Regional_Climate_Centers_PWS_-_For_Public_Release_-_Version_10292015.....docx

PERFORMANCE WORK STATEMENT

Regional Climate Centers Performance Work Statement (PWS) – Version 10292015

1. Introduction and Background The mission of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) is to provide and ensure timely access to global environmental data from satellites and other sources to promote, protect, and enhance the Nation's economy, security, environment, and quality of life. NESDIS acquires and manages the Nation's operational environmental satellites, provides data and information services to numerous end users, and conducts related research.

The National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) is the official source for historical and near-real time atmospheric and space weather, climate, coasts, oceanographic, and geophysical environmental data and information, and supports the NESDIS mission. NCEI was created in 2015 as a merger of the former National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC), and National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC). NCEI headquarters are located in Asheville, NC, with additional major presences in Boulder, CO; Silver Spring, MD; and Stennis Space Center, MS; as well as regional staff stationed around the country. With archival responsibilities at its core, NCEI provides end-to-end capacity for acquisition, stewardship, access, services, and assessment of its holdings in support of NOAA’s mission to “understand climate variability and change to enhance society’s ability to plan and respond.”

To better support its users, NCEI uses a three-tiered program for climate services that leverages the expertise and capabilities of partners at the national, regional, and state levels. At the first tier, NCEI provides national-level climate monitoring, data archival, products, and services in response to national economic and environmental priorities. At the second tier, NCEI supports a Regional Climate Services (RCS) program that makes relevant and actionable products and services accessible to a range of place-based private and public sector customers. At the third tier, NCEI primarily partners with state climate offices and the American Association of State Climatologists (AASC) to promote data access and capture user requirements.

NCEI’s six Regional Climate Centers (RCC) are a key part of its RCS program. The RCCs produce and deliver environmental data, products, information, and services – hereafter collectively termed “products and services” – and capture user needs in six distinct regions of the United States, including the conterminous U.S., Alaska, Hawaii, and territories. By transforming, tailoring, and augmenting NCEI’s products and services, the RCCs provide a bridge between NCEI and regional user communities, including the private sector. They support NOAA’s mission to advance understanding of climate variability and impacts through user engagement and the translation of data into useable products and services for decision makers.

RCCs support an intentional effort to understand user needs for NCEI’s environmental information, and translate those needs into requirements for the development of future products and services. They work hand-in-hand with NCEI’s Regional Climate Services Directors (RCSD) in their mission, with the RCSDs primarily assessing, prioritizing, and translating constituent needs into actionable product requirements, and the RCCs primarily providing operational capacity to deliver products and services. RCSDs provide strategic direction to the RCCs to align their core activities with emerging regional priorities. Working together, the RCSDs and RCCs enable more environmentally-informed private- and public-sector decision-making in all sectors of the economy, effectively enhancing the Nation’s preparedness for and resiliency to climate extremes and change.

To maintain a cost-effective program, RCCs consider existing and planned capabilities of other NOAA and non-NOAA climate services providers to avoid redundancy. RCCs share their expertise in observational networks, data stewardship, and information systems design with NCEI, the National Weather Service (NWS), and other NOAA programs and partners to ensure an integrated approach to climate information analysis and dissemination.

The RCC Program directly supports the following legislative mandates:

· National Climate Program Act of 1978, whose mandate is to “…establish a national climate program that will assist the Nation and the world to understand and respond to natural and man-induced climate processes and their implications.” 15 U.S.C. §§ 2901- 08 (1978)

· U.S. Global Change Research Act of 1990, which calls for the Federal Government to “…combine and interpret data from various sources to produce information readily usable by policymakers attempting to formulate effective strategies for preventing, mitigating, and adapting to the effects of global change.” 15 U.S.C. §§ 2921, 2931-38 (1990)

2. Scope of Work

NCEI seeks to sustain and strengthen its existing climate services and capabilities through the RCC program. NCEI's six RCSDs, who are geographically stationed across the U.S., will look toward RCC capabilities to implement and facilitate major operational components of NCEI's regional goals and to pursue complementarity with other NOAA regional capabilities. Through this arrangement, the RCCs will effectively provide execution of NCEI's regional priorities.

A. Geographic Scope

The six RCC regions are defined as follows:

· Northeast Region: ME, NH, VT, MA, RI, CT, NY, NJ, PA, DE, MD, WV

· Southeast Region: VA, NC, SC, GA, AL, FL, PR, USVI

· Southern Region: TN, MS, LA, AR, OK, TX

· Midwestern Region: KY, IN, MI, IL, WI, MO, IA, MN, OH

· High Plains Region: ND, SD, NE, KS, CO, WY

· Western Region: MT, ID, UT, NM, AZ, NV, CA, OR, WA, AK, HI, US-affiliated Pacific Islands

A contractor providing an RCC capability to a region need not be physically located within the region however and all states, territories, and U.S.-affiliated islands in a region must be served by its respective RCC. To this end, formal partnerships, consortiums, and other means of institutional collaboration within each region are encouraged.

B. Program Scope

The RCCs will provide climate-related products and services to address regional needs and issues in the context of NCEI’s broader environmental information responsibilities. This will include leveraging NOAA’s capabilities and expertise by transforming its satellite, in situ, radar, and paleoclimate data and products into regionally-tailored products and services, as appropriate, that meet the needs of users and partners. RCCs will focus their work in four broad areas, including:

1. Regional engagement and user needs identification, in which RCCs will engage with industry, economic and environmental sectors, and public sector constituencies throughout each region to understand their climate-related issues, needs, awareness, and capabilities.

2. Needs prioritization and product and tool provision, in which RCSDs will assess, prioritize, and translate user needs into requirements, and, RCCs will adapt or develop, test, and sustain tools, products, and services meeting the requirements. To this end, they will support NCEI in the intentional collection of user needs and translation to requirements for future products through regular contributions to NCEI’s requirements collection database tool.

3. Transitioning appropriate tools, products, and services to sustained NCEI operational states, in which RCCs will plan and execute transition projects that result in new or upgraded NCEI operational software, systems, products, services, and other capabilities.

4. Services in which RCCs will sustain activities supporting their mission of the provision of products and services as well as other NCEI regional needs.

When appropriate, RCCs will actively engage other regional NOAA programs (e.g., NWS regional offices, National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) early warning systems, NOAA regional collaboration teams) and NOAA partners (e.g., Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments, Sea Grant programs) to identify shared priorities for climate services and facilitate opportunities for research-to-operations activities. RCCs are encouraged to refer customers to other key partners (AASC offices, NWS) for state and local inquiries if there is a State Climatologist or NWS Weather Forecast Office with the capacity to address the need. In all activities RCCs will monitor the greater climate service provider landscape and adjust appropriately to avoid duplication of efforts.

The RCCs will focus on serving relevant parts of the private sector as well as non-Federal parts of the public sector, such as state, county, and municipal governments, related associations, and indigenous communities. RCCs will also provide non-inherently governmental support to NCEI per the Requirements section below.

The RCCs will collectively provide two types of services and capabilities: Regional Services and National Capabilities to Support Regional Needs.

1. Regional Services are services that must be provided by the RCC in a particular region. Some of these services are common to all RCCs, while others are specific to individual regions. Common services include general regional services not focused on specific sectors or climate-related issues, such as providing monthly, quarterly, and annual regional climate summaries to NCEI and transitioning mature RCC research products and services to NCEI’s Initial Operational Capability.

Region-specific services are those focused on sectors or climate-related issues that NCEI has identified in the Requirements section below. Examples include conducting needs assessments and providing climate products related to water resources or coastal inundation. Besides serving its home region, an RCC with a given region-specific primary capability will provide leadership and expertise in that function beyond its region, in concert with other RCCs, to ensure the sector- or issue-related capability serves regional needs across the Nation as necessary.

2. National Capabilities to Support Regional Needs are enterprise services or capabilities that do not require the expertise or resources unique to any given regions, such as a capability for users to report and track possible errors in NCEI data products and systems as identified by users.

3. Period of Performance:

4. Requirements

Two types of requirements are provided in this PWS:

· Base Services:

· Regional Services Requirements

· Optional Services:

· Regional Services Requirements

· National Capabilities Requirements to Support Regional Needs

Regional Services Requirements specify requirements for individual RCCs. National Capabilities Requirements to Support Regional Needs specify requirements for enterprise services or capabilities that extend across all regions and do not require skills or capabilities unique to a region.

A. Base Services: Regional Services Requirements Two types of Regional Services Requirements are addressed below:

· Common requirements, which must be met by each RCC regardless of region

· Region-specific requirements, which are unique to and described for particular regions

1) Regional Services Requirements -- Common

a. Synthesize Regional Weather and Climate Data and Information

i. Each RCC shall provide monthly climate monitoring reports for public release. The reports shall, in coordination with NCEI’s monitoring and assessment group:

· Provide a regional overview of temperature, precipitation, and drought statistics and highlights.

· Provide a regional overview of climate impacts within the region, including elements such as crop conditions, reservoir levels, and energy demand.

· Provide historical context on climate events and episodes that are defined conceptually and are not directly measured by instruments and observatories, such as heat and cold waves, drought, severe weather events, and water shortages.

ii. At least quarterly, each RCC shall compile and synthesize seasonal-scale climate impact and outlook information for the region, appropriate for non-technical audiences, and deliver a summary consistent with NCEI style and format and in consultation with the relevant RCSD(s).

iii. Each RCC shall produce annual “State of the Region” climate summaries, modeled on NCEI’s annual National Overview and appropriate for non-technical audiences, in consultation with the relevant RCSD(s).

b. Support Adjudication of Possible New Weather Records

i. Each RCC shall appoint a climatologist to assess, as requested by NCEI, the legitimacy of extraordinary weather observations or other data identified as possible new records for jurisdictions within its region.

c. Maintain and Deliver Inventory Information

i. Each RCC shall maintain an inventory of its research and sustained products and services, their maturity as assessed with the NCEI Maturity Matrix, their documentation states, and their compliance with NCEI-approved formats and metadata schema.

d. Track User Inquiries, Access, Downloads and Use of RCC Resources

i. Each RCC shall document and respond to customer inquiries of a routine (i.e., phone, fax, e-mail), regional nature within one business day from the time of receipt.

ii. Each RCC shall input monthly updates of summarized user needs into an NCEI requirements collection database tool. The updates shall be of sufficient granularity to inform decisions on the sustainment of existing or development of new products and services.

iii. Each RCC shall track the number of RCC data, product, and information downloads and service requests, including web analytics, and report summary information, including aggregated user domain information, for each fiscal year quarter.

iv. Each RCC shall implement a process for tracking the further distribution, use, and value of its products and services (e.g., a user’s subsequent data distribution or translation following a download from the RCC), and provide summary information for each fiscal year quarter.

2) Regional Services Requirements -- Region-Specific Each RCC shall meet all Regional Theme Requirements for the themes identified for its region as specified below.

a. The RCC shall meet its theme requirements:

i. Within its region

ii. Outside its region, in collaboration with other RCCs. This requirement defines a functional, rather than strictly geographic, leadership capability that can be projected, shared, or applied in other regions as needs dictate.

b. The RCC shall propose annual changes to its themes, for consideration by NCEI, as regional needs and priorities vary over time.

i. The RCC shall provide products and services to support relevant parts of the private and public sectors, and provide associated stewardship, documentation and consultation services to ensure product integrity and customer ease-of-use. The RCC shall assess user needs for climate products and services and will develop and deliver a prioritized list of user needs that are unmet by other providers.

ii. The RCC shall convene user workshops as appropriate, but at least annually, focused on RCC and appropriate NCEI products, user applications, and needs. The RCC shall develop and deliver a summary workshop report to include recommendations on how to most effectively engage stakeholders.

iii. The RCC shall identify and exercise opportunities to grow awareness and use of, in priority order, NCEI, NESDIS, and NOAA climate data and information among regional users and communities, including products supplied by or derived from NCEI’s Reference Environmental Data Records program.

Regional Themes (Not in priority order)

· High Plains RCC (HPRCC)

1. Theme 1: Water Resources

2. Theme 2: Agriculture

· Midwestern RCC (MRCC)

1. Theme 1: Water Resources

2. Theme 2: Agriculture

· Northeast RCC (NRCC)

1. Theme 1: Water Resources and Critical Infrastructure

2. Theme 2: Resiliency to Extreme Events

· Southeast RCC (SERCC)

1. Theme 1: Inland and Coastal Resiliency

2. Theme 2: Human Health, including Heat and Cold Events

· Southern RCC (SRCC)

1. Theme 1: Water Resources

2. Theme 2: Coastal Resiliency

· Western RCC (WRCC)

1. Theme 1: Water Resources

2. Theme 2: Wildland Fire

3. Theme 3: Coastal and Ocean Resources

4. Theme 4: Coastal Inundation and Sea Level Rise

B. Optional Services Optional Services Requirements are requirements that will be executed at the government’s discretion. Two types of Optional Services Requirements are addressed below.

· Regional Services Requirements

· National Capabilities Requirements to Support Regional Needs

Regional Services Requirements specify requirements for individual RCCs. A Regional Services Requirement under Optional Services will be executed at the government’s discretion for individual regions as necessary. National Capabilities to Support Regional Needs are enterprise products, capabilities, and services, which are required across all regions and do not require skills or expertise unique to one or more regions.

1) Regional Services Requirements -- Common

a) Transition RCC Developments to NCEI Operational State

i. Each RCC shall, with guidance, prioritization, and collaboration of NCEI, recommend and support the transition of select mature RCC tools, products, and services to NCEI operational states (i.e., Initial Operational Capability [IOC] or Full Operational Capability [FOC]) by adapting and following, as appropriate, the NCEI Reference Environmental Data Records Program’s Research-to-Operations framework. The RCC shall ensure that resources and capabilities submitted for transition comply with NCEI’s standards and policies.

b) Additional Regional Service Requirement

i. Each RCC shall provide products and services for additional government-designated sectors or climate-related issues in its region. These activities may be conducted in collaboration with other RCCs who may already be providing such products and services in support of their Regional Themes. Examples of additional government-designed sector or climate-related issues may include:

· Air quality extremes induced by weather and climate phenomena

· Agriculture

· Civil Infrastructure

· Climate oscillation impacts (e.g., El Niño, Madden-Julian)

· Coastal Hazards

· Construction

· Droughts

· Energy

· Floods

· Forests and Forest Ecosystems

· Health

· Insurance

· Litigation

· Marine and Coastal Ecosystems

· National Security

· Severe weather and climate events and trends

· Tourism

· Transportation

· Water Resources

· Wildfire extremes induced by weather and climate phenomena

2) National Capabilities Requirements to Support Regional Needs

a. Threaded Station Data

i. Maintain a database of “threaded” station time series for 270 locations across the United States for the purpose of calculating extremes of temperature and precipitation. Provide web-based access to the database.

ii. Acknowledge requests for station thread modifications and corrections in writing to NCEI and NWS within three (3) business days of request. Implement modifications and corrections on an annual basis.

iii. Provide NCEI and NWS with an annual update of the “threaded” database (and station metadata) by April of each year of the contract.

b. Error Reporting and Tracking

i. Maintain a web-based system to report and track errors in NCEI datasets and products. The system shall include a user interface, online documentation, operator dashboard, archive capability, status monitoring, and a flexible configuration to accommodate new datasets and products.

ii. The system shall provide monthly status reports to NCEI. The monthly report shall include account statistics such as number of new accounts, total number of open user accounts and the number of password requests. All requested changes to user accounts must be completed within five (5) business days of request, except for password changes, which shall be completed within three (3) business days of request.

c. Daily Updates for Cooperative Observing (COOP) Stations

i. Maintain a database of recent daily data from COOP stations throughout the United States. The database shall specifically contain daily observations for the most recent four-day period for temperature (maximum and minimum), precipitation, snowfall, and snow depth.

ii. Provide NCEI with an update of the database once per day.

d. National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS)

i. Interact with NIDIS users and address questions about NIDIS data and products

ii. Establish regional drought information to enhance existing product suites, particularly in the NIDIS Regional Drought Early Warning System areas, including data accessible via Open Geospatial Consortium-compliant web services.

iii. Provide regional expertise in assessing and monitoring drought to enhance existing products and services.

e. NWS COOP Support

i. Provide a web-based data entry system that allows all climate observers in the NWS COOP program to enter daily observations, view and edit old observations, graph daily climate trends, and submit observations to NWS. In addition, the system shall ingest data from IV-ROCS, the NWS telephone entry system for Cooperative Observers.

ii. Collect observations in near real-time (i.e., 24/7 operations, with an Operational Availability exceeding 99%) as provided by NWS COOP observers through NWS systems and provide these data to NWS at a minimum of once per day and in end-of-month collections.

iii. Support the identification, reporting, tracking, and resolution of issues in these data in collaboration with NWS and NCEI and provide monthly status reports.

iv. Notify NWS and NCEI by email when system outages occur within 1 hour of onset of unexpected outages, and with five (5) days lead time for planned outages.

v. Provide information and support regarding how this system can be designed to be easily portable to new environments operated by NCEI or other organizations.

5. Additional Work Requests (AWR)

The contractor is encouraged to actively advance regional climate services through the performance of additional work requests. With the availability of additional financial resources, the RCS Program manager at NCEI will oversee the allocation of funding for additional work requests, based upon NCEI’s mission needs and regional priorities identified in coordination with the RCSDs. Such funding is above and beyond that dedicated for the requirements outlined under Section 4. These requests will be processed as contract modifications under the appropriate CLIN and priced based on appropriate labor categories and rates.

Additional work requests, as defined in this section, differ from requirements (as defined in Section 4) by the extent and nature of the activity. Typically, core requirements are defined as those activities dedicated to operations and maintenance, successor products and services, and development and transfer activities. Additional work requests cover system enhancements or major directed efforts that may fall into one or more of the following categories:

· Reanalysis, rescue or other significant enhancements of data sets

· Enhancements to existing operational systems and products

· Operation and maintenance of systems used by NCEI partners such as NWS and the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research

· Climate interfaces (data management and dissemination)

· Climate network development

· Development of geospatial capabilities

· Integration of non-NOAA data into blended products

· Non-routine data quality assurance and control

· Development of thematic web portal infrastructure

· Engagement in emerging regional services priorities (e.g., extreme events)

· Response to regional funding or interagency coordination opportunities

6. Security Requirements

RCCs shall provide a copy of an independent audit that shall encompass all aspects of Statements on Auditing Standards (SAS) 70, Purchase Card Industry (PCI) Compliance, and a state or local government independent financial statement or performance audit that includes a review of general and application information technology (IT) controls, and an opinion as to the state of the entity’s information security and assurance program. RCCs shall provide the report for inspection and government determination as to their capability as a "going-concern" and their ability to provide adequate protection of data and financial information associated with performance of work under the contract. RCCs shall, upon request from NCEI, provide access to information systems used to execute tasks outlined in this PWS as well as to security documentation required by NCEI IT security team members to validate that controls are in place and operating as intended. Such access will be coordinated with them, and may include access from other NOAA or DOC entities, such as the Office of Inspector General.

7. Performance Reporting and Transition Planning

Quarterly Reports: Each quarter in the federal fiscal year, each RCC shall furnish a detailed report. This report shall describe customer inquiries, partner engagement, products and services, and technical support activities under this contract. The format of the report and performance measures contained in the report will be developed by the RCS Program Manager in coordination with the RCSDs and all RCCs following the award of the contract. Performance measures may include the nature, source and amount of customer support, type and frequency of regional stakeholder activities, and performance of critical systems and infrastructure (i.e., downtime). They will be used to describe program activities and contractor performance, support NCEI budget planning and execution activities, and may also be reported to the Office of Management and Budget or to Congress. RCCs shall provide timely information for the development and reporting of performance measures when appropriate. In addition to the quarterly reports, the RCS Program Manager may contact RCSDs, other NCEI program directors, and key partners for information to assist in evaluating contractor performance.

Transition: In order to ensure the continuity of regional climate services and operational systems following the expiration of this contract, the RCCs shall include transition plans with the contract proposal. These plans shall describe the steps to be taken three months in advance of the expiration of the contract to ensure portability of contractor-development software and systems. RCCs shall provide NCEI with documentation of systems, processes, execution codes, transfer software, and data products derived from NCEI funds. In addition, they shall name a point of contact to work with NCEI in the event of a transition to new contractors upon expiration of the contract. This point of contact shall notify the RCSDs in their region of stakeholder outreach and partner engagement activities that should continue past the expiration of the contract. All transition planning, support and documentation must be completed by the expiration of the contract, without a degradation of service.

8. Schedule of Deliverables for Regional Services Requirements

The table below summarizes the contractual deliverables, the frequencies of delivery, and the recipients of the deliverables for the Regional Services Requirements.

*PM: RCS Program Manager, COR: Contracting Officer’s Representative, RCSD: Regional Climate Services Director

9. Schedule of Deliverables for National Capabilities Requirements

The table below summarizes the contractual deliverables, the frequencies of delivery, and the recipients of the deliverables for the National Capabilities Requirements.

*PM: RCS Program Manager, COR: Contracting Officer’s Representative.