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3 National Needs for Mesoscale Observations in Five Economic Sectors
Pages 42-86

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From page 42...
... water resources, and (5) food production.
From page 43...
... Direct solar, wind, and hydroelectric power have somewhat different but less complex weather data requirements. In total, renewable primary energy sources call for a wider range of measurements (e.g., soil moisture, direct and diffuse radiation, vertical profiles of wind, snow depth, stream flow, reservoir temperature)
From page 44...
... Since ice storms are exceptionally damaging and difficult to forecast, real time mesoscale observations are critical. Two factors affect ice accumulation on trees and power lines: total rainfall and surface temperature (i.e., how far below freezing)
From page 45...
... Although the latest numerical guidance at that time and the official forecast from the National Weather Service (NWS) still indicated a continuation of freezing rain, it was apparent that milder air was mixing to the surface from aloft and was eroding the shallow wedge of sub-freezing temperatures.
From page 46...
... . Biomass Primary Energy Production • Seasonal climate forecast or outlook for biomass crop choice; • Current observations and short-term forecasts for planting conditions (soil moisture, soil temperature)
From page 47...
... for running plume models and coordinating emergency response in urban environments would find profitable use on a 24/7 basis in the energy industry. Increased attention to energy security under conditions when foreign sources of primary energy are supplanted by national sources, especially more weather-vulnerable sources such as biomass, will call for more intensive weather monitoring and forecasting (short-term and seasonal)
From page 48...
... The role of soil moisture as a climate memory for short-term and seasonal forecasts is well known. Such a network would have a multiplicative ­benefit, since better observations of soil moisture would improve short-term precipitation (and hence short-term soil moisture)
From page 49...
... Safety and health concerns also extend beyond traditional air quality issues to encompass the effects of heat waves, severe cold, and high pollen levels, and to emergency response to release of hazardous substances, bioterrorism, and fires/smoke.
From page 50...
... Many cities in the United States are providing real-time air quality/chemical weather forecasts and various organizations are broadening their services to include prediction of other environmental phenomena (e.g., plumes from biomass burning, volcanic eruptions, dust storms, and urban air pollution) that could potentially affect the health and welfare of their inhabitants.
From page 51...
... , chemical weather prediction through the assimilation of chemical data holds significant promise. Careful design and use of observations will produce an expanded capability in chemical weather prediction, which in turn will offer benefits in the following areas: • Public health: Accurate time- and location-specific health alerts will help the public reduce acute exposure when high pollution levels are expected.
From page 52...
... Key meteorological parameters for PHS applications include temperature, wind speed and direction, boundary-layer characterization, relative humidity, and solar radiation, often at scales of less than a kilometer horizontal spacing (i.e., city-block scale)
From page 53...
... and to commercial weather service providers who feed media organizations (television, radio, and newspapers) with weather-related information.
From page 54...
... The 1970 Clean Air Act established a framework for the NAAQS and drove the design and implementation of the NAMS and SLAMS networks in the late 1970s. These networks were intended primarily to establish non-attainment areas with respect to the NAAQS for ozone, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, carbon dioxide, lead, and particulate matter (PM)
From page 55...
... SOURCE: Draft National Air Monitoring Strategy, EPA Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards, Research Triangle Park, NC, December 2005, available at http://www. epa.gov/particles/pdfs/naam_strategy_20051222.pdf.
From page 56...
... SOURCE: Draft egy, EPA Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards, Research Triangle Park, NC, December 2005, available at http://www.epa.gov/particles/pdfs/naam_strategy_20051222.pdf. • observing multiple spatial scales of interest, from street canyons to intercontinental transport, • adapting air quality management to changing climate, • mitigating pollution effects that may disproportionately affect minority and low-income communities, • growing needs for chemical weather forecast capabilities and emergency response applications, which place additional demands for (near)
From page 57...
... The design of the mesoscale observing network should reflect the PHS needs for better characterization of planetary boundary layer (PBL) dynam
From page 58...
... the diurnal variation of the height and structure of the PBL that exploits and supplements existing measurement systems; • enhancements to numerical modeling of the PBL. Associated meteorological observations must be linked with chemical measurements; • improved depiction of seasonal and interannual vegetation variations that are important for dry deposition; and • more realistic model treatment of spatial and temporal variations in soil moisture and better soil moisture initializations.
From page 59...
... . These observations would constitute a national backbone of urban and rural sites and should be especially effective in enabling chemical weather prediction when collocated with surface meteorological observations and related vertical profiles (as discussed in Chapter 4)
From page 60...
... A national network designed to meet the spectrum of PHS applications requires compositional capabilities at 200 sites with a core set of parameters that should include carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, ozone, and particulate matter less than 2.5 microns in size. These compositional observations should be especially effective in enabling chemical weather prediction when collocated with surface meteorological observations and related vertical profiles.
From page 61...
... NOTE: PAMS refers to the Photochemical Assessment Monitoring Stations Program, PMc to the coarse size fraction of particulate matter, and FRM to the federal reference method for fine particle measurements. SOURCE: Scheffe (2007)
From page 62...
... In a similar vein, transportation accidents (air crashes, train derailments, hazardous cargo spills, port spills) also require inputs of weather information at the finest spatial and temporal scales, as addressed by the
From page 63...
... and general aviation; and (3) marine transportation (large ships, port operations, and recreational boating)
From page 64...
... Ultimate source: NOAA's National Climate Data Center and the National Weather Service. Does not include Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
From page 65...
... Delivery delays are costly. • Unexpected low visibility caused by fog, smoke, dust, rain, snow, or other atmospheric obscurants along railways and roadways is responsible for many accidents annually. Air Transportation The impact of weather on the air transportation sector is perhaps more obvious than the other sectors.
From page 66...
... ; commercial port operations; the fishing industry; recreational boating; NOAA fisheries management; US Coast Guard Search and Rescue (SAR) and port security operations; and emergency response (e.g., oil spills)
From page 67...
... Some sites also have visibility sensors.10 Both the DOTs and their weather service providers use data from these sources to monitor current road conditions and as the basis for web-based products. Roadway forecasts are much more demanding of observations than the monitoring function; they rely upon not only roadway sensors but also all other types of observations, surface and aloft, from an area that grows with the length of the forecast.
From page 68...
... This included north-south Interstate 5 in southwest Washington and Northwest Oregon, Interstate 84 east of Portland along the Columbia River Gorge, and Interstate 205, which runs north-south just east of Portland International Airport. The numerical weather prediction models continually tried to dislodge the cold air trapped in the low-lying Willamette Valley and between the coastal mountains and the Cascades in southwest Washington.
From page 69...
... . Railroads or their service providers have installed sensors along the tracks to monitor weather conditions and warn of the above hazards.
From page 70...
... provide detailed observations of the atmosphere, especially for severe weather that can affect air transportation at or near airports. Major airports benefit from the Low Level Wind Shear Analysis System, which provides critical wind information when downbursts (strong, sudden gusts of wind from convective showers)
From page 71...
... Quite apart from the wind, mesoscale variability in snowfall rates due to convection embedded within larger-scale snowstorms, banded lake-effect snowfalls, and proximity to rain-snow boundaries argues for more closely spaced measurements along roadways and more innovative measurement technologies for measuring snow. Certain observations such as soil moisture and soil temperature are rarely available; yet they are critical in forecasting pavement temperature, frost heaving of roadways, and the potential for load restrictions.
From page 72...
... For highway, rail, and air transportation, additional data are needed for improved fog forecasting, including: • the vertical distribution of humidity in the potential fog layer (­surface-200 meters) • winds in the stable boundary layer • the ground temperature of the surface beneath the potential fog layer • cloud cover, precipitation, surface dampness, and temperature Strong winds affect ground transportation directly.
From page 73...
... Conversely, existing WMO-standard meteorological observing stations near highways and railways should be augmented, as appropriate, to meet special needs of the transportation sector. In the coastal boundary layer, energy and momentum exchanges are occurring that need to be measured in order to understand, monitor, and predict mesoscale atmospheric and related environmental processes.
From page 74...
... Cloud cover and temporal and spatial resolution continue to be the main limiting factors in an otherwise highly effective method of collecting oceanic information. Other observing systems, some relatively new, are augmenting the data provided by buoys and satellites: gliders, drifters, CODARS (active remote sensors used to measure currents)
From page 75...
... Similar con cepts should be considered for general aviation and marine transporta tion vehicles. WATER RESOURCES Importance to the National Economy Monitoring water availability and movement in the broadly considered environment (i.e., the atmosphere, land surface and subsurface, and coastal waters)
From page 76...
... A prime example here is the problem of hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico, which traced back to nutrients used in the Midwest for crop production. This brief overview of national water resources should be sufficient to illustrate the extremely complicated nature of the problem.
From page 77...
... The Tennessee Valley Authority operates numerous water storage reservoirs for water supply, flood control, and electric energy production in the Southeast. Comprehensive discussion of all the federal, state, and local agencies and their activities related to the nation's water resources is prohibitively complex and beyond the scope of this report.
From page 78...
... Therefore, the uncertainty due to the limited scope (spatial and temporal sampling resolution and accuracy) of our observing systems propagates all the way to decision-making on the use of our national water resources.
From page 79...
... Soil moisture plays a major role in several hydrologic processes that affect water resources at many spatial and temporal scales. It controls partitioning of rainfall water into surface runoff and the infiltrated water.
From page 80...
... This number corresponds to a characteristic spacing of approximately 50 km for a network that is spatially distributed across the continental United States. Although this spacing is insufficient to capture the full spectrum of short-term spatial variability of surface soil wetness, it is small enough to represent seasonal variations and regional gradients, thereby supporting numerous important applications such as land data assimilation systems in support of numerical weather prediction, water resources management, flood control and forecasting, and forestry, rangeland, cropland, and ecosystems management.
From page 81...
... Continuous observations of stream and river discharge provide a dual benefit for the general problem of forecasting and control of water resources. On the one hand they are directly relevant to flood forecasting and reservoir inflow prediction, and on the other hand they provide a constraint on the models used to forecast other elements of the water cycle that are critical for numerous applications.
From page 82...
... The observational limits of various aspects of our nation's water resources have been recognized by the research community. Hydrologists and environmental engineers argue for the development of a network of well-instrumented natural observatories to further our understanding of water movement in the environment.
From page 83...
... , evapotranspiration, soil temperature, and soil moisture. For some crops, leaf wetness (as a measured variable)
From page 84...
... Examples of methods used to increase profitability or environmentally sustainable agriculture include decision-support tools and models for predicting soil erosion, nitrate leaching, soil moisture, soil temperature, irrigation scheduling, forage quality, sub-surface drainage tile flow, stream-flow, water quality, insect migration or infestation, fungal growth, milk production, and weight gain in meat animals. The storage of grain and transport of both grain and animals to market are vulnerable to weather-induced hazards or reduction in product quality.
From page 85...
... . We can also estimate the measurement resolution (instrument accuracy, spatial resolution, and temporal resolution)
From page 86...
... 86 OBSERVING WEATHER AND CLIMATE FROM THE GROUND UP TABLE 3.3  Spatial and temporal scales of several meteorological phenomena of consequence for agricultural industries, and the measurement resolution (instrument accuracy, spatial resolution, and temporal resolution) required to adequately observe those phenomena Measurement Event/variable Space Time Resolution Heat wave 500-1500 km 2 days-1 week 1°C , 10 km, 1 h (temperature)


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