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Benefits of GEOSS in New Mexico
In New Mexico, Earth Observations will:
Enable state and local air quality forecasters to issue to the public more timely, accurate, and site-specific warnings about episodes of poor air quality so that people (especially the sensitive population) may take prudent actions to protect their health.
It is estimated that 31 million Americans including 9 million children have asthma. Ground level ozone in the summer time is the chief cause for poor air quality warnings and human exposure to ozone is known to aggravate asthma. Another component of air, airborne particulate matter, is associated with increased hospital admissions and emergency room visits for people with heart and lung disease and increased work and school absences.1
Children with asthma miss more than 14 million school days annually and asthma accounts for an estimated 14.5 million lost work days per year.2
Improve wildfire prediction and response by making available to fire response teams, data sets that integrate fuel load measurements, with soil moisture, satellite information (including improved lightening strike information in near real time) and other weather observations. This will allow a faster response by emergency personnel to fires, and faster issuance of alerts to media and affected populations. Better real time meteorology data (including wind profiles at higher levels) will allow fire personnel to better predict the path and smoke plume of any given fire.
Severe fire seasons due to drought and frequent winds can result in billions of dollars in damages. The Western Fire Season of Spring-Summer 2000 resulted in nearly seven million acres burned and an estimated $2 billion in damage costs (includes fire suppression).3
Monitor drought conditions for agriculture and forestry and help farmers, agribusiness, and local water management authorities better manage water resources.
Drought is estimated to result in average annual losses to all sectors of the economy of between $6-8 billion nationally.4
Help protect surface and underground drinking water sources through water quality monitoring and land use data.
Help protect watersheds, which benefit agriculture, forestry, wildlife, and people by monitoring water quality and mapping land cover changes.
Provide more accurate weather forecasting and save the state millions of dollars in heating and cooling costs, and provide better warning of severe weather events such as flash floods.
The value of understanding the interrelationships between weather variables and electric load can save a small utility at least $0.5 M annually through improved temperature forecasts.5
Provide access to the Regional Vulnerability Assessment (ReVA) model and data sets which will allow city and county planners to determine a desired balance in their planning activities between protecting air, water, land, and natural resources.
Aid in energy resource detection, development and extraction in a more environmentally harmonious manner by integrating advanced satellite geologic detection systems, with land cover, endangered species, and other data sets.
Electricity generators usually have a variety of plants with different costs of operation and different lead-times to make them ready to produce. To serve demand with the most cost-effective choice of plants, electricity generators need to forecast demand. Since demand depends on temperature, NWS temperature forecasts are valuable in forecasting electricity demand.6
Aid tribal nations in land management by providing better access to satellite derived data sets of land cover, geologic information, and weather information.
Provide better forecasting of potential human health disease outbreaks, such as Hanta virus, by better integration of vegetation, weather, and epidemiology data.
1 U.S. Centers for Disease Control
2 CDC. Surveillance for asthma: United States, 1980-1999. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. 2002;51(SS01):1-13
3 Economic Impacts of Drought and the Benefits of NOAA's Drought Forecasting Services, NOAA Magazine, September 17, 2002. Website: http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/magazine/stories/mag51.htm.
4 Economic Impacts of Drought and the Benefits of NOAA's Drought Forecasting Services, NOAA Magazine, September 17, 2002. Website: http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/magazine/stories/mag51.htm.
5 Tribble, A.N., 2003: The relationship between weather variables and electricity demand to improve short-term load forecasting. Ph. D. dissertation, School of Meteorology, University of Oklahoma, 221 pp., from Building The National Cooperative Mesonet: Program Development Plan For COOP Modernization dated October 2003.
6 Teisberg, Thomas, Rodney Weiher, Alireza Khotanzad, The Value of National Weather Service Forecasts in Scheduling Electricity Generation, March, 2004 Draft. Copies available from NOAA Central Library, SilverSpring, Maryland. Website: http://www.lib.noaa.gov.