Benefits of GEOSS in Florida

In Florida, Earth Observations will:

Help expand the ability to track and model natural disasters (such as hurricanes and storms). Through Earth observations, Florida can have near real-time monitoring that will improve storm and hurricane forecasts and help to dramatically reduce the cost of damage to property and human life.

Average annual damage from tornadoes, hurricanes, and floods is $11.4 billion nationally, of which:

hurricanes average $5.1 billion and 20 deaths per year;

floods account for $5.2 billion, and average over 80 deaths per year; and,

tornadoes cause $1.1 billion in damages.¹

Give us information on flooding, road loss, and extent of property damage, as well as facilitate clean-up activities. Ground monitors, models, and satellite images give emergency responders and relief crews ways to respond faster (with more geographic precision) and avoid hazards themselves.

Average annual damage from floods is $5.2 billion and over 80 deaths per year.²

Pinpoint Florida's beach areas impacted by coastal erosion, weather, and environmental pollutants such as harmful aquatic blooms and oil spills.

Economic impact of harmful aquatic blooms in United States average annually $49 million but individual outbreaks can cause economic damage that exceeds the annual.³

Track the change from vegetation to paved surfaces (houses, roofs, and roads); thereby, allowing us to determine the impacts of growth and development and how they affect ecosystem health and wildlife habitats.

Enable state and local air quality forecasters to issue to the public more timely, accurate, and site-specific warnings regarding bad air quality so that people (especially the sensitive population) may take prudent actions to protect their health.

For example, it is estimated that by the year 2010, $10B and 65,000 jobs will have been saved by Texas' revisions of their air quality management plan, according to an independent economic analysis by the University of Chicago and University of Houston. The revisions were made based on NOAA's discoveries of previously unexpected factors that cause the Houston area to experience the highest ozone levels in the nation.⁴

Help track West Nile virus and Lyme disease through spatial analyses of environmental conditions, organisms, and people and places affected.

Provide more accurate weather forecasting and save Florida homeowners and businesses 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.⁵

Aid in stormwater management in sprawl areas like Ft. Lauderdale and Miami. Earth observations' large collection of rainfall data and forecasting tools can benefit Florida in its efforts to track storms, plan for drought, and manage wet weather runoff.

Drought is estimated to result in average annual losses to all sectors of the economy of between $6-8 billion.⁶

Track effects of global change. Integration of international Earth observation data sets will allow us to determine what changes, including sea level rise and coastal degradation, may be occurring.

Weather and climate sensitive industries, both directly and indirectly, account for about one-third of the Nation's GDP, or $3 trillion, ranging from finance, insurance, and real estate to services, retail and wholesale trade and manufacturing.⁷

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 potentially reduce phosphorus and nitrogen contributions to waters.

Pollution has rendered 44 percent of tested U.S. estuaries and 12 percent of ocean shoreline waters unfit for uses such as swimming, fishing, or supporting aquatic life.⁸

¹ National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Environmental and Societal Impacts Group, and the Atmospheric Policy Program of the American Meteorological Society, 2001, Extreme Weather Sourcebook 2001: Economic and Other Societal Impacts Related to Hurricanes, Floods, Tornadoes, Lightning, and Other U.S. Weather Phenomena, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colo. Available only online at http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/sourcebook/data.html

² Ibid

³ Hoagland, D.M. Anderson, Y. Kaoru and A.W. White. August 2002. The economic effects of harmful algal blooms in the United States: estimates, assessment issues, and information needs. Estuaries 25 (4b): 819-837.

⁴ Tolley, George and Smith, Bruce, An Economic Evaluation of Alternative Strategies Cleaning Up Houston's Act, Final Report to Greater Houston Partnership from RCF, Inc. January, 2001.

⁵ 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.

⁶ 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.

⁷ Dutton, John A., Opportunities and priorities in a new era for weather and climate services, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, September 2002, volume 83, no. 9, pp 1303-1311.

⁸ Health of the Oceans Report 2002, The Ocean Conservancy, http://www.oceanconservancy.org/

Benefits of GEOSS in Florida

Local Navigation