Overarching Goal:
To identify, explore, develop, and implement advanced weather decision support systems for new and emerging user sectors, and perform verification and societal and economic benefit assessments to measure the performance, improvements and impact of the new technologies on decision makers.
Motivation
NCAR’s mission includes research and development activities designed to improve our understanding of the behavior of the global atmosphere and to foster the transfer of knowledge and technology to society. These objectives coupled with estimates that one-third of the U.S. economy is sensitive to weather, and that life and property could be spared and economic performance improved if weather information was utilized more effectively provide a significant motivation for developing advanced weather decision support systems for a broad range of user communities and getting them into the hands of decision makers.
The specificity and quality of weather information needed by advanced weather system end users requires a rigorous verification and validation process, and often new verification approaches and methods are needed to measure success.
These end-user-driven requirements for improved weather information and performance metrics provide the motivation needed for RAL to conduct its work of engaging stakeholders in various economic sectors, many of which are not currently well served by the meteorological community, and improving their use of weather information.
Strategic Approach
“Unless we manage highway congestion, our nation will continue to incur economic costs in forgone productivity, wasted fuel, and reduced quality of life.”
Norman Y. Mineta
Secretary of Transportation
Current strategic approaches relative to this goal are:
- Expand the reach and utilization of atmospheric science technologies into new economic sectors including, but not limited to, surface transportation, energy, fire science, human health, and the retail industry.
- Develop advanced weather detection and prediction verification techniques designed to accurately portray weather prediction performance advancements and provide baseline performance metrics to the atmospheric science and user communities.
- Improve the societal gains from weather information by infusing social science and economic research methods and capabilities into the planning, execution, and analysis of weather information, applications, and research directions, and document the economic benefits and societal impacts of current and improved weather capabilities.
RAL will continue with these strategies that have served the laboratory well over the past decade. Surface transportation has dominated this goal area for the past decade. Since the late 1990s, RAL has played a pivotal role bringing the surface transportation and weather communities together to improve the performance of surface transportation weather services. RAL will continue this community building process, as the concept of advanced weather information for the surface transportation sector is starting to take hold and holds great promise. RAL will continue to work with the surface transportation stakeholders in a proactive manner to establish and implement a research agenda which addresses national and international needs for improved surface transportation weather services.
RAL will continue to provide national leadership in surface transportation weather by participating in surface transportation weather workshops, conferences, training programs, and committees, including the Transportation Research Board (TRB) Surface Transportation Weather Task Force, American Meteorological Society (AMS) Surface Transportation Weather and Intelligent Transportation System Committee, FHWA Clarus Management Committee, and Intelligent Transportation Society of America (ITSA) Weather Information and Applications Special Interest Group. Scientific and engineering guidance will be provided to Federal Agencies including, but not limited to, FHWA, Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), Federal Transit Administration (FTA), and the Research and Innovative Technology Administration (RITA). In addition, RAL will also work closely with State DOTs, University Transportation Centers (UTCs), research organizations such as Aurora, and local city and county transportation entities. The overall goal of the activity is to improve the provision of surface transportation weather services to the surface transportation community and the traveling public.
RAL will seek out research opportunities that help address many of the outstanding scientific challenges that stand in the way of improving surface transportation weather services. Scientific challenges include the ability to predict boundary layer processes (0-1 m above the ground), precipitation detection and prediction (type, amount, and rate), land surface modeling, and pavement condition detection and prediction. Surface transportation research projects covering all transportation modes (road, rail, transit, marine, and pipelines) will be explored and conducted if they are consistent with RAL’s mission and have the potential to improve surface transportation safety, efficiency, and mobility.
Applications for the energy, wildland fire and health sectors will be pursued more actively during the next decade. Interactions with the energy sector and the wildland fire sectors have occurred over the past few years and now need to be pursued with more vigor given that RAL has established an understanding of the research and development needs of stakeholders within these communities. Very little has been produced with regard to applications for the public health sector, and the time is right for launching a major effort in this area. Collaboration with other scientists in NCAR’s Societal-Environmental Research and Education Laboratory (SERE), Los Alamos National Laboratory and public health stakeholders will be a priority for the next few years.
RAL will continue to support and resource the Societal Impacts Program (SIP) in collaboration with SERE. The primary mission of SIP, which is partially supported by NOAA’s U.S. Weather Research Program (USWRP), is to establish a focal point for advancing a closer relationship between weather researchers, operational forecasters, relevant end-users, and social scientists concerned with the impacts of weather on a variety of segments of society and to assess the economic benefits of improved weather information to society. SIP activities include primary research, supporting external research, outreach and education, and developing and supporting a community addressing the societal impacts of weather and weather information. SIP researchers at NCAR include participants from RAL, ISSE, MMM, and COMET.
RAL will continue to work closely with the social science and economic research communities to infuse social science and economic research methods and capabilities into the planning, execution, and analysis of weather information, applications, and research directions. We will also work with Federal agencies (e.g., NOAA, NASA, USDOT, and NSF) and the meteorological community to document the economic benefits and societal impacts of current and improved weather capabilities. The need for economic performance metrics was highlighted at the July 2005 Community Meeting on the Future of the U.S. Weather Prediction Enterprise organized by the AMS Weather and Climate Enterprise Commission and Weather Coalition.
University researchers from across the U.S. and abroad will continue to be encouraged to participate in the SIP by attending workshops designed to build a knowledge base for performing social and economic studies. Specific SIP activities and priorities are described below.
RAL will also continue to promote and advocate for the atmospheric science community by developing appropriate outreach and educational materials (brochures, newsletters, web sites, etc.), participate in technical exhibitions and conferences, participate in professional committees and boards, and conduct workshops and symposia that bring researchers, end users, and policy makers together to discuss and address their needs for weather and climate information.