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The NOAA PSR program contributes to the AASI efforts to improve satellite
remote sensing of Antarctic sea ice through high resolution, multi-frequency
mapping of sea ice. The goal of this study is to improve satellite observation
of sea ice characteristics to better understand physical processes
in the Antarctic and to gain insight into climate change as reflected in
the polar regions.
The NOAA Ground-based Remote Icing Detection System (GRIDS) participates
in the second Alliance Icing Research Study (AIRS II) in Mirabel, Quebec.
AIRS II is an international experiment whose aims are to improve our
understanding and prediction of hazardous in-flight aircraft icing conditions
and improve air traffic safety and efficiency.
The AMSRIce03 sea ice measurement campaign seeks to validate and calibrate
satellite based sensors used for sea ice measurement. The NOAA PSR
provides comprehensive validation of all AMSR-E bands and high resolution
sea ice imaging within several distinct coastal and open ocean regions
around the Alaskan coast to improve environmental measurement by these
sensors.
Antarctic Tropospheric Chemistry Investigation (ANTCI)
ETL is providing meteorological support for this study of the chemistry of the
lower atmosphere of the Antarctic.
ETL participates in this on-going program of the California Air Resources
Board (CARB) whose goal is to more completely understand and predict
urban and regional-scale ozone episodes, through the development of better
meteorological and aerometric observational databases and improvement of
numerical simulation models. These observations and models will form the
scientific basis for the development of appropriate emission control
strategies to help California meet regulatory requirements for state
and federal ozone standards.
Snow cover plays a major role in weather and global climate,
modulating radiation feedback, boundary layer stability, and surface
heat and moisture fluxes. Determination of the amount of snowpack
through current means is a time consuming and expensive task requiring
either direct sampling or low-altitude airborne gamma emission measurements.
The development of either airborne or spaceborne methods for wide-area
imaging of snowpack properties such as snow water equivalent, grain size,
and snow extent is an important goal for both weather and climate
prediction applications, and the central focus of this program.
Ghostnet refers to lost or abandoned fishing gear that drifts in the
ocean continuing to catch fish and entangle marine mammals, turtles,
and sea birds. Many of these end up trapped on the coral reefs, where
entanglement rates are even higher than in the open ocean and where
they damage the fragile coral. Ghostnets is a multi-agency effort
to locate nets in the open ocean and collect them before they reach reefs.
The Infrasonics Network is a prototype system to study severe weather
and improve the advanced warning of severe weather events. Based on a
decade of study at ETL, IS Net was deployed for the summer of 2003 to
evaluate it's capability to provide advanced warning of severe weather.
In windy regions throughout the United States, modern wind turbine farms
are being built to generate electricity. A significant wind resource
resides in the western Great Plains of the United States. This region
frequently has the strongest winds at night in the form of a low level
jet (LLJ). To take advantage of higher winds, turbine rotors are being
installed at increasing heights. However, recent measurements have
also shown a higher likelihood of encountering harmful turbulence at
these heights. This project is a first step in determining the frequency
and severity of potentially damaging coherent turbulence at turbine
rotor heights. It's results will be used to design and deploy turbines,
improving energy production and turbine reliability.
NEHRTP is a study to quantify improvements in the forecasting of
temperature in the New England region through new and augmented
observations and modeling and to assess the benefits of better
predictive capabilities to the energy sector.
An ongoing study of land-falling winter storms on the U.S. West Coast designed
to increase the scientific understanding of powerful and often destructive
storms which impact the coastal region and to test the use of new observing
systems and products to aid National Weather Service (NWS) forecasters.
The principal goal of the Climate Variability and Predictability (CLIVAR)
Pan American Climate Studies (PACS) is to extend the scope and improve
the skill of operational seasonal-to-interdecadal climate prediction
over the Americas. Forecasts on these time scales allow decision makers
time to anticipate climate effects and develop strategies to mitigate
impacts. Industries such as energy, agriculture, resource management,
tourism, and construction can benefit from improved understanding of
climate processes in this region. ETL contributes to PACS through studies
of the regional atmosphere-ocean dynamics from ship and satellite based
instruments.
To extend sparse observations of soil moisture at ground stations to
national and global coverage requires microwave radiometers aboard
satellites. A new instrument to be used by NOAA for weather and climate
forecasting applications is the Japanese Advanced Microwave Scanning
Radiometer E (AMSR-E), recently launched on the NASA Aqua satellite.
ETL is working with the USDA and NASA during the Soil Moisture Experiments
campaign to make critical airborne measurements needed
to interpret AMSR-E data as well as data from future microwave sensors
such as the NPOESS Conical Microwave Imager and Sounder (CMIS).
In a series of cruises, ETL has deployed a wide range of instruments to
study stratocumulus clouds and air-sea interaction in subtropical cloud belts.
Stratus clouds play an important role in keeping subtropical oceans cool
and in this region have a large direct effect on the winds and currents
impacting weather and climate.
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