COMMUNITY SERVICE

Editorships of Peer-Reviewed Journals

USWRP Office of the Lead Scientist (OLS)

Richard Carbone continued to facilitate the development of United States Weather Research Program (USWRP) objectives and planning for research projects, including the publication or submission of several scholarly reports (collectively with tens of authors) in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. In FY 97 three meetings of the Science Steering Committee (SSC) and the Interagency Working Group (IWG) were held, one of which was combined with a meeting of laboratory directors representing 23 research organizations sponsored by the Navy, NASA, NSF, or NOAA.

A highly successful workshop on Social and Economic Impacts, co-chaired by Roger Pielke, Jr. (ESIG) and James Kimpel (University of Oklahoma), was held at NCAR in April 1997. This workshop established a firm basis for research related to behavioral responses, quantifying the value of forecast information, and the formulation of weather information for various economic sectors.

Progress was made on researcher access to operational model data on native grids and on access to WSR-88D radar data and operational satellite data. UCAR’s UNIDATA was determined to be an integral part of the model data dissemination network together with the National Weather Service and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

Workshop Organizing Teams (WOTs) were established to formulate five-year research plans related to hurricane landfall prediction and data assimilation. These workshops will be held in November and December of 1997 in Miami and Monterey (CA) respectively. The plans established will form the basis for resource requests as part of the FY2000 initiative process. Frank Marks (NOAA Atlantic Oceanic and Meteorology Laboratory) and Russell Elsberry (Naval Postgraduate School) will co-chair the Hurricane Landfall and Impacts Workshop. Frederick Carr (University of Oklahoma), Rolf Langland (Naval Research Lab), and Thomas Schlatter (NOAA Forecast Systems Laboratory) will co-chair the Data Assimilation Workshop. Participation by the research community is expected in both instances.

Prospectus Development Teams for the examination of issues and opportunities associated with hydrological aspects (PDT-9) and forecasts in the urban zone (PDT-10) are presently being formed and will conclude the initial planning phase of the USWRP in 1998. James Dungan Smith (U.S. Geological Survey and University of Colorado) and Kelvin Droegemeier (University of Oklahoma) will co-chair the Hydrological Aspects Team.

World Weather Research Program (WWRP)

Carbone, in the capacity of Interim Science Steering Committee Chair, World Meteorological Organization (WMO), WWRP, advanced a proposal to the WMO Commission on Atmospheric Sciences (CAS) Advisory Council for the formal establishment of the WWRP. The CAS Advisory Council unanimously approved this proposal for presentation by Carbone at the CAS XII Congress, to be held in Macedonia in February 1998. Early projects of the WWRP include the Mesoscale Alpine Program (MAP), tropical cyclone landfall prediction, aviation in-flight icing research coordination, heavy warm season precipitation studies, and an urban nowcasting forecast demonstration project in the domain of the Sydney 2000 Olympiad.

Observational Data Analysis Software Support

William Anderson (now with SCD) and L. Jay Miller continued support of software installed at NCAR and at several universities and government research agencies. The software is used for the analysis and display of radar, mesonetwork, and aircraft observational data. Anderson continued work on a Graphical User Interface (GUI) to improve the interactive analysis of aircraft measurements. Miller began work on a Program for Data Analysis Software. The objectives of the program are to organize divisional development and maintenance of various data analysis software packages and to improve access mechanisms to these packages as part of the services that the division offers to the research community.

Janice Coen, William Hall, and Terry Clark continued their interactions with and service to the atmospheric science community by making the Clark-Hall model available for their use. An annual workshop was held in June 1997 and was attended by seven guests from U.S., Canadian and German universities, and other U.S. and Canadian research organizations. The hosts presented lectures on the use of the model, and the guests and hosts presented their past or expected research applications of the model. The guest applications included coupled fire-atmosphere modeling, cloud electrification, cloud ensemble sensitivity modeling, convective initiation, detailed microphysical modeling, and numerical modeling of thunderstorms.

The Kerr turbulence model was extended to compressible flows and magnetism to support studies in HAO (solar variability). Support was also provided for double-diffusion studies for ocean parameterization with William Large (CGD) and Eileen Saiki (ASP), with one report written. Codes and data were provided to the Weizmann Institute in Israel for analyzing pressure and other effects in fundamental turbulence.

Wei Wang continued to provide user support for the MM5 user community which now numbers more than 300 at U.S. and foreign universities and government laboratories as well as in the military and private sectors. The support includes maintenance of the modeling system code, release of changes, and maintaining an up-to-date Web page, and compiling a preprint volume for the annual workshop as well as a users' guide document that is central to the teaching for new-user tutorials. Tutorials were held in January and July 1997. Wang, Jimy Dudhia, David Gill, Yong-Run Guo, Daniel Hansen, and Kevin Manning taught classes in these four-day courses. The January class had 26 participants from 19 institutions; the July class had 37 participants from 29 institutions. The Seventh Annual Users' Workshop was also held on 21-23 July 1997 with 93 participants from 50 institutions; 65 presentations were given. The first tutorial for the MM5 adjoint modeling system was held 24-25 July 1997 with classes taught by Xiaolei Zou, Francois Van den Berghe, Manuel Pondeca, Wei Huang, and Guo.

The NCAR LES code is used to study PBL turbulence in the atmosphere and ocean for a range of applications, both fundamental and applied. Peter Sullivan continued to maintain and enhance this model, and consulted with users on its application to specific problems. During the past year about five new users requested copies of the code, several individuals used previously generated LES datasets, and LES movies were made available to researchers. A sample of some of these new applications are a study of landfill dispersion (Jung Jun Lee, National University of Korea), stably stratified channel flow (Chia Chu, National Central University of Taiwan), calibration and analysis of radar signals (Andreas Muschinski, Hanover University, Germany), strongly sheared PBLs in tropical cyclones (Aaron Song, University of Alabama), second order closure modeling (Amauri de Oliveira, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil), and chemistry and canopy modeling (Ned Patton, University of Minnesota). LES data were supplied for statistical studies (John Cocke, University of Arizona), and for detection of coherent structures (Ching-Long Lin, University of Iowa). Roland Stull (University of British Columbia) used LES movies of PBL entrainment as part of his class work. Recent code improvements concentrated on converting the code to Fortran 90 and adding capability to run the code on multiple processors on a variety of Cray machines that have large memories and no secondary storage device (SSD) or small memories and a large SSD. The code is supplied to the user community on an individual basis and consultation is supplied informally as needed.

The Visitor Program is a vital part of the division’s mission and operation. The division’s Visitor Advisory Committee (comprised of three senior scientists) and the science group heads coordinate the visitor appointments. Throughout FY 97 the division hosted 295 visitors of which 45 were long-term (six months or longer) and 250 were short-term (less than six months). Eighty-nine of the visitors represented foreign universities or agencies. Two university scientists held Affiliate Scientist appointments with MMM in the past year, Larry Mahrt (Oregon State University) and Richard Reed (University of Washington). For a complete listing of the division’s visitors, please refer to the Visitors and Collaborators list.

In addition to the division hosting a number of visitors in Boulder, several of the division’s scientific staff participated in collaborative visits to universities and agencies during the reporting period. They include Terry Clark who is currently on a ten-month leave to Monash University, Melbourne, Australia; Charles Knight made weekly visits over an extended period of time to the U.S. Forest Service in Fort Collins, Colorado and the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado; Mitchell Moncrieff spent a month at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia; and Chris Snyder visited MIT for two months.

During FY 97 the division hosted or facilitated a number of workshops, tutorials, meetings, and colloquia in Boulder, Colorado including

• MM5 Modeling System Tutorial, 14-17 January
• STERAO-A Science Workshop, 19-20 March
• Workshop on the Social and Economic Impacts of Weather, 2-4 April
• USWRP Stakeholders Workshop, 15-16 April
• Large-Eddy Simulation Experiment (LESEX) Workshop, 16-17 April
• Joint Workshop of the TOGA COARE Flux and Oceans Working Groups and the GEWEX Cloud System Study Working Group 4, 14-16 May
• Workshop on Typhoon Research in the Taiwan Area, 17-18 May
• Clark-Hall Model Workshop, 2-13 June
• MM5 Modeling System Tutorial, 15-18 July
• 7^th PSU/NCAR MM5 Users’ Workshop, 21-23 July
• MM5 Adjoint Modeling System Tutorial, 24-25 July

The MMM Division also hosts a weekly seminar series, coordinated for a third year by N. Andrew Crook (joint appointment with RAP). During FY 97 there were a total of 42 seminars presented of which 35 were given by visitors and seven were given by MMM scientists. A listing of future seminars can be viewed on MMM’s Home Page (http://www.mmm.ucar.edu/sem/seminars.html).

Division staff also initiate, lead, or support the planning and execution of field campaigns. During FY 97 the following MMM staff either participated or served as principal investigators in field activities.

• Steve Aulenbach, ARM Southern Great Plains Experiment Cloud Radar IOP, March and April 1997
• Daniel Breed (joint appointment with RAP), Program for the Augmentation of Rainfall in Coahuila, Mexico, June-November 1997
• Roelof Bruintjes (joint appointment with RAP), Program for the Augmentation of Rainfall in Coahuila, Mexico, June-November 1997
• Terry Clark, Northwest Territories Crown Fire Experiment, June-July 1997
• Robert Gall, FASTEX, January-February 1997
• Margaret LeMone, CASES-97, April-June 1997
• Donald Lenschow (joint appointment with ATD), ARM Southern Great Plains Experiment-97, June 1997
• Larry Miloshevich, Balloon Launch Project (NOAA), November 1996; ARM Southern Great Plains Experiment Cloud Radar IOP, September-October 1997
• Chris Snyder, FASTEX, January-February 1997

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