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Benefits of GEOSS in Wyoming
In Wyoming, Earth Observations will:
Provide real-time visibility monitoring in Class I areas like Yellowstone National park and Bridger Wilderness National Park.
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
Monitor snow and rain runoff, particularly in areas that receive a major portion of their river and stream waters from mountain snow packs.
Monitor drought conditions to help farmers, foresters and local water authorities to 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.3
Help in the management or large and small farms by providing better local and regional scale temperature, rainfall, and soil moisture information. With Earth observations information, farmers can decide the rate of fertilizer application, placement of seeds, and use of irrigation to maximize crop yield and minimize crop damage.
Evaluate stress in crops through satellite monitoring of soil moisture and tracking of plant diseases and invasive species.
Provide more accurate weather forecasting and save the state millions of dollars in heating and cooling costs.
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.4
Protect watersheds through water quality monitoring and mapping of land cover changes; thereby, protecting sources of water for agriculture, forestry, and human uses.
Monitor local groundwater supplies and surrounding facilities to protect groundwater resources.
Promote reduction of erosion and other non-point sources of pollution in many watersheds, and help to reduce sediment, urban contributions, and fecal coliform bacteria contributions to rivers, lakes, streams and other waters, and potential reduce phosphorus and nitrogen contributions to waters.
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.5
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 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.
5 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, Silver Spring, Maryland. Website: http://www.lib.noaa.gov.