So far this year’s hurricane season has seen only two named storms in the Atlantic Ocean: Andrea and Barry. But a huge storm has been brewing in Miami, Florida for several months – let’s call it Hurricane Bill.
In January, Bill Proenza took over as director of the forecasting facility at the US National Hurricane Center, Miami, Florida, which aims to keep the American public safe from storms. At best it was a lateral career move from his previous position in the National Weather Service that Proenza did not apply to fill.
Within weeks of taking over as director of the center, Proenza found himself in hot water (see Nature 447, 514-515; doi: 10.1038/447514a 2007). Among other things, he criticized how much money the center’s parent agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), was spending on the anniversary celebrations.
More conspicuously, he publicly lamented the lack of a detailed plan to replace the QuikSat satellite, which among many of his jobs provides data on ocean winds to hurricane forecasting teams in the Atlantic.
This criticism did not go down well with his mentors or his employees, many of whom eventually called for his ouster. On 9 July, Proenza was placed on leave in the midst of a special evaluation of his performance.
Last week, he had a chance to tell his side of the story to the House Committee on Science and Technology in Washington DC. Democrats on the committee pressed the question of whether Proenza was sidelined because of his whistleblower activities on QuikSat. Meanwhile, Republicans conducted an investigation into the committee regarding what they dismiss as a matter of regular personnel.
Nick Lampson (Democrat, Texas), who presided over the hearing, got at least one thing right. “The only storms that the Center must deal with are those that form in the ocean,” he said. At the hearing, both sides acquitted themselves well: Proenza made a passionate defense of his leadership, and NOAA Administrator Conrad Lautenbacher gave a lengthy and seemingly convincing explanation as to why the agency felt it had to give Proenza a nod. Had to be removed from his post.
The Proenza case isn’t something that hurricane researchers and forecasters really need at this point, as hurricane season begins. Government agencies are still grappling with their failure to deal with Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and scientists are working to tackle their very own public controversy over a possible link between the storm and global warming (see Nature 441). , 564-566; 2006).
Therefore NOAA needs to show consistent and firm management. First, it must find Proenza a relatively quiet place to assign — outside the hurricane center, where employee displeasure is clearly too much to continue acting as an effective leader.
Lautenbacher is aware of the need for NOAA to raise its public profile and position itself as a powerful scientific agency, rather than the backwaters of the Department of Commerce, of which it is part. But he must ensure that his public relations efforts do not come in the way of his scientific work.
The very existence of multimillion-dollar anniversary celebrations is a cause for concern. And NOAA scientists have also been unhappy about management’s suggestions in recent months, for example, that they replace the agency’s branding by substituting ‘NOAA’ for ‘national’ in the names of centers such as the National Weather Service and the National Hurricane Center. make improvements. Both of these organizations have their own distinct histories and identities, and NOAA needs to find ways to assert itself and its mission without diminishing it in the public eye.
More significantly, the agency needs to address deficiencies in its satellite systems. Proenza is only the latest to uncover these. The National Academies had already done so, most recently in January, when it produced a national strategy of Earth-observing missions for the federal government.
That plan would include an ocean-air mission to do the same thing as QuikSCAT. One area of further concern, the academies said, was the level of coordination between NASA, which has traditionally developed research satellites, and NOAA, which takes them into operational use.
NOAA needs to ensure that disputes among staff at its hurricane center do not distract from the larger task of focusing Earth-observation priorities in the coming decades. Researchers have already clarified what they need. Now is the time for the government to follow those recommendations and ensure that the next generation of satellites are in place for the coming storms.