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Through its forecast centers, such as its National Meterorological 
Center, its National Hurricane Center in Miami, its National Tsunami 
Warning Center in Hawaii, its National Severe Storms Forecast Cen- 
ter in Kansas City, and its operational meteorological satellite system 
with its global coverage of weather conditions on a 24-hour-a-day 
basis, ESSA works to detect and give warning to the Nation of the 
hazards of nature. 
Internationally, a major effort is underway to monitor fully the 
global atmosphere and oceans. The atmospheric system is called the 
world weather watch. There is also emerging the oceanic counterpart, 
the integrated global ocean station system (IGOSS). These systems 
are being coordinated through the joint efforts of the Intergovern- 
mental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO and the World 
Meteorological Organization. 
When viewed in conjunction, the world weather watch and IGOSS 
truly form the foundation for a global environmental monitoring and 
prediction system. 
ESSA has been assigned the national lead responsibility for the 
world weather program by the President. The planning stage for 
IGOSS is getting underway, and ESSA is contributing, nationally 
and internationally, to this effort. 
We believe that the recommendation by the Commission that the 
proposed national environmental monitoring and prediction system 
(NEMPS) should be planned and developed on a global basis in con- 
cert with the world weather program has much merit. This has been 
proposed to assure a well-coordinated and nonduplicative global ocean- 
atmospheric monitoring and prediction system. 
One of the critical components that will be required for NEMPS, 
in the judgment of all who have looked at the need to acquire global 
observation of both the oceans and the atmosphere, is an operational 
environmental satellite system capable of global measurements as well 
as capable of interrogating platforms either in the oceans or the 
atmosphere. 
Over the past 10 years ESSA and its components have developed, 
in collaboration with NASA, a capability unique among Federal civil 
agencies. We are the only civil agency responsible for the management 
of an operational satellite system. This weather satellite system has 
yielded remarkable new assistance in forecasting the weather for data 
Sparse areas over the oceans as well as the land. 
In the last 3 years since the formation of ESSA, we have moved 
to broaden the capabilities of this operational satellite system to en- 
compass a wide spectrum of environmental measurements. In addition 
to weather measurements, we will shortly be using our infrared measur- 
ing devices to map the global sea surface temperatures. 
This demonstrated capability on the part of ESSA would be indis- 
pensable for successfully carrying through the concepts of the pro- 
posed national environmental monitoring and prediction system. 
The Commission has recommended a wide range of research activi- 
ties needed to support such a system. I will not go into a comprehensive 
discussion of our related research on ocean current systems or the 
mathematical modeling of oceanic circulation, but I would like to 
comment on the Commission’s recommendations for the study of air- 
sea interaction processes. 
