American Meteorological Society focuses on the future

Poster presenters are explaining what they researched and what they found in their particular studies. Great way to collaborate with other scientists in the field of meteorology. Image Credit: Matt Daniel

The 93rd American Meteorological Society is hosting its annual meeting in Austin, Texas this week from January 6-10, 2013. As mentioned in a previous post, the theme for this meeting is “Taking Predictions to the Next Level: Expanding Beyond Today’s Weather, Water, and Climate Forecasting and Projections”. I attended the 13th Presidential Forum which started up the meeting on Monday, January 7, 2013. In this forum, former President Dr. Louis Uccellini welcomed everyone for attending the annual meeting and discussed the importance of going above and beyond today’s weather and seeing how it can improve through advancements in science, social media, and how meteorologists can make a bigger impact on society. There have been numerous discussions on various papers that have been written for the past couple of days. There have been sessions discussing some of the most recent weather and climate events such as Hurricane Sandy that affected parts of the Caribbean and eastern United States, warming in the Arctic, and even talks regarding the April 27, 2011 tornado outbreak that killed hundreds across Alabama and the Southeast.

Dr. Louis Uccellini asked how will we look at the advancement of atmospheric sciences in the next 20 years? In the opening remarks of the 13th Presidential Forum, one of the distinguished guests such as Dr. Alan Thorpe, European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) discussed the advancements in how much weather models have been improving over the decades. He explained how the physics in the computer models are more sophisticated and understand how our atmosphere is composed and works. He explained how the horizontal resolution of the ECMWF has come a long way since 1980. The smaller the resolution, the more details the models contains so we can use it to accurately forecast weather patterns. For instance, in 1980, the ECMWF had a resolution approximately at 210 kilometers. By 1999, resolution was around 25 kilometers. As of 2011, the horizontal resolution size has improved to 16 kilometers. In the future, it is our goal to be able to improve our forecast skill past one week and be able to look ahead at weeks two, three, and even a month out in time. Weather forecasts three days out are typically reliable, but once you get past seven days, we begin to obtain more uncertainties in our forecast. When it comes to weather models and forecasting the weather, Dr. Thorpe explained that we should strive to predict a season ahead in the extra tropics. Finally, he discussed that we should reduce AND quantify uncertainties which result in more accuracy and reliability. Other guest speakers included Major General Michael Walsh, US Army Corps of Engineers, Dr. Tony Hey, Microsoft Research, and Dr. Nigel Snoad, Google Crisis Response.

One of the best things about the annual AMS meeting is that scientists gather together in one spot to discuss the latest on studies, research, and ideas. This collaboration is vital for the scientific committee and to further pursue advances in science and discovery. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people from the government such as local forecasters at various National Weather Service offices that were unable to attend this meeting due to budget cuts (which I could probably write another large article about on it’s own!). One of the best ways to collaborate is during the poster sessions where you can read about and meet scientists who have researched a particular subject in their field of study. These sessions are one of the many benefits of having science gatherings across the United States. Collaboration is key.

One of the slides that were presented during the Sandy Town Hall Meeting on Monday, January 7, 2013.

On Monday night, there was a Town Hall Meeting discussing the impacts of Hurricane Sandy. This meeting discussed the predictions, warnings, and societal impacts and response regarding Hurricane Sandy as it transformed into a superstorm that brought flooding and storm surge along the Northeast, blizzard conditions across West Virginia, and downed trees across many states. The speakers for this event included Dr. Louis W. Uccellini, Richard Knabb (Director of the National Hurricane Center), David Novak (HPC), Melvyn A. Shapiro (NCAR), Bryan Norcross (The Weather Channel), Jason Samenow (Washington Post), and Eric Holthaus (The Wall Street Journal). Each speaker presented interesting facts regarding Sandy. Knabb and Novak complimented the great skills the ECMWF weather model did when it came to showing the development of Sandy. While others showed the science and amazing 3D visuals, others spoke about the impacts of social media. Jason Samenow of the Capital Weather Gang said that you need to know who you trust via social media and know who is a reliable source when it comes to getting factual information. He admits that the rumors of the flooding at the stock exchange got everyone, including the Weather Channel and the National Weather Service. In a day of social media, it only takes one source to spread a rumor and make others believe it is true.

Bottom line: The 93rd American Meteorological Society Annual Meeting in Austin, Texas has been a huge success in my opinion. Many people are here bringing various studies and research to the field that allows other scientists to collaborate, share, and express their opinions. I am impressed at the increase in student activity from various local chapters across the United States. After attending a few climate change discussions, I was pleased to see such a pouring of interest among students. I would say a third of the room was filled with people age 30 or younger. Overall, I think the meeting is going smoothly and appears to be a huge success. Shout out goes to Dr. Louis Uccellini and everyone on his committee for organizing another successful annual meeting in this beautiful city of Austin, Texas.

- EarthSky

Reaching the last mile with climate services

Hundreds of thousands of lives, and livelihoods, are threatened and lost every year in Africa due to the impacts of climate variability and severe weather conditions. Some, if not most, of such losses could be avoided if populations had access to reliable, timely localised weather information.

WMO, through its network of National Meteorological and Hydrological Services around the world, is working to improve this situation. With support from the Norwegian Government and the World Bank, the WMO Mobile Weather Alert project pilots the dissemination of weather and climate information directly to end-users in Uganda.

The WMO Mobile Weather Alert pilot projects launched in Uganda have two components, one targeting farmers, the other fishermen on Lake Victoria. Both emphasize the importance of continuous interactions between service providers and end-users. To be relevant, it is essential that service provider understand the real, on-the-ground, needs of end-users and are certain that those users understand the meteorological information that will be sent to them and can use it to make sound decisions.

The pilot projects take advantage of the widespread availability of mobile phones. Over the past decade Africa has experienced an incredible boom in mobile phone use. According to International Telecommunications Union (ITU), Africa has had the fastest expanding mobile telephone market – growing at twice the rate of the global market – over the last five years.

The new issue of WMO’s Bulletin examines the Mobile Weather Alert projects 

Pilot project for Ugandan farmers
Fishermen on Lake Victoria

- WMO

The Anatomy of a Thunderstorm

Researchers on NASA’s DC-8, a flying laboratory, have launched a six-week hunt for thunderstorms. They’re part of a team of 100 researchers from 29 organizations participating in Deep Convective Clouds and Chemistry (DC3), a field campaign based in Kansas sending aircraft to Alabama, Colorado, and Oklahoma to sample how storms affect the chemistry of the upper troposphere.
The preferred target: large multicell and supercell storms with powerful updrafts capable of lofting volatile pollutants and moisture-rich air nearly 1,200 meters (40,000 feet) up in the atmosphere, a height that pollutants wouldn’t reach without a boost from a storm. They are particularly interested in understanding how certain pollutants react with nitrogen oxides produced by lightening to generate ozone, a greenhouse gas that has a strong impact on the climate at this altitude.
Four days into the campaign, the researchers found just the sort of storm they were looking for developing southwest of Cheyenne over central Oklahoma. According to a summary of the flight posted on the campaign's website, the storm cell formed rapidly around 5:00 p.m., and by 5:45 p.m. the DC-8 and the National Center for Atmospheric Research and National Science Foundation’s Gulfstream-V had reached the storm's southern edge and started taking samples.
The image above, a photograph taken by DC3 Principal Investigator Chris Cantrell as the Gulfstream-V was approaching from the south, shows the structure of the storm cloud. Vigorous convection is occurring in the updraft, a region of the storm where warm, moist air rises quickly upward, sometimes at speeds up to 160 kilometers per hour (100 miles per hour).
The flat bank of cirrus clouds spreading outward and forming the cloud’s anvil mark the edge of the tropopause. The tropopause is the boundary between the lowest layer of the atmosphere where most weather occurs and air often flows vertically (the troposphere) and a higher layer where air flow is mainly horizontal (the stratosphere).
The tropopause behaves like a wall, deflecting the updraft's rising air and causing it to spread outward in a way that molds the upper part of clouds into the distinctive anvil shape. However, convection sometimes pushes moisture past the top of the cloud and into the tropopause, creating bubbling protrusions called overshooting tops. These protrusions are usually short lived and wispy, but they tend to persist longer above severe storms like this one.
While the DC-8 was at a low altitude measuring air flowing into the storm, the Gulfstream-V measured the outflow near the top of the storm. The plane made two passes directly though the anvil and one above it. The instruments on the Gulfstream-V detected elevated levels of carbon monoxide and methane near the top of the storm, suggesting the updraft had lofted pollutants from the surface high into the atmosphere. Instruments on the DC-8, meanwhile, detected high levels of aerosols entering the storm, possibly smoke that had wafted into the area from fires in Mexico.
As the aircraft were sampling the storm, satellites were observing the broader scene from above. An imager on the geostationary GOES-East satellite captured the lower image at 7:15 p.m. on May 19, 2012. It shows the storm front stretching across Oklahoma and into Kansas. The specks that give texture to the front are overshooting tops. The approximate location of the aircraft when it observed the storm is marked with a circle.

• References

• NASA. (2012). DC3: Chemistry of Thunderstorms. Accessed May 25, 2012.
• NOAA. (2012). NOAA, Partners Kick Off Multi-State Study of How Thunderstorms Affect Upper Atmosphere. Accessed May 25, 2012.
• Barth, Mary. (201). Scientific Program Overview for a Deep Convective Clouds and Chemistry Field Campaign (pdf). Accessed May 25, 2012.

Photograph courtesy of the DC3 team. NASA Earth Observatory image by Robert Simmon using data provided by the GOES team. Caption by Adam Voiland.

Instrument: 

Photograph - NASA

What is a cut-off low pressure system??

For those not familiar with cut-off low's: In short a cut-off low is a low pressure system that becomes 'cut-off', or severed, from the the main planetary circulation and spins off independently. Because it is no longer attached to the westerly pressure wave to the south, it loses all momentum and can just sit for days, or move very slowly before dissipating. Cut-off lows are associated with very strong atmospheric instability and powerful convection up drafts. They also bring a range of severe types of weather, including torrential rainfall, snow on the mountainous areas and violent winds. Cut-off lows are one of the main drivers of damaging floods in South Africa and can also trigger thunderstorms. A good example of the damage that a cut-off low can cause is the Laingsburg flood.