dr. Neil Jacobs

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    Responses by Dr. Cliff Mass

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    Responses by Dr. Peter P. Neilley

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    Responses by Dr. Thomas Auligne

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                                  Appendix II

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                       Additional Material for the Record

                 Letter submitted by Representative Sean Casten

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