Justification - Voluntary Observing Ship Program

Project Title: VOS Voluntary Observing Ship Program

Program Office Sponsoring or Conducting this CSC Project: NWS/Office of Observations/NDBC/Mission Control

Authority for this CSC Project: VOS is supported by the CCSA and the Safety of Life At Sea (SOLAS), Convention - Chapter V -Safety of Navigation, regulation 5 and 11, and supports the WMO/IMO and International VOS Scheme.

Purpose of this CSC Project: This is the second-longest running NWS observing program. It provides marine surface observations for numeric weather prediction (models), weather forecasters, scientists, and the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS) in order to help protect ships at sea and increase shoreline safety.

Type(s) of Information Collected and From Whom It Is Collected: This project collects in situ marine surface weather observations from ships/vessels, entered both manually and automatically into logging and encoding software.

Use of the Information: This project provides marine surface observations for numeric weather prediction and weather forecasters that assist mariners in operating safely by being aware of current and future marine weather conditions.

Method(s) of Information Collection: World Software application that was built for Marine Surface Electronic format allows both manual and automatic data collection and reporting.

Affected Public: Business or other for-profit organizations and not-for-profit institutions (i.e., Shipping and Research Companies)

Estimated Average Annual Number of Participants: 1,500

Estimated Average Annual Number of Responses per Participant: 1,057

Estimated Average Minutes per Response: 2.6

Estimated Average Annual Burden Hours: 68,542

Estimated Total Annual Cost to Participants in this CSC Project: $0

Estimated Average Annual Costs to the Federal Government: $1.8 million

Estimated Average Annual Number of Federal Government Employees (FTEs): 14.

Recruitment and Retention Methods for Voluntary Participants (SSA item 1): The recruitment message focuses on the value of participation to support Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) and the importance of protecting commerce across the marine environment. This message is not lost to those who understand the hazards, risks and importance of weather forecasting. The program has not experienced a shortage of participants but is limited by federal resources and funding.

The most important approach to promote retention is to continue to develop relationships with ship, captains and crew. The Port Meteorological Officers (PMO) who help support this program and review the observation data, work with the crew providing training and feedback letting them know how important their observations are to the program. Automated monthly updates are emailed showing the number of observations from each ship to company contacts, captains, and crew.

Gifts or Payments (SSA Item 9): We do not plan to provide a gift or payment to the voluntary participants.

Annual and Multi-Year Schedules (SSA Item 16): Funding is provided based on the fiscal year from October 1 – September 30. The VOS program is part of an International collaboration of over 25 country programs that report yearly January 1 – December 31.

Display OMB Control No. and Expiration Date (SSA Item 17): This information will be provided when individuals sign up to participate in this CSC project.

Statistical Methods: This CSC project will not employ statistical methods.

Approval for Pretesting: This PSC project will not require additional pretesting with more than nine members of the public.

Supplemental Documents: The supplemental document for this CSC project provides screenshots of the data entry app.

CERTIFICATION: I certify the following are true.

1. The collection is voluntary.

2. The collection is low-burden for respondents and low-cost for the Federal Government.

3. The collection is non-controversial and does not raise issues of concern to other federal agencies.

4. The collection will not include highly influential scientific information, which is information NOAA or OMB determines: (i) could have a potential impact of more than $500 million in any year, or (ii) is novel, controversial, or precedent setting or has significant interagency interest.

5. The collection complies with 5 CFR 1320.9 and the related provisions of 5 CFR 1320.8(b)(3).

6. The collection will provide qualitative and quantitative data that help inform scientific research and monitoring, validate models or tools, support STEM learning, and enhance the quantity and quality of data collected to support NOAA’s mission.

Name: ________________________________________________