The Extreme Weather: Opportunities for Improved Preparedness and Resilience report is built on an S&T and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) joint workshop hosted at the University of Oklahoma National Weather Center in February 2024 to examine policy, mission, science, and technology requirements to support homeland security, emergency management and public safety missions in the face of extreme weather. These ongoing discussions have brought together representatives from across S&T, DHS components, NOAA, and other federal agencies including the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, U.S. Geological Survey and Environmental Protection Agency, academia, and state and local agencies working on extreme weather-related issues, and representatives and leaders of the federal weather science community.
Resilience across homeland security missions, systems and communities is of increasing importance as natural disasters, extreme weather, and climate change impact society. De-risking the impacts of these drivers on homeland security and public safety missions and operations requires better understanding of the rapidly evolving global and technological landscape, the accompanying suites of options and new approaches that may be possible, and recognizing surge capacity cannot be the sole approach available in a poly-crisis environment. Ensuring the nation’s homeland security and public safety relies on robust scientific weather, water, space, and climate information and technologies to solidify critical supply chains, infrastructure sectors, and community response.
This effort focuses on understanding the state of extreme weather science (with an emphasis toward floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, extreme heat and wildfires), advances in observational technologies and networks, and the emerging domain of environmental intelligence necessary to develop proper risk mitigation strategies and better enable frontline operations. The importance of interagency partnerships in extreme weather is increasingly vital as the confluence of events has been leading to the amplification of impacts. Information from fuel loads of invasive species to existing burn scars or environmental hazards, coupled to the richness of scientific instrumentation, can offer new means to inform first responders and public safety missions in more relevant and specific ways.
As We Move Forward
As the Department’s science advisor, S&T is sharing the following white papers that support future research agendas on resilience, disaster preparedness, and climate change:
Addressing the Nation’s Wildfire Problem: An S&T Roadmap
Earth Systems Science: Key Themes, Trends, and Emerging Concerns
