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- Author or Editor: S. Lakshmivarahan x
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Abstract
A single-day meeting between two theoretical meteorologists took place in 1961 at the Travelers Research Center (TRC) in Hartford, Connecticut. The two scientists were Barry Saltzman and Edward Lorenz, former proteges of V. P. Starr at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Several years before this meeting, Lorenz discovered the following profound result: extended-range weather forecasting was not feasible in the presence of slight errors in initial conditions. The model used was the geostrophic form of a two-level baroclinic model with 12 spectral variables. These results were presented a year earlier at the first symposium on numerical weather prediction (NWP) in Tokyo, Japan, and met with some skepticism from the NWP elite, dynamical meteorologists, and pioneers in operational NWP. Lorenz held faint hope that Saltzman’s recently developed model of Rayleigh–Bénard convection would produce the profound result found earlier. One of the numerical experiments executed that eventful day with Saltzman’s seven-mode truncated spectral model produced an unexpected result: inability of the model’s seven variables to settle down and approach a steady state. This occurred when the key parameter, the Rayleigh number, assumed an especially large value, one associated with turbulent convection. And further experimentation with the case delivered the sought-after result that Lorenz had found earlier and now convincingly found with a simpler model. It built the bridge to chaos theory. The pathway to this exceptional result is explored by revisiting Saltzman’s and Lorenz’s mentorship under V. P. Starr, the authors’ interview with Lorenz in 2002 that complements information in Lorenz’s scientific autobiography, and the authors’ published perspective on Salzman’s seven-mode model.
Abstract
A single-day meeting between two theoretical meteorologists took place in 1961 at the Travelers Research Center (TRC) in Hartford, Connecticut. The two scientists were Barry Saltzman and Edward Lorenz, former proteges of V. P. Starr at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Several years before this meeting, Lorenz discovered the following profound result: extended-range weather forecasting was not feasible in the presence of slight errors in initial conditions. The model used was the geostrophic form of a two-level baroclinic model with 12 spectral variables. These results were presented a year earlier at the first symposium on numerical weather prediction (NWP) in Tokyo, Japan, and met with some skepticism from the NWP elite, dynamical meteorologists, and pioneers in operational NWP. Lorenz held faint hope that Saltzman’s recently developed model of Rayleigh–Bénard convection would produce the profound result found earlier. One of the numerical experiments executed that eventful day with Saltzman’s seven-mode truncated spectral model produced an unexpected result: inability of the model’s seven variables to settle down and approach a steady state. This occurred when the key parameter, the Rayleigh number, assumed an especially large value, one associated with turbulent convection. And further experimentation with the case delivered the sought-after result that Lorenz had found earlier and now convincingly found with a simpler model. It built the bridge to chaos theory. The pathway to this exceptional result is explored by revisiting Saltzman’s and Lorenz’s mentorship under V. P. Starr, the authors’ interview with Lorenz in 2002 that complements information in Lorenz’s scientific autobiography, and the authors’ published perspective on Salzman’s seven-mode model.
The NOAA NWS announced at the annual meeting of the American Meteorological Society in February 2003 its intent to create an Internet-based pseudo-operational system for delivering Weather Surveillance Radar-1988 Doppler (WSR-88D) Level II data. In April 2004, the NWS deployed the Next-Generation Weather Radar (NEXRAD) level II central collection functionality and set up a framework for distributing these data. The NWS action was the direct result of a successful joint government, university, and private sector development and test effort called the Collaborative Radar Acquisition Field Test (CRAFT) project. Project CRAFT was a multi-institutional effort among the Center for Analysis and Prediction of Storms, the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, the University of Washington, and the three NOAA organizations, National Severe Storms Laboratory, WSR-88D Radar Operations Center (ROC), and National Climatic Data Center. The principal goal of CRAFT was to demonstrate the real-time compression and Internet-based transmission of level II data from all WSR-88D with the vision of an affordable nationwide operational implementation. The initial test bed of six radars located in and around Oklahoma grew to include 64 WSR-88D nationwide before being adopted by the NWS for national implementation. A description of the technical aspects of the award-winning Project CRAFT is given, including data transmission, reliability, latency, compression, archival, data mining, and newly developed visualization and retrieval tools. In addition, challenges encountered in transferring this research project into operations are discussed, along with examples of uses of the data.
The NOAA NWS announced at the annual meeting of the American Meteorological Society in February 2003 its intent to create an Internet-based pseudo-operational system for delivering Weather Surveillance Radar-1988 Doppler (WSR-88D) Level II data. In April 2004, the NWS deployed the Next-Generation Weather Radar (NEXRAD) level II central collection functionality and set up a framework for distributing these data. The NWS action was the direct result of a successful joint government, university, and private sector development and test effort called the Collaborative Radar Acquisition Field Test (CRAFT) project. Project CRAFT was a multi-institutional effort among the Center for Analysis and Prediction of Storms, the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, the University of Washington, and the three NOAA organizations, National Severe Storms Laboratory, WSR-88D Radar Operations Center (ROC), and National Climatic Data Center. The principal goal of CRAFT was to demonstrate the real-time compression and Internet-based transmission of level II data from all WSR-88D with the vision of an affordable nationwide operational implementation. The initial test bed of six radars located in and around Oklahoma grew to include 64 WSR-88D nationwide before being adopted by the NWS for national implementation. A description of the technical aspects of the award-winning Project CRAFT is given, including data transmission, reliability, latency, compression, archival, data mining, and newly developed visualization and retrieval tools. In addition, challenges encountered in transferring this research project into operations are discussed, along with examples of uses of the data.
