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COMMERCE BUSINESS DAILY ISSUE OF MAY 24,1999 PSA#2352Department of Commerce, NOAA, 200 World Trade Center, Room 209,
Norfolk, VA 23510-1624 66 -- CLIMATE REFERENCE NETWORK INSTRUMENTATION AND DATA SYSTEM DUE
062599 POC Lynne Phipps, Contract Specialist (757) 441-6881, Melvyn
DesJarlais, Contracting Officer, (757) 441-6647 WEB: Request for
Information, http://www.easc.noaa.gov. E-MAIL: Lynne Phipps,
Lynn.B.Phipps@noaa.gov. The purpose of this Request for Information
(RFI) is to determine the current state-of-the-art and availability of
technologies which industry can offer to accomplish the design and
implementation of a near real-time climate monitoring system. This RFI
is not a Request for Proposals (RFP) but rather is a request to
determine the availability of approaches to (1) measure and record
temperature, precipitation, solar radiation, wind speed, and wind
direction at approximately 250 sites within and across the United
States, (2) transmit observations to central locations in near
real-time (i.e., hourly), and (3) train individuals for on-site
instrument recalibration and general station inspection and
maintenance. The system should be off-the-shelf, rugged, require
minimum maintenance, and store 60 days worth of data. Options for data
transmission should include line of sight RF, telephone, internet, and
satellite uplink. The goal of this effort is to monitor long-term
climate variability and climate change and to put current climate
anomalies into an historical (decade to century) perspective. This RFI
is not to be construed as a commitment by the Government to issue a
solicitation or ultimately award a contract. Responses will not be
considered as proposals nor will any award be made as a direct result
of the RFI response. Any costs incurred in reply to the RFI shall be
borne by the respondent and cannot be charged to the Government for
reimbursement. All information in the RFI represents an overview of the
anticipated project, which is subject to change, and is in no way
binding on the Government. The Government will acknowledge receipt of
submissions but will not provide any feedback. A reference network of
approximately 250 of our best existing long-term stations will be
identified and upgraded to long-term climate monitoring standards in
order to virtually eliminate time-dependent biases. A nearby backup
site for each of these stations also will be identified to provide
redundancy in the network. Each site will have extensive metadata
regarding station operation and surrounding environment. New
instrumentation will be put in place at the 250 primary sites, while
maintaining existing observations for a period of at least two years
(24 consecutive months). The two data sets will be used to develop
transfer functions that will preserve the integrity of the long-term
record. Optionally, the new instrumentation may be installed at the 250
backup sites. New instruments will include digital recording of
temperature, precipitation amount, solar radiation, wind speed and wind
direction measurements with automated data transfer to collection
sites. The system must be expandable, having the capability to
accommodate additional automated sensors in the future as the need for
new measurements arises. Manually-observed data, including snowfall
amount, will be keyed into the data logger or spoken into a voice
recognition system to accomplish near real-time transmission. The
National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) will routinely monitor the quality
and long-term integrity of the data from these sites, and provide
reports back for on-site inspection as warranted. The automated data
from these sites will be transmitted near real-time (i.e., hourly),
with daily summaries of means, extremes, and variability. The
manually-observed data will be transmitted daily. The observation time
for the manually-observed daily data will vary. The system must be
robust and durable, able to make and transmit observations under all
weather conditions in the United States. The data will be a critical
element in the Government's operational monitoring of current climate
anomalies as well as official assessments of long-term climate change.
They will also be used in near term weather forecasts, warnings, and
watches, particularly updating flood forecasts, as well as in other
economic business enterprises. This usage will require: (1) reporting
of the observational data on an hourly basis, (2) transmission of the
daily summary information once-daily, (3) electronic data access, (4)
the ability to electronically port the data from a file into the NCDC's
highly automated QC processing system, and (5) the updating of the list
of sites and metadata must be easily performed by the data base
manager. Responses should include a description of the firm's
background, history, and capability in developing meteorological
monitoring systems, and a discussion of the available systems and
technology. Respondents are requested to provide information using
WordPerfect 6/7/8 or MS WORD files forwarded to Richard Heim at the
NCDC via the Internet, rheim@ncdc.noaa.gov, or via a 3.5 inch diskette,
or by mail. Faxing is also acceptable: (828) 271-4022. To be
considered, submissions must be received at the National Climatic Data
Center, 151 Patton Ave., Room 120, Asheville, NC 28801-5001 not later
than 4:00 PM, June 25, 1999. Administrative questions concerning this
announcement may be directed to one of the following: Lynne Phipps,
e-mail, Lynn.B.Phipps@noaa.gov or Melvyn
DesJarlais,Melvyn.A.DesJarlais@noaa.gov. Technical questions should be
directed to Bruce Baker, (828) 271-4018, fax (828) 271-4022, e-mail,
bbaker@ncdc.noaa.gov. Posted 05/20/99 (W-SN333924). (0140) Loren Data Corp. http://www.ld.com (SYN# 0329 19990524\66-0007.SOL)
66 - Instruments and Laboratory Equipment Index Page
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