RAMMB CIRA 3rd Quarter Report |
|
April May June 2007 |
For the study of atmospheric rivers over the northeast Pacific, temperature and moisture profiles retrieved from polar-orbiting satellite data are used to generate wind fields. Initially, profiles from ATOVS (Advanced TIROS Operational Vertical Sounder) data were used. A switch to C1DOE (CIRA 1-D Variational Optimal Estimator) retrievals began after some questions were raised concerning the quality of the ATOVS data, both during the programming work, as well as from discussions with other researchers. However, C1DOE is a new dataset, and has some issues of its own. But because it is being developed at CIRA, the difficulties can be reported to the developers, who can make the necessary changes. (J. Dostalek)
While the actual C1DOE data is being prepared for use in the atmospheric rivers project, the code which will use it is being developed and tested. In particular, height fields from the GFS model are being used to generate geostrophic, linear, and nonlinear balance winds. The winds from these approximations are then compared to the model winds. Also, omega equations consistent with the geostrophic and linear balance assumptions have been coded and are currently being tested. The omega equation associated with the nonlinear balance equation will be implemented next. (J. Dostalek)
The technique used to compute the wind field from temperature profiles derived from polar-orbiting data is not only being developed for use over the northeast Pacific, but also for use over the Arctic. For the Arctic application, improvements to the FORTRAN code which computes the wind field were implemented, and further work was done on the IDL code which compares the derived winds with collocated radiosonde winds. (J. Dostalek)
Software previously written to rotate descending-mode (southbound) orbital imagery in McIDAS AREA file format was discovered to not be working in all circumstances. The navigation (or map) was inverted but not correctly positioned in some cases. The source of the problem was discovered and the software has been fixed and expanded for larger navigation blocks. The software is being applied to both AVHRR and MODIS data on the Polar RAMSDIS at CIRA, and is seeing other uses when it is desirable to view upside-down imagery in an inverted mode without remaping the image into another projection. (D. Hillger)
Processing of the large sector U.S. climatologies continues. Products completed include monthly large sector composites for March, April and May 2007. (C. Combs)
Processing of wind regime products continues. Monthly wind regime composites from both channel 1 and channel 4 for February, March and April 2007 have been completed. Combined monthly products have also been completed for February, March and April 2007. (C. Combs)
A poster was made on the satellite climatology work entitled, The Development and Use of Regional GOES Cloud Climatologies in Weather Forecasting. This poster was presented poster at the 4th Annual NOAA/NESDIS/StAR/CoRP Symposium held at the University of Maryland. (C. Combs)
In April 2007, D. Lindsey traveled to Washington D.C. to provide a demonstration of the MCS Index to individuals at the Hydrometeorological Prediction Center (HPC). This product may be particularly useful for HPC since it provides useful guidance for quantitative precipitation forecasts (QPF). After the meeting, HPC put in an official request to SPSRB that the MCS Index be transitioned to NESDIS operations. (D. Lindsey)
The Mesoscale Convective System (MCS) Index is running in real-time on this page: http://rammb.cira.colostate.edu/projects/mcsindex/mcsindex.asp . Beginning in April 2007, real-time verification is being performed and can be viewed by clicking the link on the left (see the screengrab below). Verification stats are computed for both the analysis time and each forecast time out to 84 hours. (D. Lindsey, I. Jirak)
Figure. A screengrab from the MCS Index real-time page. A new link has been added on the left side: Real-Time Verification Stats.
D. Lindsey submitted 2 abstracts to the European Conference on Severe Storms, to be held in Trieste, Italy in September 2007: "Exploring the relationship between satellite-retrieved ice crystal size and thunderstorm intensity" and "Numerical simulations of the effects of cloud condensation nuclei on thunderstorm intensity and evolution," both by D. Lindsey and L. Grasso. (D. Lindsey and L. Grasso)
A journal article has been submitted to the Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology called "An effective radius retrieval for thick ice clouds using GOES," by D. Lindsey and L. Grasso. A second round of reviews was recently received, and work is currently underway to make some changes to the paper. This will very likely be the final set of revisions before the paper is accepted for publication. (D. Lindsey and L. Grasso)