Steve Albers' CIRA Activities 1-1-2005 -----> 3-31-2005

LOCAL ANALYSIS AND PREDICTION SYSTEM (LAPS) _____________________________________________________

OVERVIEW

I report here on the development and implementation of meteorological analyses and forecasts for the Local Analysis and Prediction System. Background information about LAPS is available on the World Wide Web at http://laps.fsl.noaa.gov/. Other FSL projects include Science on a Sphere.

This report is organized with a section on LAPS improvements followed by a project highlights section. One key to our long term success is the ability to leverage similar work done for multiple projects into LAPS improvements, especially since only a small portion of our funding is specifically earmarked for such software development. Conversely, specific LAPS improvements often benefit multiple projects. The number of collaborative projects that I work on has become relatively large and these are not fully reflected in the original CIRA statement of work due to the fluid nature of new contracts being agreed to at various times. To me this all lends credence to the notion of amalgamating some of the project work into common themes of software development for improved organization in this report.

LAPS IMPROVEMENTS

I have been working to increase the versatility of LAPS analyses. They can now handle more types of data in a greater variety of situations to provide more accurate analyses. The analyses are better suited for nowcaster interpretations and model initialization. I am working a bit on some LAPS forecast model improvements as well.

LAPS Observational Data Sets

Improvements were made in LAPS to analyze observations from new types of instruments and new data formats - thus expanding the envelope of meteorological data environments that we can operate in with our ever growing set of users. This is outlined in detail below for surface and upper air observations.

Duplicate METAR handling was improved. A new feature was added to automatically wait for LDAD/MADIS observations to come in and reach a specified count threshold.

The input sounding file (SND) format can now be used for a variety of PADS related project implementations. The time window was increased for input dropsonde files in "SND" format to +/-3600s, making it easier for the PADS personnel to prepare our input files. Further development was done on the sounding ingest allowing latitude, longitude, and time to be specified at every sounding level.

Surface Analysis

I am now a co-author on a paper submitted to Monthly Weather Review on the topics of verification and methodology of LAPS surface analyses. User adjustable parameters were added that control the analysis fit to observations of temperature and dew point.

Wind / Temperature Analyses

A check was added to use radiometer temperature measurements only if below 3000m AGL in its region of greatest accuracy. A user adjustable parameter was added to control Doppler RADAR weighting. Verification data formatting was adjusted in support of the PADS project.

Stability Indices

For stability index calculations, the maximum allowable number of LAPS grid levels was increased from 70 to 150. The strategy was cleaned up so that future similar changes can be made in a more generic fashion.

General Software Improvements / Portability

LAPS documentation and error logging were updated and improved. Permissions were changed on our executable installation script to make file access easier. Software improvements were made to better support the Intel compiler.

Other interaction within and outside of FSL

I continue to give ~1 weather briefing per month. I am serving as a committee member for a new CIRA/LAPB modeler hire. I also did the annual performance evaluation for Ed Szoke.

WWW LAPS Interface

Various improvements were made to pregenerated analysis web products and scripts. These include greater portability, ease of use, web security, support for the STMAS project, larger image size, robustness, and logging information. Cross-section labeling was improved for cases when there are >60 levels. Soil moisture plots were added in support of the RSA project. More flexibility is now in place for adjusting the number of colors in image colortables, thus helping the STMAS perturbation pressure display.

LAPS & MM5 Improvements

The 'wfoprep_mm5.pl.in' script was changed so that the 'wfoprep.nl' namelist is no longer automatically rewritten thus improving reliability when there are file system glitches.

An experimental PERL module was written that may be able to consolidate much of of the PBS job submission functionality. We might experiment with calling this module from the MM5 scripts to see how useful it is. So far it supports single processor jobs though it could potentially be expanded to support multi-processor jobs.

PERL script PBS wall clock time syntax was corrected in response to recent operating system upgrades.

PROJECT HIGHLIGHTS

Central Weather Bureau (CWB)

We are continuing our FSL shadow runs with 9km and 3km LAPS analyses. We have restarted our LAPS initialized MM5 9km shadow runs as well. Development continues on the WRF initialized with LAPS. In collaboration with Li-Hui Tai at the CWB, we are continuing to examine a case study to see how the LAPS can be made to properly initialize the WRF model.

We have delivered an improved Schultz microphysics module for use in the LAPS/MM5 run at the CWB. We are beginning discussions on how to implement a 3DVAR version of the LAPS analyses that we hope to run at the CWB.

Space-Time Mesoscale Analysis System (STMAS)

A waiting strategy was put in place so that the analysis waits a reasonable amount of time for the local data to arrive. Web products were improved, particularly for perturbation pressure. We are in the process of staging a LAPS build on the new super-computer EJET in the hopes of having a more reliable place to run STMAS analyses.

Range Standardization and Automation (RSA)

Continued to support the LAPS/MM5 shadow runs at FSL. This includes some model script changes as noted above in the "LAPS & MM5 Improvements" section. Worked to design tests on our shadow run to see how robust LAPS/MM5 is in the face of short-term data outages. Helped trouble shoot data and model outages at the Western Range. Support for plotting soil moisture was added to help in its evaluation.

LAPS-III

A flag was added that will allow LAPS to easily switch between present analysis schemes and the new 3DVAR we are planning. A 5km Colorado regional domain for LAPS-III was localized for eventual testing on EJET.

IHOP

LAPS analysis reruns were completed for two case days in June 2002. These reruns feature higher resolution in the boundary layer for low-level jet analysis. Runs with and without experimental dropsonde data are being compared for possible use in an upcoming publication.

Science on a Sphere (SOS)

Work continued on a number of old and new global cylindrical images and mosaics for SOS. This includes a start on new real-time global movies for IR satellite and sea surface temperature. Earth's population has also been improved with a higher resolution movie spanning from 17AD to 1949AD. Saturn moon mosaics have been greatly improved utilizing new Cassini imagery for seven of its satellites. One of these (Enceladus) was cited at the recent Lunar and Planetary Science conference in Houston.

A map of the cosmic microwave background radiation was made available to SOS by reprojecting a Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) image from a Mollweide projection into a cylindrical one. Some of this work is summarized in an article I coauthored for the CIRA Magazine with Mike Biere. Funding has been secured for my work on this project during FY2005.