ETL Accomplishments
- Using Regional Science and Technology Testbeds
- Understanding and Describing Boundary Layer Processes
- Understanding and Describing the Atmosphere
Using Regional Science and Technology Testbeds to Advance the Transfer
of Research to Operations.
ETL maintains a broad suite of ground-based
and airborne remote sensing instruments that support local and regional
studies of atmospheric, oceanic, and surface processes necessary to
advance NOAA's capability to observe, understand, and predict weather,
climate and air quality. This instrument suite is now supporting a number
of testbed deployments to accelerate the transfer of science and technology
into operations.
Selected Accomplishments
- Temperature Forecasting: Observations and Model Assessment
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NEHRTP model verification website.
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ETL evaluated model meteorological fields with observed fields in a
multi-laboratory/NWS field study in 2002, revealing problems with
cloud-radiation feedbacks in the models and confirming the physical
justification for model improvements planned by NCEP. NCEP evaluated
its planned modifications to the Eta model during the spring of 2003
and found an improvement of nearly 1.5 °F in the forecast maximum
daily temperatures for New England. The changes were transferred to
the operational Eta model in July 2003 and are now being evaluated
by ETL using a special summer 2003 field deployment.
- Air Quality Forecasting: Observations and Model Assessment
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NEAQS website.
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ETL deployed for the first time an ozone and aerosol lidar on the
NOAA ship Ron Brown during the 2002 New England Air Quality Study to
characterize the processes affecting the vertical structure of ozone
and aerosol over the cold ocean. The transport and mixing of pollutants
over the ocean is a major issue for evaluation in forecast models for the
Northeast. The summer 2004 field program will focus on this issue with
enhanced instrumentation on the Ron Brown.
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CCOS website.
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For the NOAA Health of the Atmosphere field research programs and
Congressionally supported studies conducted for the California Air
Resources Board, ETL deployed networks of integrated boundary-layer
observing systems to observe and characterize important parameters for
air quality including the depth and strength of convective vertical
mixing, aerosols and ozone, diurnal wind patterns and surface radiation.
Based on feedback from NWS forecasters and forecast users, ETL is
developing two new web-based tools. The first is a real-time display
of convective boundary-layer (CBL) depth derived from the Doppler
spectral moments collected by the wind profilers. The second is a
wind profiler trajectory tool that will allow users to plot forward
or backward trajectories on a map based on the horizontal winds
collected by the wind profiler network. These tools will be available
for forecasters and research scientists during the 2004 New England
Air Quality Study.
- Coastal Hydrometeorology: Technology Development, Observations and Application
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Snow-level Product.
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- Developed and demonstrated a new method using boundary layer wind
profilers to monitor the snow-level in winter storms on the US West
Coast and in New England. Evaluated the use of these data by NWS/WFOs
through web-based feedback.
- ETL deployed a prototype gap-filling X-band dual-polarization radar
to explore its potential for filling gaps in current NEXRAD coverage
with much improved measurements of rainfall rates, particularly for
watersheds in mountainous regions.
- ETL trained NWS river forecasters and meteorologists at COMET
training courses in 2002 & 2003.
Users and Benefits
The primary user is the National Weather Service in providing better
forecasts of temperature with current models and in preparing for
forecasts of air quality with models now being developed for operational
use. In the case of the coastal hydrometeorology testbed program,
this grew out of a series of shorter-term winter experiments (CALJET,
PACJET) that directly involved water managers, emergency managers,
flood control agencies, fishermen associations, harbor masters and
others. The current plan is to bring researchers, forecasters and
forecast users together to develop, test, evaluate and recommend
permanent, cost-effective solutions to limitations in current
observing systems, model parameterizations, forecasting techniques,
and understanding of key physical processes.
Understanding and Describing Processes at the Interface of the
Atmosphere with Land, Ocean and the Cryosphere
ETL's long history of boundary layer research grew from the early insights
provided by acoustic, optical and radio remote sensing instruments,
gaining a major impetus in the mid-1970's with the transfer of the AFCRL
boundary layer turbulence team, famous for the Kansas field studies in
the 1960's, to the lab and the construction of the Boulder Atmospheric
Observatory 300-m meteorological tower. Since that time, our program
has expanded with major contributions to climate-relevant
parameterizations for air-sea interaction, using NOAA's unique seagoing
capabilities, to pioneering new observing capabilities in the polar
regions, and to embracing the NWS Science and Technology Infusion Plan
that calls for a focus on the boundary layer in "situationally-sensitive"
regions, a focus that is particularly important for improving coastal
and air quality forecasting.
Selected Accomplishments
- Quantifying air-sea transfers of heat, momentum, and CO2
- ETL worked with its Woods Hole partners to foster the development of
a CO2 version of the NOAA/COARE bulk flux algorithm which has now become
the standard for estimating CO2 fluxes over the ocean. This
work has been characterized as an important breakthrough by NOAA's
Carbon Cycle Program.
- ETL collaborated with scientists at the Woods Hole and Australia's
CSIRO to develop and update (most recently in 2003) an algorithm to
compute air-sea fluxes from bulk meteorological variables. COARE is
the most accurate algorithm available and its wide use for weather,
climate, and research applications has established it as the global
standard (it has been referenced in more than 400 scientific publications).
- ETL cooperated with scientists from the University of Washington to
obtain the first ever ship-based remote sensing observations of marine
stratocumulus clouds as part of NOAA's CLIVAR research program. The
measurements included mm-wavelength Doppler cloud radar, Doppler lidar,
wind profilers, air-sea turbulent fluxes, radiative fluxes, and
balloon soundings.
- Advancing the remote sensing on the Earth's land, ocean, and ice/snow surfaces
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Soil moisture maps.
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- ETL developed the first practical airborne techniques for regional
mapping of soil moisture, and has demonstrated the first such application
of dual C- and X-band radiometry for this purpose. This system was
demonstrated in airborne campaigns over Iowa, Alabama, Georgia, and
Oklahoma in 2002 and 2003.
- NOAA/ETL is the first and only institution that has succeeded in
demonstrating two-dimensional mapping of the near-surface ocean wind
field using passive polarimetric radiometry. The ETL effort in this
area has been in direct support of the NPOESS Integrated Program
Office on the development of the passive polarimetric wind vector
concept, scheduled to be used on board the first NPOESS satellite in 2009.
- ETL developed an airborne Lidar for fishery surveys. ETL has
demonstrated good agreement between LIDAR data and echo-sounder data
in tests on epipelagic fishes in the Gulf of Mexico, off Florida, and in
the Gulf of Alaska, juveniles of a number of species in the Atlantic off
the Iberian Peninsula, mackerel off Norway, and zooplankton in Prince
William Sound, Alaska. An imaging capability has been added that
allows individual salmon to be identified and counted.
- ETL developed a new high-resolution, multi-sensor, blended satellite
sea surface temperature (SST) data set that combines the through-cloud
measurement capability of microwave sensors with the high accuracy and
resolution of infrared sensors.
Users and Benefits
The major beneficiary of ETL's air-sea interaction program has been the
global climate modeling community with secondary use of the
parameterizations now occurring in NCEP weather models. ETL's program
in airborne remote sensing and multi-sensor products benefit NOAA's
other line offices including NESDIS and NMFS.
Understanding and Describing the
Atmosphere: Weather, Climate, and the Processes That Connect Them
The ability to observe and diagnose the state of the atmosphere for weather
and climate applications has been greatly enhanced by ETL's development
of remote sensors. For example, ETL's leadership in developing cloud
and radiometric remote sensing gave rise to many of the commercial
remote sensors now deployed at the DOE's Clouds and Radiation Testbed
site. ETL's demonstration of the value of wind profiler networks in
Colorado motivated the creation of the Profiler Demonstration Network
in the U.S. mid-west. ETL's experience in deploying remote sensing systems
in remote areas of the oceans and polar regions will underpin decisions
for the next generation global observing system. In addition, ETL's
observational and diagnostic capability will support new efforts in
understanding processes and impacts that lie between weather and
climate time scales.
Selected Accomplishments
- Improving Arctic Climate and Weather Forecasting
- Developed state-of-the-art radars, radiometers and flux systems that
are Arctic hardened and capable of operational monitoring as well as
portable field operations together with creating retrieval techniques
to blend data streams from multiple sensors to determine atmospheric
properties that can not be determined from one system alone. ETL
is leading the effort to establish the first SEARCH Arctic Observatory site.
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Arctic Retrievals
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- Generated multi-year, archived data sets of cloud macro and
microphysical properties, boundary and surface-layer structure
and turbulent exchanges, and surface energy budgets for coastal
Arctic and Arctic Ocean locations.
- Improved a hierarchy of forecasting (e.g. ECMWF), climate (e.g. CCCMa,
CCSM) and regional (e.g. ARCSYM, MM5) models with new observation-based
parameterizations as well as providing unique data sets for model validation.
- Observing and Modeling Clouds, Aerosols and Radiation
- Using a unique combination of remote sensors and models, ETL has
engaged in a study of the aerosol indirect effect. Observations are
provided by surface-based remote sensors developed at ETL and enable
simultaneous profiling of aerosol entering clouds (measured by lidar)
and cloud drop response (derived from radar and microwave radiometer).
Our models include detailed representation of aerosol and cloud
microphysics and the effect of aerosols on cloud drop number and size,
and cloud reflectance.
- ETL fabricated and is testing a prototype Ground-based Remote Icing
Detection System (GRIDS) to remotely identify hazardous in-cloud aircraft
icing conditions and issue warnings to pilots and air traffic controllers.
This system, being developed for the NWS and FAA, is based on a number
of microwave and radar technologies pioneered at ETL.
- To solve the problem of assimilating passive microwave data into
forecast models over heavy clouds, ETL has developed fast discrete
ordinate radiative transfer model routines that provide the Jacobian
between the observed brightness temperature and all NCEP prognostic
parameters. This program uses ETL's unique theoretical expertise in
radiative transfer and numerical weather modeling.
- Exploring Issues at the Interface Between Weather and Climate
- ETL Played key role in developing the international THORPEX effort that
has now been transferred with staff to OAR HQ.
- Developed the Weather Climate Connection effort with CDC, with
initial results documenting watershed-scale sensitivity to large-scale
flow patterns influenced by tropical forcing, and exploring the
climatology of atmospheric rivers and their role in linking the
tropics and land-falling west coast storms.
Users and Benefits
Observations and diagnostic activities in the polar regions are critical
to observing and diagnosing climate change, validating new polar
satellite data products, and supporting NOAA's SEARCH efforts. Other
efforts support the CCSP as well as the activities of the USWRP,
NASA/NOAA Joint Center for Satellite Data Assimilation (JCSDA), and
NOAA/NWS/NCEP/EMC, and NWS aviation forecast validation.
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