The Department of Commerce/National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/National Weather Service Acquisition Management Division are seeking information on potential operations and maintenance support for the modernized Historical Climatology Network.

The US Department of Commerce (DOC)/National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)/National Weather Service (NWS)/Acquisition Management Division are seeking information on potential operations and maintenance support for the Historical Climatology Network-Modernized (HCN-M). NOAA is modernizing 1,000 stations in the Historical Climatology Network (HCN), a regional system of ground-based observing sites that collect climate, weather and water measurements. NOAA's goal is to have HCN work in tandem with the Climate Reference Network (CRN) to feed consistently accurate, high-quality data to scientists studying climate trends. The modernization of the HCN will enhance the extent of America's premiere data source for tracking regional climate variations and trends. The Government seeks a comprehensive operations and maintenance solution to include logistic support, field maintenance, change tracking, metadata reporting, and operational monitoring that has been demonstrated to substantially meet the following performance requirements: - HCN-M sites shall receive a minimum of one visit to each station every year, with no more than 12 months between visits. - All HCN-M instruments shall be calibrated before field issuance and have their calibration verified not less frequently than annually to a National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)-traceable reference technique or method. - HCN-M sites shall be capable of operation in an unattended mode (i.e., no human presence). - The HCN-M shall provide for metadata, at a minimum, consistent with National Weather Service Instruction (NWSI) 10-1312. - The HCN-M shall provide a facility to document changes to the station environment, equipment, procedures, personnel, communications, and other operating parameters as metadata and provide to the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC). - The HCN-M system shall adhere to guidance associated with contributing observing systems as provided in the GEOSS 10-Year Implementation Plan and the U.S. Integrated Earth Observation System (IEOS) Strategic Plan. - The HCN-M shall adhere to the National Academy of Science (NAS)-National Research Council (NRC)/NOAA/World Meteorological Organization (WMO)-accepted Ten Principles of Climate Monitoring (National Academy of Sciences, 1997) - HCN-M data processing shall incorporate automated quality control (QC) processes to detect malfunctioning sensors and support equipment, engineering information approaching predetermined thresholds, and suspect observational values. - HCN-M metadata processing shall include automated and manual QC processes to detect erroneous, incomplete, and suspect entries. - HCN-M data processing shall make available all HCN-M field site observational data, assigned QC flags, all metadata, and site station history within one hour of receipt. - HCN-M data and metadata processing shall be able to accept physical delivery (such as upload from a flash memory drive) of the data and metadata in the scenario that the data cannot be electronically transmitted over the telecommunications infrastructure. (Note: all information about maintenance practices and maintenance visits, all system changes, are considered to be metadata) - HCN-M documentation and other metadata shall be evaluated to identify information subject to privacy protections. Access to such privacy-protected information shall be restricted based upon applicable Federal and NOAA guidelines. - HCN-M shall maintain a formal change control process in compliance with NWSI 10-101 to manage and document HCN-M data new and existing data holdings (data, information, and metadata) as well as HCN-M system components. - The HCN-M Change Control Board (CCB) will have delegated members to evaluate program issues and vote on changes. - Each HCN-M site shall collect data from all sensors not less than 99 percent of the time on an annual basis. - The HCN-M system shall have an annual data completeness of 98 percent of all possible observations. - Each HCN-M installation shall allow for parallel observations between the modernized site and the existing climate station(s) for two years following initial service from the automated site. - NWS shall commission all HCN-M Sites in accordance with NWSI 80-2. NCDC will have responsibility for commissioning the data. - The HCN-M project shall comply with the requirements of NOAA Administrative Order 212-15, "Management of Environmental and Geospatial Data and Information." The modernization of the HCN is following a "climate-region" approach, starting with a pilot project in the Southwest Climate Region (CO, AZ, UT, NM), where 140 sites are being modernized. HCN-M sites will be equipped with sensors and supporting equipment to collect and transmit three independent measurements of temperature and three independent measurements of liquid precipitation. HCN-M sites will comply with the following specifications: - All instrumentation at each HCN-M site shall adhere to standards for accuracy consistent with NOAA and WMO standards for climate data as defined in the table below: Parameter Units Accuracy Range Resolution Temperature Degrees Fahrenheit - 2.0 -62 to -50 0.1 - 1.0 -50 to +122 0.1 - 2.0 +122 to +134 0.1 Liquid Precipitation Accumulated Amount Inches (mm) - 0.02 inches (.508 mm) or 4% of hourly amount (whichever is greater) 0-10 inches/Hour 0.01 inch (.254 mm) Table 1 Temperature and Precipitation Sensor Performance Standard - The HCN-M site design shall support continuous operations 24-hours each day. - The HCN-M shall have a network interface at each field site, a network transmission medium and infrastructure. - HCN-M sites shall be designed to operate with minimal consumable supplies. - HCN-M sites shall be designed for on-site routine maintenance not more frequently than annually. - HCN-M field sites shall be able to accommodate remote updates to all site control software if telecommunications available at this site supports this. - Each HCN-M field system shall retain data and metadata for a minimum of 60 days. - Each HCN-M field system shall allow for manual local retrieval of stored data. - HCN-M will be available to users from existing telecommunication feeds (e.g. Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites Data Communication Network [DCN]) NOAA has developed pilot HCN-M sites in the state of Alabama as depicted in the graphic below. HCN-M Pilot Site - Alabama The Government is soliciting information on an innovative approach to operate and maintain the HCN-M system which will maintain climate quality standards while controlling costs. The Government requests that the following information be provided: 1) A description of the approach to provide operation and maintenance solutions for 1000 HCN-M sites across the contiguous United States 2) A description of the staffing plan to support this approach, 3) Order of magnitude cost for the comprehensive solution on an annual basis 4) A description of how performance would be managed with this approach Request you submit technical information and price estimate. The Government Point of Contact for this activity is Joyce Dickerson 301-713-3405 x 113, e-mail address joyce.dickerson@noaa.gov.