Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere CIRA Colorado State University

1. Cooperative Institute for Research in the AtmosphereCIRAColorado State University Overview for the 4th Annual NESDIS Cooperative Institute Directors Meeting New York City, New York June 2-3, 2005 Professor Thomas H. Vonder Haar, Director www.cira.colostate.edu vonderhaar@cira.colostate.edu

2. CIRA HIGHLIGHTS, 2004-05 • CIRA Today • New Research Results and Applications • Response to NOAA SAB Review of CIRA • Some Future Plans

3. CIRA in 04/05 – the 25th Year • Operates under a 5-year, renewable Cooperative Agreement (CA) with NOAA • NOAA CI co-sponsored by NESDIS and ORA with good NWS interaction • Complementary CAs with DOI/NPS and DoD/ARL • 180 scientists, staff and students (144 FTE) • Including 6 NESDIS, RAMM Team scientists on site • Including 12 postdocs, 25 graduate students, 16 undergraduates supported by NOAA • Including 15 academic faculty (part time) • $12M/year in research and outreach funding • $8M/year from NOAA

4. CIRA’s 8 Theme Areas

6. MSPPS data from NESDIS are reformatted, mapped, and made available to researchers at CIRA, NESDIS, and elsewhere: http://amsu.cira.colostate.edu AMSU Data Products (Kidder et al., 2005)

7. 1-km resolution GOES products to match NWS radar coverage: http://amsu.cira.colostate.edu/GOES GOES Products

8. Tropical Rainfall Potential (TRaP) Two papers in press: • Kidder, S. Q., S. J. Kusselson, J. A. Knaff, R. R. Ferraro, R. J. Kuligowski, and M. Turk, 2005: The Tropical Rainfall Potential (TRaP) Technique. Part 1: Description and Examples. Weather and Forecasting, in press. • Ferraro, R., P. Pellegrino, M. Turk, W. Chen, S. Qiu, R. Kuligowski, S. Kusselson, A. Irving, S. Kidder, and J. Knaff, 2005: The Tropical Rainfall Potential (TRaP) Technique. Part 2: Validation. Weather and Forecasting, in press.

9. New Wind Probability Product for the National Hurricane Center • Track, intensity and wind radii forecasts have uncertainty • Monte Carlo model estimates probabilities of 34, 50 and 64 kt wind • Random sampling from observed error distributions • Will replace old probability products that only accounted for track errors • Versions developed for NHC, Central Pacific Hurricane Center and Joint Typhoon Warning Center • Funding from NOAA Joint Hurricane Testbed 5-day Cumulative Probability of 50 kt Winds For Hurricane Charley (2004) (DeMaria et al.)

10. CIRA contribution to • Mission: Accelerate the transfer of research results into NWS operations via teletraining • Participants from NOAA (NWS, NESDIS), DOD, international • Since April 1999: • 57 courses offered • 966 teletraining sessions administered • 15,037 certificates of completion awarded • 19 of 57 teletraining courses developed at CIRA • Collaborative effort with CIMSS rammb.cira.colostate.edu/visit • Topics include severe weather, tropical cyclones, winter weather, with a focus on satellite applications

11. NOAA’S 5-YEAR REVIEW OF CIRA • NOVEMBER 2003 • Final report approved March 16th 2004 by the Science Advisory Board of NOAA • CIRA was judged to be a successful Joint Institute based on: • the quality of its research • the strength of CSU’s commitment to CIRA • the vision and leadership of the CSU administrators • strong relationships between CIRA and collaborating departments at CSU, particularly Atmospheric Science • strong partnership with the partnering NOAA labs • the value of the RAMM Team with its cadre of NOAA/NESDIS employees • 4 Challenges: • Review science themes • Improve strategic planning and self-assessment • Increase education, diversity, outreach • Leadership transition

12. Progress on NOAA’s Nov. 2003 Peer Review Challenge for CIRA • All Science Themes under review vis-à-vis NOAA’s Goals and Objectives and CSU Capabilities and Infrastructure • New focal point for CIRA/NOAA Strategic Planning and Self-Assessment Metrics (Ken Eis, Deputy Director) • New Education and Outreach Coordinator (David Cismoski) and New Activities; New Diversity Coordinator (Mary McInnis-Efaw) and New Activities • Strong University and Faculty Support for a New CIRA Director in 2008-09; Developing Candidate Pool

13. Launch Sept ‘05 Funding from CSA and NASA First multi-satellite mission First cloud radar

14. Established New Center for Accelerating Research Results into Operations (CARRO) • With ORA and other CI’s (other CARRO’s?) • Lessons learned; best practices; new mechanisms • CARRO Algorithm Incubator Program (CAIP) for local CI and joint CI research activities interface to Satellite Products Testbed (SPT) at NESDIS (Contacts: Andy Jones and Stan Kidder)

15. Back-ups

16. Data Processing Center at CIRA • Provide 7 CloudSat data products to science community • Developed prototype small mission satellite processing center (generic) • Flexible • Allows new data/satellite sources to be included in days, not years. • Provides standard system for operations, prototyping, and scientific R&D (no porting science-to-ops code)

17. Blended TPW TPW data, acquired from NESDIS, for three NOAA satellites and three DMSP satellites are blended every hour and made available to SAB forecasters and researchers. http://amsu.cira.colostate.edu/TPW

18. The Regional and Mesoscale Meteorology Team at CIRA • Established Aug 1980 to foster research on satellite applications to short-term forecasting • 5 original federal employees • J. Purdom, B. Green, R. Phillips, J. Weaver, R. Zehr • 5 current federal employees • M. DeMaria, D. Hillger, D. Molenar, J. Weaver, R. Zehr • Two team leaders since 1980 • J. Purdom 1980-1997, M. DeMaria 1998-present • Current emphasis: • Applied research and training on satellite applications to severe weather, tropical cyclones and mesoscale aspects of mid-latitude cyclones