Observing System Simulation Experiments for Unmanned Aircraft Systems

1. Observing System Simulation Experiments for Unmanned Aircraft Systems Nikki Privé1,2, Yuanfu Xie2, T.W. Schlatter2, M. Masutani3, R. Atlas4, Y. Song3, J. Woollen3, and S. Koch2 1Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere, Boulder, CO 2Global Systems Division, Earth Systems Research Laboratory, NOAA, Boulder CO 3National Center for Environmental Prediction, NOAA, Camp Springs MD 4Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory, NOAA, Miami FL

2. Unmanned Aircraft Systems • UAS consist of the aircraft, communications, and control/support systems • Many different platforms, each having different flight and payload capabilities • NOAA UAS Program • Fill in existing data gaps • Improve forecasting of tropical cyclones and atmospheric river events • Climate monitoring in the Arctic and Atlantic • Fisheries monitoring and enforcement

3. NOAA is looking at a broad range of UAS platforms to fill data gaps…….. Slide courtesy of Sara Summers

4. Slide courtesy of Sara Summers

5. What is an OSSE? An OSSE is a modeling experiment used to evaluate the impact of new observing systems on operational forecasts when actual observational data is not available. • A long free model run is used as the “truth” - the Nature Run • The Nature Run fields are used to back out “synthetic observations” from all current and new observing systems. • The synthetic observations are assimilated into a different operational model • Forecasts are made with the second model and compared with the Nature Run to quantify improvements due to the new observing system

6. Why a UAS OSSE? • Assist with selection of optimal choice of UAS platforms • Are UAS the right choice? • Combine with manned aircraft and other observing systems • Design of field experiments • Flight paths • Instruments • UAS platforms

7. OSSE Progress • Joint OSSE • Collaboration between many agencies: ECMWF, NCEP, ESRL, NESDIS, GMAO, and others • Nature Run • 13 month free run of the ECMWF operational model at T511, 91 sigma levels • Synthetic Observations • Current observing systems • Conventional synthetic obs generation completed • Radiance synthetic obs generation in progess • UAS synthetic obs generation code available for dropsonde and in-situ observations • Calibration • Currently underway using archived real data for a baseline

8. OSSE Calibration Examine the synthetic observations in a series of data denial experiments so that eventual OSSE results can be put into context with the real world Perform Observing System Experiments (OSEs) using real observations Perform OSEs using synthetic observations of current observing systems Compare OSE results and adjust synthetic observations as needed

9. 300 mb U-wind Analysis Impact, July-August 2005

10. 850 mb U-wind Analysis Impact, July-August 2005

11. 300 mb U-wind Forecast Impact, July-August 2005

12. Future Work • Complete calibration using synthetic observations • Generate synthetic UAS observations • Perform data denial experiments for each UAS testbed