Not Our Parents’ NOAA: Preparing a Climate-Ready Nation

By Dr. Rick Spinrad
Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and NOAA Administrator

As we finish 2023 here at NOAA, I can say: This is not your parents’ NOAA. We’ve upped our game, and the reasons for this are clear: Climate change is affecting every community in our country, making NOAA’s climate, weather, ocean and fisheries services in higher demand than ever. Here’s the evidence: We saw record-high air temperatures causing unprecedented land and ocean heat waves, increased flooding, and a series of damaging hurricanes. In the 1980s, our nation averaged one weather- and climate-related billion-dollar disaster, adjusted for inflation, every four months: Now we see one every three weeks.

Here’s what we’re doing about it: NOAA received an additional $6.3 billion, the largest new investment in our history, to accelerate NOAA’s mission to help communities build resilience to climate change. With this funding provided over five years through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) and Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), NOAA is investing in high-impact projects that build resilience to coastal hazards, such as sea level rise and extreme weather events, and reduce pollution and marine debris; restore coastal habitats that help wildlife and humans thrive; build the capacity of underserved communities to support community-driven restoration; create climate solutions by storing carbon; support economic development in environmental products and services; and provide employment opportunities. We are also improving supercomputing capacity for research on weather and climate events, strengthening our fleet of ships and hurricane hunter aircrafts, and replacing aging facilities.

This new funding is enabling projects that will transform communities for generations, including helping to restore Chinook salmon populations on the West Coast; removing obsolete dams to restore fish passage and reduce flooding hazards; creating new technologies to reduce, remove and prevent marine debris from degrading coastal waters; and advancing new climate models to predict hurricanes, heat waves and ocean changes that drive global weather.

Enhancing the Blue Economy While Advancing Environmental Stewardship

We’ve made significant progress to advance President’s Biden’s America the Beautiful goal of conserving and restoring at least 30 percent of U.S. lands and waters by 2030. We are in the process of designating six new national marine sanctuaries that, if implemented, would more than double the size of the National Marine Sanctuary System. Using BIL and IRA funding, we are upgrading sanctuary visitor centers and infrastructure and investing in climate resilience planning at these marine parks that conserve species diversity and maritime history.

We are building four new ships, nearly a quarter of our fleet, each one designed with the latest energy-efficient technology.

We are building new, and renovating existing, port facilities. Joining with our Alaska state, tribal and industry partners in Ketchikan, we unveiled a renovated port facility constructed by a Native Alaskan and shareholder-owned local corporation in 2023. The renovations build in climate resilience, green technology and a state-of-the-art floating pier to accommodate tidal flux and sea level changes.

We are moving the NOAA Atlantic fleet homebase to Naval Station Newport in Rhode Island. With funding from IRA and other appropriations, we are building a new pier, administration building and warehouse. Four of our research ships will be homeported in Newport, bringing jobs to the region and strengthening our partnerships with the Navy, Coast Guard, our nearby NOAA Fisheries science labs and NOAA’s Cooperative Institute for Ocean Exploration.

We just awarded a contract to add a new pier, warehouse, seawall and living seashore at our homeport for NOAA Ship Ronald H. Brown in North Charleston, South Carolina.

Supporting Climate Action with State-of-the-Art Science

Scientists from across NOAA are among the 500 authors of the Fifth National Climate Assessment, released in fall 2023, which provides authoritative science data, information, and examples of successful resilience projects for states, tribes, and all communities. The report outlines the challenges and urgency of addressing climate change and also notes progress made reducing greenhouse gases and building more resilient communities.

In 2023, we also saw remarkable advancements in the use of uncrewed systems to gather oceanic and atmospheric data to improve climate, weather, and ocean forecasting, as well as explore and map our Exclusive Economic Zone. Guinness World Records 2024 calls out NOAA and our private industry partners for records using uncrewed surface vehicles and uncrewed aircraft during major hurricanes to collect life-saving data. By teaming up with ocean technology companies, NOAA is advancing our mission and supporting the growth of the new blue economy.

Environmental Justice

NOAA also accelerated efforts to provide greater equity in the delivery of weather, climate and coastal resilience services to underserved communities who face some of the greatest climate change impacts. Our work with the Alaska Native Communities Health Consortium is bringing together NOAA’s climate data and tools with the equity, health, and service delivery expertise of the consortium to ensure Alaska Native communities have resources to make informed decisions in the face of climate risks.

What’s in Store for 2024

In the new year, we look forward to seeing a number of initiatives take off, including a project to accelerate training and education for a new generation, who will help transform our economy with growth in green energy and climate resilient infrastructure and dramatic reduction of carbon emissions.

We expect new research on climate mitigation through the ocean. The ocean is the world’s largest store of carbon and has the potential to play a role in helping the world avoid the worst impacts of climate change. NOAA is supporting research on enhancing the ability of the ocean to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, involving coastal communities in the process to carefully assess the benefits and risks of various strategies.

We are also excited about the new program to foster public-private partnerships to develop and support sustainable businesses around ocean, coastal, and Great Lakes observation technologies, products, and services that address climate resilience needs.

The common theme of all these initiatives is that climate action is both the challenge of our time and a profound opportunity to transform our communities and industries to be more resilient, equitable and sustainable.

Learn more here.