1. 1 Short Course on Meteorological Applications of Aircraft Weather Data Introduction and Brief History January 14, 2007 David Helms david.helms@noaa.gov NOAA/NWS Office of Science and Technology

2. 2 Background Data Collection Attributes Future Enhancements

3. 3 First Weather Bureau and Regional Airline Collaboration

4. 4 What is AMDAR? Aircraft Meteorological DAat and Reporting (AMDAR): An international effort within the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) to coordinate the collection o f environmental observations from commercial aircraft U.S. AMDAR - Meteorological Data Collection and Reporting System (MDCRS): A private/public partnership facilitating the collection of atmospheric measurements from commercial aircraft to improve aviation safety

5. 5 What is U.S. AMDAR? Participants: American, Delta, FedEx, Northwest, Southwest, United, UPS NOAA and FAA U.S. AMDAR Program has been collecting wind and temperature observations from commercial aircraft since the early 1980’s with dramatic increases after 1991. CONUS: 150,000 Observations per Day

6. 25 5075 10 20 30 40 50 100125 255075100125 290 mph 600 mph DescentAscent +5min +10min +22min Aircraft Climb Rate: ~1.5kft/minAircraft Descent Rate: ~1.0kft/min -28min -20min -10min +10min +20min +30min +50min +40min Avg Wind: 60 Kts 600 mph Aircraft Speed Kft Balloon Climb Rate: ~1.0kft/min Distance (NM) AMDAR Data Collection: Comparison to Radiosonde

7. 7 AMDAR Data Collection: “Salad Bowl” Effect

8. 8 Avg # Reports per 6hr Cycle (+/- 3 hr window) per Layer Count by Pressure Layer (mb) Temperature Observation Counts North American Domain (20-70 North, 60-140 West) January 2006 2500 Aircraft Obs vs. 200 Radiosonde Obs per Layer

9. 9 Avg # Reports per 6hr Cycle (+/- 3 hr window) per Layer Count by Pressure Layer (mb) Wind Observation Counts North American Domain (20-70 North, 60-140 West) January 2006 2500 Aircraft Obs vs. 200 Radiosonde Obs per Layer  Max Count = VAD Winds

10. 10 Avg # Reports per 6hr Cycle (+/- 3 hr window) per Layer Count by Pressure Layer (mb) Relative Humidity Observation Counts North American Domain (20-70 North, 60-140 West) January 2006 300 Aircraft Obs vs. 170 Radiosonde Obs per Layer

11. 11 AMDAR Data Collection: Sampling Frequency

12. 12 AMDAR Data Collection: Ascent/Descent Sampling Frequency

13. 13 AMDAR Data Collection: En Route Sampling Frequency

14. 14 MDCRS Data: Surface to 15K ft MDCRS Data: 15Kft to 40K ft Most Observations Above 25K ft Most Ascents/Descents In the Midwest and East and West Coasts AMDAR Data Collection: Spatial Coverage

15. 15 Weekly Data Availability Varies by 40% Daily Data Availability Varies by 60% AMDAR Data Collection: Temporal Coverage

16. 16 AMDAR Data Collection: Sometimes too much data?? Numbers indicate average number of ascent/descent soundings per day during the week of April 10, 2005 157 100 208 64 96 DAL: 31 DFW: 23 AFW: 10 64 13 5 53 20 15 1 1818 13 1 LAX:120 SAN: 24 ONT: 23 BUR: 3 170 54 SFO: 78 OAK: 39 SMF: 10 MHR: 7 SJC: 7 FAT: 1 142 JFK: 64 EWR: 39 LGA: 32 135 43 15 22 24 35 31 6 7 13 10 17 5 64 7 14 5 5 18 22 8 2 8 13 7 8 5 9 1 1717 Average Daily MDCRS Aircraft Soundings (Ascents and Descents) 26 15 13 9 9 9 7 7 7 5 5 5 4 3 3 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 9 6 142 3 170 1 4

17. 17 AMDAR Data Collection: Not Currently Dynamically Scalable Day 1 Outlook: Probability of Damaging Winds

18. 18 AMDAR Future: Building on our Success Water Vapor Sensor System (WVSS II) 25 sensors installed on UPS B-757 Assessment commenced March 2005 TAMDAR: 60 sensors installed on Mesaba Saab 340 Aircraft Assessment commenced December 2004 Adding Water Vapor to Data Collection:

19. 19 AMDAR Links: AMDAR Flyer http://www.wmo.ch/web/aom/amprog/Publications/Final%20Production%20AMDAR%20Flyer.pdf U.S. AMDAR Page http://amdar.noaa.gov/ Automated Meteorological Reports from Commercial Aircraft by Bill Moninger, Rich Mamrosh, and Pat Pauley (2003). Published in the February, 2003 issue of the Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc. 84, 203-216. http://amdar.noaa.gov/docs/bams/ http://amdar.noaa.gov/docs/bams/ Optimization Requirements Document for the Meteorological Data Collection and Reporting System / Aircraft Meteorological Data Relay System, 2006, submitted to NOAA by ARINC. http://amdar.noaa.gov/docs/ARINC_Optimization_%20Req_March2006.pdf

20. 20 Comments??? David Helms 301-713-3557 x193 david.helms@noaa.gov NOAA/ NWS Office of Science and Technology

21. Regional Jet Growth From FAA Registrations, 1995-2004

22. 22 RJs: An Untapped Resource May 2003 RJ Airframes