NOAA Research In Your State: Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research: NOAA

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PEOPLE FINDER

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Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research
1315 East-West Highway
Silver Spring, MD 20910
301-713-2458

NOAA Strategic Goal: Climate Variability and Change

Air Resources Laboratory
Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment
MO-9 (Columbia, Boone County)

NOAA has several observational sites that support the World Climate Research Programme’s Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment (GEWEX). One of NOAA’s GEWEX sites is located near Columbia, Missouri. GEWEX sites were established to provide detailed measurements and information about the physical and biological processes that occur at the land/surface interface. Observations from these sites are being used to test and improve the current generation of land surface models that are used for both regional and global climate prediction. Key observations from these sites include the turbulent fluxes of heat, water vapor, momentum, carbon dioxide, air temperature, and relative humidity. Support for this Air Resources Laboratory effort comes from the GEWEX Americas Prediction Project, which is jointly administered by the NOAA Climate Program Office and NASA. See www.ceop.net for details.

NOAA Strategic Goal: Weather and Air Quality

Earth System Research Laboratory
Operational Systems for Weather Forecasting
MO-6, 4, 7 (Kansas City, Pleasant Hill, Springfield)

Computer systems developed by the NOAA Research Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) are in operation at all NOAA National Weather Service (NWS) field offices, three of which are located in Missouri. ESRL has been the prime developer of the data ingest and display components of the NWS weather display and text generation system known as AWIPS (Advanced Weather Information Processing System). This system integrates meteorological, hydrological, satellite, and radar data. ESRL also developed the Interactive Forecast Preparation System Graphical Forecast Editor, a system that allows forecasters to display and manipulate forecast depictions of sensible weather (temperature, wind, precipitation, etc.), and use these to generate text and graphical forecasts for the public and other customers. NWS field offices are using this system to produce gridded forecast products, which allows forecasters to convey more information to the customers than they did in the past.

General website: http://onestop.noaa3.awips.noaa.gov/onestop/what_is_awips.htm
General website: http://www-md.fsl.noaa.gov/eft/

Earth System Research Laboratory
NOAA Profiler Network
MO-8,4,6 (Bloomfield, Conway, Lathrop)

The NOAA Profiler Network (NPN) consists of 35 unmanned Doppler Radar sites located in 18 U.S. states. Three NPN sites are in Missouri. The NPN provides critical upper-air wind and temperature data to the National Weather Service, other NOAA entities, the military, universities, researchers and forecasters in the private sector. The NPN has been fully operational since 1992. Data from the NPN are directly associated with improved weather forecasting, which saves lives and helps protect property. The NPN is particularly important in forecasting tornadoes and NPN data is also used to route aircraft for increased safety and fuel economy. The NPN's continuous wind measurements are used by the U.S. Departments of Defense, Energy, and Homeland Security. For more information, please visit www.profiler.noaa.gov.

General website: www.profiler.noaa.gov

NOAA building in Silver Spring