NOAA’s Weather Program Office (WPO) is soliciting proposals for four grant competitions from this notification valued at approximately $13.5 million per year as follows: 1) Innovations for Community Modeling, 2) Observations (Obs), 3) Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences (SBES), and 4) Verification of the Origins of Rotation in Tornadoes Experiment in the United States (VORTEX-USA; inclusive of VORTEXSoutheast).
In alignment with the Weather Forecasting and Innovation Act of 2017 (Public Law 115-25), this funding opportunity will allow NOAA to support new weather, water, and earth system observing and forecasting applications, including improved analysis techniques, better statistical or dynamic forecast models and techniques, and communication of that information to better inform the public. In particular, projects are sought that are responsive to the Priorities articulated in the Science Advisory Board's 2021 Priorities for Weather Research Report (https://sab.noaa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/PWR-Report_Final_12-9-21...).
For the purposes of NOAA-funded projects, the maturity of projects is broadly classified using Readiness Levels (RLs), as adopted by NOAA and other federal agencies. The numerical RL scale from 1 to 9 is designed to track project maturity across the progressive spectrum from research to development to demonstration to deployment. Some competitions and science priorities in this announcement may target research at a specific maturity level and restrict proposals to specific RL ranges. Additional information can be found in the Program Objectives (Section I.A) and Priorities (Section I.B), and definitions of RLs can be found in the NOFO Information Sheet accompanying this announcement.
Deadlines:
The following four competitions are accepting proposals for funding as part of this Notice of Funding Opportunity.
1. Innovations for Community Modeling: The U.S. faces a spectrum of high-impact environmental hazards that can disrupt people's lives and the nation's economy. To meet these challenges, NOAA has created the Unified Forecast System (UFS) to develop the best environmental information using large observational datasets, high-performance computing (HPC), and advanced Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) systems. The UFS is being developed in collaboration with the larger public-private weather, water, and climate research and academic enterprise, following a unified modeling system approach based on open-source, open-development principles.
2. Observations: The aim of this competition is to develop, demonstrate, and/or analyze innovative sensor and observing technologies and strategies that have high potential for advancing an observation systems portfolio that is mission-effective, integrated, adaptable, and affordable. Proposed research should demonstrate relevance and support to the weather enterprise.
3. Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences (SBES): Recent societal impacts from hurricanes, floods, snow storms, tornadoes, and wildfires demonstrates that although there have been considerable advances in weather prediction and forecasting, there is a continual need to understand the intersection of human behavior and meteorology. A variety of social, behavioral, and environmental factors “affect how we prepare for, observe, predict, respond to, and are impacted by weather hazards” (NASEM, 2018. doi:10.17226/24865). Thus, social, behavioral, and economic science (SBES) research plays a critical role in connecting NOAA's weather forecast information and improvements to the public’s growing forecast needs.
4. VORTEX-USA: VORTEX-Southeast (VORTEX-SE) is a Congressionally authorized research program that has been ongoing since 2015. When examining measures of the threat posed by tornadoes to life and property, the southeastern U.S. has six of the eight most vulnerable states. Some of the vulnerability is due to issues such as a relatively large proportion of the population residing in mobile homes, which are known to be unsafe even in moderately strong tornadoes. Another principal risk in the Southeast is that many tornadoes occur during nighttime hours, associated with over half the deaths and injuries. Further, tornado casualties are disproportionately in the late fall and winter months, which is a time of year not typically associated with tornadoes according to conventional understanding or public perception; and they often occur under conditions of marginal thermodynamic instability and very strong vertical wind shear (high shear/low CAPE or HSLC). Hence, there are many issues in the continuum spanning meteorological understanding to public awareness and perception that must be addressed in order to reduce the high tornado vulnerability in the Southeast.
Applicants are responsible for ensuring that they are eligible for the competition for which they are applying. If any applicants requesting funding are ineligible, the application(s) will be rejected without review.
Eligible applicants are: -U.S. institutions of higher education; -Cooperative Institutes; -U.S.-based commercial organizations; -State, local and Indian tribal governments in the U.S.; and -U.S. non-profit organizations.
See solicitation for details
