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3 Scientific Imperatives and Recommendations for the Decades Ahead
Pages 28-45

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From page 28...
... , emphasize understanding and predicting atmospheric phenomena and processes. For the near future, they emphasize forecasts of atmospheric phenomena with significant societal impacts, including seasonal climate variability, chemical processes and air quality, and space weather events.
From page 29...
... ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCE IMPERATIVE 1: OPTIMIZE AND INTEGRATE OBSERVATION CAPABILITIES The atmospheric science community and relevant federal agencies should develop a specific plan for optimizing global observations of the atmosphere, oceans, and land. This plan should take into account re quirements for monitoring weather, climate, and air quality and for providing the information needed to improve predictive numerical mod
From page 30...
... data bases portraying the evolution of actual and predicted conditions are replacing the traditional synoptic snapshots of atmospheric conditions. Made possible by new capabilities in observational, computational, and communications technology, these four-dimensional data bases containing predictions of traditional variables will be the input to distributed computer procedures that prepare application-specific forecasts formulated in terms of key impact variables,2 decision aids, and recommendations for action.
From page 31...
... For example, operational models predicting severe weather or tropical storms might be configured to specify locations where higher-resolution initial conditions would enhance accuracy (Burpee et al., 1996~. Then, observations could be obtained in these regions from satellites or remotely piloted scientific aircraft.
From page 32...
... Many of the issues involved in improved observations and improved weather services are being addressed in the federal interagency effort to create a future North American Atmospheric Observing System (NOAA, 1996) as a composite observing system for the twenty-first century.
From page 33...
... Simulations of observing and prediction systems can thus be a critical mechanism for managing the advance of the discipline and its service to society. ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCE IMPERATIVE 2: DEVELOP NEW OBSERVATION CAPABILITIES The federal agencies involved in atmospheric science should commit to a strategy, priorities, and a program for developing new capabilities for observing critical variables, including water in all its phases, wind, aerosols and chemical constituents, and variables related to phenomena in near-Earth space, all on spatial and temporal scales relevant to forecasts and applications.
From page 34...
... Notable advances are being made with remote sensing techniques. In situ water vapor measurements are essential to resolve fine structure and to constrain remotely sensed data.
From page 35...
... An expert system might be developed to produce precipitation estimates from input information including radar, satellite, and rain gauge data, as well as season of the year and type of cloud system. Wind Observations Owing to modern technology, the density of wind observations has significantly increased over the United States and some other continental areas in recent years.
From page 36...
... Sampling meteorological variables, trace gases, and aerosols in the stratosphere will require a combination of ground-based balloon and remote sensing, satellite measurements, and piloted and remotely piloted aircraft all blended with numerical models. Satellite systems should overlap in time, to provide continuity of record as well as to provide confidence in comparison of studies separated by several years.
From page 37...
... Moreover, measurements of the interaction of solar particles and the solar magnetic field with the Earth's magnetosphere and ionosphere are important for basic understanding and development of numerical models. ATMOSPHERIC RESEARCH RECOMMENDATION 1: RESOLVE INTERACTIONS AT ATMOSPHERIC BOUNDARIES AND AMONG DIFFERENT SCALES OF FLOW The major weather, climate, and global observation programs supported by the federal government and international agencies should put high priority on improved understanding of interactions of the atmosphere with other components of the Earth system and of interactions between atmospheric phenomena of different scales.
From page 38...
... Continued developments in remote sensing of surface wind, temperature, and radiative fluxes are needed, along with adaptive sampling techniques for in situ and remotely sensed data in cyclones. Long-Term Interactions with the Oceans On decadal to centennial time scales, the interaction between the upper and the deeper parts of the world ocean is believed to be a primary control on the natural variability of surface temperature on the planet.
From page 39...
... The coupling of the atmosphere and ocean in the tropics gives rise to the ENS O cycle of alternating extremes of warm and cold sea surface temperatures with periods of three to seven years that affect the global climate system. The information between system components is communicated through wind stress, sea surface temperature, radiation, and precipitation.
From page 40...
... The Fundamental Problem of Nonlinearity Many of the key challenges in atmospheric sciences embody the fundamental problem of all geophysical fluid flow the nonlinear interaction between phenomena with various length and time scales in the flow and phenomena of different length and time scales in the boundary conditions, external forcing, and within the flow itself. Most geophysical flow problems involve interactions with a boundary and thus develop turbulent boundary layers.
From page 41...
... ATMOSPHERIC RESEARCH RECOMMENDATION 2: EXTEND A DISCIPLINED FORECAST PROCESS TO NEW AREAS A strategy and implementation plan for initiating experimentalforecasts and taking advantage of a disciplined forecasting process should be developed by appropriate agencies and the scientific community for climate variations, key chemical constituents and air quality, and space weather events. Much of the effort in the atmospheric sciences is aimed, either explicitly or implicitly, at extending the range and improving the accuracy of forecasts of atmospheric phenomena weather and air quality on the short term, climate variation on the longer term.
From page 42...
... Moreover, these observations have supported the development of coupled ocean-atmosphere models of the tropical Pacific Ocean that can predict tropical Pacific sea surface temperatures with confidence months to a year in advance. These developments in the observing system, together with related advances in coupled forecast models, have led to the implementation at NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Prediction of a routine, model-based, shortterm climate forecast system for the United States.
From page 43...
... Space weather phenomena have been predicted for many years using statistical methods, primarily by the military. Today, advances in observations of solar phenomena and the solar wind can be coupled with increasingly quantitative research models of the solar-terrestrial system to develop an operational space weather forecasting system.
From page 44...
... Thus, the stability of climate and possible changes in the statistical structure of extreme weather events are important new issues for water resource management. Moreover, the operation of water management systems is evidently linked to both weather and climate forecasts; thus, issues of predictability become impor
From page 45...
... Emerging research problems involve aspects of multiphase ground water flow and coupled mass-biochemical contaminant transport that come into play as rainwater is absorbed by the ground and transported laterally through underground rock strata. Robust description and understanding of these complex phenomena involve laboratory and field experiments and the development of mathematical and numerical models capable of simulating unsteady processes with time constants varying over many orders of magnitude.


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