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Nita Fullerton

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The division comprises four branches:

Aviation Requirements and Applications Branch – Defines requirements for generating and disseminating aviation weather products; develops the capability to assess the quality of products generated automatically and by aviation weather forecasters, and the "guidance" forecasters use to generate those products.

Aviation Systems: Development and Deployment Branch – Manages enhancement, testing, fielding, and supporting of advanced meteorological workstations for the NWS Aviation Weather Center (AWC); develops Aviation Digital Data Service (ADDS) Web products for use by the aviation community.

Advanced Computing Branch – Assures the continuing improvement of high-resolution numerical weather analysis and prediction systems through research and development in high-performance computing.

Forecast Verification Branch – Develops verification techniques, mainly focusing on aviation weather forecasts, and tools that allow forecasters, researchers, developers, and program leaders to generate and display statistical information (Figure 65) in near real time using the Real-Time Verification System (RTVS).

In addition to its own activities, the Aviation Division provides funds for other FSL divisions to assist in achieving these goals.

The branch serves as the focal point for coordinating activities with the FAA Aviation Weather Research Program (AWRP) and the U.S. Air Force Weather Agency (AFWA), organizations which fund the development efforts. Two other functions involve leading the AWRP Product Development Team for Aviation Forecasts and Quality Assessment (AF&QA;), and facilitating projects that provide the Air Force with globally relocatable, high-resolution atmospheric analyses (using the Air Force’s global datasets).

The branch participated in a joint FAA/NWS working group to identify weather information requirements for FAA Traffic Management Units. Assistance was provided the FAA in preparing a detailed research plan for rapid prototyping of weather products for TMUs and methods for collaboratively generating those products. In coordination with the NWS Southern Region, a Test and Evaluation facility was set up at the Fort Worth, Texas, Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC), which will initially focus on convective forecasts for FAA traffic managers.

Key tasks included 1) setting up FXC product generation, server systems, and communication links; 2) implementing a Website that will enable traffic managers to view prototype products; and 3) developing a prototype of graphical convective forecasts for FAA traffic managers that combines into a single graphic key with attributes of Convective SIGMETs (generated each hour by forecasters at NWS/AWC) and the National Convective Weather Forecast (an automated product based on NEXRAD observations and lightning observations that is generated every five minutes). Besides generating and disseminating products, FXC enables forecasters at various locations and on various computer platforms to view concurrently and in real time basic AWIPS weather displays, invoke basic workstation functions (such as animating, zooming, and overlaying), and collaboratively generate (in real time) free-hand and icon-based graphical products. This system can be readily adapted to ingest local data and display output generated by advanced algorithms and forecast models. It is also ideal for rapid prototyping because it resides outside of the AWIPS firewall, thus providing the flexibility to make rapid enhancements.

A major task last year was management and execution of the 2002 FSL Technology Day, which showcased real-time demonstrations of FSL research projects. All activities required extensive planning and coordination to inaugurate the exhibition of research results that were considered mature enough to demonstrate to the government and public sector. The participants strongly encouraged further collaboration with FSL in continued research and development of these results. New collaborations were identified as a result of the 2002 FSL Technology Day, held at the Skaggs Research Center, involving the Real-Time Verification System (RTVS), Graphical Forecast Editor (GFESuite), and the FX-Collaborate (FXC) and FX-Net workstation projects. Ongoing technology transfer activities include continued collaboration with the Air Force Launch Ranges regarding the RSA program and the Air Force Weather Agency regarding the development of data assimilation for the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model.

Another important collaboration involved outreach with the FSL Director's Office to develop materials and provide outreach for the Global Universal Profiling System (GUPS) initiative. Contacts were developed with international, private sector, university, and other government agencies, such as the Department of Defense, to participate in scientific collaboration, concept feedback, and planning activities. A proof of concept plan and a detailed briefing were prepared for use as outreach tools when contacting potential supporters and collaborators. Scientific and program planning meetings were held with researchers from other NOAA Office of Atmospheric Research laboratories, such as the Climate Monitoring and Diagnostics Laboratory, Aeronomy Laboratory, and the Environmental Technology Laboratory. New research collaborations were initiated with support from the GPS-Met Observing Systems Branch in the Demonstration Division. Activities included outreach and education efforts and development of research partnerships, as follows:

• Coordinated a program funded through the Federal Highways Administration for a partnership with the National Geodetic Survey and the Space Environment Center to research the use of meteorological and ionospheric models to improve GPS positioning accuracy.
• Seminar and poster presentations at local AMS Chapter meetings, the annual AMS meeting, regional meetings of NWS Science Operations Officers, the National Transportation Board annual meeting, the World Space Congress, and CORETech. Three papers were co-authored for these activities.
• Identification of user requirements for the Federal Highways, Air Force, and Army program development efforts.

Operational and software documentation will be prepared to familiarize the Aviation Weather Center with ADDS software and hardware. Plans are to implement the same development environment at AWC that NCAR and FSL use, thereby ensuring that any software "fixes" made by AWC have a path to future versions.

Another expected task is to develop an "application" version of the ADDS Flight Path Tool. Benefits of the new version, which is based on Java Developer’s Kit 1.4, include a common "look and feel" across platforms, faster printing and saving preferred configurations, and an "environment" to build custom graphics for specific flight routes.

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A secondary goal of the ADDS is to rapidly release new and improved aviation weather products to the aviation community. The ADDS meets this goal by involving the user at an early stage in the development cycle. User feedback from the ADDS Advanced User Group, the ADDS Forum, and e-mail determines design decisions and product usability. This means that end-users are involved in the requirements phase and determine whether a product is useful by accessing it during the experimental portion of the development cycle. The end-user determines the needs and when they have been met.

The branch continues to work jointly with the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the Aviation Weather Center (AWC) to add functionality and support the ADDS Website. The ADDS is funded through the FAA Aviation Weather Research Program (AWRP).

Work continues with the Volpe National Transportation Systems Center (the Volpe Center) in integrating new aviation-tailored weather products on the Aircraft Situation Display and upgrading the Aviation Weather Network to handle the latest improvements to the Rapid Update Cycle (RUC) gridded datasets. The RUC grids are used to create displays for the Traffic Situation Display and provide automation support for strategic planning of the National Airspace System.

• Phase 1 – Convection
• Phase 2 – Icing
• Phase 3 – Turbulence
• Phase 4 – Ceiling and Visibility

Each phase will address the tactical (0 – 1 hour) and the strategic (2 – 6 hour) application of the above products to help the TMU decision-maker in directing air traffic into and out of the ARTCC airspace. All phases will be subjected to the iterative process of defining, developing, demonstrating, and evaluating the weather related hazard graphic and its presentation to Traffic Manager users.

The project is sponsored by FAA's Air Traffic System Requirements (ARS-100), AWRP (AUA-430), and Southwest Regional Headquarters, as well as the National Weather Service Southern Region Headquarters. The purpose of the project is to address the requirements that were found in the in-depth study performed by FAA ARS-100 on "Decision-Based Weather Needs for the Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC) Traffic Management Unit." In response to these needs, FSL is working closely with the Dallas/Fort Worth (ZFW) Traffic Management Unit (TMU) and the Center Weather Service Unit (CWSU) on Phase 1, the Tactical Convective Hazard Product (TCHP) graphic.

The goal of the TCHP is to consolidate all tactical thunderstorm information into a single graphical product or limited suite of products for presentation to TMU decision-makers in an easily understood format. The TMU project will capitalize on development of advanced products from the AWRP and optimize the use of conventional advisories. Feedback from the ZFW Traffic Management Unit and Center Weather Service Unit participants will help refine the content and presentation. The Demonstration and Evaluation (D&E;) will expedite fielding of advanced products by obtaining operational input early in the process. When there is agreement between the participants that a satisfactory product has been created, specific recommendations will be made for national implementation on FAA operational systems such as the Volpe National Transportation Systems Center Enhanced Traffic Management System (ETMS).

• Convective SIGMET Nowcast
• Convective SIGMET Forecast
• Convective SIGMET Text
• National Convective Weather Forecast
• National Convective Detection Product
• National Convective Detection Motion Vectors and Cloud heights
• VOR (VHF Omnidirectional Range) maps
• Jet Route maps
• DFW TRACON scale and map background
• ZFW ARTCC scale
• IAH TRACON scale and map background
• ZHU ARTCC scale
• Impacted Jet Routes

The traffic manager will be able to toggle on/off the other TCHP map backgrounds and convective data. The TCHP viewer is also being enhanced to allow for looping. The traffic managers will be trained how to use the TCHP in April 2003, and the evaluation of the TCHP will begin shortly thereafter. Feedback will be gathered during the evaluation period and used to make further improvements to the TCHP. Work will begin on acquiring and displaying icing products in an effort to create a Tactical Icing Hazard Product (TIHP).

FSL and NCAR presented findings to the FAA and private vendors on METAR decoders that are available. It was recommended that the METAR decoder developed at FSL's Information Technology Services (ITS) be used as a starting point for developing a robust no-assumption decoder. FSL procured and configured a real-time ingest system in this process. The ITS decoder has been reimplemented and is being reconfigured to meet FISDL vendor requirements. Work has begun to develop a test suite so that the vendor implementation of the decoder can be verified against the FAA-funded implementation. FSL and NCAR are also developing a psuedo code for describing the decoder, and delivery to the FISDL vendor will include the decoder, test suite, and psuedo code.

• State and ARTCC Maps
• VOR Identifiers
• DFW TRACON
• IAH TRACON
• National Convective Detection Product
• National Convective Forecast Product
• National Convective Motion and Tops

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Using SMS, parallelism is added to a Fortran program by inserting directives in the form of Fortran comments. SMS then automatically translates this source code into parallel source code, inserting calls to SMS subroutines that perform interprocess communication and other parallel operations as needed. Since the directives are comments, a single source code can be maintained for both serial and parallel machines. Also, automatic source code translation allows complexity to be hidden from users to a greater degree than more traditional subroutine-based approaches.

The SMS subroutines form a software layer between the prediction model’s source code and Message Passing Interface (MPI), the industry standard for interprocessor communication. This layered approach provides SMS users with ease of use, minimal impact to their source code, portability, and high performance. Source codes that include SMS directives are fully portable to most high-performance computers, Unix workstations, and symmetric multiprocessors (SMPs). SMS subroutines provide high-performance scalable I/O supporting both native and portable file formats. Also, data ordering in files is independent of the number of processors used. Further, since parallel operations are implemented as a layered set of routines, machine-dependent optimizations have been made inside SMS without impacting the model source code. SMS also supports many user-specified optimizations. For example, the execution of redundant computations to avoid time-consuming interprocessor communication will reduce run times in some cases. SMS also provides tools to assist in testing and debugging of parallel programs.

The following atmospheric and oceanic analysis and prediction models have been parallelized using SMS: Quasi-nonhydrostatic (FSL), Rapid Update Cycle (FSL), Local Analysis and Prediction System (FSL), Regional Ocean Modeling System (Rutgers University/UCLA, Pacific Marine Environment Laboratory), Global Forecast System (Central Weather Bureau, Taiwan), Typhoon Forecast System (Central Weather Bureau, Taiwan), NALROM (Aeronomy Laboratory), Princeton Ocean Model (Environmental Technology Laboratory), Hybrid Coordinate Ocean Model (Los Alamos National Laboratory/University of Miami), Eta (NCEP), and a coupled POM-ice model (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center). Computer architectures supported by the SMS include the IBM SP2 and IBM Power4 Cluster, Cray T3E, SGI Origin 3000, Sun E10000, Linux clusters (Intel OA32 and IA64 and Compaq Alpha), and other Unix workstations and SMPs.

SMS was used to parallelize a convection code supporting a grant for air quality, a coupled POM-ice model for NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, and the Large-Eddy Simulation (LES) cloud model for the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL).

The branch continued its collaborative efforts to support the development of the Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) model, and became involved in related efforts such as the Joint Modeling Testbed (JMT). The JMT, a plan to provide a testbed for weather models which would span weather laboratories, is superseded by the Developmental Test Center (DTC), which is being replaced by the WRF System Test Plan. The design and implementation of the WRF model's I/O API was completed. The Standard Initialization was modified to provide the capability of performing output in the WRF I/O API. The WRF regression test was ported to Jet and IJet, and the compile time of WRF on IJet was cut in half.

Support continued to be provided, as needed, for the parallel RUC and Quasi-Nonhydrostatic (QNH) models, for users of the High-Performance Computing System (HPCS) at FSL and for the HPCS management team, regarding hardware and software upgrades.

The TeraGrid was studied and a proposal was written for NOAA HPCC grant funding to explore the feasibility of running an ocean model and an atmosphere model on different machines coupled over the TeraGrid. The proposal was funded.

A paper on "The Scalable Modeling System: Directive-based Code Parallelization for Distributed and Shared Memory Computers" was written and accepted for publication by the Journal of Parallel Computing.

• Use SMS to parallelize other atmospheric and oceanic models as needed. Continue to develop and enhance SMS and to port it to new computer architectures. Continue to support users of SMS and of FSL’s HPCS. Provide SMS user training as needed.
• Continue to participate in the WRF System Test Plan, which will include the porting of the NCEP Verification and Post Processing software to an FSL computer. In collaboration with the WRF community, develop a requirements document for a WRF Portal. Publish results in conference proceedings and journals.
• Optimize the RUC code for the IBM Power4 Cluster.
• Support ITS procurement activities, beginning this spring, for acquisition of FSL’s next HPCS. Benchmark suites will be created for the procurement. The feasibility of running a coupled model over the TeraGrid for the HPCC will be demonstrated by developing a prototype coupled model and running it at FSL and PNNL, coupled over the Teragrid. The branch will produce a report documenting what we accomplished and the lessons learned, both about how to use the TeraGrid as well as possible shortcomings of the TeraGrid itself.
• In collaboration with the International Division, support the Taiwan Central Weather Bureau in their upcoming procurement of an HPCS.
• Help NOAA/ETL parallelize a RAMS model using SMS, and help NASA Goddard parallelize its Ocean/Ice Ecosystem model using SMS.

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In adhering to related goals in the FSL Strategic Plan, the branch strives to maintain a strong verification program by working closely with other agencies, such as the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP), National Weather Service (NWS), and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Research Applications Program. The technology developed through these close interactions can benefit all agencies by building and strengthening the verification programs.

The branch is involved in a variety of national programs such as the International H2O Project, the Coastal Storms Initiative (CSI) program, and projects relating to fire weather. Another task involves development of verification techniques for evaluating precipitation forecasts, a capability that has been used to support local-scale numerical modeling efforts at FSL. Other important activities include serving as co-lead of the AWRP’s Quality Assessment Product Development Team and lead of the Collaborative Decision-Making Weather Applications Verification Subcommittee.

The RTVS has become an integral part of the AWRP by providing a mechanism for monitoring and tracking the improvements of AWRP-sponsored forecast products. RTVS will run operationally at the AWC providing feedback directly to forecasters and managers in near real time.

From 30 July – 1 August 2002, a workshop entitled "Making Verification More Meaningful," cosponsored by FSL and NCAR and funded by the AWRP program, brought together an international group of researchers and operational meteorologists and hydrologists. The workshop focused on the development of advanced diagnostic verification approaches, operational and user issues, observational concerns, and verification of ensemble forecasts. The workshop included 9 invited presentations, 20 contributed presentations, and 10 poster presentations. Access to the presentations can be obtained at http://www.rap.ucar.edu/research/verification/ver_wkshp1.html. Some of the main conclusions presented include 1) measures of forecast quality are not equivalent to measures of forecast value; 2) there is a large loss of information — and consequently, economic value — associated with use of nonprobabilistic forecasts; 3) pilots and other aviation personnel are in need of clearly defined weather information; 4) scaling issues need to be taken into account in verification studies; 5) new object- or field-based verification approaches show promise for providing more useful information than the traditional verification methods; observational uncertainty limits how well quality can be measured; and 6) additional educational opportunities regarding statistics and verification should be made available through atmospheric science curricula, short courses, and Web-based material.

In support of the CSI project, RTVS was modified to include verification of temperature, relative humidity, and wind forecasts. Meteorologists at the Jacksonville NWS Forecast Office and at Florida State University will be using these results to determine the usefulness of local-scale modeling on the accuracy of weather forecasts. This ground-breaking work on the impact of local-scale modeling will help shape the NWS modeling activities in the future.

During the IHOP project, statistical results were produced by RTVS for four high-resolution models. The impact of the LAPS Hot-Start technique was clearly indicated in the standard statistics produced by RTVS. In addition to the standard approaches, an object-oriented approach for diagnosing errors in precipitation forecasts was implemented into RTVS (Figure 69). The results generated using this diagnostic approach brought new insights into the accuracy of precipitation forecasts produced by a variety of high-resolution numerical models. For instance, the phase and orientation errors produced in the forecasts could be clearly identified.

Several verification exercises, supporting the work of the AWRP Product Development Teams, were conducted throughout the year. Specifically, a convective exercise was held from 1 March – 31 October 2002, during which numerous high-resolution convective forecasts were evaluated over the northeastern United States. Automated forecasts for convection were compared to human generated forecasts so that the strengths and weakness of each could be evaluated. Throughout the exercise period, feedback was provided on RTVS through graphical displays and statistics to the algorithm developers and AWC forecasters.

In meeting the needs of the AWC forecasters, graphical displays depicting forecasts of turbulence, observations, and statistics were developed and implemented on RTVS for evaluation. Examples of the turbulence displays are shown in Figure 70; a plan and vertical view of the turbulence forecasts, PIREPs, and lightning data are shown on the graphic. The graphic is updated in near real time so that the information can be used during the forecast MetWatch activity. Figure 70a (top) shows the AWC human-generated forecasts (e.g., AIRMET) and Figure 70b (bottom) shows the automated Integrated Turbulence Forecasting Algorithm (ITFA). Forecasters can use these graphics to distinguish differences that may occur between the two types of forecasts. For instance, the depth of turbulence produced by the two forecasts is quite different, as indicated by the heights of the solid bars shown on the vertical panels of Figure 70a/b. The graphic is updated in near real time and made available to AWC forecasters so that the information provided on the graphic can be used to update the forecasts as needed.

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