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Goal 2, Priority 2: Building Capacity for Coping with Weather and Climate Hazards

NCAR scientists work in partnership with stakeholder communities to research, build, and transfer state-of-the-art decision support information, tools, and systems. This effort encompasses a broad continuum of activities ranging from conducting workshops to developing operational systems and instruments. Developing greater resilience to weather and climate not only involves improved understanding of atmospheric processes, but better understanding of the decision-making process itself, and of the importance of communicating relevant information between atmospheric scientists and decision makers. It is clear that the connections between individual decision makers, as well as societies themselves, and the environment must be better understood and appreciated.

As an NSF federally funded research and development laboratory, and, as stated in our Strategic Plan, NCAR is devoted to applied research and technology transfer. While all of our programs have this responsibility, the most significant effort to support this priority occurs through our Research and Applications Laboratory. In this section, we also report on activities occurring in EOL and SERE.

FY2007 Accomplishments

Click to enlarge. The MET Analisys tool will provide ways of aggregating and producing graphics of teh statistics produced by he grid-to-point, grid-to-grid, and MODE tools. Above is an example of MODE-identified objects in the forecast (bottom left) and observation (bottom right) fields. Corresponding raw fields are shown in the top panels. RAL's work to build resilience to weather hazards continues on a variety of fronts. The Aviation Weather Research Program remains focused on improved detection and forecasting of weather hazards that significantly impact the safety, efficiency, and capacity of the nation’s air transportation system. FY2007 highlights include:

  • A collaboration with the helicopter emergency medical services (HEMS) user community to tailor a flight path tool to meet its needs for weather information in a very narrow range of altitudes and short distances.
  • Determination by the National Weather Service that NCAR’s automated diagnosis and forecast systems for ceiling and visibility are viable technologies for the operational production of data grids that will flow into the NWS forecast process.
  • Successful evaluation of an upgraded version of NCAR’s Current Icing Product (CIP) depicting icing severity.
  • Development and dissemination of a new turbulence detection and on-board quality control algorithm to Southwest and Delta Airlines for deployment on their fleets.
  • Development of a Liquid Water Equivalent (LWE) real-time system.
  • Definition and refinement of new concepts of how probabilistic weather forecasts can be tailored for aviation needs and integrated with automated decision support tools for improved air traffic management.

RAL also continues to address weather hazards affecting the nation’s roads and highways. Highlights in 2007 include:

  • Enhancement of the Maintenance Decision Support System (MDSS), a unique system that provides real-time snow and ice control guidance for user-defined roadway segments.
  • Dissemination of MDSS system software to over 60 road weather organizations (public and private), and successfully supported the Federal Highway Administration’s (FHWA) annual MDSS stakeholder meeting.
  • Real-time utilization of the prototype MDSS by the City and County of Denver and the E-470 Public Highway Authority during the particularly severe winter of 2006-2007. A commercial version of the MDSS is being developed and demonstrated.
  • Preparation and delivery to FHWA of a major vision document titled, “Weather Applications and Products Enabled Through Vehicle Infrastructure Integration (VII).” This document discusses how probe data from millions of vehicles could be used in the future to support the diagnosis and short term prediction of weather.

And finally, a wealth of DoD research and development activities conducted by RAL include:

  • Continued improvements in real-time four-dimensional data assimilation (RTFDDA) capabilities. RTFDDA assimilates observations from a variety of data feeds, preserving the data’s temporal dimension during assimilation, and new analyses and forecasts are made every one to three hours, depending on the test range, providing the operational forecaster with timely information.
  • Evaluation of new 3-Dimensional Variational Data Assimilation (3DVAR) techniques at the mesoscale. a number of non-standard observations that cannot be included in RTFDDA's observation-nudging scheme, such as satellite radiance, GPS, and radar, are being incorporated. 3DVAR is currently being integrated into the RTFDDA system, yielding a model-based solution that will account for all available observations.
  • Successful testing of an operational ensemble of 4DWX forecasts in support of the FUsing Sensor Information from Observing Networks (FUSION) Field Trial. The ensemble system (called E-RTFDDA) extends the pseudo-deterministic, single RTFDDA realizations by running a suite of RTFDDA forecasts, all valid at the same place and time. The ensemble comprises 30 members whose differences are induced by varying initial conditions, boundary conditions, model physics, and model cores.
  • Development of an operational algorithm that can both estimate an unknown chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and explosive (CBRNE) source and predict a refined downwind hazard from that source. To support testing and evaluation of this product, RAL is developing a virtual testing and evaluation environment (VTHREAT) that will enable simulation of a realistic CBRNE release scenario, placement of CBRNE and meteorological sensors, and extraction of the resulting synthetic sensor readings.

In FY2007, ISSE’s Kathy Miller continued working with Robert McKelvey (University of Montana) and Peter Golubtsov (Moscow State Lomonosov University, Russia) on the development of game (wildlife) theoretic models, which approximate the effects of climate impacts in competitive fisheries for highly migratory fish stocks. In FY2008, the project team will incorporate results from this work into a set of workshop talks and journal papers.

Click to enlarge. Poster session from the workshop, “Challenge of Change: Managing for Sustainability of Oceanic Top Predator Species” (April, 2007). Miller also helped convene a workshop in April 2007, the Challenge of Change: Managing for Sustainability of Oceanic Top Predator Species, as part of Climate Impacts on Oceanic Top Predators (CLIOTOP). CLIOTOP is a broad international scientific program that focuses on building an understanding of how combined effects of environmental changes and harvesting activities affect the dynamics of tuna, sharks, billfish, and other top ocean predator species.

EOL also contributed to this priority with the transfer and installation of NCAR’s CP-2 radar in to Australia’s Brisebane-based Bureau of Meteorology (BOM), which will enable long-term scientific collaboration in the areas of nowcasting, hydrology, and weather modification. Brisbane is an excellent location for studying flash flood producing rainstorms over moderate topography, as well as sub-tropical oceanic systems. The BOM also has a first-class array of rain gauge and lightning detection systems–ideal for long-term weather and climate research. More information on this project is available in the EOL LAR.

And, last, but not least, in mid-2007, ESSL/HAO and NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center (formerly the Space Environment Center) co-hosted a successful summit meeting to identify areas for collaboration and support of space weather prediction and mitigation activities.

FY2008 Plans for Strategic Priority 2

In the aviation arena, RAL plans include:

  • Further enhancements will be made to the HEMS tool: radar and satellite data will be incorporated; user-specific data (e.g., location of hospitals, helipads/bases, etc.); street-level maps will be made available; and a search interface created.
  • Our Graphical Turbulence Guidance 2 (GTG2) product is expected to become "operational" and available on the Aviation Digital Data Service web site. This product produces forecasts of clear-air turbulence sources out to 12 hours, updated hourly. Preliminary testing of the next version, GTG3, will also commence; this version will provide probabilistic forecasts, will use all available in situ reports, and will include explicit mountain wave turbulence diagnostics
  • The LWE system will be demonstrated at four sites: Pittsburgh International, Chicago O’Hare, Denver International, and Minneapolis/St. Paul airports. Data from the LWE system will be provided to airlines, pilots and deicing users via a web site and radio broadcast. The FAA will evaluate the results of the demonstration and provide final approval to use the system operationally.
  • New integration concepts developed during FY07 will be further refined and feasibility analyses conducted. High-resolution ensemble model simulations will be used to create probabilistic weather forecasts with a specific tailoring from an aviation perspective.

In surface transportation, RAL plans include:

  • Continued development and validation of the MDSS using Colorado as a test bed. Prototype MDSS products will be provided to the E-470 Public Road Authority and the City and County of Denver. We anticipate that Denver International Airport may also participate in the MDSS demonstration to evaluate the system’s capabilities for supporting snow and ice control operations for ramp, runways, and Pena Blvd.
  • Participation in the VII testbed near Detroit, Michigan to obtain data from test vehicles and begin to analyze their characteristics (e.g., quality, density, and geographical and temporal distribution). RAL will also begin the design and development of a Weather Data Translator (WDT) that will be used to parse, ingest, process, quality control, and generate advanced weather and road condition analyses utilizing vehicle probe data.

In its real-time modeling and data assimilation efforts for the DoD, RAL plans include:

  • Systematic evaluation of different model physics schemes available in the WRF-RTFDDA model. An optimum suite of model physics options will be determined for each existing and new operational RTFDDA system according to the application’s geographic location and dominant weather processes. Systematic errors in the final selected physics suite will be identified and improvements to the relevant model physics will be made.
  • Exploration of hybrid data assimilation development with a focus on assimilating satellite radiance and radar radial winds. Currently, studies have been undertaken with the IHOP-2002 cases to tune up the data assimilation parameters, and the implementation of the hybrid scheme for RTFDDA operations is planned during late FY08. A Variational Doppler Radar Analysis System (VDRAS) “observation-nudging” hybrid approach will also be studied, using VDRAS as a bridge for incorporating Doppler radar radial winds and reflectivity measurements into high-resolution WRF-RTFDDA through the “observation-nudging” mechanism.
  • Further development of the E-RTFDDA system. Specifically, work will aim to: 1)develop and evaluate existing and new ensemble perturbation schemes; 2) develop more experience and conduct statistical verification relative to operational ensemble forecasting; 3) generate re-forecasts for the last three years and develop ensemble calibration algorithms; and 4) start to investigate a 4-D EnKF scheme which makes use of “Kalman-Gain” to define the spatial weighting factors of “observation-nudging” data assimilation.
  • Development of additional types of meteorological sensors (towers, rawinsonde, and LIDAR) and the ability to dynamically place grids of chemical sensors to enhance the functionality of VTHREAT. The release of the first official version of the system is scheduled for early FY09.

In FY2008, ESSL/HAO and the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) will continue to work together on areas of study including solar cycle variation, coronal events, irradiance variation, magnetospheric and ionospheric coupling and thermospheric density changes. ESSL/HAO will carry forward this work to transition key space weather modeling elements for transition and testing at the SWPC Rapid Prototyping Center. The goal of this exercise is to prioritize activities with respect to threat level and the feasibility of fast transition of basic research products. RAL is also involved in this work given the growing importance of space weather to aviation. Of particular concern are the health of flight crews repeatedly traveling over polar regions and the impact of space weather interfering with vital communications.

Related Lab Annual Report Sections:
Goal 2, Priority 2