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The Mauna Kea Weather Center: the need for custom forecasts

The Mauna Kea Weather Center: the need for custom forecasts. Steven Businger, Tiziana Cherubini and R. Lyman. The Mauna Kea Weather Center: the need for custom forecasts. 1 - Forecasts of Observing Quality. Telescope mirror temperature Telescope wind shake Precipitable water

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The Mauna Kea Weather Center: the need for custom forecasts

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  1. The Mauna Kea Weather Center:the need for custom forecasts Steven Businger, Tiziana Cherubini and R. Lyman

  2. The Mauna Kea Weather Center:the need for custom forecasts 1 - Forecasts of Observing Quality • Telescope mirror temperature • Telescope wind shake • Precipitable water • Seeing and Cn2 MKWC HPC System

  3. 2 - Weather Hazard Mitigation • Tropical cyclones • Cold frontal passages • Upper level troughs/lows • Strong subtropical highs (strong summit winds) • Kona lows

  4. Brief History of Weather Center • Memorandum of understanding between UH Meteorology & IfA established the Mauna Kea Weather Center in July 1998. • Three principal objectives: (i) Provide weather forecasts and nowcasts for MKO. (ii) Determine and forecast conditions that provide the best astronomical observing conditions. (iii) Communicate forecasts, meteorological data, and imagery to observatories.

  5. Current Status • MKO forecasts issued twice daily, Monday through Friday • Twice Daily WRF runs • Satellite and model data feeds from NWS & Unidata • Satellite and model graphics presented on web site • Comprehensive data archive maintained • New WRF products under development • WRF case study research ongoing

  6. Synergy with Broader Community

  7. Synergy with Broader Community • WRF is an NCAR- and community-supported research and forecast model. • Data assimilation effort (LAPS) for WRF in collaboration with NOAA ESRL. • Data sharing, web distribution, and data archive development in collaboration with Unidata and UH Meteorology. • GPS IPW in collaboration with UH Geophysics and NOAA. • Calibration and assimilation of lightning data in collaboration with ONR and NASA. • COSMIC project: refractivity data from limb-sounding technique • Utilization of high performance computer resources available at NCAR and MHPCC.

  8. mkwc.ifa.hawaii.edu Two Linux Servers provide – • Data ingest • Data assimilation and WRF input • Graphic/Web • Redundant product distribution • Archive function

  9. Silicon Mechanics HPC The MKWC HPC system is comprised of 16 compute nodes, 128 CPUs (Intel Xeon L5420 Quad-Core 2.50GHz), with high-speed communication links between nodes (Infiniband cards and switches). The system includes a RAID-6 storage component.

  10. Key Variables in Twice-DailyMKWC Forecasts • Cloud cover, fog, precipitation • Summit winds and temperature • Precipitable water • Seeing, Cn2,and wind profiles

  11. Research Challenge: Seeing Forecasting • Obtain fine vertical and horizontal resolution forecasts of temperature, wind profiles and turbulence related variables from WRF  Cn2 algorithm prediction • Provide optical turbulence parameters by integrating the Cn2 profiles • Validate and refine the optical turbulence algorithm

  12. Learning from the daily forecast experience • The MKWC has been issuing operational quantitative seeing forecasts since the summer of 2006. • A posteriori, the forecaster qualitatively/quantitatively validates his forecast, thus gaining experience. • Aninventoryof the daily data received at the MKWC is under construction. This will allow observed weather conditions to be correlated to observed seeing conditions.

  13. Learning from the daily forecast experience • Quantitative validation

  14. MKWC Goals • Study sensitivities of Cn2/seeing forecasts. • Tune model physics configurations to increase overall accuracy. • Incorporate 3-D VAR data assimilation into model & assess impacts. • Investigate weather patterns leading to especially good or bad seeing. • Comprehensive WRF forecast validation.

  15. MKWC Goals • Increase the skill of conventional and seeing forecasts with help of validation statistics. • Provide forecast variables with finer temporal and spatial resolution. • Issue longer-term seeing forecasts.

  16. Book on SeeingThe measurement and impact of Atmospheric Turbulence and Refractivity on the Propagation of Extraterrestrial Radiation Introduction 1. Atmospheric Turbulence Authors 1.1 Atmospheric turbulence from the perspective of a meteorologist………….………………..(Raman) 1.2 Atmospheric turbulence for astronomy…………………………………………….………..….(Vernin) 2. Instrumentation for Observing Optical Turbulence 2.1 Remote optical turbulence sensing: present and future………………………….………..(Tokovinin) 2.2 Standard and commonly used optical turbulence profilers ……………………..………(Chun et al.) 2.3 Seeing by site monitors versus VLT image quality …………………………………...(Sarazin et al.) 3. Adaptive Optics - Interferometry 3.1 Introduction to Adaptive Optics: The Quest for Image Quality……….…(Businger, Tokovinin et al.) 4. Modeling Optical Turbulence 4.1 The “Missing Link” Between Meteorology and Astronomy…………………………...(Simons & Roy) 4.2 Optical Turbulence Modeling and Forecast. Towards a new era for ground-based astrononmy………………………………………….(Masciadri) 4.3 An operational perspective for modeling optical turbulence……………………………….…(MKWC)

  17. Status • Most of the papers have been reviewed. • Formatting • Glossary • Editing issues • Deadlines: • Draft by the end of the year • Published by spring 2009

  18. Thank you to the contributors http://mkwc.ifa.hawaii.edu/guide

  19. Questions?

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