A Collaborative Decision Analysis and Forecast (CDAF) tool to facilitate real-time VAAC collaboration Presented by the United States VAAC Best Practices/2 and ICAO IVATF/4 Montreal, PQ 12-15 June 2012
History… Volcanic Ash Collaboration Tool (VACT) project began in 2003 First discussed at 3rd International VA Workshop in Toulouse 2003 Prototype CDM concept and common situational awareness Funding through U.S. Aviation Weather Research Program (AWRP) and National Weather Service 2004-2008 Funding dried up in 2008
StormCenter EVCM-G (VACT phase II) Work began in 2010 with StormCenter Inc., NASA SPoRT, and NWS Alaska Region Part of the GOES-R Proving Ground StormCenter EVCM tool provided a means to visualize new GOES-R satellite products In addition, NWS Alaska realized that this tool would serve as a VACT replacement Work began to convert and port in all VACT work into this new tool Mt. Redoubt Scenario demoed in May 2011 to finish Phase I activities with the project
EVCM-G (Government version) Enhancements made to the software to address security concerns Many features were improved through feedback with small test group in Alaska Efficiencies gained in performance and stability Test group expanded to include Larry Mastin (Ash 3D), Montreal VAAC (MLDP0), Barbara Stunder (HYSPLIT), AWC
Issues raised during the VAAC BP 1/2 Refer to IVATF/4 WP25 Back to our “3 issues” “Visible/discernable ash” Collaboration Confidence levels
Multi-VAAC analysis of ash plume
Discussion about confidence?
Kasatochi 08 Aug 08 2305 UTC )
Compare/Contrast Models PUFF PUFF ASH 3D
Operational uses of the EVCM-G Discussion of confidence levels Discussion of “visible/discernable ash” based on common datasets Archive is useful for an after the event “hotwash” e.g. Anchorage VAAC, AVO, FAA VAACs and others can collaborate Can be used to brief stakeholders
Benefits Data may reside on local computer or may be pulled from the internet Archiving/playback capability Useful in case studies, research, forecaster training, etc. Common visualization platform All data displayed on Google Earth Display/overlay multiple data sets Models, remote sensing data, observations )
What’s Needed VAACs need to produce data in .kml/.kmz format Chat capability Real time multi-lingual