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These activities are an investment in scientific research, the development of new technologies to improve current operations, and in NOAA's preparation for the future. The division has successfully demonstrated all major elements of three reliable, low-cost continuous upper-air observing systems – wind profilers, Radio Acoustic Sounding System (RASS) temperature profilers, and ground-based GPS-Met observing systems – that complement other operational and future ground- and space-based observing systems. New information network tools and techniques have been adapted to acquire and process Cooperative Agency Profilers (CAPs), GPS, and surface meteorological observations from NOAA, and other public/private organizations and international partnerships. This capability allows rapid expansion of observing system coverage at extremely low cost. The division has been heavily involved in transferring environmental expertise/technologies to improve NOAA’s ability to serve its customers and forge stronger ties with its partners, especially NOAA’s National Weather Service (NWS), DOT, and Department of Defense (DOD).

Currently the division is engaged in the following major projects:

• Operation, maintenance, and enhancement of the 35-station NOAA Profiler Network (NPN), including three systems in Alaska. (Figure 35 shows both NPN and CAP sites).

• Collection and distribution of wind and temperature data from CAPs.

• Assessment of the RASS for temperature profiling.

• Redeployment of a profiler to a site near Austin, Texas, in support of NWS operations and the growing mesonet in Texas.

• Upgrade of the grounding and lightning protection systems for all profiler sites.

• Development and deployment of a surface-based integrated precipitable water vapor (IPWV) monitoring system using the ground-based GPS-Met.

• Planning and support activities for a national observing system which will include profilers and GPS-Met systems.

The division comprises five branches organizationally; however, the branches work in a fully integrated team mode in supporting the overall objectives of the division.

Network Operations Branch – Monitors systems’ health and data quality, and coordinates all field repair and maintenance activities.

Engineering and Field Support Branch – Provides high-level field repair, coordinates all network logistical support, and designs and deploys engineering system upgrades. The branch also redeploys any GPS or profiler systems as needed.

Software Development and Web Services Branch – Provides software support of existing systems, develops new software and database systems as needed, provides Web support of the division's extensive Web activities, and designs software to support a national deployment of profilers.

GPS-Met Observing Systems Branch – Supports development and deployment of the GPS-IPWV Demonstration Network, and provides software development and scientific support.

Facilities Management and Systems Administration Branch – Manages all computers, data communications, network, and computer facilities used by the staff and projects of the division.

A significant portion of personnel time involves the day-to-day operations and monitoring tasks related to the hardware, communications, and meteorological data quality aspects of the NPN, resulting in the high data availability rates for the past few years. Other tasks include initial diagnosis of equipment failures, coordination of all field repairs and maintenance activities, and maintenace of logs of all significant faults that cause an outage of profiler data. Figure 38 shows the total number of hours of profiler data lost by fault type (such as component failures, scheduled downtime for maintenance, and power and air conditioner failures) for the past three fiscal years. The duration of each data outage is broken down into many different states, including how long it took to identify a failure, diagnose and evaluate the problem, wait for repair parts to be sent and received, restore commercial power or communications, and document when and how the fault was ultimately repaired. Figure 39 shows the distribution of these categories of downtime (normalized over the past five years). Analysis of all these states reveals important information regarding operation of the network, and was discussed in detail in last year’s annual report. In addition to the data monitoring tasks, there are the financial aspects related to the continued operation of the NPN, including tracking land leases, communications, and commercial power bills for the profiler sites.

Personnel in the Profiler Control Center (PCC) routinely monitor the NPN, currently noncommissioned by the NWS, only during normal working hours, 8:00 AM – 5:00 PM local time (27% of the total hours in a week). The remainder of the time, the profilers, dedicated communication lines, and Profiler Hub computer system operate unattended. The division has made significant improvements in its ability to remotely monitor activity within the NPN, Hub processing, and data communications via displays available on the Web and other tools. Activities that are now routinely monitored on the Web include information on profiler real-time status, data flow to the NWS Telecommunications Gateway (NWSTG), and ingest of profiler data into the Rapid Update Cycle (RUC) model at the NWS National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP). These tools are used to remotely diagnose problems as they arise outside of normal work hours and have increased the availability of NPN data.

Examination of several years of data showed that a significant number of lost hours of data were attributed to the local main power breaker (200 amp) being tripped to the off position, usually caused by lightning related power surges. Simply resetting the breaker would restore operation, but still required a site visit. From this analysis, the Engineering and Field Support Branch designed and installed the capability to remotely reset the main breaker via a phone call to the site. This marked the first full year of the availablity of this capability. The Network Operations Branch routinely uses this method to restore profiler operations, as well as "power cycling" a site in an attempt to clear software "hangs" and other problems. The breaker reset capability was activated 108 times outside normal work hours to restore operations. It was successful 68 times (63% of the time), resulting in an additional 1,310 hours of profiler and GPS-IPWV data availability to profiler customers. These resets performed outside normal work hours alone increased data availability by 0.4%.

Staff investigated the time (in minutes) at which the hourly averaged NPN data became available following processing by the Profiler Hub, and when the data became available to NWS forecasters across the country and at NCEP. The results (Figure 40) show that the NPN data became available on the Hub at an average time of 14 minutes past the hour. The profiler data (plotted in red) are available as early as 10 minutes past the hour, given no communications problems with the incoming 6-minute data from all NPN sites. If there are any communications problems, the Hub waits for backup data to become available from the GOES link; this can delay data availability to as much as 17 minutes past the hour (when waiting for the latest GOES minute used in the NPN). The NWSTG automatically picks up these data from the Hub, and then queues them for transmission to all NWS offices and FSL. Branch staff monitored when the profiler data (plotted in green) were received back at FSL via the NWS NOAAPORT. Inherent communications delays were found to add a minimum of 4 minutes to the return receipt time of the data (evidenced by the first returned data becoming available at 14 minutes after the hour). The two unique spikes in each plot (hourly data available from the Hub at 11 and 16 minutes after the hour) are reproduced (and smoothed by independent communications delays) with a 4-minute delay in the NWS return receipt times (visible at 15 and 20 minutes after the hour). It is interesting to note the much longer delays of 30 to 60+ minutes at times. These delays (Figure 41) show the mean times of NPN data availability (in minutes past the hour) plotted as a function of the hour of the day. It can be seen that following completion of Hub processing (the nearly constant line at 14 minutes after the hour), NPN data are generally available to NWS offices within 6 to 7 minutes, except for two time periods each day. These two periods of significant delays, separated by 12 hours and centered around 0500 and 1700 UTC, are apparently due to the transmission of numerical model output data to all NWS offices, saturating the NWSTG. Since the NPN is currently a noncommissioned system, its data are given lower priority and queued for later transmission. After discussions with NWS, these delays have been reduced, but significant delays still exist at times.

Two additional NPN sites (Neodesha, Kansas, and Jayton, Texas) were equipped with RASS for temperature profiling this past year. Eleven NPN sites now have RASS capabilities, typically providing measurements up to 2.5 – 4 km above the ground. In general, the velocity of the lower tropospheric wind limits the maximum height coverage of RASS by advecting the acoustic signal outside the radar beam. Each RASS-equipped site has four acoustic sources that are located inside the antenna field fence near the corners of the wind profiler antenna. Ongoing experiments are being conducted at Platteville, Colorado, and Purcell, Oklahoma, to investigate the impact of acoustic sources placed 35 – 140 m upwind of the profiler sites. Typical improvements of 500 – 1000 m in the RASS height coverage are observed when the 70 – 140 m upwind acoustic sources are activated. Prior to the latest RASS installations at Neodesha and Jayton, tests were conducted with the acoustic sources located (approximately 30 m from the profiler antenna) in the far corners of the profiler site’s acre of land. No consistent improvements in RASS height coverage were observed; therefore the sources were placed in their normal configuration within the fence. Investigation continues concerning the optimum acoustic source location (distance upwind) and acoustic output power.

Low-power profilers that measure winds and temperature in the boundary layer to the lower troposphere (60 m to ~3 km above ground) have begun operating in greater numbers around North America in recent years. They primarily support air quality measurements and meteorological research programs, and typically operate independently or in small groups. Approximately 60 CAPs are currently operating and providing data to the Profiler Control Center in Boulder. The division is working in cooperation with other agencies to acquire BLP wind and temperature data that are processed into hourly and subhourly quality-controlled products, and are ultimately distributed along with products from the NPN. CAPs data are used for air quality monitoring and research, and have application to numerical weather prediction and subjective weather forecasting in support of NOAA’s mission. The use of CAPs data from the Profiler Website was mentioned for the first time ever in an Area Forecast discussion from the NWS Wakefield, Virginia, office during a high wind event in December 2001.

A new data quality control algorithm was investigated and designed, and the specifications were sent to the Software Development and Web Services Branch for implementation. The algorithm detects and identifies RASS temperatures and radial velocity data contaminated by internal interference.

The division received 11 DEC (now Compaq) Alpha computers this past year that will be used to replace aging MicroVAXs at profiler sites. The Network Operations Branch participated in testing and validating the new systems. These systems could lend themselves to acquiring raw Doppler spectra, which will lead to improved data quality related to reduced ground clutter and internal interference, and enhance existing bird detection software.

The impact of ground clutter can be minimized using both software processing and hardware modifications. An expert in ground clutter suppression with NWS radars completed an initial analysis from a limited spectral dataset, and investigated the antenna structure height to fence geometry. A decision was made to increase the height of the security fence around the perimeter of the profiler site installed near Austin, Texas.

The division will continue to operate and maintain the 11 RASS-equipped profiler sites. Experiments will continue at Platteville and Purcell to investigate the optimum acoustic source locations (distance upwind) and acoustic output power. Improvements are expected in the quality control of RASS data, primarily during periods of internal interference, and in the presentation (i.e., contouring specific temperatures) of RASS data on the Profiler Webpage.

The CAP Hub will continue to be operated and used to acquire additional tropospheric profiler data from targets of opportunity, provide quality control for these data, and distribute that data to users via the Web and the NWSTG. Support will be provided to the Northeast Temperature and Air Quality Forecasting Pilot Program. Work is underway to acquire CAP data from a newly installed 25-station network operated by the Japanese Meteorological Agency.

The branch will support all aspects of planning, installation, activation, and evaluation of two relocated NPN profilers. The original 404-MHz profiler located near Platteville, Colorado, will be disassembled, transported, and reassembled at a site near Austin, Texas, in cooperation with the NWS Southern Region and the Lower Colorado River Authority in Texas. The 404-MHz profiler located at the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California was modified several years ago to operate at the official operational profiler frequency of 449 MHz, and was acquired last year for installation at the Platteville site to replace the original 404-MHz profiler.

Meteorological training for NWS forecasters in Alaska will be conducted, and will include theory of operation, use of profiler data, quality control issues, etc. Also, the possibility of developing an NWS COMET teletraining module related to wind profilers will be investigated.

Continued collaboration with others in the division to support the operations and maintenance of the NPN will help to maintain consistently high data availability statistics. This ultimately supports NOAA’s mission of improving weather products and services, resulting in reduced loss of life and property damage from weather related events.

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In accordance with network maintenance agreements, the National Weather Service (NWS) Electronics Technicians do most of the preventive and remedial maintenance. The PCC uses the remote diagnostics capabilities to recognize failed components, order Line Replaceable Units (LRUs), and coordinate with the NWS electronics technicians regarding field repairs. More complex problems are handled by a team of specialized engineer/technicians, called Rangers, who are experienced in the design and operation of the profiler systems. Based in Boulder, the Rangers can be mobilized to the field on short notice to repair the profilers.

The 449-MHz power amplifier and antenna documentation and drawings were distributed to the Alaska NWS offices. All the spare parts to support the 449-MHz profiler network in Alaska were delivered and stocked at the National Logistics and Support Center in Kansas City, Missouri. With a new 449-MHz test bed, both 404-MHz and 449-MHZ profiler equipment can be tested and repaired on site.

Other NPN Sites – Profiler sites at Neodesha, Kansas, and Jayton, Texas, were equipped with Radio Acoustic Sounding Systems (RASS), bringing 11 of the 35 profiler sites configured with RASS.

The Vandenberg Air Force Base 449-MHz profiler (Figure 43) was moved to Platteville, Colorado, for installation in 2002. It will be used to test the functional requirements for a national network.

The Engineering and Field Support Branch designed a new digital surface meteorological instrument, the Profiler Surface Observing System II (PSOS II) to replace the current PSOS and GSOS (GPS Surface Observing System) instruments. Featuring a 10-meter mast with an anemometer and a rain gauge, the PSOS II is capable of measuring surface air temperature, relative humidity, precipitation, barometric pressure and wind speed and direction. The Rangers helped install 17 GSOS units.

Implementation of a newly designed grounding and lightning protection plan will continue, and all profiler sites will be tested and upgraded to meet the design specifications. Additional lightning and surge protection will be installed at the sites to safeguard the sensitive communications from damage.

The 404-MHz RF drivers were reconfigured to eliminate the dependence on obsolete components. Eleven new data processors were accepted, and will boost the current number of spare data processors.

The grounding at wind profiler sites will be tested and modified from the current configuration to meet new design specifications. A uniform and organized grounding scheme for current and future electronics will be provided, and transient voltage and surge protection for all RS-232 communications will be added.

An all-digital surface meteorological sensor package (PSOS II) will be installed to replace the GSOS units currently operating at some profiler sites. This will be the first step toward providing uniformity among the 35 profiler sites and adding more surface meteorological data.

More experiments will be conducted to help reduce the amount of clutter that affects certain profiler sites in Alaska and the central U.S. Training will be provided to the Electronic Technicians in the Alaska region.

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Significant progress was made on development of a software "toolkit" (using the Java language) consisting of low-level, reusable, independent software building blocks that can be assembled quickly into larger systems. Many of these components have been used in completing the first phase of the project to improve delivery of data to the NWS and NCEP. These data are now arriving an average of 6 minutes faster each hour than before, when data would occasionally arrive too late to be used in the NCEP numerical weather models. This was accomplished by changing the format of the data sent to NWS from conglomerate to individual per-station messages. GPS precipitable water vapor measurements are also being delivered to the NWS twice each hour.

Significant progress progress has been achieved in development of the Wind Profiler Processing Platform. The standard hardware and software configuration of these systems was determined. Software central to the platform was developed and is in use in the production environment.

The number of Boundary layer profilers (BLPs) that measure up to 5 kilometers of the lower atmosphere is increasing each year. For example, at the beginning of 2001 there were about 12 BLPs processed, and about 40 at the end of the year.

The first field-operational Wind Profiler Processing Platform (WPPP) prototype will be installed at a local profiler. It will support a new high-data-rate GOES transmitter and emulate the old GOES transmitter to the profiler. It will provide a Web-based Portable Maintenance Terminal (PMT) interface for local or remote operation of the profiler. The SARSAT (Search and Rescue Satellite-Aided Tracking System) schedule delivery, verification, and maintenance will be supported. Hourly quality-controlled winds will be processed on the WPPP and distributed directly to the local WFO Local Data Acquisiition and Dissemination (LDAD) system, and indirectly to other consumers. Another task that will be finalized is development of new, reusable graphics software for displaying winds, temperatures, and moments from either the Web or local or remote datasets.

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The primary objectives of the GPS-Met Observing Systems Branch are to define and demonstrate the major aspects of an operational ground-based Global Positioning System (GPS) integrated precipitable water vapor (IPWV) monitoring system, facilitate assessments of the impact of GPS meteorological data on weather forecasts, assist in the transition of GPS-Met data acquisition and data processing techniques to operational use, and encourage the use of GPS in atmospheric research and other applications. The work utilizes the resources and infrastructure established to operate and maintain the NOAA Profiler Network (NPN) in achieving these objectives at low cost and risk. The branch collaborates with other FSL divisions (especially the Forecast Research Division, Aviation Division, International Division, Systems Development Division, and the Director’s Office which includes the Information and Technology Services group) to achieve objectives of mutual interest and benefit the laboratory, its customers, partners, and stakeholders.

This work represents an investment in scientific research, the development of new technologies to improve current operations, and assistance in helping NOAA prepare for the future. The branch has successfully demonstrated all major elements of a reliable, low-cost, continuous upper-air observing system that complements other operational and future ground- and space-based observing systems. New information network tools and techniques have been adapted to acquire and process GPS and surface meteorological data from NOAA and other public private and international partnerships. This capability has permitted rapid expansion of GPS-Met coverage at extremely low cost. The branch has been heavily involved in developing and implementing environmental expertise and technologies to improve NOAA’s ability to serve its customers and forge stronger ties with its partners, especially the National Weather Service (NWS), Department of Transportation (DOT), and Department of Defense (DOD).

In addition to the 17 NDGPS sites, 5 other GPS-Met sites were added to the network:

• The NPN site near Neodesha, Kansas, was moved and reestablished.

• The CORS site at the U.S. Naval Observatory (USNO) in Washington, D.C., which will also be used to improve USNO time transfer.

• A NASA site on the Chesapeake Light Ocean Platform, Virginia, which will also be used to calibrate and validate Advanced Infrared Sounder (AIRS) data from the Aqua (EOS-PM) Spacecraft in 2002.

• A tide monitoring site belonging to NGS at Bar Harbor, Maine.

• A DGPS site in the City of Grand Junction, Colorado, belonging to the Mesa County Colorado DOT for surveying, 911 response, and infrastructure support. This site is the first nonfederal government site incorporated into the GPS-Met network, and paves the way for expanded cooperation with state and local government agencies in the future.

In 2001, FSL signed an interagency agreement with USCG and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) that allows FSL to install GSOS packages at up to 55 maritime Differential GPS (DGPS) sites throughout the U.S. and its Territories. This agreement sets the stage for a substantial increase next year in the number of sites in the Mississippi and Ohio River Valleys, and along the Great Lakes.

The branch developed a scalable distributed processing system using fast and inexpensive personal computer workstations running the Linux operating system. The basic architecture was validated this year, and some minor improvements were implemented to improve performance. In general, processor speed continued to increase in 2001 as prices fell, resulting in a significant improvement in network performance, throughput and cost effectiveness.

The entire Demonstration Division is cooperating with the NWS Telecommunications Gateway and the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) to make GPS-Met and boundary layer profiler (BLP) data available to models and forecasters in real time. This work just began late last year, and much progress is expected in the coming year.

GPS-Met has three basic quality issues: orbit accuracy, zenith tropospheric delay (ZTD) estimation accuracy, and surface data accuracy. Orbit accuracy is determined by comparing calculated or predicted GPS satellite orbits with International Geodetic Service (IGS) final orbits. The GPS-Met project currently uses 2-hour predictions derived from Scripps Orbit and Permanent Array Center (SOPAC) hourly orbits. SOPAC produces these orbits with 1-hour latency, and provides the orbital parameters to the project for use in real-time data processing. SOPAC hourly orbit predictions have a mean error of less than 20 cm at the 2 sigma level with respect to the IGS final orbits. However, since the orbits are calculated from data supplied to SOPAC by a subset of the IGS global tracking network, and problems sometimes occur acquiring or processing these observations, predictions longer than 2 hours with uncertain impact on ZTD estimation accuracy may have to be used. In general, orbit errors introduce a slow degradation of ZTD accuracy and are difficult to detect. The branch asked SOPAC to investigate techniques to perform on-the-fly quality control, at least to provide an orbit quality flag for use in data processing. Unfortunately, all techniques investigated proved to be unreliable, and so the branch has implemented two levels of qualitative protection. The first involves notification that hourly orbit delivery has stopped and the orbits are more than three hours old. The second involves comparing the RMS scatter in the ZTD estimates (commonly referred to as the ZTD Formal Error or FERR) of stations very far apart. It was found that FERR generally increases as orbit quality degrades, and that if the FERR of stations very far apart (and at widely spaced magnetic latitudes) are highly correlated, then a bad orbit is usually responsible.

On occasion, ZTD accuracy at a site can degrade dramatically in a short period of time. This can be caused by data gaps that are usually associated with equipment malfunctions or communications interruptions, and electromagnetic (EM) interference. Detecting the former is usually straightforward, and is accomplished with high reliability by automatic monitoring of the data acquisition/data processing cycle. Errors caused by the latter are much harder to detect, especially if the level of interference does not cause a complete loss of data continuity. In fact, the only long-term solution to EM interference may be to move the site or terminate the source of interference. In view of the growing importance of GPS in national defense, aircraft navigation, and public safety, the latter may be the preferable course of action, especially when the interference occurs near an airport or sensitive facility.

Degradation of surface data quality causes errors in the retrieval of the hydrostatic signal delay from surface pressure, or estimation of the wet signal delay mapping function used to scale the wet delay into its water vapor equivalent. The branch, in cooperation with the Systems Development Division, has implemented methods to continuously monitor surface met sensor data quality and take as-required remedial action using a tool called the Mesoscale Analysis and Prediction System (MAPS) Surface Analysis System or MSAS (see http://www-sdd.fsl.noaa.gov/MSAS/qcms.html).

Many forecasters looking at the GPS-Met data on the Web comment that it would be very useful to be able to view GPS data on meteorological workstations, especially AWIPS. Clearly it would be useful to have map-view displays of the GPS-Met data and products to assist in subjective forecasting and facilitate data fusion. The International Division agrees that FX-Net would be an ideal platform to prototype the look and feel of GPS-Met workstation displays and functionality, and will begin to investigate ways to accomplish this in 2002.

Support was also provided for an experiment conducted by the Aeronomy Laboratory to detect the presence of the hypothesized water Dimer, and describe its attributes and distribution in the free atmosphere. GPS water vapor observations taken along a line from Boulder to Sterling, Colorado, provided an important constraint on the data analysis. GPS-Met data comparisons at five sites along this line are presented in Figure 47.

Finally, the branch submitted a successful joint proposal to the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory with the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) Office of Research and Applications. The project involves the use of data from the GPS-Met network to calibrate and validate observations from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) aboard the Aqua (formally EOS-PM) spacecraft, expected to be launched in April 2002.

The GPS-Met Observing Systems Branch is cooperating with NGS in a Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services (CO-OPS) program to use GPS to monitor the levels of the Great Lakes and its tributaries. Other participants include the Ohio State University, NOS Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management, NOS Office of the Coast Survey, OAR Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, Canadian Hydrographic Service, and the National Resources Canada Geodetic Survey Division. This project may provide an additional 22 sites to the network.

The branch has been involved in an informal outreach activity to educate many federal, state, and local government entities about GPS-Met, convince them that it is in both their and NOAA’s interest to jointly use these data, identify GPS sites belonging to these agencies, and persuade them to make their data available to FSL in near real time. Some of these efforts are progressing, but require a more formalized technical and programmatic outreach effort in order to reach completion. These goals are being accomplished through cooperation with the FSL Aviation Division. In concert with this activity, the branch will investigate ways of using only the tropospheric delays calculated at these sites, without the benefit of collocated surface meteorological sensors. GPS-Met processing at these sites will be tightly coupled to data provided by nearby (but not collocated) surface met sensors, and numerical models for quality control and bias corrections. To facilitate the incorporation and display of GPS-Met data on operational workstations, the branch will work with various FSL divisions to use FX-Net to prototype GPS-Met workstation displays and functionality.

The branch will participate in three major experiments next year: IHOP, the New England High Resolution Temperature and Air Quality Forecasting Pilot Program, and the Aqua AIRS CAL-Val. To increase the amount of GPS-Met data available to forecasters, modelers, and researchers, all available SuomiNet data from UCAR will be acquired, processed, added to data from the Demonstration Network, and made available in real time to the teams conducting these experiments.

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Objectives The objectives of the Facilities and Systems Administration Branch are to manage and support the Demonstration Division communications and computer requirements. Duties include performing systems operations, systems maintenance, systems administration, network administration, NOAA Profiler Network (NPN) telecommunications administration, and support of the Global Positioning System Integrated Precipitable Water Vapor (GPS-IPWV) demonstration project. (Figure 49 shows a screen from the GPS-Met Demonstration Network main Webpage.) These responsibilities continue to cover a broad range of computers and communications equipment.

Figure 49. A screen capture of the GPS-Met Demonstration Network
main Webpage, http://www.gpsmet.noaa.gov/jsp/index.jsp.

Accomplishments

NPN processing continues to be accommodated on 13 micro-VAXs configured in two clusters, primary and backup. Meanwhile, a development environment of networked PCs running Linux has been implemented to facilitate ongoing development of the modernized NPN processing system. Other data processing and Webpage hosting are in the process of being moved from a Sun E3000 server to a PC-based server running the Linux operating system, and this transition will be completed during 2002. GPS-IPWV processing has been moved to a network of PCs running the Linux operating system. Eighteen PCs running Linux are used for GPS-IPWV data acquisition, processing, and distribution. The division’s file and e-mail server has been transferred to a PC-based server running the Microsoft Windows 2000 advanced server, which provides connectivity to more than 30 PCs running Microsoft Windows 9x, NT 4, or 2000. An improved backup file system was implemented to ensure rapid recovery in the event of system failures. Backup communications for NPN data acquisition continues to be provided through an Intel 386-based PC running SCO Unix that is connected to a DOMSAT receiver. Work is ongoing to replace this system with a PC running the Linux operating system and the new DOMSAT data acquisition software.

Telecommunications responsibilities cover 38 NPN data circuits within the lower 48 states and in Alaska. Day-to-day work continues to include new component installations and systems configuration on the division network, network problem isolation and maintenance, system configuration modifications to meet division requirements, system problem isolation and maintenance, in-house telecommunications maintenance or coordination for contracted maintenance, peripheral installation and configuration, computer and network security, preventive maintenance, information technology purchasing, and routine file system backups. Another primary focus of the Facilities Management and Systems Administration Branch is computer and network security responsibilities: ensuring system and data integrity and maintaining dependable NPN and GPS-IPWV data acquisition, processing, and distribution. Full-time (24/7) operations coverage continues to be provided during normal workdays through the Profiler Control Center in Boulder, and via pager during nights, weekends, and federal holidays.

Since an uninterruptable power system (UPS) was installed in the computer room and connected to the building emergency generator two years ago, maintenance of electrical power for the NPN and GPS-IPWV processing systems during adverse conditions has become virtually worry-free. Maintaining necessary computer room air conditioning is the next task at hand, and work to alleviate this shortcoming will be accomplished in 2002 with the installation of a stand-alone computer room air conditioning unit.

The table below shows data acquisition, processing, and distribution statistics for the past two calendar years. Improvements that were made prior to and during 2000 were proven maintainable throughout 2001. Development of the modernized NPN processing system is targeted to meet and exceed these statistics.

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	Calendar Year 2000	Calendar Year 2001
Average Communications Systems Uptime	96.8%	96.5%
Average NPN Processing Systems Uptime	99.3%	99.6%
Average Data Delivery to NWS	94.4%	94.6%

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Projections

Job one is ensuring continuous and dependable acquisition, processing, and distribution of NPN and GPS-IPWV data. Plans are to maintain current operations and ensure continued timely data delivery to all customers. Further development, testing, and implementation of the modernized NPN processing system will continue. Success continues to be realized with a low-cost, high-performance approach of using off-the-shelf PCs running the Linux operating system. A stand-alone air conditioning unit is being installed in the computer room to help ensure NPN and GPS-IPWV data availability under adverse conditions or situations that might result in downtime of the building cooling systems.

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