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is particularly true for the nation's operational processing centers, which are 

 capitalizing on improved computer and communications technologies to 

 pioneer unprecedented collaborative efforts in the forecasting of 

 meteorological and oceanographic phenomena. Today, these centers are 

 highly interdependent components which can be applied to a broad range of 

 national defense, economic and resource protection interests. The structure 

 under which this cooperation takes place is through the Committee for 

 Operational Processing Centers under the congressionally chartered Office of 

 the Federal Coordinator for Meteorological Services and Supporting 

 Research. Fleet Numerical is a major participant on this committee, which 

 meets semi-annually to search for ways to cooperate on conmion problems. 

 Subcommittees at the technical level then implement the full committee policy 

 decisions for the conmion good of all concerned. In one example, the 

 agencies involved (NOAA, Air Force and Navy) are presently expanding the 

 mutual exchange of data by installing extremely high speed ("Asynchronous 

 Transfer Mode") data links between their respective national centers. This 

 effort represents an early Defense Department implementation of this 

 burgeoning conunercial technology. 



Although originally formulated to address meteorological issues^ the 

 Office of the Federal Coordinator is now placing increased emphasis on the 

 ocean. Over the last few years, the Operational Processing Centers 

 committee membership has been expanded to include the Naval 

 Oceanographic Office and NOAA's National Ocean Service in recognition of 

 increased interest in ocean science and related issues. 



The Shared Processing Program for remote sensing is another example 

 of interagency cooperation. This program is a national effort which divides 



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