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Director's NoteWayne Feltz |
The F word, yes that’s right, Furloughs. State employees were required to take unpaid furlough days in the 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 fiscal years. Last month scientific progress was impacted in our center as a result of the two and one half week federal government furlough, which included local NOAA Advanced Satellite Products Branch (ASPB) and NCDC employees. Here are some of the observations of impact noticed at our Center during this period of time:
- The CIMSS 5-year review was cancelled and rescheduled for mid-December.
- NSF Antarctic field season (jeopardized impact) for SSEC Antarctic Meteorological Research Center’s (AMRC) role in weather station maintenance and deployment.
- Proposal submissions were halted since grants.gov was offline.
- A realization of how much daily collaboration I have with both local ASPB team and our federal funding points of contact.
- “Non-essential federal web portals used for weather decision support were off-line.
- The National Weather Association conference was lightly attended.
- Funding timelines may be altered due to delays in processing NOAA Proposal Letters of Intent.
Fortunately, the CIMSS cooperative agreement allowed all NOAA funding from last fiscal year to arrive at UW-Madison before the shutdown occurred. Also, SSEC data center inquiries increased when many government databases were offline. This increased possible private and public sector contract opportunities due to concern about data access/stability in the event of further federal government shutdowns.
As a reminder, CIMSS is a "Cooperative Institute" due to a Cooperative Agreement that facilitates close collaboration between NOAA and the University. Whether or not you were impacted by the Federal furlough, this is a good time to review roles of our local NOAA ASPB/NCDC personnel to highlight possible opportunities for future collaborations. Our NOAA ASPB/NCDC personnel and specialties are:
Jeff Key, ASPB Chief, satellite-based polar science
Bob Aune, ASPB Scientist, numerical weather prediction modeling and satellite data assimilation
Andy Heidinger, ASPB Scientist, satellite-based cloud property science
Michael Pavolonis, ASPB Scientist, satellite-based volcanic ash/SO2, fog/low cloud, convection, and aviation weather science
Brad Pierce, ASPB Scientist, satellite-based aerosol and pollution science
Tim Schmit, ASPB Scientist, satellite-based imagery, sounding, and stability science
Gary Wade, ASPB Scientist, satellite-based thermodynamic sounding science
Jim Kossin, NCDC Scientist, tropical cyclone and climate variability science
