Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate

1
Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate

• Community Perspective on Recent Reports on the
  Nations Hurricane Research and Forecasting
  Efforts

May 18, 2007
2
Background

• Growing National focus on reducing hurricane risk
  and improving mitigation owing to
• 2004 and 2005 impacts (especially Katrina)
• Increased hurricane activity
• Growing coastal population
• Improving hurricane forecasts and warnings is
  critical
• Hurricane track forecast skill is improving
• Hurricane Intensity (HI) forecast skill is
  improving at slower rate
• Forecasts of hurricane structure and rapid
  intensification and decay are priorities to
  forecasters and decision-makers

3
Recent National Focus on Hurricanes

• Recent National and NOAA-level reports call for
  accelerated and large improvements in hurricane
  forecasts
• National Science Foundation Science Board (NSB)
• Office of the Federal Coordinator for Meteorology
  (OFCM)
• NOAA Hurricane Research Intensity Working Group
  (HIRWG)
• Senate and House have introduced bills to
  establish National Hurricane Research Initiative
  in response to NSB report
• S931 (Sen. Martínez)
• HR1832 (Rep. Ros-Lehtinen)

4
Hurricane Forecast Performance
Mean Absolute Error of the 1985-2006 NHC Atlantic
Intensity and Track Forecasts
Intensity
Track
48-hr track forecasts have improved 3.5 per year
on average since 1985, while intensity forecasts
have improved about 0.8 per year
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10-year GoalIntensity Error

48-hr Hurricane Intensity Forecast Skill (Mean
Absolute Max Average Wind Error (MAE) in knots)
Current Funding Projection
Historical Trend
Vision
Unlike track, there is no published intensity
forecast limit
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NOAA Hurricane Project Scope

• End-to-end hurricane forecast improvement effort,
  including
• Research to meet operational needs
• Research to Operations
• Operational Capacity/Forecast Improvements

Reduced Uncertainty
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NOAA and Academia Cooperation

• NOAA needs to get funding to expand capacity to
  support cooperation with universities
• Expanded Joint Hurricane Testbed (JHT)
• Expanded Developmental Test Center (DTC)
• Expand NOAA Hurricane Model Research Capacity
• Increase hurricane research grant program
• Academia needs to work through NOAA transition
  units to show operational connection of research

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NOAA Hurricane Program Research-To-Operations
Paths
Collaborative Hurricane Research Projects
Forecasting Techniques HWRF improvements
Joint Hurricane Testbed
DTC - supports WRF to research community -
performs initial test and evaluation of
model enhancements
Developmental Test Center
Improvements into TPC operations
Improvements into Operational models
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Summary

• Nation needs improved hurricane forecasts
• Significant opportunity to increase National
  resources to improve hurricane forecasts
• NOAA and Research Community need to show
  cooperative approach to meet the Nations need

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Backup Material
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NOAA Hurricane Project Portfolio

• Observations
• Improve ocean and coastal observations
• Improve surface, river and near-coast
  observations
• Improve precipitation observations
• Optimize observing strategies and platform
  utilization
• Research (intramural and extramural)
• Enhance physics of hurricane intensity change and
  boundary layer energy transfer
• Improve Quantitative Precipitation Forecasts
• Address socioeconomic factors

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NOAA Hurricane Project Portfolio (contd)

• Modeling
• Improve global model
• Enhance operational computing capacity
• Accelerate tropical cyclone Hurricane Weather
  Research and Forecasting (HWRF) model
  improvements
• Develop next-generation storm-surge model
• Enhance operational hydraulic models
• Research to Operations
• Institutionalize Joint Hurricane Testbed (JHT)
  infrastructure and grants
• Institutionalize hurricane model applications at
  Developmental Test Center (DTC)

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NOAA Hurricane Project Portfolio (contd)

• Outreach and Planning for Resiliency
• Develop community tools to assess resiliency
• Enhance outreach on coastal hazards risks and
  vulnerability
• Improve storm surge forecasts and mapping for
  planning
• Provide and develop socioeconomic and geospatial
  information
• Improve responsiveness to customer needs

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Hurricane-Wave-Ocean-Surge-Inundation Coupled
Models
NOS land and coastal waters
NCEP/Environmental Modeling Center Atmosphere and
Ocean
HWRF SYSTEM

NMM hurricane atmosphere
NOAH LSM
runoff
High resolution Coastal, Bay Estuarine
hydrodynamic model
surge inundation
fluxes
Atmosphere/oceanic Boundary Layer
radiative fluxes
winds air temp.
other fluxes
elevations currents 3D salinities
temperatures
SST currents
HYCOM 3D ocean circulation model
wave spectra
WAVEWATCH III Spectral wave model
wave fluxes
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THE HURRICANE WRF (HWRF) PREDICTION SYSTEM

• Community based infrastructure (HWRF began
  development 2002)
• Non-hydrostatic hurricane model movable,
  nested grid (9km 27km/64L)
• Slated to become operational in 2007 GFDL will
  run in parallel
• Coupled air-sea-land prediction system
• Advanced data assimilation for hurricane core
  (make use of airborne Doppler radar obs and land
  based radar)
• Assimilation of ocean observations
• Advanced physics for high resolution and air-sea
• Coupling with wave model (08)
• Land surface coupled to hydrology/inundation
  (09)
• Coupling with dynamic storm surge (2010)

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Role of Development Testbed Center for Hurricane
Modeling

• DTC is a bridge between research operations -
  does not perform basic research or operational
  forecasting.
• Maintains WRF community modeling software.
• Supports the WRF modeling system to users.
• Tests and evaluates WRF contributed codes.
• Defines and evaluates WRF Reference code system.
• Assists with transition of tested codes to
  operations centers.
• DTC Role for Hurricane Modeling
• Manages principal operational and research model
  systems for hurricanes (NCEP HWRF NCAR ARW for
  Hurr., others?)
• Atmospheric, oceanic and wave model components.
• Supports hurricane model systems to the research
  community.
• Conducts rigorous multi-season evaluations of
  hurricane model systems and helps transition
  tested codes to operational centers.
• Manages a visiting scientist program that engages
  researchers in hurricane science technology
  infusion.

17
NOAA Research and Development Funnel

• NOAA is working on
• Research to Operations Policy (complete)
• An overarching view of NOAA's research and
  development that provides criteria for research
  location
• A better understanding of how to apportion
  resource allocations

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BackgroundNSB Report

• NSB oversees and establishes policy for National
  Science Foundation and provides independent
  science advise to the President and Congress
• in Nov. 06 issued Hurricane Warning The
  critical need for a multi-agency hurricane
  research initiative
• NSB Report
• Proposes multi-agency National Hurricane Research
  Initiative (NHRI) to implement general
  recommendations
• NHRI carries an additional annual investment of
  300M / yr in hurricane science and research
  (FY06 NOAA Hurricane RD 10M)
• Report provides recommendations, 16 prioritized
  investments in four categories, and other
  guidance

US must engage in a nationally coordinated,
multi-agency and multi-disciplinary research
initiative to greatly expand our understanding of
hurricanes.
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BackgroundOFCM Report

• Recommendations totaling 85M/year
• Atmospheric- and ocean-related research,
  including analyses of field experiment data sets
• Development of advanced data assimilation and NWP
  modeling systems
• Transition of research to operations
• Operational NWP computing (NCEP and FNMOC) Social
  science research