International By Nature

NOAA’s Office of International Affairs spearheads global engagement that the agency’s work demands.

By Eric Tegler

The atmosphere is global. Oceans are global. Weather is global. These fundamental elements of life on earth, as well as nearby space, are at the core of the work the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration does. They’re even in the agency’s name.

“We have to be engaged internationally. We focus on issues that go beyond our border. NOAA is an international agency every bit as much as a domestic one,” said Dann Karlson, deputy director of NOAA’s Office of International Affairs (OIA).

OIA works to demonstrate that engagement by enlisting agency partners around the world on a daily basis. It is also the point of contact between America’s political leadership and NOAA leadership.

The Office advises the Under Secretary and other NOAA leadership elements on international policy issues. Input from NOAA’s line offices goes up the chain to the agency’s leadership via OIA, ensuring that its international engagement is consistent with U.S. foreign policy, and that U.S. foreign policy furthers NOAA’s goals as well.

“Anything that is cross cutting or has implications for NOAA as a whole is where we typically operate,” Karlson said, “so that there are not too many [NOAA line offices] competing with one another.”

Cutting Across the Lines

You can think of OIA as a communicator and orchestrator for an agency that crosses many lines, from international boundaries to technical and scientific disciplines. Sometimes the lines are within the federal government.

“We do quite a bit with the National Security Council, representing NOAA at various NSC meetings,” Karlson explained. Meetings with other federal entities whose work touches the international sphere are common as well. OIA also coordinates for the International Affairs Council, a council within NOAA that meets once a month to address administration policy, high level inter-agency, and national issues that affect NOAA.

Sometimes the lines are broader policy. While NOAA takes its cues and direction from American political leadership, it has its own voice, self-direction, and priorities. The most important of these are reflected in NOAA’s 7-Year Roadmap for Research and Development. OIA’s directors and international affairs specialists provided input for the roadmap, and communicate its imperatives to other government agencies and the public at home and abroad.

NOAA’s Research and Development Vision Areas for 2020-2026 include an emphasis on hazardous weather, ecosystem health and management, and data collection and modeling.

“We work closely with other countries on research and development, whether that’s with bilateral partners like Canada or Australia, or

The International Bathymetric Chart of the Arctic Ocean, a cooperative effort of many partnerships with national and international entities. Seabed 2030 has as its goal the mapping of the world’s ocean floor.

Close relationships foster quality research and the benefits that come from harmonizing standards for how R&D is done. OIA reinforces messaging about the practices and standards that the agency’s line offices utilize in-house and with international researchers. Research plans and initiatives are communicated both to widen the net of R&D of interest in the global scientific community and to avoid duplication of effort where possible.

Seabed 2030

Seabed 2030 is a good example of an effort that will need all hands globally to be a success. Seabed 2030 is a collaborative project that aims to bring together all available bathymetric data to produce the definitivemap of the world ocean floor by 2030 and make it available to all. It is often said that we have more accurate maps of the surface of the moon than we doof the world’s seabed. It will take 10 years to fully map our seafloor in basic fashion (about 20 percent of the global ocean floor has been mappedas of June, 2020).

Part of the initiative’s focus is on identifying seabed resources. Among these is an increasingly important vein of metals for the battery electrification energy transformation that elements of the world community are trying to advance. The effort to scoop manganese and other metals for batteries off the seafloor has been called a modern gold rush.

NOAA’s mission as a steward of the oceans and their resources demands it pay attention.

“For something that would have significant ramifications for NOAA,” Karlson confirmed, “our seat on the U.S. delegation to the International Seabed Authority is important, as is our participation in UNCLASS (United Nations Convention on the Law Of the Sea). They define how [undersea] boundaries are defined and how the surveying is done that determines what a country’s rights are within those boundaries.”

While resource rights have traditionally been associated with fisheries management and, at times, undersea oil deposits, deep water metals extraction is adding a new competitive and environmental dimension to resource exploitation and protecting the seas.

“Through our ocean exploration and through our partnerships with other countries, we’re trying to assess the impact [this activity] will have before the gates really open up – before this gold rush to get these polymetals up off the ocean floor,” Karlson said.

He adds that NOAA recognizes the balance between understanding the environmental impact of such activity and being mindful of the positive economic stimulus extraction of these resources can provide to countries, particularly small island states that have territory but little in the way of sustainable economies beyond tourism or fishing.

These kinds of issues are what draws NOAA outside of the U.S., and why its relationships with myriad international bodies, with foreign countries, and with regions where American leadership is a global good are so important.

Spinning Leadership Through a Web of Relationships

How many international organizations do OIA and NOAA’s individual line offices interact with?

“It’s likely upwards of 100,” Karlson said. “A single line office like NESDIS (NOAA Satellite and Information Service), which is focused on satellite data, probably participates in a dozen organizations in which they’re a key player.”

The same could be said for the NOAA Fisheries line office, which participates in a variety of regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs). For example, there’s the north Pacific RFMO, the western and south Pacific RFMOs, and fisheries bodies for individual species such as tuna. There’s the familiar International Whaling Commission as well. NOAA’s Oceanic and Atmospheric Research International Activities Office has membership in many more. How do the agency, OIA and the line offices keep track of it all?

Basically, OIA, and each line office, has its own international affairs specialists and analysts, Karlson explained.

“As with the line offices we [OIA] have both thematic and geographic portfolios. The international bodies that I represent us on include the UN Office of Disaster Risk Reduction and Resiliency. I engage with them very closely. Within my geographic portfolio I focus on Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands, engaging closely with the Secretary for the Pacific Community and the Secretary for the Pacific Regional Environmental Program. We have international affairs specialists who engage with these organizations as well.”

Pacific Partnerships

Each of NOAA’s international partnerships contributes to a whole, a web of understanding and cooperation across the globe, which lends NOAA influence and leadership opportunities that affect American national security. Nowhere is this of greater value than the geographic area that Karlson oversees – the Pacific.

“NOAA is seen as a major supporting element of the broader Indo-Pacific strategy. We’re rolling out new initiatives, rededicating funding to projects throughout the Pacific, and we have aid from the State Department to assist in that effort.”

NOAA’s role hinges on its credibility. The agency has been perceived as a trusted partner in the Pacific, seen as a relatively neutral, subtle, positive force in regional affairs. Its decadeslong support of regional countries in natural hazards resilience, fisheries management, and countering illegal fishing (in which China is a major transgressor) has earned it respect, and the data and expertise it has shared have been grounded in science.

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“The fact that scientific principles are at the core of our agency is why we are so widely respected globally. We are viewed as the softer side of U.S. government diplomacy, and we want to make sure we uphold our scientific principles,” Karlson said. “If we’re doing a research cruise in the Pacific or the Caribbean, we want to ensure understanding that it is truly being done for research purposes – not just for political capital or political gain. Yes, it does improve our relations, yes it may serve some other purposes.”

In view of its web of international relationships, safeguarding NOAA’s reputation as an honest broker of scientific data and research is as important as it has ever been. But the agency maintains its positive reputation via more than the distribution of data or interaction with international bodies.

Hurricane Warning, Tsunami Readiness, and Chatty Beetles

NOAA’s tracking of and involvement in the discussion of changes in the global climate naturally touches on sea level-rise, an issue watched closely by Pacific island states. For PHOTO BY EDWARD YOUNG, UCAR/COMETlow lying islands, land erosion and saltwater intrusion into freshwater supplies in combination with intensifying severe weather events (storms/cyclones/tsunamis) are direct threats.

NOAA, specifically the National Weather Service, is well known for providing advance weather warnings for the United States. In the Pacific, the agency is not only providing advance warning, but helping nations in the region improve their own early warning communications systems.

“We actually operate weather service centers in three countries in the Pacific – Micronesia, Palau, and the Republic of the Marshall Islands” Karlson said, “NOAA has a physical presence there. We employ local citizens. We train them to become meteorologists and we provide the actual infrastructure for their weather forecasting.”

NOAA’s Central Pacific Hurricane Center works to help islands better understand tropical systems and to bolster their resiliency. Through the International Tsunami Information Center, NOAA runs a tsunami training and readiness program that helps with contingency planning and recovery. NOAA even provides free ruggedized communication devices, called “Chatty Beetles”, to Pacific region nations and other countries around the globe. These portable Iridium satellite terminals (satellite phones) permit text-based alerts and messaging in remote locations, where communication options are limited.

NOAA has worked with a network of international partners to expand its national tsunami warning system into an international one.

International Rescue

NOAA also provides the infrastructure for Cospas-Sarsat, an internationally available satellite-enabled search and rescue system. The Search And Rescue Satellite Aided Tracking (SARSAT) System detects and locates mariners, aviators, and recreational enthusiasts in distress almost anywhere in the world at anytime and in almost any conditions. SARSAT uses NOAA satellites in low- Earth and geostationary orbits as well as GPS satellites in medium Earth orbit. The satellites relay distress signals from emergency beacons to a network of ground stations and ultimately to the U.S. Mission Control Center (USMCC) in Suitland, Maryland.

A “Chatty Beetle” device employed by NOAA to enable Pacific region nations and other countries around the globe to receive weather warnings and communicate to NOAA personnel or others through the Iridium satellite network.

The USMCC processes the distress signals and alerts the appropriate search and rescue authorities as to who is in distress and, more importantly, where they are located. NOAA-SARSAT is a part of the international Cospas-Sarsat Program, to which 41 nations and two independent SAR organizations belong. NOAA works with all of the Cospas-Sarsat countries very closely to ensure that something as critical as saving somebody in distress is fully supported.

The Popocatépetl volcano, located near Mexico City, Mexico. NOAA is responsible for volcanic ash advisories that could pose a danger to air travel for aircraft flying in and out of Mexico City’s airport.

International by Nature

Whether acting as an instrument of national policy, disseminating scientific research and data, or providing infrastructure in regions where it would otherwise be absent, NOAA’s international activities keep OIA engaged and in touch with a variety of issues daily.

“If people know about NOAA, they say ‘that’s cool, you get to do international affairs.’ I get that kind of reaction. Other times I get the question, ‘What’s NOAA?’ I go into my best explanation about what NOAA is. Usually the National Weather Service is the hook there. But when I tell people the work we do in international affairs for NOAA it generally triggers a nice reaction.” “NOAA does cool stuff.” It does, and that stuff is international by nature.

The International Bathymetric Chart of the Arctic Ocean, a cooperative effort of many partnerships with national and international entities. Seabed 2030 has as its goal the mapping of the world’s ocean floor.