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Return to list of UOP Reports to the Board of Trustees October 1999 ReportMEMORANDUM
Attached you will find the UOP status report which highlights activities since our last report in March 1999 (http://www.uop.ucar.edu/march99bot.htm). UOP engages in three basic activities involving the atmospheric, oceanic, and earth science communities:
The eight UOP programs, leaders, and web site addresses are:
Education and Training: This past year PAGE conducted a two-week summer workshop for Universidad Metropolitana de Puerto Rico (UMET) faculty on the design, production, and implementation of educational multimedia and web-based resources. The workshop was extremely successful, and PAGE is planning to offer a similar workshop for UMET faculty in Puerto Rico in January, 2000. PAGE staff continues its involvement with Dr. Melanie Wetzel of the Desert Research Institute (DRI) and faculty from the Colorado Mountain College (CMC). PAGE staff trained CMC faculty in instructional design techniques and multimedia authoring. VSP supported a workshop called Space Weather Week for the NCEP Space Environment Center. About 250 vendors, users, and researchers attended talks and social events throughout the weeklong event in Boulder. VSP is also broadening its NOAA post-doc program in Climate and Global Change to include human dimensions post-docs and is working to create or expand visiting scientist programs at the National Weather Service Office of Meteoroloy, the Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center, and the Naval Research Lab. The COMET program continues its active role in ensuring an integrated suite of education and training products, including the following web-based releases:
Facility and data management JOSS’ CODIAC Data Management System provides access via the World Wide Web to the extensive JOSS data archive. Over the last year, the number of datasets in the CODIAC system has tripled, with the number of field projects and COMET Case Studies doubling. CODIAC provides access to over 2,500 datasets from 30 field projects and 18 COMET case studies, with additional datasets added almost daily. JOSS has had primary responsibility for the field operations (January-March 1999) for the Indian Ocean Experiment in the Maldive Island, including the deployment of JOSS’s weather satellite receiving system which has been collecting data in the Maldives since October 1998. JOSS has also been established as the U.S. Project Office for the Mesoscale Alpine Program (MAP). JOSS is supporting much of the aircraft operations for this effort with intensive field phase observations (general area of the Alps) scheduled for September-November 1999. IITA continues to manage the national Distributed Oceanographic Data System (DODS) project. DODS makes scientific data accessible through a number of familiar data analysis and visualization packages, including the netCDF, HDF, JGOFS, Matlab, and GrADS data formats. At present about 150 Unidata universities are active as data recipients
from Unidata’s IDD (Internet Data Distribution) System. With coordination
and software from Unidata, IDD ingests in over 8 gigabytes of real-time
data per day. The aggregate volume of IDD output often exceeds 200
gigabytes in a day, nearly all at zero cost to the recipients. A
special session on Unidata will be held at this year’s annual AMS/IIPS
conference and the Unidata Users Committee is organizing a major
community-wide workshop for 19-23 June, 2000, titled "Shaping
the Future: Unidata Users as Leaders." Development and dissemination of new technologies for education, scientific research, and applications: Unidata continues the effort to co-create with university partners new meteorological applications in Java. Prototypes for a Surface Observations Plotter and an interactive 3-Dimensional Skew-T are being tested in the community, and two others are under development: a Satellite Data Viewer and a Model Data Viewer. This past year, PAGE received funding to support a proposal entitled, "A Virtual Exploratorium to Support Inquiry-based Learning in Geosceince Courses." This proposal represents an important effort in the transference of leading-edge modeling and visualization technology to the undergraduate geoscience classroom. PAGE also received funding for the development of a "Geoscience Digital Library." The development of a "national digital library" has been recommended by several national reports and has been called out as a priority by the UCAR community. Both the exploratorium and digital library efforts involve funding from both NSF’s Geoscience and Education and Human Resources directorates and involve a broad range of university-based collaborators. JOSS is supporting the development of the first generation Water Vapor Sensing System (WVSS) Program. The WVSS is now supplying about 1000 reports (levels) of water vapor information per day from five different United Parcel Service (UPS) B-757 aircraft. Further aircraft will be installed with the WVSS after software is available from Teledyne. NSF has decided to fund SuomiNet, a GST proposal to establish a national GPS network for atmospheric research and education. SuomiNet will provide real-time GPS sensed tropospheric moisture and ionospheric conductivity data from 100 university-based sites distributed across the United States. GST has also established a dense network of low cost (~$4,000 per station) single frequency GPS receivers in Oklahoma. Funded by DOE's Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) program, the network includes 15 stations with ~1 km spacing. UOP Budget As you can see in the table below, UOP funding continues to be strong and is expected to reach $32M in FY99. The majority of UOP’s funding continues to come from the NOAA (about 48% of total UOP funds in FY99), with NSF (33%) and NASA (3%) also contributors. This year looks exciting for UOP. We are pleased with our program direction and look forward to working with the universities and our communities in further support of science. New Funds Received at Fiscal Year End (anticipated for FY99)
COOPERATIVE PROGRAM FOR OPERATIONAL METEOROLOGY, EDUCATION AND TRAINING (COMET®) The UOP’s Board of Trustees passed a resolution endorsing the creation of the COMET Program on 8 April 1989. Over the past ten years COMET has supported the professional development of operational forecasters in the nation’s weather services. Education and Training All COMET education and training activities fall under one core program, ensuring an integrated suite of education products that focus on topic areas rather than method of delivery. The program uses the Web for conceptual understanding and application, teletraining for seminar-like discussions of application and forecasting issues, and CD-ROM for practice cases and archival storage of Web and teletraining content. In-residence activities take place in the COMET classroom and include case studies to illustrate and clarify lecture sessions. The COMET Program, on behalf of the NWS, operates a national meteorology education and training Website. The site, http://www.meted.ucar.edu/, contains Web-based modules on several weather forecasting subjects. The site averages about 200,000 hits and 7,000 user sessions per month. A complete copy of the site is also available on CD-ROM for individuals without high-quality Internet access. Satellite Meteorology The National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) is funding a four part series of online training modules designed to instruct operational weather forecasters on the use of POES observations and products. The first two Web-based modules, Educating Forecasters and Managers on the Usefulness of Polar Satellites and Polar Satellite Products for the Operational Forecaster Module 2: Microwave Products and Applications have been released. These two training modules were demonstrated at a POES Training workshop held at the Anchorage NWS forecast office attended by NWS and Air Force Weather Agency (AFWA) staff. Hydrology The COMET Program continued to provide hydrometeorology training via residence classes. Two three-week hydrometeorology classes were held for NWS hydrologists and hydrology focal points this past year. This coming year may be the last year that these classes are offered. Aviation Weather Training for Forecasters The Web-based module Icing Assessment Using Soundings and Wind Profiles, which is just one in a series of modules on forecasting aviation weather has been published. Forecasters completing this module utilize observational data compiled on the CD-ROM, Forecasting Aviation Icing: The Icing Event of 6 March 1996. A section of another new COMET CD-ROM, GOES IR Imagery Including Winter and Icing Applications addresses methods of applying satellite data in icing forecasting. Also being developed is a Professional Development Series (a plan for future training development) on forecasting fog and other low-altitude clouds. Numerical Weather Prediction A Website (http://www.comet.ucar.edu/nwplessons/index.htm) that provides useable training materials on Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) has been developed. The materials correlate to a one-week COMAP NWP Symposium that COMET conducted during December 1998. In addition, development has started on two new NWP instructional projects. AWIPS (Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System) Efforts to validate and document derived model algorithms and provide training materials based on the results are continuing. A new Website to document the COMET Program’s validation activities has also been created. Community Hurricane Preparedness The COMET Program has received partial funding from FEMA and Lee County (Florida) to translate a large portion of the Community Hurricane Preparedness module into Spanish. The English version of the module was released in April 1999. Hazardous Weather In collaboration with FEMA and the NWS, the COMET Program will be converting a portion of the Hazardous Weather and Flooding Preparedness course to a Web-based course. Currently the entire course is conducted as a residence course at local NWS offices. The conversion will focus primarily on background materials, leaving the on-site portion of the course to deal primarily with local issues. The result should be a shorter, less expensive and more informative residence course, which will have the Web module as a permanent reference tool. Additional Training Products COMET module distribution is now a program activity. Prices have been lowered to cover only expenses and all program income is used to further the mission of the COMET Program. University pricing is $75/module. In cooperation with two other UCAR programs, the COMET Program continued to develop its case study library to provide data sets for research and education programs throughout the nation. By October of 1999, nineteen case studies had been distributed. Cross-utilization of case studies is being implemented; teletraining case studies as well as cases used in modules and classroom activities are being made available through the Cooperative Distributed Interactive Atmospheric Catalog (CODIAC) System. Users of the library can browse cases, order an entire case on 8 mm tape, or retrieve partial data sets via FTP through the CODIAC system, a flexible data browsing and downloading system. The COMET Program hosts the Website for the American Meteorological Society's (AMS) DataStreme Project Course. This course is a 12-week, graduate level, basic meteorology, distance-learning course for K-12 teachers. Also available on this page are real-time weather maps, a daily national weather summary, and real-time lab activities for the classroom. International Activities To meet the needs of the international academic and education and training communities in atmospheric sciences, the COMET Program provides access to its products and acts as a facilitator. In this way, other organizations can benefit from COMET experience in developing their own capacity for the production of education and training products. During June 1999, the COMET Program co-sponsored a workshop on computer-aided learning in Helsinki, Finland. Also during June, Dr. Spangler gave the keynote address at a WMO workshop on Training Management held in St. Petersburg, Russia. In cooperation with the University of Costa Rica, a number of the COMET modules will be translated to Spanish. NESDIS has asked the COMET Program to work with EUMESTSAT on an international training program on the use of POES data from both NESDIS and EUMETSAT Polar Orbiting Satellites. Negotiations are under way to create the program. The Outreach Program The COMET Outreach Program was developed in 1990 to improve local forecast and warning services by supporting applied mesoscale and synoptic-scale research and education. Since its beginning the program has provided monetary support for over 150 research projects. These projects have involved more than 60 different universities and 70 National Weather Service (NWS), Navy, and AFWA forecast offices. A Fellowship Program established in 1995 provides financial support for graduate and postdoctoral students wishing to research operational forecasting topics. Primary accomplishments of the Outreach Program during the last six months include: Cooperative Projects Eleven new Cooperative Projects were selected for funding, while twenty-one on-going proposals continue to receive funding. Partners Projects Four new Partners Projects were awarded since March of 1999. Fellowship Program The Fellowship Program provided on-going support for five graduate students and a total of three postdoctoral fellows to work collaboratively with university faculty and local weather service offices. Aviation Weather Training Program The Aviation Weather Training Program released the Icing Weather Training prototype module to the Aviation Alliance sponsors on 4 May 1999. The prototype is designed to evaluate the effectiveness of impact-oriented, multimedia weather training environments targeted at pilots, controllers, and dispatchers. The goal is to teach pilots to be safer by using good judgement and making good decisions (with weather and elements of the integrated aviation system as themes for aeronautical decision making). JOINT OFFICE FOR SCIENCE SUPPORT (JOSS) Field Operations and Data Management The Field Operations and Data Management activities, managed by Dick Dirks, provide program planning and design, site surveys, field operation logistics, management and data management activities including system design and the collection, quality control, formatting and customized delivery of scientific project data. The Cooperative Atmospheric Surface Exchange Study (CASES) had its first focussed field deployment in 1997. JOSS now houses a portion of the CASES97 research datasets on CODIAC in cooperation with GCIP. JOSS continues to support CASES as they prepare for the second focussed field deployment planned for fall 1999. JOSS continued its role as the in-situ data module for the Global Energy and Water Exchange (GEWEX) Continental-scale International Project (GCIP) Data Management and Service System (DMSS). Tactical Data Management Plans have been produced and distributed for these datasets and upcoming planned EAOPs. JOSS continues to play a major role in the development of the on-line GCIP DMSS. The CODIAC Data Management System provides access via the World Wide Web to the extensive JOSS data archive. Over the last year, the number of datasets in the CODIAC system has tripled, with the number of field projects and COMET Case Studies doubling. CODIAC provides access to over 2,500 datasets from 30 field projects and 18 COMET case studies, with additional datasets added almost daily. Queries of CODIAC have increased by 30 percent in the last year, with the web site now averaging 65,000 queries per month from users distributed around the globe. Additionally, CODIAC's data delivery in 1999 has substantially exceeded any previous year. Development in CODIAC in FY1999 included providing the latest version of CODIAC to the NOAA National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, North Carolina; development of new software to aid in plotting scientific data on CODIAC; substantial hardware upgrades and additions to accommodate increasing computational/storage demands; and development of software improvements to manage volumes of data now handled through CODIAC. COMET Case Studies, funded by the NWS Office of Meteorology, is a joint project among UOP’s COMET, JOSS, and Unidata programs. The joint project makes the COMET case study datasets accessible to the atmospheric sciences community by putting the datasets on-line and accessible via the CODIAC system. Currently, 18 COMET case studies are available through CODIAC. A major component of JOSS support to the NOAA Earth System Data and Information Management (ESDIM) Program research is providing software development expertise for the World Wide Web user interface providing access to NOAA’s geographically distributed on-line data archives. This system, known as NOAA Server, currently provides access to twelve NOAA data archives scattered across the U.S. NOAA Server provides facilities to search for datasets, descriptive information about the datasets, and browse and order individual datasets. The first generation Water Vapor Sensing System (WVSS) Program is now supplying about 1000 reports (levels) of water vapor information per day from five different United Parcel Service (UPS) B-757 aircraft. Further aircraft will be installed with the WVSS after software is available from Teledyne. A UCAR contract for the second generation WVSS has been initiated. Four prototype systems will be produced and the first of these will be tested on an NCAR aircraft. JOSS Staff had primary responsibility for the field operations for the Indian Ocean Experiment (INDOEX), January-March 1999, with the operations center located in the Maldive Islands. JOSS’s weather satellite receiving system was deployed for INDOEX to the Maldives and began routine data collection in October 1998. The U.S. Project Office was established in JOSS for the Mesoscale Alpine Program (MAP), headed by J. Kuettner. The MAP intensive field phase observations scheduled for September-November 1999 covers the general area of the Alps Mountains. The primary MAP Operations Center (MOC) is located in Innsbruck, Austria; a Project Operations Center (POC) to support the coordination of operations between airborne and ground-based Doppler radars is located at Milan-Linate (Italy) Airport. JOSS staff are supporting the aircraft operations at both the MOC and POC. At the request of NASA, JOSS supported the field experiment of the Land Biosphere-Atmosphere (LBA)—Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) during January-February 1999. The field experiment, based in Ji-Parana, Rondonia, Brazil, took place during the rainy season in western Amazonia. JOSS provided administrative, fiscal, and technical support to the US-Brazil experimental effort. In support of the Equatorial Pacific Investigations of Climate (EPIC), JOSS completed a site survey in southwestern Mexico (Bahias de Huatulco) and prepared a site survey report for submission to NSF and NOAA, concluding that operational requirements in support of the field phase could be accommodated by facilities available at the Huatulco airport. JOSS will continue to support the field operational requirements of EPIC as they are developed by the EPIC Science Steering Group, including the preparation of a Field Operations Plan and a Data Management Plan. Early planning activities for future projects (2000 and beyond) that have involved JOSS staff participation during this past year include the Asian Aerosol Characterization Experiment (ACE-Asia), the Pan American Climate Studies Eastern Pacific Field Program (PACS 2000), the GEWEX Asian Monsoon Experiment (GAME), and CLIVAR/GOALS programmatic planning. Program Support The program support staff works with government agencies, national and international institutions, and scientists to provide various types of logistics support to the academic research community. In FY1999 the JOSS Program Support Group (PSG) supported over 2,500 academic community travelers attending 433 planning, organizing, oversight meetings, workshops, conferences, and field research experiments. On-site support was provided to 27 scientific meetings, including: NATIVE PEOPLES / NATIVE HOMELANDS Workshop; OCE Decadal Planning Project; DEOS (Deep Earth Observatories on the Seafloor); ENSO – El Niño Southern Oscillation project meetings; CLIVAR – Climate Variability and Predictability project meetings; Worldwide Climate and Health Workshops; 10th International TOVS (TIROS Operational Vertical Sounder) Study Conference; INDOEX Project – travel and shipping, on-site logistic and administrative support, customs and security arrangement negotiations; GOIN 99 (Global Observation Information Network) Workshop; TOPEX/Poseidon and Jason –1 Presentation Meeting; IPCC Third Assessment Report meetings In addition to the 11 Boulder staff, 34 off-site staff and salaried visitors (in positions ranging from administrative personnel to research scientists and project managers) develop, manage, and support projects for the community. Publications produced by the PSG Office for the NOAA Office of Global Programs in FY99 include: An Experiment in the Application of Climate Forecasts: NOAA-OGP Activities Related to the 1997–98 El Niño Event; Sclerosponges: A New Proxy Indicator of Climate; A U.S. Carbon Cycle Science Plan. Support was provided for the Global Observations to Benefit the
Environment (GLOBE) Program, including travel arrangements for trainers
to domestic teacher training workshops, preparation and shipping
of materials, travel for trainers and other logistical support for
international workshops, and planning and organization of an international
training workshop in Miami, Florida, and the Fourth Annual GLOBE
Conference in Durham, New Hampshire. PSG staff compiled and produced
reports from the GLOBE Learning Expedition and the Third Annual
GLOBE Conference. PROGRAM FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF GEOSCIENCE EDUCATION (PAGE) PAGE was created in 1997 by UCAR as a specific response to requests by its associated educational institutions regarding the crucial issues of emerging educational technologies and the increased emphasis on contemporary learning theories. The mission of PAGE is to enhance the teaching and learning of undergraduate geoscience education through the application of new learning technologies and contemporary pedagogical applications. New Activities In July, PAGE received notice from the NSF that two major proposals had been approved for funding. The Virtual Exploratorium The first proposal, "A Virtual Exploratorium to Support Inquiry-Based Learning in Geoscience Courses" was funded by the CCLI (DUE) initiative in the amount of $549,979 over two years. Approximately half of this amount was contributed by NSF/GEO. The funding will support work to develop a new learning model, and to design and develop learner-centered scientific and modeling tools, a series of data sets of relevant geoscience phenomena, and an integrated virtual encyclopedia of basic scientific concepts. PAGE will also offer support to faculty seeking to incorporate these tools into their courses. Co-PIs on this proposal are Bob Wilhelmson and Mohan Ramamurthy of the University of Illinois, Ken Hay of the Learning and Performance Support Laboratory of the University of Georgia, and Don Middleton, Director of the NCAR Visualization Lab. This proposal represents an important effort in the transference of leading-edge modeling and visualization technology to the undergraduate geoscience classroom. It also represents an important step in leveraging NCAR/UCAR scientific applications for the benefit of a wider audience. Geoscience Digital Library (GDL) PAGE was also notified that a second major proposal, the development of a "Geoscience Digital Library," has been funded by NSF’s Education and Human Resources’ Division of Undergraduate Education (DUE) and Geosciences (GEO) directorates. This is a collaborative proposal between UCAR and the Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (IRIS), and includes primary investigators from the Keck Geology Consortium, the Earth System Science Education (ESSE) program of the Universities Space Research Association (USRA), the Center for LifeLong Learning and Design (L3D), of the University of Colorado, and the Alexandria Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara. This team represents an opportunity, perhaps unprecedented, for large-scale cooperation and synergy across the disciplines in geoscience. The technical and educational expertise of the team is formidable; even more so is the breadth and depth of the communities the team represents. The development of a "national digital library" has been recommended by several national reports and has been called out as a priority by the UCAR community. This proposal is a direct response to those calls, and has far-reaching implications for the national and international geoscience education communities. It provides a unique opportunity for cross-disciplinary interactions, in addition to support for the infrastructure of undergraduate curricula development and research in all the geosciences. Finally, the proposal builds on the advances of current digital library research and technology with the support of a community that is ready to apply these advances in the undergraduate arena. Although the technical development of the digital library effort will be centered at PAGE, this is a true collaboration among the consortia. The proposal has been funded at a level of $1,536,114 for two years ($1,271,114 to UCAR; $265,000 to IRIS). The funding of this proposal is an initial step in a larger, long-term effort of NSF and other agencies to create a community-owned, managed, and supported digital library facility. PAGE intends to actively solicit community involvement regarding the initial scope of the library, its technical structure, editorial function, and management issues. The proposal narrative can be found at http://www.gdl.ucar.edu/gdl/docs/gdl_prop.html Continuing Activities UMET II Project As part of the continuing support of the Universidad Metropolitana de Puerto Rico, PAGE conducted a two-week summer workshop for UMET faculty on the design, production, and implementation of educational multimedia and web-based resources. The workshop was extremely successful, and PAGE is planning to offer a similar workshop for UMET faculty in Puerto Rico in January. Geoscience Community Multimedia Database Project The purpose of this prototype project is to provide the geoscience education community with a web-accessible, expandable database of educational materials. The database will be initially populated by a subset of images from the COMET modules, the UCAR library, and several university collections currently on line. This project is in its final month of development, and served as the prototype for the larger GDL effort. DRI Project PAGE is in its third and final year of work in conjunction with Dr. Melanie Wetzel of the Desert Research Institute (DRI) and faculty from the Colorado Mountain College (CMC). PAGE staff has trained CMC faculty in instructional design techniques and multimedia authoring, and continues to consult with them on the production of an instructional multimedia program in atmospheric technology. Issues and Challenges The absence of base funding remains a serious issue. At the last
Page Steering Committee meeting in November 1998, the Committee
advised the PAGE Director to develop a base funding proposal for
submittal to NSF; however a permanent funding source within the
Foundation has yet to be identified. Although PAGE has just received
a substantial amount of money, a significant portion of it will
go towards supporting new technical personnel and subcontracts to
participating institutions. Given this situation and the absence
of base funding, PAGE will probably experience a shortfall in supporting
the current staff members (including the Director) as early as April
2000. INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURE TECHNOLOGY AND APPLICATIONS (IITA) The UCAR IITA program coordinates and enhances the UCAR community's capabilities to share and use data, information, and software services. This goal is achieved through data and information activities that promote collaboration among NCAR, UCAR, and UOP information groups while also encouraging high levels of individual system autonomy. Distributed Oceanographic Data System (DODS).In addition to the original set of activities, the IITA program is also managing the national DODS project. DODS was first developed by a joint collaboration between the University of Rhode Island (URI) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The scope of DODS has broadened recently with grants from NASA, NSF, and NOAA. The collaborators now include URI, MIT, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, NCAR High Altitude Observatory, UCAR Unidata, American Geophysical Union, Goddard Space Flight Center, Oregon State University, University of Miami, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of Illinois, and University of Hawaii.DODS makes remote, scientific data accessible through a number of familiar data analysis and visualization packages. There are two sides to DODS. The first, making data visible to others, involves setting up a DODS data server. Data servers are available for netCDF, HDF, JGOFS, Matlab, and GrADS data formats, with plans to develop servers for SQL-based, BUFR, and GRIB data formats. The second side of DODS is to give data analysis and visualization packages the ability to access data served by DODS servers. Once the application is DODS-enabled, data from any DODS server can be accessed regardless of the format in which the data are actually stored. If either Matlab or IDL are used as the data analysis packages, then there are GUI programs for those packages that come with the DODS software. Several common Application Programming Interfaces (e.g., the netCDF API) also come with DODS. Applications that use these APIs can be DODS-enabled by relinking them to the DODS libraries. DODS GUIs for the MatLab, IDL, Ferret, and GrADS applications have been developed. For more information, see the DODS web page at http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/packages/dods/ Real-Time DataIITA continues to coordinate and support access to and distribution of real-time data at UCAR in collaboration with Unidata, RAP, and COMET. In addition, preliminary explorations are underway at SCD and CGD to determine the feasibility of using DODS as a real-time data mechanism.GPS SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY (GST) The GPS Science and Technology (GST) program develops and promotes cross-disciplinary GPS applications for the solid-Earth and atmospheric sciences. GST includes the UNAVCO Facility and the GPS Research Group. UNAVCO Activities The University NAVSTAR Consortium (UNAVCO) community, under the leadership of UNAVCO Scientific Director Seth Stein, recently prepared and submitted a 4-year, $10m proposal to NSF to support its continuing role in GPS technology development and infrastructure. The proposal is currently under review with a funding decision to be made in early November. UNAVCO is a consortium of over 100 international universities and laboratories joined to support the acquisition, archiving, distribution, and application of high-precision Global Positioning System (GPS) data to study solid-Earth processes and hazards. UNAVCO has played a key role in the dramatic maturing of GPS-related science from a specialized technology to a mainstream branch of the Earth sciences, delivering results of broad importance on fundamental geological problems. The results of investigations assisted by UNAVCO demonstrate the power of GPS geodesy and illustrate its growing scientific potential, especially striking in the area of tectonics. Today, sub-cm measurements of motions are combined with global GPS data to determine velocity fields over areas which can be as large as 1000-km wide plate boundary zones. GPS results are being integrated with other geological and geophysical data to investigate both the kinematics and dynamics of processes such as large-scale plate boundary zone deformation, continental mountain building, subduction zone dynamics, volcanism, the earthquake cycle, plate rigidity and intraplate deformation. UNAVCO is also active in using GPS for other geological applications including glaciology and sealevel studies. Much of UNAVCO's infrastructure work is conducted by its Boulder Facility, which is operated by UCAR. The Facility assists NSF- and NASA- funded principal investigators by providing support including GPS equipment, field engineering, technology development, training, technology transfer, data management and archiving. UNAVCO also provides technical and operational support to the permanent GPS stations in NASA's Global GPS network, many of which contribute data to the International GPS Service (IGS) global network. The UNAVCO Facility also plays a key technology development role on behalf of the community, including new, low-cost GPS measurement systems and advanced data communications capability such as VSAT to support a global GPS network. UNAVCO is playing a major role in moving the research community toward a globally distributed, near real time GPS network for solid-Earth, atmospheric and space weather research and applications. GPS Research Group Activities This group pioneered real-time GPS sensing of PW (precipitable water vapor) and SW (slant water vapor – defined as the integrated water vapor along a GPS ray path). These data products can be viewed at www.gst.ucar.edu/gpsrg/realtime.html. The group recently demonstrated 1.4 mm rms noise levels for GPS SW data above 10 degrees elevation, by comparison with pointed radiometer data. With the UNAVCO Facility, the group supported the NSF INDOEX campaign by providing a GPS receiver and data analysis to provide PW measurements. Good agreement between GPS, radiosonde, and water vapor radiometer PW data in this remote region demonstrated the capability of GPS for all weather PW measurements in remote regions. As a result of this demonstration, GST is working with UNAVCO, JPL, NSF, and INDOEX Investigators to set up a permanent GPS station in Male for atmospheric and other geosciences applications. The group provides continued support to data analysis for the 1,000 station Japanese GPS network. This network was designed to monitor crustal deformation associated with earthquakes, but its scope of applications has been expanded to include atmospheric sensing. The group also supports Japanese researchers in their efforts to improve the accuracy of GPS positioning measurements. The GPS Research group is also investigating the possibility of using ground based GPS sensing for atmospheric refractivity profiling and are preparing for a field testing in San Diego, California. The group has established a dense network of low cost (~$4,000 per station) single frequency GPS receivers in Oklahoma. Funded by DOE's Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) program, the network includes 15 stations with ~1 km spacing. Carrier phase data from this array are inverted to provide integrated delays along the ray paths of the GPS satellites in view. The delays can be inverted with surface met data to provide SW data. The goal of this activity is to demonstrate a new atmospheric sensing technique for small scale water vapor fields. Cross-UOP Program Activities NSF has decided to fund SuomiNet, a GST proposal to establish a national GPS network for atmospheric research and education. Named in honor of Professor Vernor Suomi, SuomiNet will provide real-time GPS sensed tropospheric moisture and ionospheric conductivity data from 100 university-based sites distributed across the United States. Recent simulations demonstrate that SW data (Slant Water, the integrated water vapor along a GPS ray path) sensed by a GPS network can provide high resolution three dimensional water vapor fields (MacDonald and Xie, EOS, 17, S38, 1999). SuomiNet will involve the joint efforts of UNAVCO, the GPS Research Group and Unidata. GST is providing scientific, technical and management support to the COSMIC program, including participation in COSMIC data analysis center and fiducial network activities. Although COSMIC is principally an atmospheric science experiment, it has potential benefits to solid-Earth science, including improved gravity fields, improved GPS orbits, and improved understanding of atmospheric and ionospheric effects in GPS geodesy. Also, GST is exploring combined data management and archive activities for COSMIC, SuomiNet and UNAVCO, as appropriate. CONSTELLATION OBSERVING SYSTEM FOR METEOROLOGY, IONOSPHERE, AND CLIMATE (COSMIC) COSMIC is a collaborative project between the U.S. and Taiwan. The COSMIC objective is to launch a constellation of eight microsatellites that can use GPS-related measurement techniques to provide much needed data for improved forecasting of weather and "space weather," ionospheric and climate research, and monitoring of climate variability and change. These eight spacecraft will provide 4,000 soundings per day, globally and in all weather. The scientific foundation for COSMIC is the radio occultation (limb sounding) technique which was developed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and Stanford University in the late 1960s to study planetary atmospheres. The COSMIC program status review will be covered in the Executive Session during the Trustee's meeting. UNIDATA The NSF-sponsored Unidata Program helps universities acquire and use atmospheric and related data. Departments that have utilized these services grew to nearly 200 last year, and the benefits reach a large and diverse collection of students and faculty, whose research and educational interests span many disciplines and levels of academic achievement. Building the Unidata Community Unidata continues to emphasize community involvement and sharing as basic tenets. The most obvious benefit has been a reduction in UCAR and university expenditures for data, made possible by the sharing of data as discussed below under IDD. This decrease has taken place even as the volume of data received has expanded by an order of magnitude over Unidata’s 14-year lifetime. A less apparent advantage of Unidata as a "virtual community" is the positive effect its members experience from sharing information and common practices with fellow academicians; this builds confidence, competence, and credibility. A special session on Unidata will be held at this year’s annual AMS/IIPS conference. Internet Data Distribution (IDD) At present about 150 Unidata universities are active as data recipients (with many also acting as data relays) in a huge "distributed" system. With coordination and software from Unidata, IDD ingests in over 8 gigabytes of real-time data per day. These encompass a broad array of observed and modeled parameters on global scales from many sources. A crucial new source is NOAAport, the delivery system for the modernized National Weather Service (NWS). NOAAport data are supplemented with research-quality satellite images from the University of Wisconsin, high-resolution model output direct from NWS/NCEP, and other types of data. IDD recipients select classes of data to be "pushed" to their department via Internet, usually within seconds of availability. The aggregate volume of IDD output often exceeds 200 gigabytes in a day, nearly all at zero cost to the recipients. More detail can be seen at: http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/projects/idd/statsummary.html This spring Unidata lost a lead software architect with the death of Glenn Davis. This has impeded advancement of the Local Data Management (LDM) software, the heart of the IDD, and another key product, the netCDF. Hiring to fill these gaps is underway. Mature Software for Data Analysis and Visualization A key Unidata role is the provision of software to manage, analyze, and display data from the IDD and elsewhere. With the cessation in July of support for all OS/2 software, Unidata users now rely on Unix versions of McIDAS (developed at the University of Wisconsin) or GEMPAK (developed at the NWS) as their main tools for meteorological data analysis. The applicable variants of Unix include two that run on PCs (Linux and Solaris), so workstation costs are very reasonable. Unidata supports the use of provided software with training workshops, consultation, troubleshooting, documentation, and upgraded software. Among this year’s upgrades were enhanced user interfaces, capabilities for remote data access, and an interactive Skew-T/Hodograph tool. Java and "MetApps" An ambitious effort to create new meteorological applications in Java is proceeding as planned. Prototypes for a Surface Observations Plotter and an interactive 3-Dimensional Skew-T are being tested in the community, and two others are under development: a Satellite Data Viewer and a Model Data Viewer. An important component of the Java MetApps effort is collaboration—between Unidata and Bill Hibbard at the University of Wisconsin—on a system called VisAD. This is a sophisticated Java toolkit on which to build 3 -D analysis and visualization tools for geoscience data. To enhance the MetApps effort, Unidata employs a Web-based collaboration tool that structures information about the prototypes and organizes e-mail discussions pertaining to requirements specification, design, and usage experience. This Digital Document Discourse Environment (D3E) has improved communication among the software developers and community volunteers who comprise the MetApps Task Force. Other Collaborations and Projects Unidata's director is a co-principal investigator on two new endeavors—in the UCAR Office of Programs—that recently were awarded funding by the NSF: the Geoscience Digital Library, led by PAGE; and SuomiNet, led by GST. Unidata also is involved in two projects funded from non-NSF sources:
The future is bright for Unidata, with a new 5-year funding award (following favorable reviews of a proposal to NSF) and a state-of-the-art Java development effort well underway. The first of two new staff members has been selected, and responsibility adjustments are underway to compensate for Glenn Davis’ absence, though it may not be practical to continue all of his projects. In addition the NOAAport and NWS/NCEP sources mentioned above, other new data are being (or soon will be) accessed via IDD, including:
Challenges that Unidata must face include adapting to the demands
of Java software development; successfully engaging users as effective
partners in the MetApps software design and testing strategy; and
advocating convincingly, on behalf of universities, for favorable
data-access policies at the World Meteorological Organization and
elsewhere. Finally, Unidata will strive to help universities cope
with the pressures they face regarding new technology, distance
learning, Earth-system studies, and inquiry-driven pedagogy. UCAR VISITING SCIENTIST PROGRAMS (VSP) VSP designs and manages visitor programs specially tailored for individual federal agencies. Each program is designed to meet the needs of the agency with the primary goal of facilitating partnerships between the academic and operational communities, and infusing the agency with new ideas and techniques. VSP also supports the activities of expert advisory panels, working groups and educational workshops and colloquia. Since last October, VSP administered the recruitment and appointments of nearly 100 off-site visiting scientist appointments. Highlights from the past year and plans for the coming year are described below. NOAA Postdoctoral Program in Climate and Global Change. With the endorsement of the NOAA Office of Global Programs, VSP will broaden this fellowship program to include appointments in the area of human dimensions and societal change. Nearly 90% of the postdoctorates who have completed their fellowships through this program have gone on to permanent positions at universities and labs. This spring will mark the first 10 years of this program. To celebrate, there will be a reception at the May AGU meeting in Washington, D.C. Next June VSP will organize the fourth NOAA Summer Institute, which is a week-long gathering in Steamboat Springs, CO. The event is held for all present postdoctoral fellows in the program, their host scientists and other invited guests, including past postdoctoral fellows who are becoming the future leaders in climate science. The next application deadline for the postdoctoral program is February 1, 2000. UCAR Advisory Panel to the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP). This panel has now finished conducting on-site reviews of each of the nine NCEP centers. Early next year, the panel will use these reports as well as other documentation to conduct an overall review of the NCEP enterprise. Postdoctoral Scientist Program at the International Research Institute for Climate Prediction. Five new two –year appointments were made to this program the first year. All fellows are located in Palisades, NY, on the campus of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. The next application deadline is February 1, 2000. Space Weather Week. VSP supported this workshop in April for the NCEP Space Environment Center. About 250 vendors, users, and researchers attended talks and social events throughout the week-long event in Boulder. Other visitor recruitments. Over the course of the past year VSP has also recruited and appointed visiting scientists and postdoctoral fellows for a variety of positions sponsored by the Air Force Weather Agency, Naval Research Labs, Environmental Protection Agency, National Ice Center, the NOAA Office of Hydrology and the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Prediction. New Business. VSP is working with the National Weather Service, Office of Meteorology, to develop a visitor program for the purpose of attracting scientists who are interested in facilitating technology transfer and helping to complete development of new products for the user community. The Navy operational lab, Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center, in Monterey, CA is working with VSP to create a new visitor program. A distinguished level scientist has recently been appointed through a nationwide search to head up the UCAR program at FNMOC. Several postdoctoral fellows will be recruited in the coming year for this program. The Naval Research Laboratory, also in Monterey, CA has approached VSP about expanding their visitor program to attract more postdoctoral level scientists. An announcement for this program will be released this fall. VSP has submitted proposals to NSF and NASA for the joint funding of the WOCE Young Investigators Workshops. VSP was approached by the university community to organize a series of workshops to train scientists in WOCE dataset analysis. The first workshop will be held in June 2000 in Boulder. VSP will begin recruiting for participants starting late fall 1999.
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