Critical Skill Shortages in Meteorology

1. Critical Skill Shortages in Meteorology Mini-Workshop Addressing the Federal Community’s Critical Skills Shortages Related to the Field of Meteorology Office of the Federal Coordinator for Meteorology Silver Spring, MD 23 April 2009 Atmospheric Transport and Diffusion Planetary Boundary Layer Walter D. Bach, Jr., Ph.D. Atmospheric Sciences Program Manager Army Research Office, RTP, NC Co-Chair OFCM JAG/ ATD and JAG/ JUTB walter.d.bach@us.army.mil

2. Missions • ARO – Sponsor Basic Research in the Continental Boundary Layer supporting Army • JAG/ATD – Research and Development Needs and Priorities for Atmospheric Transport and Diffusion Modeling (completed) • JAG/JUTB – Operational Concept Document for user needs, Capability Gaps, Infrastructure Requirements, Management, Implementation and Anticipated Benefits of Urban Test Beds

3. Challenges • 3 + decades of highly heterogeneous spatial scales • 20 km to < 2 m • Urban domains; steppes; land-water interfaces; forests; mountains • PBL depth • Temporal scales from milliseconds to day • Knowledge Gaps

4. Knowledge Gaps Modeling Gap Measurement Gap

5. Interpret Uncertainty GOALS Routinely Quantify Uncertainty CAPTURE AND USE EXISTING DATA SETS MODEL EVAL STANDARDS MEASUREMENT CAPABILITIES BRIDGE THE SCALE GAP LOCAL/ REGIONAL MEASUREMENT SITING ATD TEST BEDS OBJECTIVES COORDINATED AGENCY SUPPORT & FUNDING Needs & Objectives From JAG/ATD

6. Critical Needs • Long term observations to capture processes at scales from 20 km to 2 m in all weather situations. (a.k.a Test Beds) • Better models of waves, turbulence, heat mass, momentum fluxes as a function of PBL scales. • Integration of observations and models

7. Critical Skills • Remote sensing at PBL scales on line of sight or volumetrically • Wind – u, v, w • Temperature • Turbulence, tke, e • Moisture • PBL height • Tracers • Understanding of electromagnetic or acoustic propagation in the atmosphere. • Couple observations to atmospheric processes or states.

8. Addressing the Skills at ARO • Fund ideas for innovative measurement approaches • Turbulent Eddy Profiler • Acoustic Tomographic Array • W-band radar • Defense University Research Instrumentation Program (DURIP) • Tethered Lift System • Acoustic Tomographic Array • FM/CW radars – 3 cm (Cn2) and 33 cm (u, v, w) • Support field research programs using new techniques • CASES-99 • VTMX • Joint Urban 2003 (OKC) • T-REX • CHATS • Propose and advocate SBIR instrumentation topics • Eye-safe, scanning Doppler wind lidar 2.0 and 1.5 mm • Electronic turbulence tower • Airborne Doppler Lidar Analysis

9. Actions with Academia • Student involvement in instrument development • Student operation and analysis of data • Primary focus of efforts • New Mexico State (Acoustic Tomography) • Arizona State (Doppler Lidar) • U. Colorado (TLS) • U. Mass, Amherst (FM-CW, TEP, Optical) • U. Virginia (Surface layer Lidar returns) • U. Nebraska (TEP signal processing)

10. Recommendations • Agencies must recognize the importance of PBL processes in addressing scientific and user needs and the inability of forecast models to capture them. • Meteorological academia and Federal agencies must increase emphasis on development of measurement systems for boundary layer processes. • Reach outside the Meteorology core for ideas.

11. Observations or Musings • Wean students from models • For decisions about the next hour, rely on observations. • Scale conscious measurements are the first step to better PBL theory or models. • Wind farm operations are highly dependent on high resolution measurements and forecast capability which barely exists today. • RMS wind direction forecast errors of 40+ degrees is unacceptable. • Forecast models do not resolve PBL height well, thus processes scaling with Zi are suspect. • Climate models are critically dependent on PBL processes to move energy and mass from the surface to the free atmosphere. Best step to improvements may require improving PBL.

12. Comments ? Questions ?