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Proposal for a Climate-Weather Hydromet Test Bed

“Where America’s Climate and Weather Services Begin”

Louis W. UccelliniDirector, NCEP

NAME Forecaster Orientation MeetingTuscon, AZ

April 22, 2004

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Overview

• Define NCEP

• Review Climate-Weather linkage

• Basis for a Hydromet Test Bed

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Define NCEP

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NCEP Mission Statement

NCEP delivers national and global weather, climate, ocean and water guidance, forecasts, warnings, and analyses to its NWS Partners and External User Communities. These products and services respond to user needs to protect life and property, enhance the nation’s economy, and support the nation’s environmental information database.

Space Environment Center

Storm Prediction Center

Aviation Weather CenterNCEP Central Operations Climate Prediction Center Environmental Modeling Center Hydrometeorological Prediction Center Ocean Prediction Center

Tropical Prediction Center

5*As of 10/1/04*51 FTE

Total FTE: 426*131 Contractors/24 Visitors

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NCEP’s Future is Built Upon:

Climate-Weather-Water-Land-Chemistry Linkages; for example Seasonal Hurricane Outlooks & Extratropical Storm patterns Meteorological-Hydrological forecasts Ocean and atmosphere coupled forecasts Atmosphere-Land Processes coupled forecasts Relationship of solar activity on service provision and climate fluctuations Ozone forecasts by combining air chemistry and operational models

“Seamless Suite” of products through a collaborative approach Extension of predictability of Weather and Climate (from

snowstorms to ENSO); Improve the forecasts of Extreme Events Community Model Approach – Common Model Infrastructure Addressing uncertainty in forecasts – Ensemble modeling

NEW Collaborative Forecasting Unified Model Infrastructure applied from the “Sun to the Sea”

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Climate – Weather Linkage

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Climate – Weather Linkage

• Key to seamless suite of NWS products• Is based primarily on the water cycle!• Climate and weather communities have an equal

focus on QPF– NAME: focus on warm-season QPF forced by

hemispheric to synoptic scale– USWRP/IHOP: focus on QPF, recognizes warm-season

precipitation as key to improving QPF scores, focus on synoptic to mesoscale

– THORPEX: in planning stage (WMO)

HPC QPF Verification1-inch Threat Score

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HPC QPF verificationDay 1, 1 inch, Jan-Dec 2003

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0

0.05

0.1

0.15

0.2

0.25

0.3

0.35

1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003

Summer HPC QPF verificationDay 1, 1 inch

(June, July, Aug average score)

Th

reat

Sco

re

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Basis for Hydromet Test Bed

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Basis for Hydromet Test Bed• The challenge for linking climate/weather patterns is

“hydrometeorological” in nature and are being addressed through model advancements– New “breakthrough” Climate Forecast System being introduced– WRF implementation/Eta Upgrades/Increase number of SREF

members– Global Ensembles 4 per day with increased resolution

• All of these systems need systematic assessment of forecast skill

• The assessment needs:– Forecaster input– A QPF focus

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Basis for Hydromet Test Bed (cont.)

• Whether the forecast scale is seasonal/hemispheric or short-term/national to local, addressing the science issues – Will involve study of physics/dynamics

– Will base advanced modeling approaches on a combination of higher resolution and ensemble approaches

– Will have to link the “physics” of land, hydrology, oceans and atmosphere within these models

– Will depend on optimal use of global observations to initialize models and verify forecasts

– Will depend on model-forecaster interactions

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Hydromet Test Bed Goals

• Improve QPFs from short-term to seasonal• Address the ‘optimal combination’ of modeling

approaches from the high resolution to ensemble-based stochastic models

• Provide key “tools” to forecast community including training in the new ensemble world for a more rapid transition from the research to operational community

• Help address the key global observations and related data assimilation to improve QPF at all scales

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Hydromet Test Bed Proposal

• NCEP is ideally suited to host test bed– Co-location of CPC and HPC– Expanding collaboration forecast procedure to include RFCs

and WFOs (providing basis for a distributed test bed?)– Location of the International Training Desks

• Could accommodate scientist and forecasters from Mexico in a bilingual environment (already includes Central America)

– Co-located with the EMC and Joint Center for Satellite Data Assimilation

– Committed to making this work for both the climate and weather communities

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Current Status

• Proposal being considered by USWRP & HPC/CPC

• Resources being reviewed within NCEP to see what can be “reallocated”

• Effort will commence to provide a management structure if both communities agree to sustain forward movement

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Summary

• Excited by NAME – a world class experiment

• Opportunity exists for the climate-weather partnership to address this critical warm-season QPF

• NCEP will support creation of a Hydromet Test Bed

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Background Slides

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What Does NCEP Do?

Severe Storm Outlooks Fire Weather Outlooks Winter Weather Guidance Quantitative Precipitation

Forecasts to 5 days Weather Forecasts to Day 7 Day 8-14 Critical Weather

Outlooks Marine Weather Discussions Model Discussions

Severe Weather Watches Marine High Seas Forecasts Hurricane Watches and

Warnings Aviation Warnings

(Convective, Turbulence, Icing) Climate Forecasts (Weekly to

Seasonal to Interannual) Solar Monitoring –

geomagnetic storm forecasts

Guidance to Support WFO/RFC National Products

Model Development, Implementation and Applications for Global and RRegional Weather, Climate, Oceans and now Space WeatherInternational Partnerships in Ensemble ForecastsData Assimilation including the Joint Center for Satellite Data AssimilationSuper Computer, Workstation and Network Operations