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NOAA Strategic Goal: Crosscutting

CIMMS is a cooperative institute between NOAA and the University of Oklahoma. Research fields include basic convective and mesoscale forecast improvements, and climatic effects of controls on mesoscale processes, socioeconomic effects of mesoscale weather systems and regional scale climate variations. The Institute collaborates with the National Severe Storms Laboratory and the National Weather Service.

NOAA Strategic Goal: Climate Variability and Change

NOAA is installing the U.S. Climate Reference Network across the country, to measure weather and climate. About 110 stations are envisioned for the network and more than 80 stations are presently operating in 40 states, including Oklahoma. The network is intended to operate for many decades, providing highly accurate and well-documented measurements of key variables such as air temperature and precipitation. Data is used operationally to put climate anomalies into historical perspective and to detect climate change. The effort is supported by the NOAA Research Climate Observation and Services Program and the Air Resources Laboratory, which designed the stations and has been assembling, calibrating, deploying, and maintaining the network sites in collaboration with NOAA’s National Environmental Satellite and Data Information Service. A list of the operational sites and links to their data are available at this URL: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/crn/hourly.

NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) operates an aircraft sampling program from Ponca City, OK. The aircraft measurements expand ESRL's surface-based aerosol monitoring capabilities to include vertical profiles of aerosol optical properties in a continental location. Aerosol particles create a significant perturbation of the Earth's radiative balance. Most long term aerosol monitoring measurements are made from the surface, but understanding how aerosol particle properties vary vertically (i.e., is there a layer of aerosol particles aloft not seen by the ground stations) will further enhance our understanding of the impact of aerosols on climate forcing. The aircraft, a Cessna-C172, is based in Kay County at the Ponca City airport and it makes its measurement flights 2-3 times weekly over the Southern Great Plains Cloud and Radiation Testbed site operated by the Department of Energy's Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Program about 90 miles north of Oklahoma City. The airplane measures aerosol optical properties (how the particles absorb and scatter solar radiation) at 9 flight levels between 1,500 and 12,000 ft. Pilots from Greenwood Aviation in Ponca City have operated the plane since March 2000.

NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) works in collaboration with scientists from the NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, NASA, and the Australian Bureau of Meteorology to understand summertime thunderstorms and rain over a heavily instrumented field site near Lamont, Oklahoma. They are looking at very detailed simulations of thunderstorms, and trying to determine how these can be incorporated in the global models used to make weather and climate predictions. Sophisticated instruments at the site are being used in new ways to test the accuracy of the cloud model forecasts.

NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) operates surface-based aerosol monitoring sites in five states. The sites in Illinois and Oklahoma expand ESRL’s aerosol monitoring capabilities to include continental sites in response to the finding that human activities primarily influence aerosols on a regional/continental scales rather than on global scales. Aerosols create a significant perturbation of the Earth’s radiative balance on regional scales. The Oklahoma site is located in rural Grant County at the Southern Great Plains Cloud and Radiation Testbed site, operated by the Department of Energy’s Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Program and located about 90 miles north of Oklahoma City. The measurements made include aerosol optical properties (how the particles absorb and scatter solar radiation), aerosol number concentration and chemical composition of the aerosol particles. The site was established in 1996. The research aims to improve understanding of how trends in the properties of atmospheric aerosols relate to changes in human activity in the region.

NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) has developed cornerstone instrumentation for the Department of Energy's long-term climate observing facility in north-central Oklahoma near Lamont. These instruments include a millimeter wavelength cloud radar, radar wind profilers, and microwave radiometers for measuring total water liquid and vapor in the overhead skies. The instruments all run continuously and autonomously. ESRL also participates in Intensive Observing Periods about once a year by bringing additional instrumentation to Lamont for a period of about one month and coordinating with other efforts, including aircraft and satellite overflights.

NOAA Strategic Goal: Weather and Air Quality

Computer systems developed by the NOAA Research Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) are in operation at all NOAA National Weather Service (NWS) field offices, two of which are located in Oklahoma. 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.

The NOAA Profiler Network (NPN) consists of 35 unmanned Doppler Radar sites located in 18 U.S. states. Two NPN sites are in Oklahoma. 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 continuous measurement of winds are used by the U.S. Departments of Defense, Energy, and Homeland Security. For more information visit www.profiler.noaa.gov

Experts at the NOAA Research National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL) advance the nation's observational severe weather capability, work to explain the observations with sound scientific theoretical and mathematical principles, and simulate the observed severe weather using numerical models initialized with high-resolution data. NSSL is striving to solve the tornado dynamics problem (how tornadoes form and dissipate) using models (both theoretical and numerical) initialized using data from mobile radar, mobile observation stations, polarized radar, and phased array radar. NSSL leads and participates in focused field programs with national participation from universities, other government organizations and the National Center for Atmospheric Research to address these types of issues that have direct impact upon NOAA’s National Weather Service’s ability to provide severe weather forecasting and warning services to the public. NSSL is also developing radar-centric, hydrometerological approaches to improve quantitative precipitation estimation in collaboration with the National Weather Service's Radar Operations Center in support of flash flood forecasts and warnings and hydrometeorological services.

Phased array radar technology may help forecasters of the future provide earlier warnings for tornadoes and other types of severe and hazardous weather. Researchers at the National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL) are working with federal, private, state and academic partners to adapt the SPY-1 radar technology for use in weather detection. The SPY-1 radar technology was developed by Lockheed Martin to support tactical operations aboard Navy ships. The project - from research and development to technology transfer and deployment throughout the U.S. - is expected to take 10 to 15 years.

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Updated June 8, 2006