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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 433 records · Page 24
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2002

Bridging the Gap Between Research and Operations in the National Weather Service: The Huntsville Model

The National Weather Service Office (WFO) in Huntsville, Alabama (HUN) is slated to begin full-time operations in early 2003. With the opening of the Huntsville WFO, a unique opportunity has arisen for close and productive collaboration with scientists at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) and the University of Alabama Huntsville (UAH). As a part of the collaboration effort, NASA has developed the Short-term Prediction Research and Transition (SPoRT) Center. The mission of the SPoRT center is to incorporate NASA earth science technology and research into the NWS operational environment. Emphasis will be on improving mesoscale and short-term forecasting in the first 24 hours of the forecast period. As part of the collaboration effort, the NWS and NASA will develop an implementation and evaluation plan to streamline the integration of the latest technologies and techniques into the operational forecasting environment. The desire of WFO HUN, NASA, and UAH is to provide a model for future collaborative activities between research and operational communities across the country.

Darden, C.↗
NASA NTRS1981

Applications systems verification and transfer project. Volume 3: Operational applications of satellite snow cover observations in California

Five southern Sierra snowmelt basins and two northern Sierra-Southern Cascade snowmelt basins were used to evaluate the effect on operational water supply forecasting from satellite imagery. Manual photointerpretation techniques were used to obtain SCA and equivalent snow line for the years 1973 to 1979 for the seven test basins using LANDSAT imagery and GOES imagery. The use of SCA was tested operationally in 1977-79. Results indicate the addition of SCA improve the water supply forecasts during the snowmelt phase for these basins where there may be an unusual distribution of snowpack throughout the basin, or where there is a limited amount of real time data available. A high correlation to runoff was obtained when SCA was combined with snow water content data obtained from reporting snow sensors.

Brown, A. J.↗
DOE OSTI2021

Review of Onsite Temperature and Solar Forecasting Models to Enable Better Building Design and Operations

Advanced building controls and energy optimization for new constructions and retrofits rely on accurate weather data. Traditionally, most studies utilize airport weather information as the decision inputs. However, most buildings are in environments that are quite different than those at the airport miles away. Tree cover, adjacent buildings, and micro-climate effects caused by the larger surrounding area can all yield deviations in air temperature, humidity, solar irradiance, and wind that are large enough to influence design and operation decisions. In order to overcome this challenge, there are many prior studies on developing weather forecasting algorithms from micro-to meso-scales. Additionally, this paper reviews and complies knowledge on common weather data resources, data processing methodologies and forecasting techniques of weather information. Commonly used statistical, machine learning and physical-based models are discussed and presented as two major categories: deterministic forecasting and probabilistic forecasting. Finally, evaluation metrics for forecasting errors are listed and discussed.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2023

Forecasting for the Weather Driven Energy System - A New Task under IEA Wind

The energy system needs a range of forecast types for its operation in addition to the narrow wind power forecast that has been the focus of considerable recent attention. Therefore, the group behind the former IEA Wind Task 36 Forecasting for Wind Energy has initiated a new IEA Wind Task with a much broader perspective, which includes prospective interaction with other IEA Technology Collaboration Programmes such as the ones for PV, hydropower, system integration, hydrogen etc. In the new IEA Wind Task 51 (entitled "Foreacsting for the Weather Drive Energy System") the existing Work Packages (WPs) are complemented by work streams in a matrix structure. The Task is divided in three WPs according to the stakeholders: WP1 is mainly aimed at meteorologists, providing the weather forecast basis for the power forecasts. In WP2, the forecast service vendors are the main stakeholders, while the end users populate WP3. The new Task 51 started in January 2022. Planned activities include 4 workshops. The first will focus on the state of the art in forecasting for the energy system plus related research issues and be held during September 2022 in Dublin. The other three workshops will be held later during the 4-year Task period and address (1) seasonal forecasting with emphasis on Dunkelflaute, storage and hydro, (2) minute-scale forecasting, and (3) extreme power system events. The issues and conclusions of each of the workshops will be documented by a published paper. Additionally, the Recommended Practice on Forecast Solution Selection will be updated to reflect the broader perspective.

geophysics computing↗
NASA NTRS1974

Weather support for the Earth Resources Technology Satellite

The operational plans for ERTS include cloud-cover forecasting as a means of preventing the limited lifetime of the spacecraft's tape recorder to be used up on useless imagery. Each day, a forecast of the cloud cover is prepared for all land areas beneath the satellite's track and some adjacent ocean areas for each of the next day's 14 passes. The forecasts are transmitted by facsimile to the ERTS Operations Control Center at 4:00 p.m. each day, where they are used to plan the next day's operations. The forecasting techniques employed are described.

Moore, W. P.↗
NASA NTRS2005

Investigations of Desert Dust and Smoke in the North Atlantic in Support of the TOMS Instrument

During the initial period of the work we concentrated on Saharan dust storms and published a sequence of papers (Colarco et a1 2002,2003a,b, Toon, 2004). The U.S. Air Force liked the dust model so well that they appropriated it for operational dust storm forecasting (Barnum et al., 2004). The Air Force has used it for about 5 yrs in the Middle East where dust storms cause significant operational problems. The student working on this project, Peter Colarco, has graduated and is now a civil servant at Goddard where he continues to interact with the TOMS team. This work helped constrain the optical properties of dust at TOMS wavelengths, which is useful for climate simulations and for TOMS retrievals of dust properties such as optical depth. We also used TOMS data to constrain the sources of dust in Africa and the Middle East, to determine the actual paths taken by Saharan dust storms, to learn more about the mechanics of variations in the optical depths, and to learn more about the mechanisms controlling the altitudes of the dust. During the last two years we have been working on smoke from fires. Black carbon aerosols are one of the leading factors in radiative forcing. The US Climate Change Science Program calls this area out for specific study. It has been suggested by Jim Hansen, and Mark Jacobsen among others, that by controlling emissions of black carbon we might reduce greenhouse radiative forcing in a relatively painless manner. However, we need a greatly improved understanding of the amount of black carbon in the atmosphere, where it is located, where it comes from, how it is mixed with other particles, what its actual optical properties are, and how it evolves. In order to learn about these issues we are using a numerical model of smoke. We have applied this model to the SAFARI field program data, and used the TOMS satellite observations in that period (Sept. 2000). Our goal is to constrain source function estimates for black carbon, and smoke optical properties.

Toon, Owen B.↗
NASA NTRS2011

The Impact of Microphysical Schemes on Hurricane Intensity and Track

During the past decade, both research and operational numerical weather prediction models [e.g. the Weather Research and Forecasting Model (WRF)] have started using more complex microphysical schemes originally developed for high-resolution cloud resolving models (CRMs) with 1-2 km or less horizontal resolutions. WRF is a next-generation meso-scale forecast model and assimilation system. It incorporates a modern software framework, advanced dynamics, numerics and data assimilation techniques, a multiple moveable nesting capability, and improved physical packages. WRF can be used for a wide range of applications, from idealized research to operational forecasting, with an emphasis on horizontal grid sizes in the range of 1-10 km. The current WRF includes several different microphysics options. At NASA Goddard, four different cloud microphysics options have been implemented into WRF. The performance of these schemes is compared to those of the other microphysics schemes available in WRF for an Atlantic hurricane case (Katrina). In addition, a brief review of previous modeling studies on the impact of microphysics schemes and processes on the intensity and track of hurricanes is presented and compared against the current Katrina study. In general, all of the studies show that microphysics schemes do not have a major impact on track forecasts but do have more of an effect on the simulated intensity. Also, nearly all of the previous studies found that simulated hurricanes had the strongest deepening or intensification when using only warm rain physics. This is because all of the simulated precipitating hydrometeors are large raindrops that quickly fall out near the eye-wall region, which would hydrostatically produce the lowest pressure. In addition, these studies suggested that intensities become unrealistically strong when evaporative cooling from cloud droplets and melting from ice particles are removed as this results in much weaker downdrafts in the simulated storms. However, there are many differences between the different modeling studies, which are identified and discussed.

Tao, Wei-Kuo↗
NASA NTRS2014

Soil Moisture Data Assimilation in the NASA Land Information System for Local Modeling Applications and Improved Situational Awareness

As part of the NASA Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) Early Adopter (EA) program, the NASA Shortterm Prediction Research and Transition (SPoRT) Center has implemented a data assimilation (DA) routine into the NASA Land Information System (LIS) for soil moisture retrievals from the European Space Agency's Soil Moisture Ocean Salinity (SMOS) satellite. The SMAP EA program promotes application‐driven research to provide a fundamental understanding of how SMAP data products will be used to improve decision‐making at operational agencies. SPoRT has partnered with select NOAA/NWS Weather Forecast Offices (WFOs) that use output from a real‐time regional configuration of LIS, without soil moisture DA, to initialize local numerical weather prediction (NWP) models and enhance situational awareness. Improvements to local NWP with the current LIS have been demonstrated; however, a better representation of the land surface through assimilation of SMOS (and eventually SMAP) retrievals is expected to lead to further model improvement, particularly during warm‐season months. SPoRT will collaborate with select WFOs to assess the impact of soil moisture DA on operational forecast situations. Assimilation of the legacy SMOS instrument data provides an opportunity to develop expertise in preparation for using SMAP data products shortly after the scheduled launch on 5 November 2014. SMOS contains a passive L‐band radiometer that is used to retrieve surface soil moisture at 35‐km resolution with an accuracy of 0.04 cu cm cm (exp -3). SMAP will feature a comparable passive L‐band instrument in conjunction with a 3‐km resolution active radar component of slightly degraded accuracy. A combined radar‐radiometer product will offer unprecedented global coverage of soil moisture at high spatial resolution (9 km) for hydrometeorological applications, balancing the resolution and accuracy of the active and passive instruments, respectively. The LIS software framework manages land surface model (LSM) simulations and includes an Ensemble Kalman Filter for conducting land surface DA. SPoRT has added a module to read, quality‐control and bias‐correct swaths of Level II SMOS soil moisture retrievals prior to assimilation within LIS. The impact of SMOS DA is being tested using the Noah LSM. Experiments are being conducted to examine the impacts of SMOS soil moisture DA on the resulting LISNoah fields and subsequent NWP simulations using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model initialized with LIS‐Noah output. LIS‐Noah soil moisture will be validated against in situ observations from Texas A&M's North American Soil Moisture Database to reveal the impact and possible improvement in soil moisture trends through DA. WRF model NWP case studies will test the impacts of DA on the simulated near‐surface and boundary‐layer environments, and precipitation during both quiescent and disturbed weather scenarios. Emphasis will be placed on cases with large analysis increments, especially due to contributions from regional irrigation patterns that are not represented by precipitation input in the baseline LIS‐Noah run. This poster presentation will describe the soil moisture DA methodology and highlight LIS‐Noah and WRF simulation results with and without assimilation.

Case, Jonathan L.↗
NASA NTRS2011

Workshop Summary: International Cooperative for Aerosol Prediction Workshop On Aerosol Forecast Verification

The purpose of this workshop was to reinforce the working partnership between centers who are actively involved in global aerosol forecasting, and to discuss issues related to forecast verification. Participants included representatives from operational centers with global aerosol forecasting requirements, a panel of experts on Numerical Weather Prediction and Air Quality forecast verification, data providers, and several observers from the research community. The presentations centered on a review of current NWP and AQ practices with subsequent discussion focused on the challenges in defining appropriate verification measures for the next generation of aerosol forecast systems.

Benedetti, Angela↗
NASA NTRS2011

International Cooperative for Aerosol Prediction Workshop on Aerosol Forecast Verification

The purpose of this workshop was to reinforce the working partnership between centers who are actively involved in global aerosol forecasting, and to discuss issues related to forecast verification. Participants included representatives from operational centers with global aerosol forecasting requirements, a panel of experts on Numerical Weather Prediction and Air Quality forecast verification, data providers, and several observers from the research community. The presentations centered on a review of current NWP and AQ practices with subsequent discussion focused on the challenges in defining appropriate verification measures for the next generation of aerosol forecast systems.

Benedetti, Angela↗
DOE OSTI2024

Federated Architecture for Secure and Transactive Distributed Energy Resource Management Solutions

There are fewer conventional, dispatchable generation resources and more variable renewable energy (VRE) and distributed energy resources (DERs). There is more uncertainty from bulk-level VRE and net demand from distribution systems with high DER levels. FAST-DERMS aims to develop and demonstrate a scalable solution for managing uncertainties in supply and demand at the grid edge. We propose that distribution system operators (DSOs) provide firm net load forecasts to the bulk system operator's energy management system (EMS).

distributed energy resources↗
NASA NTRS2023

Improved Space Weather Observations and Modeling for Aviation Radiation

In recent years there has been a growing interest from the aviation community for space weather radiation forecasts tailored to the needs of the aviation industry. In 2019 several space weather centers began issuing advisories for the International Civil Aviation Organization alerting users to enhancements in the radiation environment at aviation flight levels. Due to a lack of routine observations, radiation modeling is required to specify the dose rates experienced by flight crew and passengers. While mature models exist, support for key observational inputs and further modeling advancements are needed. Observational inputs required from the ground-based neutron monitor network must be financially supported for research studies and operations to ensure real-time data is available for forecast operations and actionable end user decision making. An improved understanding of the geomagnetic field is required to reduce dose rate uncertainties in regions close to the open/closed geomagnetic field boundary, important for flights such as those between the continental US and Europe which operate in this region. Airborne radiation measurements, which are crucial for model validation and improvement, are lacking, particularly during solar energetic particle events. New measurement campaigns must be carried out to ensure progress and in situ atmospheric radiation measurements made available for real-time situational awareness. Furthermore, solar energetic particle forecasting must be improved to move aviation radiation nowcasts to forecasts in order to meet customer requirements for longer lead times for planning and mitigation.

space weather↗
NASA NTRS2003

Jet Stream Analysis and Forecast Errors Using GADS Aircraft Observations in the DAO, ECMWF, and NCEP Models

We have utilized an extensive set of independent British Airways flight data recording wind vector and temperature observations (the Global Aircraft Data Set [GADS] archive) in three ways: (a) as an independent check of operational analyses; (b) as an analysis observing system experiment (OSE) as if the GADS observations were available in real time; and (c) as the corresponding forecast simulation experiment applicable to future operational forecasts. Using a 31 day sample (0000 UTC 20 December 2000 through 0000 UTC 20 January 2000) from Winter 2000, we conclude that over the data-dense continental U. S. analyzed jet streaks are too weak by -2% to -5%. Over nearby data-sparse regions of Canada, analyzed jet streaks are too weak by -5% to -9%. The second range provides a limit on the accuracy of current jet streak analyses over the portions of the -85% of the earth's surface that are poorly covered by non-satellite observations. The -5% to -9% range is relevant for the pre-third generation satellite (AIRS, IASI, GIFTS) era.

Cardinali, Carla↗
NASA NTRS1988

The relative utility of persistence and medium-range dynamical forecasts of monthly mean 700 mb heights

The proposal of Harnack et al. (1986) that monthly 700-mb height anomalies can be predicted using simulated medium-range numerical forecasts is tested with actual numerical forecasts produced under strict operational conditions. These conditions included nonavailability of long model forecast histories from which to develop estimates of drift, frequent model changes over the period of the experiment, a requirement that each monthly forecast be made four days before the beginning of the month, and the use of only data which are available on the day of the forecast. The overall results and month-by-month results confirm the hypothesis of the Harnack group.

Livezey, Robert E.↗
DOE OSTI2021

A Bimodal Diagnostic Cloud Fraction Parameterization. Part I: Motivating Analysis and Scheme Description

Cloud fraction parameterizations are beneficial to regional, convection-permitting numerical weather prediction. For its operational regional midlatitude forecasts, the Met Office uses a diagnostic cloud fraction scheme that relies on a unimodal, symmetric subgrid saturation-departure distribution. This scheme has been shown before to underestimate cloud cover and hence an empirically based bias correction is used operationally to improve performance. This first of a series of two papers proposes a new diagnostic cloud scheme as a more physically based alternative to the operational bias correction. The new cloud scheme identifies entrainment zones associated with strong temperature inversions. Additionally, for model grid boxes located in this entrainment zone, collocated moist and dry Gaussian modes are used to represent the subgrid conditions. The mean and width of the Gaussian modes, inferred from the turbulent characteristics, are then used to diagnose cloud water content and cloud fraction. It is shown that the new scheme diagnoses enhanced cloud cover for a given gridbox mean humidity, similar to the current operational approach. It does so, however, in a physically meaningful way. Using observed aircraft data and ground-based retrievals over the southern Great Plains in the United States, it is shown that the new scheme improves the relation between cloud fraction, relative humidity, and liquid water content. An emergent property of the scheme is its ability to infer skewed and bimodal distributions from the large-scale state that qualitatively compare well against observations. A detailed evaluation and resolution sensitivity study will follow in Part II.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
NASA NTRS1994

Investigation of water vapor motion winds from geostationary satellites

Water vapor imagery from geostationary satellites has been available for over a decade. These data are used extensively by operational analysts and forecasters, mainly in a qualitative mode (Weldon and Holmes 1991). In addition to qualitative applications, motions deduced in animated water vapor imagery can be used to infer wind fields in cloudless regimes, thereby augmenting the information provided by cloud-drift wind vectors. Early attempts at quantifying the data by tracking features in water vapor imagery met with modest success (Stewart et al. 1985; Hayden and Stewart 1987). More recently, automated techniques have been developed and refined, and have resulted in upper-level wind observations comparable in quality to current operational cloud-tracked winds (Laurent 1993). In a recent study by Velden et al. (1993) it was demonstrated that wind sets derived from Meteosat-3 (M-3) water vapor imagery can provide important environmental wind information in data void areas surrounding tropical cyclones, and can positively impact objective track forecasts. M-3 was repositioned to 75W by the European Space Agency in 1992 in order to provide complete coverage of the Atlantic Ocean. Data from this satellite are being transmitted to the U.S. for operational use. Compared with the current GOES-7 (G-7) satellite (positioned near 112W), the M-3 water vapor channel contains a superior horizontal resolution (5 km vs. 16 km ). In this paper, we examine wind sets derived using automated procedures from both GOES-7 and Meteosat-3 full disk water vapor imagery in order to assess this data as a potentially important source of large-scale wind information. As part of a product demonstration wind sets were produced twice a day at CIMSS during a six-week period in March and April (1994). These data sets are assessed in terms of geographic coverage, statistical accuracy, and meteorological impact through preliminary results of numerical model forecast studies.

Velden, Christopher S.↗