Richard Nixon photo

Message to the Congress Transmitting Annual Plan for United States Participation in the World Weather Program.

July 13, 1973

To the Congress of the United States:

Through the World Weather Program, man is acquiring a means not only to cope with his atmosphere and its vagaries but also to understand and assess the impact of his activities on the quality of the global atmosphere.

As a result of recent technological improvements, we are continuing to show substantial progress in furthering the goals of this program:

--Operational geostationary satellites will soon provide a nearly continuous view of storms over a large part of the earth's surface, strengthening our ability to predict and warn of potential natural disasters. Polar-orbiting satellites making vertical measurements of the global atmosphere are already an important aid to weather forecasting.

--Significant advances in computer science are now helping to extend the range, scope and accuracy of weather predictions and to assess the impact of pollution on climate and weather.

--Intensive planning is nearing completion for a large-scale international experiment to be conducted in 1974 in the tropical Atlantic. This experiment will seek a better understanding of the effects of the tropics on global weather patterns. As a result, we expect to gain new insight into the life cycle of hurricanes that affect the coastal areas of the United States.

--Nations are planning to combine their resources in 1977 to observe the entire earth's atmosphere for the first time as a single physical system.

The World Weather Program is a distinctive example of what nations of the world are capable of achieving when united in a common purpose. A recent United Nations Conference on the Human Environment acknowledged the vital contributions of this program. It is most heartening that a program which means so much to the safety and well-being of the American people can at the same time assist in providing these same assurances to other peoples.

In accordance with Senate Concurrent Resolution 67 of the 90th Congress, I am pleased to transmit this annual report describing the current and planned activities of Federal agencies participating in the World Weather Program.

RICHARD NIXON

The White House,

July 12, 1973.

Note: The message, dated July 12, 1973, was sent to the Congress on July 13.

The report is entitled "World Weather Program, Plan for Fiscal Year 1974" (Government Printing Office, 40 pp. ).

Richard Nixon, Message to the Congress Transmitting Annual Plan for United States Participation in the World Weather Program. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/255657

Filed Under

Categories

Attributes

Simple Search of Our Archives