Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere

Threats in Motion: Exploring and Implementing Moving Weather Warnings (and Watches)

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Presented by: Kevin Manross CIRA-GSL

Ideally the average person would be able to pull out their phone, choose a location and time and get a solid idea of hazardous weather conditions for the “when and where” they chose. To a degree, this is currently the case, but there are some known gaps in updating hazard weather information as the user approaches… Read more »

How Do We Make And Improve Satellite Data Products That Enable Breakthrough Science? Journeys Through Solar Backscatter Observations

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Presented by: Dr. Joanna Joiner NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Hosted by: Dan Lindsey

Over the past two decades, satellite solar backscatter instruments have been a cornerstone for monitoring atmospheric composition, including near surface pollutants and climate agents such as ozone, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen dioxide. Some of these same sensors were also surprisingly able to measure a small signal arising from solar-induced fluorescence inside leaves, global measurements related to… Read more »

Pure AI-based weather forecasting models – Where are we and where should we go?

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Presented by: Imme Ebert-Uphoff and Jacob Radford Hosted by: CIRA, CSU; Machine Learning Group

Over the past 18 months purely AI-driven global weather forecasting models have been emerging that demonstrate increasingly impressive skill.  These models are typically trained on ERA5 data and are completely data-driven – most of them do not include a single physical equation.  Many of these models are orders of magnitude faster than NWP models and… Read more »

An overview of the P3 property-based bulk microphysics scheme

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Presented by: Jason Milbrandt Environment and Climate Change Canada Hosted by: Yoonjin Lee and Kyle Hilburn

In 2015, the Predicted Particle Properties (P3) bulk microphysics scheme was introduced.  In the original P3 scheme, all ice-phase hydrometeors were represented by a single “free” category with 4 prognostic variables from which various physical properties could be computed.  As a result, the properties could evolve continuously in time and space and the ice category… Read more »

An Overview of the CIRA Carbon Group

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Presented by: Chris O’Dell CIRA, CSU; Carbon team

This overview presentation will discuss the exciting activities of the CIRA Carbon Group.  Our group primarily focuses on processing and utilizing satellite observations to better understand aspects of the earth’s carbon cycle.  In simpler language, this means studying the current distribution as well as changes to sources and sinks of carbon dioxide and methane to… Read more »

Satellite Use at Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC)

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Presented by: James Darlow Technical Services Dept. / JTWC Hosted by: Dr. Galina Chirokova

The Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) is a joint United States Navy – United States Air Force command in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. JTWC is responsible for the issuing of tropical cyclone warnings in the North-West Pacific Ocean, South Pacific Ocean, and Indian Ocean for all branches of the U.S. Department of Defense and other U.S…. Read more »

Multisatellite Water Vapor Products at the Weather/Climate Interface

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Presented by: John Forsythe CIRA, CSU; MetSat team

Water vapor is the fuel for much of what we perceive as weather, including the formation of clouds and precipitation.  Since the primary source of water vapor is evaporation over the oceans, global satellite observations provide the key measurement of this key variable.  Weather forecasters use two CIRA-developed products, Blended Total Precipitable Water (BTPW) and… Read more »

Long-term variation of TC lifetime maximum intensity location over the northwestern Pacific

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Presented by: Hyeong-Seog Kim Ocean Science and Technology School, Korea Maritime & Ocean University

The annual mean locations of tropical cyclone (TC) lifetime maximum intensity (LMI)have been poleward migration for the last 40 years. In this study, we evaluated the factors affecting the long-term changes in the LMI location using the track pattern classification metrics. We classified the TCs in the western North Pacific into seven clusters by the… Read more »

Tropical cyclone intensity prediction based on satellite cloud feature extraction and machine learning

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Presented by: Myung-Sook Park Korea Ocean Satellite Center, Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology

Convection intensity and organization are significant contributors to the intensification of tropical cyclones but suffer from the lack of in situ observations over the ocean. This study developed i) the geostationary satellite cloud feature extraction (CFE) algorithm to quantify the dynamic process of Tropical cyclone (TC) rapid intensification (RI) and ii) machine-learning-based TC intensity prediction…. Read more »

Use of a U-Net Architecture to Improve Microwave Integrated Retrieval System (MiRS) Precipitation Rates

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Presented by: Shuyan Liu

We report on implementation of a U-Net convolutional neural network architecture to improve operational satellite retrievals of instantaneous precipitation rate from the NOAA Microwave Integrated Retrieval System (MiRS). The U-Net architecture was implemented using NOAA-20/ATMS (Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder) passive microwave retrievals from the MiRS system. Training data consisted of input features that included operational… Read more »

Global daily gap-free ocean color products derived from multi-satellite merged measurements using the DINEOF method

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Presented by: Xiaoming Liu

Satellite ocean color products derived from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) onboard the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (SNPP) and NOAA-20, and the Ocean and Land Colour Instrument (OLCI) on the Sentinel-3A (S3A) and Sentinel-3B (S3B) have been widely used for surveillance of the ocean environment and research on ocean physical, biological, biogeochemical, and… Read more »

Preliminary Investigation of Ensemble Forecast Sensitivity to Observation Impact with GFS and RRFS

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Presented by: Liao-Fan Lin CIRA, CSU; NOAA/OAR/Global Systems Laboratory

Forecast Sensitivity to Observation Impact (FSOI) helps to quantify the impact of assimilated observations on forecast skills in numerical weather prediction systems. At NOAA, an ensemble FSOI (EFSOI) package is available within the Gridpoint Statistical Interpolation (GSI) and the ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF) data assimilation system (i.e., GSI-EnKF).  This tool has been upgraded and implemented into… Read more »

CIRA Tropical Cyclone Forecast Uncertainty Product Development for the National Hurricane Center

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Presented by: Dr. Mark DeMaria

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) implemented the Hurricane Strike Probability program in 1983 in recognition of the need to provide uncertainty information to complement their deterministic track and intensity forecasts to aid decision makers in mitigation activities. The Strike Probabilities only provided information about track forecast uncertainty and were replaced by the wind speed probabilities… Read more »

Untangling the Amazon Carbon Cycle with Satellite Data

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Presented by: Dr. Ian Baker

In this talk, we will present a ‘farm to table’ description of how satellite data is being used to inform carbon cycle processes in Amazonia, which is both poorly sampled at the surface and critical to the global carbon cycle. We will describe how results from statistical ‘top down’ inversion models are used to confront… Read more »

Non-Gaussian Data Assimilation Developments at CIRA

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Presented by: Steven Fletcher and Senne Van Loon

The underlying assumption for variational and Kalman filter based data assimilation algorithms is that the associated errors are Gaussian distributed random variables.  Over the last 18 years at CIRA we have worked on relaxing this assumption to allow for lognormally distributed, and recently reverse-lognormally distributed errors.  The first part of this talk will be an… Read more »

Non-Gaussian Data Assimilation Developments at CIRA

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Presented by: Drs. Steven J. Fletcher and Senne Van Loon

The underlying assumption for variational and Kalman filter based data assimilation algorithms is that the associated errors are Gaussian distributed random variables.  Over the last 18 years at CIRA we have worked on relaxing this assumption to allow for lognormally distributed, and recently reverse-lognormally distributed errors.  The first part of this talk will be an… Read more »

The USA Does Not Measure Up! The History and Current Status of the Metric System in America

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Presented by: Don Hillger

Abstract: Even though the United States has resisted the worldwide change to the metric system, its adoption is inevitable for Americans!  History tells us that countries have only switched to metric, none the other way (except for temporary reversions).  The US remains in the midst of its metric transition as measurements change in various aspects… Read more »

How and Why Does Tropical Cyclone Precipitation Respond to Climate Change?

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Presented by: Alyssa Stansfield NSF Postdoctoral Fellow Department of Atmospheric Science in Professor Kristen Rasmussen's research group Hosted by: Dr. Steve Miller

Tropical cyclone (TC) precipitation can create dangerous hazards and cause millions of dollars in damages. While previous literature agrees that future TC precipitation will increase due to rising global temperatures, the estimates of how much it will increase vary, ranging from around 3 to 20% per °C of warming, or three times the Clausius-Clapeyron scaling… Read more »

Quantifying tropical cyclone behavior with open-source tools across spatial and temporal scales

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Presented by: Kimberly M. Wood Department of Geosciences Mississippi State University

The ever-expanding volume of readily-available atmospheric data requires matching improvements in computational power and computing tools. There is a growing ecosystem of geoscience Python packages and increasing federal funding for such efforts, but it can be challenging to identify the most appropriate tools for a given task and then navigate the learning curve required to… Read more »

Air quality and haze across the U.S over the past 30 years: past and current issues

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Presented by: Jenny Hand CIRA-NPS

Over the past 30 years, dramatic changes in particulate matter composition across the U.S. have been evidenced by trends in speciated aerosol data collected by large-scale U.S. monitoring networks, such as the Interagency Monitoring of Protected Visual Environments (IMPROVE) network. In this presentation, I will discuss how these trends point to the success of combined… Read more »

Use of mixture-model track clustering to interpret tropical cyclone ensemble forecasts

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Presented by: Alex Kowaleski Penn State University Hosted by: Dr. Kate Musgrave, CIRA

Ensemble forecasts of tropical cyclones provide a wealth of data for operational forecasters and researchers, but fully utilizing the data remains a challenge. Regression mixture-model clustering is demonstrated as a method to partition tropical cyclone ensemble forecasts into a small number of groups based on track. Clustering facilitates the exploration of storm evolution and hazards… Read more »

Satellite radiance data assimilation within the NOAA hourly Rapid Refresh and High-Resolution Rapid Refresh

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Presented by: Dr. Haidao Lin CIRA/CSU and NOAA/ESRL/GSD

Satellite radiance data have been shown to have consistent positive impact with statistical significance within the NOAA Rapid Refresh (RAP) hourly updated model system.  RAP version 4 (RAPv4) was implemented operationally at the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) in July 2018.  This implementation included a significant radiance upgrade package with greater use of direct… Read more »

Improving Quantitative Precipitation Estimation in Complex Terrain over the San Francisco Bay Area Using Profiler and Gap-filling Radar Observations

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Presented by: Dr. Haonan Chen Radar, Satellite, and Precipitation Research Scientist with CIRA and Physical Sciences Division of NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory

The San Francisco Bay Area is covered by two operational S-band WSR-88D: KMUX and KDAX. However, the KDAX radar beams are partially blocked at low elevation angles due to the mountainous terrain, whereas the KMUX radar is deployed at an elevation of over 1000 m, which can easily overshoot precipitation during the winter storm seasons… Read more »

Part 2: Preliminary Analysis of Wind Gusts in Recent Landfalling Hurricanes

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Presented by: John Kaplan NOAA/AOML/Hurricane Research Division

Forecasting the timing and magnitude of tropical cyclone rapid intensification (RI) remains an ongoing forecasting problem.  Although the ability of deterministic tropical cyclone intensity models to forecast such events has improved, their skill remains inadequate. Thus, forecasters have relied on other tools such as the SHIPS suite of probabilistic statistical rapid intensity models to aid… Read more »

Part 1: Statistical Rapid Intensity Prediction: A Review of Recent Model Results

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Presented by: John Kaplan NOAA/AOML/Hurricane Research Division

Forecasting the timing and magnitude of tropical cyclone rapid intensification (RI) remains an ongoing forecasting problem.  Although the ability of deterministic tropical cyclone intensity models to forecast such events has improved, their skill remains inadequate. Thus, forecasters have relied on other tools such as the SHIPS suite of probabilistic statistical rapid intensity models to aid… Read more »

Overview of the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC)

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Presented by: Capt. Amanda Nelson of the USAF Hosted by: Dr. Kate Musgrave, CIRA

The Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) was established in 1959. The mission of JTWC is to provide analysis, forecast and decision support to enable DoD and other decision makers to plan, prepare, and protect against the threat of tropical cyclones, tsunamis and other weather impacts. This presentation will provide a brief history and overview of… Read more »

Effects of Midwinter Arctic Leads on Boundary Layer Clouds

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Presented by: Steven Krueger Visiting from the University of Utah Hosted by: Dave Randall

Leads are quasi-linear openings within the interior of the polar ice pack, where the ocean is exposed directly to the atmosphere. Due to the extreme air-water temperature contrast (20 to 40 K), turbulent and radiative heat fluxes over leads can be two orders of magnitude larger than those over the ice surface in winter and… Read more »

Use of Trace Gas Measurements to Quantify Convective Transport Time Scales and Pathways

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Presented by: Z. Johnny Luo Visiting ATS from the City University of New York Hosted by: Sue van den Heever

Discussion will begin at 11:15 a.m. Refreshments will be served at 10:45 a.m. in the weather lab     Convective transport from the marine boundary layer (MBL) to the upper troposphere (UT) is investigated using airborne in situ measurements of chemical species over the tropical western Pacific (TWP). Using 42 trace gas species with photochemical… Read more »

A Brief History of ESRL/GSD Central Facility Data Services

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Presented by: Bob Lipschutz Hosted by: Bob Lipschutz

Within the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL), the Global Systems Division (GSD) develops weather information systems, weather forecast models, and other applications in support of the National Weather Service, the Federal Aviation Administration, and other agencies. Well-known GSD products include the Rapid Refresh (RAP) and High Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR) models, the Meteorological Assimilation… Read more »

US Air Force Operational Weather Structure and The Meteorological Forecast Process

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Presented by: Kerrin Caldwell, Major, USAF Chief, Air Force Weather Program Requirements & Resources

Abstract: The operational design and strategic construct of weather operations within the Air Force weather architecture is rapidly changing. The motto of “bring the future faster” has allowed for the introduction of unconventional training methods and forecasting techniques being utilized by todays weather operators. New capability requirements upgrades to our weather data assimilation center has… Read more »

Introduction on South Korean Meteorological Satellite Programs focusing on Geo- KOMPSAT -2A (GK- 2A) applications

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Presented by: Chu-Yong Chung and Eunha Sohn Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA)/National Meteorological Satellite Center (NMSC)

Since 2010, KMA has operated and utilized the Communication, Ocean and Meteorological satellite (COMS), which is expected to be available by 2020. KMA is now preparing for a new era of the Geostationary Korea operational multi-purpose satellite (GeoKompsat-2A or GK-2A; launch scheduled in December 2018). GK-2A has a 16-channel Advanced Meteorological Imager (AMI), which is… Read more »

Wildfire-Driven Thunderstorms Cause a Volcano-Like Stratospheric Injection of Smoke

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Presented by: David A. Peterson Naval Research Laboratory Hosted by: James R. Campbell, Edward J. Hyer, Michael D. Fromm, George P. Kablick, Joshua H. Cossuth, Matthew T. DeLand

Intense heating by wildfires can generate a deep, smoke-infused thunderstorm, known as pyrocumulonimbus (pyroCb). This extreme weather phenomenon can release a large quantity of smoke particles into the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere. The meteorology driving pyroCb occurrence, combined with increasingly active fire seasons, indicates that pyroCb are a significant and endemic summertime feature in… Read more »

A numerical framework for operational coupled fire-atmosphere-fuel moisture-smoke forecasting

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Presented by: CIRA Hosted by: Jan Mandel, University of Colorado Denver (presenting) Adam Kochanski, University of Utah Sher Schranz, CIRA Martin Vejmelka, AVAST

We present an integrated wildland fire model WRF-SFIRE, based on combining a high resolution, multi-scale weather forecasting model WRF, with a semi-empirical fire spread model, a prognostic dead fuel moisture model, and smoke dispersion. Fire-released heat and moisture impact local meteorology. The fuel moisture model is driven by the atmospheric component of the system in… Read more »

How much will Earth warm? Looking for clues in Earth’s historical energy budget.

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Presented by: Mark Richardson JPL/Caltech/UCLA JIFRESSE

Abstract: The amount of global warming we expect is controversial in the media. A common metric for this is Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS), which is the eventual warming following doubled atmospheric CO2. Recently published estimates include “maybe things won’t be that bad” (1.7 °C) and “we could probably destroy most of civilisation” (5.3 °C), but… Read more »

Viewing the Earth’s Global Environment from Space: from Scientific Knowledge to Societal Benefits

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Presented by: Jack A. Kaye Associate Director for Research, Earth Science Division NASA HQ – Science Mission Directorate Hosted by: A. R. Ravishankara

The vantage point of space provides a unique opportunity to see all the elements of the global Earth system – atmosphere, ocean, land surface, ice, biosphere – and how they interact with each other. The ability to characterize both natural processes and those caused by humans, as well as the ability to study processes on… Read more »

Wildfire-Driven Thunderstorms Cause a Volcano-Like Stratospheric Injection of Smoke

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Presented by: David A. Peterson Naval Research Laboratory Hosted by: James R. Campbell, Edward J. Hyer, Michael D. Fromm, George P. Kablick, Joshua H. Cossuth, Matthew T. DeLand

Intense heating by wildfires can generate a deep, smoke-infused thunderstorm, known as pyrocumulonimbus (pyroCb). This extreme weather phenomenon can release a large quantity of smoke particles into the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere. The meteorology driving pyroCb occurrence, combined with increasingly active fire seasons, indicates that pyroCb are a significant and endemic summertime feature in… Read more »

Viewing the Earth’s Global Environment from Space: from Scientific Knowledge to Societal Benefits

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Presented by: Jack A. Kaye Associate Director for Research, Earth Science Division NASA HQ – Science Mission Directorate Hosted by: A. R. Ravishankara

The vantage point of space provides a unique opportunity to see all the elements of the global Earth system – atmosphere, ocean, land surface, ice, biosphere – and how they interact with each other. The ability to characterize both natural processes and those caused by humans, as well as the ability to study processes on… Read more »

Climate Monitoring, Climate Research, and Climate Services for Colorado

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Presented by: Colorado Climate Center Staff Hosted by: Russ Schumacher

The Colorado Climate Center, based in the Department of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University since 1973, has a threefold mission to serve our state. We are responsible for monitoring the state’s weather and climate, including analyzing trends and extremes and operating two of our own weather observing networks; for conducting applied research toward improved… Read more »

NOAA’s Virtual Laboratory (VLab) Move to Liferay Digital Experience (DXP)

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Presented by: Ken Sperow, Jason Burks and Michael Giebler

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Virtual Laboratory (VLab) has experienced tremendous growth year over year since its inception in 2012. VLab provides collaboration tools (web content management, document library, forums, forms, and blogs), and development tools (project and issue management, revision control, code review, and continuous integration). In order to meet the needs… Read more »

The Utility of Ensemble – Sensitivity Analysis for Targeted Observing, Ensemble Sub setting , and Diagnosing Environmental Controls on Storm Characteristics

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Presented by: Aaron J. Hill Texas Tech University

Abstract   At Texas Tech University, we are interested in developing and using novel ensemble tools to improve our understanding of severe storm predictability.   Ensemble sensitivity is one such tool that when applied within an ensemble framework reveals atmospheric flow features (e.g. position of a jet streak, or magnitude of a low-level moisture plume)… Read more »

Precipitation Processes in Cyclones Passing over a Coastal Mountain Range: Recent Results from the Olympic Mountains Experiment (OLYMPEX)

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Presented by: Lynn McMurdie Visiting ATS from the University of Washington Hosted by: Kristen Rasmussen

The Olympic Mountains Experiment (OLYMPEX) was a multi-faceted, international, multi-agency field campaign that took place over the Olympic Mountains in the Pacific Northwest during the fall 2015 and continued through the winter 2016. The goals of OLYMPEX were to provide physical validation and verification of satellite-derived precipitation measurements by the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) satellites… Read more »

Deep Learning and Novel Data Analytics for Climate Science

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Presented by: Karthik Kashinath Visiting ATS from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Hosted by: Ben Toms and Aryeh Drager

In this talk we discuss how machine learning, deep learning and novel data-driven analytics from applied math and physics can be used for two fundamental challenges in climate and weather sciences: (i) pattern recognition, pattern discovery and pattern tracking in large climate datasets, and (ii) emulation of complex dynamical processes that are critical for modeling… Read more »

Ongoing Research into New and Emerging Technologies Aimed at Improving Scientific Research, Results, and Applications

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Presented by: Jebb Stewart Sr. Research Associate

At the Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL), within the Advanced Technology Outreach (ATO) branch, research is ongoing into new and emerging technologies aimed at improving scientific research, results, and applications. These efforts range from improving data access and visualization through the development of high-performance web services, using machine learning to extract more relevant information from… Read more »

How Strong are the Strongest Wind Gusts within Tropical Cyclones?

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Presented by: Daniel Stern University Corporation for Atmospheric Research

The most intense tropical cyclones are characterized by maximum 1-minute mean surface (10-meter) wind speeds of 70-90 ms-1. Dropsondes within the boundary layer occasionally sample gusts (representative of timescales of a few seconds) exceeding 90 ms-1 and (more rarely) 100 ms-1. Such extreme wind gusts are found in nearly every category-5 tropical cyclone, but because… Read more »

An Operational Update on GOES-16 and Post-Launch Status of GOES-17”

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Presented by: Mike Stringer GOES-R Assistant System Program Director

NOAA’s Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) are a mainstay of weather forecasts and environmental monitoring in the United States. The next generation of GOES satellites, known as the GOES-R Series, represents significant advancements in the near real-time observation of severe weather across the Western Hemisphere. The GOES-R satellite, the first in the series that also… Read more »

OAWL’s Journey Toward Space: A Doppler Lidar Approach for Global Wind Profiles from Space

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Presented by: Mike Hardesty- CIRES & Sara Tucker- Ball Aerospace

Knowledge of weather patterns a day, three days, or even three weeks from now requires forecasts based on models initialized with accurate data. Vertically resolved wind profile data has been shown to have a high impact on forecast accuracy but measurements remain sparse, especially over areas such as the oceans or the Southern Hemisphere. This… Read more »

History and Results from the Two Decade Quest to Measure the Earth’s Radiation Budget

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Presented by: Thomas H. Vonder Haar ATS Hosted by: Christian Kummerow

The first global measurements of the Earth’s emitted thermal energy and the amount of solar energy it absorbs from the Sun were made from early satellites in the 1960s to the 1980s. They provided a much different Radiation Budget than had been thought in the pre-satellite era. Following the scientific method, two additional satellite missions… Read more »

The 2017 Atlantic Hurricane Season

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Presented by: Michael Bell ATS

The 2017 North Atlantic hurricane season was an extremely active one, with 17 named storms (1981-2010 median is 12.0), 10 hurricanes (median is 6.5), 6 major hurricanes (median is 2.0) and 245% of the 1981-2010 median Accumulated Cyclone Energy occurring. The combination of a hurricane-enhancing large-scale environment and a stronger western Atlantic subtropical high led… Read more »

Background Error Covariances for convective scale 4D Ensemble-Variational Data Assimilation

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Presented by: Joël Bédard Environment and Climate Change Canada Hosted by: Milija Zupanski

Higher model resolution model implies a higher number of degrees of freedom and a need for dense observation networks (e.g. satellite, radar and surface observations) to constrain the model initial state. Like in many other NWP centers, only a small fraction of the available observations is being used in ECCC operational systems. The horizontal thinning… Read more »

History and Results from the Two Decade Quest to Measure the Earth’s Radiation Budget

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Presented by: Thomas H. Vonder Haar ATS Hosted by: Christian Kummerow

The first global measurements of the Earth’s emitted thermal energy and the amount of solar energy it absorbs from the Sun were made from early satellites in the 1960s to the 1980s. They provided a much different Radiation Budget than had been thought in the pre-satellite era. Following the scientific method, two additional satellite missions… Read more »

Part I: Where, When and Why Did It Rain During PECAN? Part II: Overview of NCAR’s Water Vapor DIAL

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Presented by: Tammy Weckwerth NCAR Earth Observing Laboratory Hosted by: Michael Bell

Part I: The 2015 Plains Elevated Convection At Night (PECAN) field campaign, based in Hays, KS, was designed to understand the causes of and improve the predictive skill of the central U.S. nocturnal precipitation maximum. Over 100 instruments were utilized to sample the pre-convective and convective conditions within and around unorganized storms and mesoscale convective… Read more »

A Comprehensive Observational Study of Graupel and Hail Properties

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Presented by: Andrew Heymsfield NCAR Hosted by: Christian Kummerow

In this seminar, I will describe the general properties of graupel (rimed particles < 0.5 cm) and hail, based on observations. I will then report on my work that uses novel approaches to estimate the fall characteristics of hail. Three-dimensional volume scans of hailstones of sizes from 2 to 7 cm were printed in 3D… Read more »

The Land-Atmosphere Feedback Experiment

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Presented by: Dave Turner NOAA Hosted by: Sue Van Den Heever

The Land-Atmosphere Feedback Experiment (LAFE) was conducted at the ARM Southern Great Plains (SGP) site in north-central Oklahoma from 1-31 August 2017. This experiment deployed multiple scanning wind, temperature, and humidity lidar systems, additional surface energy balance stations, an Unmanned Aerial System, and a fixed wind aircraft to characterize the role of surface inhomogeneity and… Read more »

Assessing United States County-level Exposure to Tropical Storms and Investigating the Association between Tropical Storm Exposure and Community-wide Mortality Risks

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Presented by: Brooke Anderson CSU Department of Enviromental & Radiological Health Services Hosted by: Michael Bell

Hurricanes and tropical storms can cause substantial economic and human health impacts. These impacts occur through a number of hazard pathways, including severe winds, rain, flooding, and tornadoes. In the United States, hurricane impacts are often assessed at the county level, often the level at which health and economic data are available. I will describe… Read more »

WRF-Chem/DART: Introduction, Application, Verification, and Compact Phase Space Retrievals (CPSRs)

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Presented by: Dr. Arthur P. Mizzi Climate and Global Dynamics Laboratory NCAR Hosted by: Ting Chi Wu

Air pollution is linked to lung and heart disease and other human health problems. It is also linked to regional climate change impacts with urban areas bearing the greatest burden of those impacts. In the United States its estimated costs range between $71B – $277B (0.7% – 2.8% of the 2005 GDP) annually. Clearly air… Read more »

GeoCollaborate®: A Breakthrough Technology to Accelerate Data Sharing Across Multiple Platforms in a RT Collaborative Environment to Improve Research to Operations (R2O), Operations to Research (O2R), Situational Awareness and Decision Making

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Presented by: Dave Jones Founder & CEO, StormCenter Communications, Inc. Hosted by: CIRA/RAMMB

GeoCollaborate®, developed under the Federal Government’s SBIR program (Small Business Innovation Research), is a new technology that unlocks the burden of isolated data, complex tools and limited interaction by enabling disparate data sources to be accessed, in a real-time collaborative environment, across any platform. GeoCollaborate® places all participants on the same map at the same… Read more »

Cold-Weather Challenges for Water Infrastructure in the United States

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Presented by: Rob Ettema CSU's Department of Civil and Enviromental Engineering Hosted by: Sonia Kreidenweis

It is well understood that weather affects the design and performance of civil infrastructure. Not so well understood, though, are the cold-weather systems that challenge the design and performance of water-related, civil infrastructure in the United States. This talk describes several cold-weather challenges faced by water-related infrastructure; in the context of water-resource management, inland navigation,… Read more »

The Relative Roles of Radiative Feedbacks and Poleward Heat Transport in the Spatial Pattern of Climate Change

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Presented by: Kyle Armour University of Washington Hosted by: Elizabeth Barnes

The pattern of greenhouse-gas induced climate change is not spatially uniform. For example, we have observed amplified warming in the Arctic, slow warming in the Southern Ocean and Antarctica, and an enhanced hydrologic that has increased precipitation gradients – all features that are robustly simulated by global climate models. What sets these patterns?   I… Read more »

In-Situ Measurements of the Global Distribution of Aerosol Particles

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Presented by: Christina Williamson NOAA Earth System Research Lab, Boulder & Cooperative Institute for Research in the Enviroment Sciences Hosted by: Jeff Pierce

Atmospheric aerosols affect climate by direct scattering of solar radiation and by altering cloud properties. Current uncertainties in anthropogenic aerosol forcing are one of the largest factors in total uncertainties in predicting climate change. In situ measurements of the properties, origins and climatic relevance of aerosols are needed to constrain global climate models, validate satellite… Read more »

Bernhard Haurwitz Memorial Lecture (2017): Potential Vorticity Aspects of Tropical Dynamics

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Presented by: Professor Emeritus Wayne Schubert Colorado State University Hosted by: Michael Bell

Bernhard Haurwitz (1905-1986) was a member of our faculty for 13 years, teaching atmospheric dynamics and doing research on atmospheric tides. He was a pioneer in the study of tropical cyclone dynamics, writing papers on this subject before satellites, weather radars, and aircraft observations. He is also known for his analysis of “Rossby-Haurwitz waves.”  … Read more »

How Well Can We Explain Why Some Supercells Make Tornadoes and Others Do Not?

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Presented by: Matthew Parker NC State University Hosted by: Russ Schumacher

It has long been known that most significant tornadoes are produced by supercell thunderstorms, and yet the majority of supercells are non-tornadic. The environmental soundings near tornadic vs. non-tornadic supercells from VORTEX2 reveal a number of discrepancies that may be physically meaningful. For example, new idealized simulations of supercells using these tornadic vs. non-tornadic VORTEX2… Read more »

Breaking Through the Clouds: Joanne Simpson and the Tropical Atmosphere

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Presented by: Jim Fleming Colby College Hosted by: Jeff Collett & Sue Van Der Heever

Joanne Simpson was a pioneering tropical meteorologist. She earned her Ph.D. in meteorology in 1949, the first US woman to do so. However, her life encompassed much more than that gendered feat. Through a troubled childhood, three marriages, two divorces, the birth of three children, a decade-long affair, struggles with depression and migraines, and sexism… Read more »

Radiative Regulation of Tropical Convection by Preceding Cirrus Clouds

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Presented by: Hiro Masunaga Nagoya University, Japan Hosted by: Christian Kummerow

Radiative-convective feedbacks are known to constitute a key element of the climate system, whereas the underlying processes have yet to be understood at a fundamental level of the convective dynamics. This work seeks evidence for convective-radiative interactions in satellite measurements, with focus on the variability over the life cycle of tropical convection. To this end,… Read more »

The Role of Upper Tropospheric Cloud Systems in Climate: Building Observational Metrics for Process Evaluation Studies

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Presented by: C. J. Stubenrauch LMD/IPSL, UPMC, Paris, France Hosted by: Sue Van Den Heever

Upper tropospheric clouds, representing about 40% of the Earth’s total cloud cover, play a crucial role in the climate system by modulating the Earth’s energy budget and heat transport. They often form mesoscale systems. Cirrus emerge as outflow of convective and frontal systems or form in cold air supersaturated with water. Their evolution with climate… Read more »

Modeling Refractive Index of Biomass Burning Aerosols

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Presented by: Solomon Bililign North Carolina A& T Hosted by: Jeff Pierce

The refractive index (RI) is one of the most fundamental parameters differentiating aerosol species. It is important to constrain the RI of aerosol components since there is still significant uncertainty regarding the RI of biomass burning aerosols. Experimentally measured extinction cross sections, scattering cross sections and single scattering albedos, for white pine soot under two… Read more »

The Global Energy-Carbon Dilemma is Solved!

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Presented by: Alexander E. MacDonald Spire Global, Inc Hosted by: Scott Denning

The United States and other developed countries have underpinned their economic advances around cheap and reliable energy during the last 130 years. In the 21st century there are two more requirements that must be met; energy must also be secure and sustainable. The dangers of climate change are now obvious to everyone except those with… Read more »

Statistical Rapid Intensity Prediction: Implications of Recent Model Results

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Presented by: John Kaplan NOAA/AOML/Hurricane Research Division Hosted by: Galina Chirokova

Despite recent improvements in tropical cyclone (TC) intensity forecasting skill, predicting changes in TC intensity remains problematic particularly the forecasting of episodes of rapid intensification (RI) which the National Hurricane Center (NHC) has declared as one of its highest operational forecasting priorities.   In recent years, a statistical rapid intensification index (SHIPS-RII) that employs environmental… Read more »

Air Pollution Accountability: Assessing Regulatory Impacts on Emissions and Air Quality

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Presented by: Dr. Armistead (Ted) G. Russell Georgia Institute of Technology Hosted by: Sonia Kreidenweis

The United States has seen large improvements in air quality over the last half century with the implementation of regulations designed to reduce air pollutant emissions. Regulatory costs, estimated by the Environmental Protection Agency at tens of billions of dollars per year, motivate air pollution accountability research, which evaluates impacts of air quality regulations on… Read more »

Probing Precipitation, Cloud, and Clear Air Using EOL Remote Sensing Facilities

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Presented by: Wen-Chau Lee National Center for Atmospheric Research/Earth Observing Laboratory Hosted by: Michael Bell

Probing precipitation, cloud, and clear air using remote sensing instruments has enabled and advanced our understanding of mesoscale phenomena and high impact weather. The Remote Sensing Facility (RSF) of the National Center for Atmospheric Research/Earth Observing Laboratory (EOL) has a long history of developing, operating and deploying radars and lidars in the past 40 years… Read more »

Tropical Atmospheric Madden-Julian Oscillation: Strongly Nonlinear Free Solitary Rossby Wave?

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Presented by: Jun-ichi Yano University of Reading Hosted by: Eric Maloney

The Madden-Julian oscillation (MJO), a planetary-scale eastward propagating coherent structure with periods of 30-60 days, is a prominent manifestation of intraseasonal variability in the tropical atmosphere. It is widely presumed that small-scale moist cumulus convection is a critical part of its dynamics. However, the recent results from high-resolution modeling as well as data analysis suggest… Read more »

GOES-16: A New Era in Geostationary Satellite Observations

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Presented by: Dan Lindsey & Steve Miller CIRA Hosted by: Christian Kummerow

After dodging a close-call with Hurricane Matthew, GOES-R was launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on 19 November 2016. Upon reaching geostationary orbit a few weeks later, it was officially christened as GOES-16, the first in a series of next-generation satellites operated by NOAA. The primary earth-viewing environmental instruments of GOES-16 are the Advanced… Read more »

Predicting Pesticide Volatilization, Vapor Drift, and Impacts on Honey Bees

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Presented by: Kimberly J. Hageman University of Otago, New Zealand Hosted by: Jeff Collett

Pesticide vapor drift is the transfer of pesticides as gas-phase molecules from a sprayed field to downwind locations via the atmosphere. Under certain circumstances, vapor drift is an important pathway of pesticide exposure to non-target crops and organisms. In this presentation, I will discuss three projects that contribute to my long-term goal to develop a… Read more »

The Geolocated Information Processing System (GeoIPS): A System for Processing Geoscience Data for Research and Operations

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Presented by: Melinda Surratt & Jeremy Solbrig U.S. Naval Research Laboratory Marine Meteorology Division Hosted by: Jeremey Solbrig, CIRA

The Geolocated Information Processing System (GeoIPS) is a Python-based system for processing any data with latitudes and longitudes. It is composed of multiple high-level objects that define standard internal formats for data, description of domains, and construction of imagery and data product recipes. In addition to static sectors, dynamic sectors for following events such as… Read more »

Tropical Cyclone Intensification under Moderate Vertical Wind Shear

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Presented by: Rosimar Rios-Berrios University at Albany, SUNY Hosted by: Michael Bell

Deep-layer (200−850 hPa) vertical wind shear is generally an inhibiting factor for tropical cyclone intensification. This negative relationship stems from a number of processes, including: vertical misalignment of the vortex, increased stability, ventilation of the upper-tropospheric warm core, and dry air entrainment. Despite these processes, many tropical cyclones can intensify under moderate vertical wind shear—the… Read more »

Understanding Storm Track Shifts Across a Range of Timescales

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Presented by: Tiffany Shaw University of Chicago Hosted by: Thomas Birner

Storm tracks are regions where extratropical cyclones occur most frequently, they control weather and climate in the extratropics. Storm tracks shift latitudinally in response to energetic perturbations across a range of timescales. On seasonal timescales, the Northern Hemisphere storm track shifts poleward between winter and summer and equatorward between summer and winter. On interannual timescales,… Read more »

Digital Holography of Aerosol Particles

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Presented by: Matthew J. Berg Kansas State University Hosted by: Sonia Kreidenweis

Methods to determine the physical properties of aerosol particles is important in a vast array of scientific and applied contexts. Due in part to the difficulty of collecting such particles, a variety of contact-free techniques have been developed that infer information about the particles in an indirect manner. A popular example is elastic light-scattering where… Read more »

Improving geophysical system understanding and modelling by exploring nonlinear data assimilation

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Presented by: Peter Jan Van Leeuwen University of Reading

Geophysical systems can be characterised as complex, nonlinear and high dimensional. All of these provide major challenges to understanding and modelling. To explore observations and existing knowledge encoded in numerical models to their full extent one can try to combine both sources of information. A systematic tool for doing this is data assimilation. It can… Read more »

Measuring and interpreting faunal responses to climate in the Intermountain West

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Presented by: Erica Fleishman CSU Professor, Department of Fish, Wildlife and Conservation Biology Hosted by: Sonia Kreidenweis

There is considerable research and management interest in whether and how native faunas are responding to climate change. Evaluating whether empirical data support range-shift hypotheses is complicated by variation in climate, differences in response variables and the extent and resolution of analyses, and mismatches between the resolutions at which climate data typically are available and… Read more »

Remote Sensing of the Atmosphere from the Troposphere to the Edge of Space

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Presented by: Katrina Bossert GATS, Inc. Boulder Hosted by: Christian Kummerow

Lidar remote sensing enables observations of various atmospheric properties and dynamics from the troposphere to the region of the atmosphere considered the edge of space near ~80-100 km. For some aspects of the atmosphere, studying coupling between different altitudes and regions is important for a more in depth understanding. Gravity waves are one aspect integral… Read more »

Energetic Constraints on Global Climate

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Presented by: Aaron Donohoe University of Washington Hosted by: Christian Kummerow

Spatial variations in the solar heating of the climate system drive the atmospheric and oceanic circulation and set patterns of temperature and precipitation. This presentation explores the processes that determine the absorption of solar radiation in the climate system including latitudinal, vertical and seasonal distributions. It is shown that atmospheric circulations and temperature adjust to… Read more »

Using Remote Sensing Observations to Advance Understanding of Cloud-aerosol-precipitation-radiation Interactions

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Presented by: Christine Chiu University of Reading Hosted by: Christian Kummerow

Currently, the scientific community is unable to identify how characteristics of clouds will alter as the climate warms in response to emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities, and to what extent changes in cloud characteristics will feed back on surface temperature responses. In particular, models disagree substantially in the magnitude of cloud feedback for… Read more »

Mean Precipitation Change from Invariant Radiative Cooling

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Presented by: Nadir Jeevanjee Princeton/Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory Hosted by: Christian Kummerow

Global warming simulations robustly show that mean precipitation increases at 1-3% per Kelvin, but we do not know what sets these values. Mean precipitation is constrained by radiative cooling, however, and we demonstrate here that radiative cooling profiles exhibit a certain invariance under warming when plotted in temperature coordinates. This invariance can then be leveraged… Read more »

Recent Advances in University of Wyoming King Air Observation Capabilities

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Presented by: Zhien Wang University of Wyoming Hosted by: Sue Van Den Heever

University of Wyoming King Air (UWKA) is a part of NSF-supported Lower Atmosphere Observing Facilities (LAOF). Through multi-year development efforts, UWKA has equipped with integrated observation capabilities for cloud dynamics and microphysics, aerosols, and environment conditions through combining lidar, radar, radiometer and in situ measurements. Approaches were developed to retrieve droplet and ice concentrations in… Read more »

Deep Machine Learning for High-Impact Weather Forecasting

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Presented by: David John Gagne NCAR Hosted by: Greg Hermand & Russ Schumacher

The weather forecasting process has grown more complex in recent years with the growing amount of observational data and model output available to weather forecasters and the trend toward providing more impact-based decision support services. In order to assist forecasters and end-users with the task of managing the firehose of data, I have developed and… Read more »

Seasonal Variability of Warm Boundary Layer Cloud and Precipitation Properties in the Southern Ocean as Diagnosed from A-Train and Ship-Based Remote Sensing Data

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Presented by: Jay Mace University of Utah Hosted by: Paul DeMott

The extensive cloudiness and resulting high albedo of the Southern Oceans (SO) are predominantly due to the occurrence of widespread marine boundary layer (MBL) clouds. Recent work finds correlations between biogenically enhanced cloud condensation nuclei concentrations and cloud droplet number concentrations derived from passive satellite data. The active remote sensors in the A-Train have created… Read more »

Sensing Hazards with Operational Unmanned Technology

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Presented by: Andrew Kren NOAA ESRL

A key project within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Global Observing Systems Analysis (GOSA) group is the Sensing Hazards with Operational Unmanned Technology (SHOUT) project. One of the main objectives of SHOUT is to conduct both Observing System Experiments (OSEs) and Observing System Simulation Experiments (OSSEs) to evaluate the impact of real and… Read more »

Pressure Perturbations in Cumulus Convection

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Presented by: John Peters CSU Postdoctoral Fellow Hosted by: Russ Schumacher

Pressure perturbations are regions of anomalously low or high pressure in deep convection and play key roles in modulating the magnitude and distribution of vertical velocities within cumulus clouds. A cloud’s vertical momentum budget is primarily regulated by two pressure forces: Effective buoyancy pressure acceleration (EBPA), and dynamic pressure acceleration (DPA).   I will first… Read more »