COOPERATIVE INSTITUTE FOR MESOSCALE METEOROLOGICAL STUDIES (CIMMS)

ACCOMPLISHMENTS DURING CALENDAR YEAR 1996

 

INFRASTRUCTURAL ACCOMPLISHMENTS

  • • 1996 was a year of infrastructural consolidation that built on two important recent developments -- (1) the 1995 broadening of the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) between the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the University of Oklahoma to add the participation and sponsorship of NOAA's National Weather Service to the long standing involvement of the NOAA Environmental Research Laboratories; and (2) the adoption of a new CIMMS Five-Year Plan for 1996-2001 that is accordingly providing for interactions and collaborations with, and funding from, the National Weather Service units on the OU campus (Forecast Office, WSR-88D Operational Support Facility, Storm Prediction Center), as well as the traditional counterpart involvement with the National Severe Storms Laboratory of NOAA's Environmental Research Laboratories. The Bylaws that accompany the new MOA were finalized and approved (by the CIMMS Council) during 1996.

    • The research themes being pursued have accordingly also been significantly enhanced, and now include basic convective and mesoscale research, forecast improvements, the climatic effects of/controls on mesoscale processes, the socioeconomic effects of mesoscale weather systems and regional-scale climate variations, and Doppler weather radar research, development, and training.

    • This broadening was reflected in the increased involvement of CIMMS scientists, engineers, and support personnel in the programs of the National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL, 68 individuals, who now outnumber the Laboratory's 52 federal employees), WSR-88D Operational Support Facility (12), and Storm Prediction Center (2). This level of activity constitutes a ten-fold increase from five years ago, and the infrastructural challenges that have resulted are now being successfully addressed.

      

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    PROGRAM REVIEWS

  • • On November 7, CIMMS programs were subject to a mini-review (with the theme "CIMMS in Transition") by the Director of NOAA's Environmental Research Laboratories. The outcome was highly favorable.

    • During June 11-12, an external Site Advisory Committee conducted a further review of the CIMMS "Site Scientist" program for the Southern Great Plains component of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program. This CIMMS program, which commenced in 1992, had previously been renewed for 1995-1998. The review focused on the Site Scientist Research Program and the interactions of the Site Scientist Team with the Site Program and Operations Managers. The preliminary report of the review panel was strongly supportive of the CIMMS activities to date, and also offered constructive suggestions for the further enhancement of our programs and their adjustment to the evolving nature of the total ARM Program.

      

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    INTERNATIONAL ACTIVITIES

  • • The following activities occurred under a Memorandum of Agreement between CIMMS and the Moroccan Direction de la Météorologie Nationale (DMN) -- two DMN engineers were at CIMMS for most of the year performing research into the causes and predictability of Moroccan growing season precipitation; the CIMMS Director visited Morocco in July and November to update a range of Moroccan Government officials on the status of this project and to give an invited presentation based on it to the "Second International Conference to the African Meteorological Society"; in July, a series of lectures were given at DMN on "Nowcasting, Flash Flooding, and Radar Meteorology", by OU Regents' Professor of Meteorology Kenneth C. Crawford; CIMMS and DMN began issuing a series of "Experimental Precipitation Predictions for Morocco for 1996-97", which were correct for the core of the rainy season; a draft proposal entitled "The Development of an Improved Hydrometeorological Nowcasting Service for DMN" was prepared by Professor Crawford and submitted to the DMN Director.

    • As part of developing, funded collaborations with Japanese private and public sector organizations, the CIMMS Director visited Japan during March 11-15. He gave seminars at Kyoto University (Disaster Prevention Research Institute), the Japan Marine Science and Technology Center, Weathernews International, Hitachi Ltd., and Tokyo University (Ocean Research Institute). In return, CIMMS hosted visits from representatives of most of those organizations. CIMMS played a major role in arranging Hitachi Ltd.'s gift of a SR2201 Parallel Processor to OU. The Proceedings from the UJST Workshop on the Technology of Disaster Prevention Against Severe Local Storms, were published after compilation by the CIMMS Director and a CIMMS Director Emeritus. This important workshop was co-hosted by CIMMS in late 1994 as part of the U.S.-Japan Science and Technology Agreement, and had the goal of establishing the joint research agenda of the two countries for the next decade. In addition, substantial planning was undertaken concerning a potential CIMMS initiative to be pursued within the new "Towards Understanding and Prediction of Global Change Program" of the Japan Science and Technology Agency.

    • CIMMS cosponsored the Joint US-Korea Workshop on Storm- and Mesoscale Analysis and Prediction held at OU during February 5-8, the purpose of which was to facilitate collaboration between the two countries on this topic.

    • In addition to the above collaborations, CIMMS Scientists are actively working with counterparts at Ben-Gurion University (Israel), the Instituto per lo studio delle Metodologie Geofisiche Ambientali (IMGA, Italy), the National Climate Center and Institute of Atmospheric Physics (P. R. China), the Institute of Atmospheric Physics (Russia), the Queensland Department of Primary Industry (Australia), and the African Center of Meteorological Applications for Development (ACMAD, Niger).

      

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    INTERNATIONAL AND NATIONAL FIELD PROGRAM LEADERSHIP

  • • As part of our ARM "Site Scientist" role, CIMMS Scientists continue to provide vital day-to-day scientific guidance for the development and continuous operation of the Southern Great Plains ARM Site. This is the World's first comprehensive climate observatory, and now generates ~250 continuous data streams from 30 locations spread over 55,000 square miles in southern Kansas and northern and central Oklahoma. Beginning in February, the Site Scientist Team assumed increased responsibility with respect to the quality assurance of the above data streams. The Site Scientist Team also played a strong role in the planning, execution, and initial analysis phases of the first of three "Water Vapor Intensive Observing Periods" (September 10-30, 1996).

    • CIMMS Fellows and Scientists continued to analyze data collected during the 1994-95 Verification of the Origin of Rotation in Tornadoes EXperiment (VORTEX) across the Southern Great Plains, for which they had also designed and built several special, mobile, observing systems. Unique tornado measurements made by those observing systems were presented in a Science paper that attracted considerable attention in the popular press (Time, New York Times). VORTEX is yielding important new information about tornado genesis that will likely be translated into improved forecast skill for this devastating phenomenon.

    • A CIMMS Scientist continued installing instrumentation that will contribute to the routine monitoring of soil water and temperature across the Southern Great Plains. When completed in 1997, the ~70-station network will be the world-leader for the regional-scale monitoring of these important environmental parameters. This effort is part of the World Climate Programme’s Global Energy and Water Cycle EXperiment (GEWEX), as well as the aforementioned international ARM Program of the U.S. Department of Energy, and is being undertaken in collaboration with the Oklahoma Mesonet.

    • In collaboration with NSSL and the OU School of Meteorology, CIMMS established the Joint Meteorological Observing Facility (JMRF) that is coordinating the development and deployment of the observing capabilities of those units. This facility is expected to increase the efficiency of field programs at the national and international levels, and ultimately be reflected in improved forecast skill for severe weather.

      

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    SCIENTIFIC INNOVATION AND ACTIVITY

  • • The traditional core emphasis of CIMMS on mesoscale and convective weather systems has been further developed through the following "cutting edge" activities -- continued involvement in the above analyses of VORTEX data and associated refinement of tornadogenesis hypotheses; the further development and deployment (including during the landfall of Hurricane Fran) of unique mobile observing systems (Doppler radars, automated weather stations, balloon soundings) that were originally developed for VORTEX and earlier field programs; theoretical advances concerning the treatment of pronounced physical discontinuities in storm simulations; the development and technology transfer of algorithms for severe weather detection by the nationwide WSR-88D radar system; the completion of a graduate-level text on The Electrical Nature of Storms to be published by Oxford University Press in 1997; completion of the first comparative study of the electrical structure of airmass storms, supercell storms, and the convective regions of mesoscale convective systems, which revealed surprising consistency; and development of an experimental Warning Decision Support System that was tested in National Weather Service Offices around the country and then used as a major component of the weather program for the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.

    • The following newer areas of CIMMS activity continued to be vigorously developed -- quantification of socioeconomic effects of mesoscale weather systems and regional-scale climate variations; development and application of multivariate spatial statistics to weather and climate problems; fine-resolution modeling of microphysical and radiative processes within clouds; regional-scale climatic controls on/effects of mesoscale weather systems; and observational and modeling investigations of regional climate variability. In addition, Doppler radar research and development efforts were initiated in 1996. Most of these activities are not only pioneering with respect to the history of meteorological research on the OU Campus, but are at the national and international forefront.

    • During 1996, the external funding for CIMMS totaled $3+ million, and supported research that was reported in 21 refereed journal articles, approximately 40 papers that appeared in conference Proceedings, and many further articles that were accepted for 1997 publication in refereed journals. In addition, CIMMS compiled and published the Proceedings from the UJST Workshop on the Technology of Disaster Prevention Against Local Severe Storms (November 28-December 2, 1994).

    • During 1996, CIMMS Scientists and Fellows presented invited papers at international meetings in Casablanca (Morocco) and Trieste (Italy), and gave contributed papers at the above meetings and at others in Clermont-Ferrand (France), Zurich (Switzerland), and Osaka (Japan), and in several U.S. locations.

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