The Arctic is a vast, remote region that is critical to the United States economy, weather and sea ice forecasting, our understanding of ecosystem health (including marine mammals and fisheries), and our understanding of climate change. Due to the presence of low temperatures, harsh sea conditions, limited telecommunications infrastructure, and sea ice, maintaining a network of sea ice buoys, Air-Launched Autonomous Micro-Observers, and Bering & Chukchi moorings is difficult, necessitating constant deployment of a combination of expendable technologies and retrieval and redeployment of a large network of moorings in the Bering and Chukchi Seas.

Volunteers are a critical part of national marine sanctuaries and help support science, education, and conservation priorities. Volunteers assist in many projects, such as citizen science, monitoring, education support, and marine debris cleanups. Volunteer hours can also be assigned a value through the widely used nonprofit organization, Independent Sector, which provides a yearly estimate of what a volunteer hour is worth. Using this number, each year ONMS calculates how much in-kind support our volunteers provide.

Improve the accuracy and specificity of extreme rainfall forecasts as measured by the Threat Score of the 2” threshold, made 3 days in advance. Given this score is sensitive to the type of rainfall events experienced, and varies by year, we are adopting a 3 year running average. For FY22 and FY23, we are targeting roughly a 25% overlap between the forecast and observed area (0.14). For comparison, a Threat Score of 0 represents no overlap between forecast & observed location and a Threat Score of 1 represents complete overlap between forecast & observed location. The formula for calculating the Threat Score is = Overlap / (Forecast + Observed - Overlap).

Provides field, lab, and model studies to advance our understanding of atmospheric processes related to climate intervention that increases our instrumentation capabilities to conduct measurements of stratospheric gases and aerosols, improves our modeling and forecasting capabilities for stratospheric chemistry and dynamics, establishes a baseline state of stratospheric composition and transport for evaluating the current performance of atmospheric models, and as point of reference for any future changes, and improves our understanding of marine cloud properties and associated cloud-aerosol interactions in order

The process of designating or expanding National Marine Sanctuaries (NMS) and National Estuarine Research Reserves (NERRs) can take several years. To provide more regular updates, measure tracks progress in advancing proposed designations and expansions through these processes. The area for a proposed expansion or designation is only added to the measure once it completes a step in process, and only steps completed on or after 10/1/2021 are counted. For Sanctuaries, target and actual areas (sq. miles) are estimated based on proposal information; they remain estimates until actual designation or expansion is complete. For NERRs, the area for a proposed reserve cannot be estimated (and therefore are not included in targets or actuals) until the state-directed site selection process is complete and a range of alternatives (i.e., proposed reserve boundaries) has been developed for the environmental analysis process.

The Argo program is responsible for providing real-time data for the upper 2000m of ocean heat content globally and for important regions like the Tropical Pacific for detection of El Nino.

Each site within the National Marine Sanctuary System conducts or facilitates characterization, monitoring, and research to protect the resources in the system. A series of questions are posed to all sanctuaries as a starting point for the creation of periodic condition reports that rate the status and trends of key resources, processes, and resource services provided. One way to determine how comprehensively we are conducting monitoring in a sanctuary, or gathering information for use in the condition reports, is to quantify the proportion of relevant questions and ecosystem services for which experts are able to provide ratings. The higher the proportion, the more adequate the monitoring program.

An important purpose of national marine sanctuaries is to ensure that the significant resources they protect provide benefits to the public. This performance measure is intended to track the extent to which marine sanctuaries benefit the public through the provision of “resource services”. Resource services include commonly defined “ecosystem services” as well as the services provided by archaeological resources. The measure uses status ratings from sanctuary condition reports to quantify the proportion of services rated as either “Good” or “Good/Fair,” both of which are considered acceptable levels of service potential.