Project Goals 2007-2009

Evaluation and Improvement of Ocean Model Parameterizations for NCEP Operations
(year 1: $137,367 / year 2: $146,286)

• Improve ocean model initialization.
• Determine the optimal choice of both horizontal and vertical resolution enabling HYCOM to run as efficiently in the TC forcing environment without degrading performance.
• Quantify sensitivity to horizontal and vertical mixing parameterizations and determine strategies to improve these parameterizations.
• Collaborate with groups working to improve surface flux parameterizations to be sure that the optimal aerodynamic drag coefficients are used in the model.

Validation and Processing Tools for the AF Reserves Command 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron WC-130J Multi-Aircraft SFMR Systems
(year 1: $96,189 / year 2: $90,978)

• Improve the operational utilization of ocean surface wind and rain products derived from the Stepped Frequency Microwave Radiometer (SFMR) flown aboard the Air Force Reserve Command 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron WC-130J aircraft and the NOAA WP-3D aircraft.
• Develop and deploy the tools and training that will be necessary to validate and fully utilize the observations from the Air Force SFMR systems and will work to improve the overall performance and operational utilization of the SFMR wind and rain products from the Air Force and NOAA.

Improving the Hurricane WRF-Ocean Coupled System for Transition to Operations
(year 1: $132,990 / year 2: $136,037)

• Implementing and testing the URI wave boundary layer in the HWRF coupled system.
• Improving air-sea momentum and heat flux parameterization in the HWRF model by including the effects of wave breaking, sea-spray, and wave-current interaction.
• Improving ocean initialization in the HWRF coupled system by implementing new methods for assimilating satellite and in-situ measurements.

TC Dressing: A Probabilistic Approach to Providing State Dependent, Non-Isotropic Forecast Track Error Guidance
(year 1: $70,000 / year 2: $74,000)

• Produce sharp, reliable probabilistic forecasts of tropical cyclone position through a probabilistic approach.
• Employ kernel density ideas to explicitly treat forecasts as arbitrary probability distribution functions of possible TC locations.

An Improved Wind Probability Estimation Program
(year 1: $70,500 / year 2: $67,200)

• The refinement of the probability estimates for the MC model by incorporating storm-specific measures of track uncertainty.
• Optimization of the code to make the probability products timelier
• Modification of the probability distribution code to provide updates to an existing NHC experimental product that measures the intensity forecast uncertainty.

High Wind Drag Coefficient and Sea Surface Roughness in Shallow Water
(year 1: $73,500)

• Process, quality control, organize by mean boundary layer wind speed, storm relative location and water depth all available GPSsonde profiles collected in hurricanes from 1997-2004.
• Profiles will be average and analyzed to provide updated values of surface stress, roughness, and drag coefficient as a function of wind speed, storm-relative azimuth and water depth.
• Mean profiles and relationships will be made available to modelers to evaluate model surface layer momentum flux packages as well as develop new parameterizations for the coupled HWRF model.

Web-ATCF, user Requirements, Intensity Consensus and Radii of 12ft Seas
(year 1: $70,000 / year 2: $70,000)

• Implement a web version of ATCF.
• Address NHC requirements for ATCF improvement.
• Evaluate and improve Atlantic intensity consensus

Evaluation and Improvement of Spray-Modified Air-Sea Enthalpy and Momentum Flux Parameterizations for Operational Hurricane Prediction
(year 1: $94,052 / year 2: $101,072)

• Implement the NOAA/ESRL air-sea heat flux parameterization scheme into the coupled ocean-wave-atmosphere HWRF model.
• Evaluate the performance of the NOAA/ESRL air-sea heat flux parameterization scheme in the coupled HWRF model for a suite of historic cases using the best track information and special measurements from various field experiments.
• Use the 1-D explicit sea-spray model (Kepert et al. 1999) to perform detailed explicit sea spray simulations in which the output from the coupled HWRF model is taken as input to the 1-D model. This task is necessary to understand and thus parameterize the impact the kinematic and thermodynamic feedbacks of sea spray on the air-sea flux interaction.
• Apply the knowledge derived from task (3) to a physically sensible parametric tuning of the NOAA/ESRL air-sea heat flux parameterization scheme in the coupled HWRF model.

Hurricane model transition to operations at NCEP/EMC
(year 1: $171,537 / year 2: $174,500)

• HWRF model development and the integration of the WRF model into a complete forecast system.
• Develop additional forecast tools from model output and for model validation.

Operational Use of Near-Real Time Surface Directional Wave Spectra Generated from NOAA Scanning Radar Altimeter Range Measurements
(year 1: $116,521 / year 2: $120,455)

• Revise and expand the data processing and analysis programs for the NOAA SRA.
• Tailor functions to enable it to acquire and process data during flights into hurricanes in an unattended fashion.
• Extract wave field parameters and rain rate and transmit products to NHC in near real-time.