The Uncoordinated Giant: Why U.S. Weather Research and Prediction are Not Achieving their Potential

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The Uncoordinated Giant Why U.S. Weather
Research and Prediction are Not Achieving their
Potential

• Cliff Mass
• Atmospheric Sciences
• University of Washington

The U.S. Weather Prediction Enterprise is very
big but uncoordinated.
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• April Bulletin of the AMS

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The U.S. Weather Prediction Enterprise Has
Accomplished a Great Deal During the Past Decades
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Dramatic Improvements in Numerical Weather
Prediction
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Large Advances in Weather Observation Technology
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Camano Island Weather Radar
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Substantial Improvements in Weather Sensors
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The Development of a Vigorous Private Sector
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Aggressive Use of the Internet and other New
Dissemination Approaches.
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Substantial Advances in Understanding of Weather
Systems and Basic Processes.
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But Even With These Advances We Have Accomplished
Far Less Than Our Potential and in a Number of
Areas the U.S. Have Lost World Leadership

• This talk will suggest that our progress has been
  undermined by the inability of the major sectors
  of the weather prediction community to work
  together effectively.

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Warning Signs

• The skill of the GFS, the main U.S. global
  weather prediction model, lags that of others
  (e.g., ECMWF).

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500 mb Height--24h
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The U.S. Weather Research Programwhose goal was
to coordinate and support the nations weather
research--is essentially dead, ended by a lack of
funding, vision, and interest.
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Warning Signs

• Major deficiencies exist in key forecast model
  parameterizations (e.g., planetary boundary
  layer, microphysics) and there is minimal
  community coordination and joint research to deal
  with them.
• Disturbingly, the intellectual resources needed
  to deal with such major problems are declining.
  (How many PBL researchers are in our department
  now versus 30 years ago?)

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Warning Signs

• Although weather prediction is essentially
  probabilistic, the community has held to a
  deterministic paradigm, failing to provide our
  users with critical probabilistic information.

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A new forecast preparation/dissemination approach
(IFPS) was developed by the NWSthat is
completely deterministic and which burdens
forecasters with producing single renditions of
reality every six hours for seven days.
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Exact Forecasts Out Several Days at Every
Location!
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Starving Probabilistic Prediction

• U.S. efforts to create short-term, mesoscale
  ensembles have been underfunded and inadequate.
• Virtually no post-processing of ensembles to
  produce reliable probabilistic forecasts (pdfs)

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The Communication Deficit

• There has been virtually no research on how to
  best communicate weather information.
• Current icons are inconsistent and often
  irrational.
• Icons and other approaches are used with little
  understanding of how people interpret them.

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Iconology
And what does probability of precipitation really
mean? A large proportion of the population
doesnt really know.
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Short-Term Forecasting Our Greatest Failing

• With improving radar, mesonets, short-term NWP,
  and physical understanding, meteorologists know a
  great deal of what is happening now and during
  the next few hours.that is not communicated.
• Example radar and MM5 indicate a profound
  rain-shadow that will persist for the remainder
  of the day. NWS and media provide forecast of
  scattered showers
• There has never been as much discrepancy between
  what meteorologists know and what information the
  public gets.

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Example 2 Puget Sound Rain Shadow
Camano Island Radar
1-h Precip. Total
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High Resolution MM5 Does Very Well With
Rainshadows
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NWS Forecasts Miss It Completely
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WAZ006gt008-062330- EVERETT AND VICINITY-SEATTLE
METROPOLITAN AREA-TACOMA AREA-INCLUDING THE
CITIES OF...EVERETT... EDMONDS...
LYNNWOOD...MARYSVILLE...ARLINGTON...SEATTLE...BELL
EVUE...FEDERAL WAY... KENT...RENTONTACOMA
...LAKEWOOD... PUYALLUP...SUMNER 330 AM PST SUN
NOV 6 2005 .TODAY...SHOWERS LIKELY. HIGHS IN THE
UPPER 40S. SOUTHWEST WIND 10 TO 20 MPH.
TEMPERATURE / PRECIPITATION
EDMONDS 49 40 47 / 60 60
60 EVERETT 48 40 45 / 60 60
60 SEATTLE 48 41 46 / 60 60
60 BELLEVUE 49 41 48 / 60 60
60 PUYALLUP 49 40 47 / 60 60
60 TACOMA 48 39 46 / 60 60
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Increasing Tensions Among the Weather Enterprise

• Tensions have developed among the community,
  particularly at the interface between the private
  and governmental sectors.
• The private sector feels that the NWS is invading
  their territory with Internet and wireless
  delivery, and is providing custom forecasts to
  potential clients.
• A group of private sector companies convinced
  Senator Rick Santorum to introduce legislation
  that would limit the NWS to warnings and
  collecting observations/NWP

Penn. Senator Santorum (a.k.a., the Senator from
Accuweather)
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And Other Tensions

• NCAR and NCEP over the development of a new
  national mesoscale model (WRF)

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Inefficient and Poorly Organized Research
Structure in NOAA

• The government research laboratories that are
  tasked to supply new scientific and technical
  advances for the NWS are OUTSIDE of the
  organization, under NOAAs Office of Atmospheric
  and Oceanographic Research
• Without direct management by the user agency
  and with research tasks balkanized over many
  labs, the research agenda has been inefficient,
  developing technologies that are unneeded or
  redundant, and not dealing with acute problems.

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Lack of Critical Mass Too Many Weather
Prediction Models

• NWS NCEP Eta, GFS, Regional Spectral, WRF-NMM
• Navy COAMPS, NOGAPS, NORAPS
• NCAR MM5, WRF-ARW
• Oklahoma ARPS
• Colorado RAMS
• MESO Inc MASS model
• and several more!

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Too Many Models

• Some competition is good, and we dont want to
  put all our eggs in one basket, but we have
  clearly divided the community between too many
  modeling systems for our own good.
• The NWS and universities have generally used
  different models. Eta has been the main
  mesoscale model for the NWS, MM5 (and now WRF)
  for the academic community. A real problem for
  the transfer of research results to operations.

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The WRF Model Saga
Same Pronunciation

• The WRF (Weather Research and Forecasting) model
  was conceived as a way to bring the academic and
  operational communities together under one model
  infrastructure for mesoscale prediction.
• Plug compatible physics would be easy to switch
  and test.
• Completely new model with better, numerics, clean
  code and easily parallelized.

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The Reality

• The NWS and NCAR went in separate directions with
  different dynamic cores.
• NWS NMM core
• NCAR/Universities ARW core
• The plug compatible physics that would allow
  various cores to use the same physics has not
  panned out.
• The infrastructurethe software framework that it
  all works in has proven difficult to modify and
  understand.
• Decision making has been limited to NCAR and a
  few Federal agencies.
• NWS and NCAR going separate ways on data
  assimilation

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These Issues Have Developed at the Same Time as
the U.S. Meteorological Community Has Experienced
Great Structural Changes
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Structural Changes

• The private sector has grown rapidly and stands
  as an equal to the government and academic
  sectors.
• The National Weather Service is now a much
  smaller piece of the pie.
• The boundaries between the sectors have become
  more diffuse.

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The Boundaries Are Fading

• All sectors now do NWP
• All sectors disseminate information to the public
  
• (even the universities through their web pages
  and involvement with the mediae.g., Penn. State
  produced weather page in the NY Times)
• All sectors are involved in data collection.
• Such overlap is really a very healthy
  development, promoting creativity and
  cross-fertilization, assuming it does not lead to
  conflict and tensions.

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Still a Giant

• We (the U.S.) still have many things going for
  us
• The worlds largest meteorological academic
  community.
• The largest and most successful private sector
  community.
• The largest governmental research community.
• Demonstrated great creativity.
• But we have not effectively combined our
  resourcesboth intellectual and financialto make
  the rapid progress of which we are capable.
• Often overseas competitors take our technologies
  and beat us to operational implementation (e.g.,
  4DVAR)

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A Number of Groups Have Realized We Have a Problem
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Pielke and Carbone 2002

• The goals of the weather prediction enterprise
  are unlikely to be reached if the community
  proceeds in a balkanized fashion that has
  characterized it in the past.
• No organization or entity has embraced the
  collective measure of responsibility for
  improving forecast processes.

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National Research Council 1998 Report on the
Future of the Atmospheric Sciences

• Today, there is reason for considerable concern
  about planning for atmospheric research. No one
  sets the priorities no one fashions the agenda.
  Thus, BASC believe that a national research
  environment requires a strong disciplinary
  planning mechanism. ... all partners in the
  atmospheric enterprise in government, in
  universities, and in a variety of commercial
  undertakings must join together as an effective
  team focused on the future.

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NRC FairWeather Report (2003)

• Suggests that the various components of the
  Weather Enterprise needs to work together more
  effectively.
• Provides some potential approaches (e.g., AMS set
  up a neutral arbiter)

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Weather Coalition Private Sector/University
Lobbying Group for the Enterprise
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New AMS Commission on the Weather Enterprise
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Community Meeting on the Weather Enterprise (July
2005)
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How Do We Fix the Problem?
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Some Concrete Suggestions
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Reduce Tensions

• NWS should establish an advisory committee that
  is widely representative of the weather community
  and users
• NWS should amend its partnership policy not to
  support forecast products for specific industries
  or individuals unless dictated by law.
• The private sector must acknowledge the NWS needs
  to use modern communication technologies.
• The AMS Commission must expand its role to
  provide venues to discuss Weather Enterprise
  issues.

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The Community Must Develop Better Mechanisms for
Organizing and Coordinating Development and
Research for Operational and User Needs.

• What are the deficiencies of the current
  observing, modeling and data assimilation systems
  and how will the resources, both financial and
  personnel, be found to deal with them?
• How can duplication of effort be reduced?

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One Approach Expand the Role of the
Developmental Test Center
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The DTC

• The DTC was set up as a facility where the
  numerical weather prediction research and
  operational communities will interact to
  accelerate testing and evaluation of new models
  and techniques both to improve the technology and
  for operational implementation.
• Supported by a number of groups (NCAR, Air Force,
  NOAA, Navy) and is seen as a relatively neutral
  entity.
• Underfunded now, but could serve as the nucleus
  of a true community effort.

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Major Components

• Establish an oversight board representative of
  the entire community.
• Would hold workshops on important mesoscale
  modeling topics
• Would establish active working groups on model
  physics, data assimilation, etc. that would
  prioritize and coordinate U.S. efforts.

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Our Past
Our Future!
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The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but
in ourselves
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The End
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The Northwest Example

• In the Pacific Northwest, a wide-ranging group of
  Federal, state and local agencies, academic
  institutions, and private sector entities have
  combined resources to build a regional weather
  prediction system, using both high resolution
  modeling (down to 4-km grid spacing) and
  mesoscale ensembles.

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Northwest Modeling Consortium

• National Weather Service
• University of Washington
• USDA Forest Service
• Port of Seattle
• United States Navy
• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
• Washington State Department of Ecology
• Puget Sound Clean Air Agency
• Washington State Department of Natural Resources
• Washington State Department of Transportation
•  Seattle City Light
• KING TV

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The Northwest

• Resources are pooled and decisions are made as a
  group.
• It took a few years of intense discussion for the
  various sectors to understand and trust each
  other, but this was achieved with very positive
  results.
• Working together the group has also created a
  wide range of innovative applications in
  Transportation Weather, Hydrology, Air Quality
  Forecasting, and other areas.

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