About RAL
As the principal laboratory responsible for aviation weather projects for the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), The Research Applications Laboratory (RAL), composed of the former Research Applications Program and the Developmental TestBed Center, has been the recognized leader in aviation weather research and technology since 1980. Through an agreement with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), RAL scientists and engineers work closely with other centers and agencies, as well as the aviation industry, to improve the timeliness, accuracy, and presentation of weather information to better predict, detect and warn of atmospheric hazards that significantly affect aviation commerce.
Since 1980, RAL has grown to be one of the largest divisions in NCAR with aviation weather still representing the majority of our work. Along with aviation weather, RAL’s research and development efforts in other sectors have significantly expanded to include: forecast improvements for dissemination to the general public, surface transportation, hydrologic applications, marine weather, wildland fires, and homeland security and defense applications (DoD).
RAL’s current research emphases are: in-flight icing; snowfall and freezing precipitation; convective storm and rainfall nowcasting and forecasting; atmospheric turbulence; numerical weather prediction; remote sensing; data assimilation; surface hydrology; land-surface modeling; precipitation physics; ceiling and visibility; oceanic weather; and verification methods.
In RAL, applications evolve from research, creating a close relation between the two areas. Research becomes an application when a possible solution addressing a societal need is discovered and that effort is then funded and staffed. The current application areas in RAL are: aviation, public weather, fire weather, hydrometeorology and water sources, homeland security and defense, and surface transportation.
If science applications are to be truly useful to society there must be a strong connection between our work and the needs of end users. Therefore, end-user requirements are considered at each step along the development path. Our work tends to be heavily oriented towards real-time operational systems which leads to an emphasis on algorithm development, specialized graphical displays, systems engineering, operational demonstrations, and the associated scientific validations, as well as user-oriented evaluations. We occasionally deliver turn-key operational systems, and accordingly we strive to maintain a high standard in the software engineering process.
Technology transfer associated with the above activities include the development and transfer of decision support systems for surface transportation, the Aviation Digital Data Service for the FAA and NWS, a turbulence warning system for Juneau, Alaska, and military test range and missile launch support for the U.S. Army.