Briefing to FAA and Airline Industry Representatives 8 April 2010 Global/Oceanic Convection Diagnosis and Nowcasting Cathy Kessinger, Huaqing Cai, Matthias Steiner, Nancy Rehak, Dan Megenhardt National Center for Atmospheric Research Michael Donovan, Earle Williams Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory Richard Bankert, Jeffrey Hawkins Naval Research Laboratory – Monterey Sponsored by NASA ROSES

Motivation: Air France 447 Airbus A330 flying from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to Paris, France –Departed 19:03 (2203 UTC) 31 May 2009 –Last automated messages received about 0214 UTC 1 June 2009 –216 passengers and 12 crew lost –Black boxes not found; accident cause not yet determined The wide-area view provided by real-time experimental Global Convection/Turbulence uplinks may have improved pilot situational awareness

Air France 447 (0145 UTC 1 June 2009) Products developed by Oceanic Convection Diagnosis for deep convection (approx.) Last verbal contact, 0133 UTC (approx.) Last ACARS message, 0214 UTC (approx.) Last verbal contact, 0133 UTC (approx.) Last ACARS message, 0214 UTC Longwave IR BT Cloud Top Height Convection Diagnosis Oceanic (CDO) + +

“Wx Ahead” Uplink Message valid 0130 UTC 1 June 2009 /EXP CLOUD TOP FI AF447/AN NXXXAF 01 Jun '/' Cloud tops 30,000 to 40,000 ft//////CCC///// 'C' Cloud tops above 40,000 ft///////////CC///// *4.0N,30.0W///////// *////////C////////// //*//CC///CCC///////// ///*CCCC/C/CC////////// ////*CCCCCCC//C///////// ///CC*CCCCC///CC//////// ///CCC*CCCCC///////////// //CCCCC*CCCC////////////// //CCCCCCC*CCC////////////// /CCCCCCCCC*CCC///// / //CCCCCCCCCC*CC///// // /// //CCCCCCCCCCC*C///////// ////// /////CCCCCCCCCC*C// // // ////// //////CCCCCCCC//*/ // / ////// CC//////CCCCCCC//* ///////// CCC////////////// * ///////// /C//////////// *1.3N,31.4W //// /////// */ *// / /*/// // /*/// / /*// * // * /// * // // * //// * ///// * ////// * ///// /// * /// Pos Rpt / // * / 0133 // X 1.4S,32.8W // Valid for // / z // Pilot feedback at url: deleted] Graphical view (EFB concept) Text-based view for ACARS printer 30-39Kft >40Kft /=30-39Kft C=>40Kft

Motivation: Continental Airlines 128 Boeing 767 flying from from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to Houston, Texas, 3 August 2009 –Diverted to Miami after encountering turbulence at approximately 0756 UTC near the Dominican Republic –26 passengers and crew injured Illustrates difficulty in forecasting rapidly-developing cells with MOG turbulence

Continental 128 (0815 UTC 3 August 2009) Cloud Top Height

Total passenger traffic between the U.S.A and the world ~147.1 million in , international passenger growth projected at ~4.5% / year –331.5 million in 2025 Suggests a greater need for oceanic aviation weather products Motivation: Increasing International Air Travel

FAA Oceanic Operations Oceanic Flight Information Regions (FIR) Plus Alaska and CONUS !

Current Products for International/Oceanic Aviation International Flight Folder on NWS Aviation Weather Center web site contains: –International SIGMETs – 4 hourly updates – graphical and text –Significant Weather (SigWx) prognostic chart – 6 hrly updates – graphical –Hurricane and tropical storm SIGMETs – 6 hrly updates – text –Infrared satellite imagery (black and white; color) – full disk updates 3 hrly

Next Generation ATS Requirements FAA Next Gen requirements for Global Airspace –Identification and forecasting of deep convection occurrence and intensity –Identification and forecasting of turbulence occurrence and intensity –In-flight display of weather hazards Current research –Oceanic Convection Diagnosis and Nowcasting (NASA-ROSES) –Global Turbulence Decision Support System for Aviation (NASA-ROSES) –Weather Technology in the Cockpit (FAA)

Ocn Convection Diagnosis & Nowcasting System Convective Diagnosis Oceanic (CDO) identifies convective cells CDO Interest CDO Binary Product Current: Convective Nowcasting Oceanic (CNO) makes 1-hr and 2-hr nowcasts of storm location using an object tracker CNO Polygons Future: CNO-G will produce gridded nowcasts that will more closely resemble storm structures CNO-G Gridded Nowcast CTopCClassGCD Greater Gulf of Mexico/Caribbean domain Hourly fx to 8 hr; 30 minute updates Global domain Hourly fx to 8 hr; 3 hourly updates

Cloud Top Height Algorithm Developed by Steve Miller, Naval Research Laboratory Implemented at NCAR Algorithm: –Converts longwave IR (10.8 micron) brightness temperature to cloud top pressure using a GFS model sounding –Cloud top pressure is converted to cloud top height via the standard atmosphere assumption Strengths: –Can be calculated globally – all satellites have this channel –Day and night –Best performance with optically thick clouds like deep convection Limitations: –Only for clouds above 15Kft –Cannot detect overshooting tops

Cloud Classification Algorithm Developed by Paul Tag, Richard Bankert, Naval Research Laboratory Implemented at NCAR Algorithm: –Uses all satellite channels (Terrascan or Gini formats) –Calculates feature fields on current image and compares results to a validation data set made by human expert –Does a 1-nearest neighbor best match to determine cloud type Strengths –Excellent performance at defining cloud types –Daytime and nighttime versions of the algorithm Daytime version performs best –Successfully tested on MTSAT and Meteosat-9 for global application Limitations –Computationally intense, but could be tiled and stitched

Global Convection Diagnosis Algorithm Developed by Fred Mosher, Aviation Weather Center Modified version implemented at NCAR Algorithm: –Uses channel differencing Brightness temperature from the longwave IR channel is subtracted from the brightness temperature of the water vapor channel –Differences near 0 indicate mature convection Strengths: –Can be calculated globally – all satellites have these 2 channels Limitations: –Occasionally detects cirrus

Convective Diagnosis Oceanic (CDO) CTOP GCD CClass CTOP GCD CClass CDO Interest Field (0-4 day, 0-3 night) CDO Binary Product GOES-East (Lightning)

TRMM Validation of the CDO Interest Validation important to optimize and tune algorithms for best performance and to measure performance Remote, oceanic regions are a validation challenge –Few instruments –Independent measurements best –Low earth orbit satellites provide comparison to geo-satellites Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) –VIRS –Precipitation Radar (PR) –Lightning Imaging Sensor (LIS) –Convective rainfall product 5 km PR CAPPIIR TRMM HAZARDCDO Interest Hurricane Dean Aug 2007 Donovan et al. (2009) T=Convective rain Z=>30 dBZ at 5km L=Lightning

Example of CDO Interest Validation Manual scoring of each storm to fill a 2x2 contingency table T=Convective rain Z=>30 dBZ at 5km L=Lightning Hit Correct Negative False Alarm Correct Negative

CDO Interest Field Verification Results Statistical performance separated by various categories –Object based 1817 storms between August 2007 (Hurricane Dean) CategoryPODFARBias CSI All Day Night Ocean Land

Ocn Convection Diagnosis & Nowcasting System Convective Diagnosis Oceanic (CDO) identifies convective cells CDO Interest CDO Binary Product Current: Convective Nowcasting Oceanic (CNO) makes 1-hr and 2-hr nowcasts of storm location using an object tracker CNO Polygons Future: CNO-G will produce gridded nowcasts that will more closely resemble storm structures CNO-G Gridded Nowcast CTopCClassGCD Greater Gulf of Mexico/Caribbean region Greater Gulf of Mexico/Caribbean domain Hourly fx to 8 hr; 30 minute updates Global domain Hourly fx to 8 hr; 3 hourly updates

Convection Nowcasting Oceanic (CNO) Product Using CDO, nowcast location of deep convection. Two extrapolation methods tested (Cai et al. 2010) –TITAN (object tracking to 6hr, with growth/decay) –Gridded Forecast (gridded to 6hr, no growth/decay) Validation over 5 days from Aug 19-23, 2007 –Both methods show skill over Persistence –Gridded Forecast is best overall method Implemented in greater Gulf of Mexico and global domains CNO-Titan Nowcast CNO-Gridded Nowcast CSIBIAS

30 days of data from Sep 1-30, 2009 over the Gulf of Mexico domain are used to calculate the statistics with a grid size of ~ 5 km and CDO threshold of 2.5 The results showed here could serve as benchmark performance of extrapolation-based nowcasting techniques for oceanic convection Similar verification for model forecasts need to be done so that a comparison of convective forecasting skills between model and extrapolation can be obtained The black squares are statistics from Aug 19-22, 2007 What are the GFS model scores for oceanic convection??? Summary Statistics of CNO-Gridded Forecasts 1-8hr

Examples of Gridded Forecast in the Gulf of Mexico Domain * White lines are CDO=2.5 verification, satellite data available every 30 min Issue time: 1215 UTC 2009/09/05 Valid time: 1315 UTC 2009/09/05 1 HR Issue time: 1215 UTC 2009/09/05 Valid time: 1515 UTC 2009/09/05 3 HR Issue time: 1215 UTC 2009/09/05 Valid time: 1815 UTC 2009/09/05 6 HR

Global Convection Diagnosis From 2 inputs (CTOP and GCD), CDO is calculated globally –GOES-E, GOES-W, Meteosat 7 and 9, MTSAT Global Graphical Turbulence Guidance will use to locate potential convectively-induced turbulence Convective Diagnosis Oceanic Interest FieldConvective Diagnosis Oceanic Binary Product

Weather Technology in the Cockpit Aircraft-relative display of cloud top height Pilot and dispatcher receive a “heads up” for approaching weather –Common situational awareness 2006: United Airlines demo on US-Aus flights –Favorable feedback from pilots –Unsolicited wx information got their attention Cloud Top Height Current Position Future Positions Flight Path ASCII display via ACARS thermal printer >40kft 30-39kft

Acknowledgements This research is supported by NASA, primarily under Grant No. NNA07CN14A. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Contact Information for Cathy Kessinger Voice: