Transcript Scott Swerdlin

6 Nov, 2008
National Security Applications Program
Scott Swerdlin
Terri Betancourt
Tom Warner
National Security Applications Program
Research Applications Laboratory
Mission Statement
• Significantly advance our
understanding of
mesoscale and urban-scale
atmospheric processes,
especially in the boundary
layer, and our ability to
forecast these atmospheric
conditions operationally for
the purpose of providing
forecasters, decision
makers, and emergency
managers with accurate
decision information to
save lives and property.
Societal Needs
• Cities are vulnerable to industrial and
transportation system accidents, and
terrorist attacks involving toxic airborne
releases
• Various fine-scale atmospheric modeling
technologies could help to save lives
• Similar technologies are useful for climate
change prediction and the impact on
cities
• Urban meteorology and regional climate
prediction are important topics in a variety
of fields
NSAP’s Principal Elements
Regional NWP Modeling
BL and Urban Meteorology
Building Protection
Turnkey NWP Systems
Advanced Data Assimilation
Urban Protection
NWP Model Customization
Mesoscale Ensemble Prediction
Climate Downscaling
Highest Priorities
• Global and regional
climatologies
• Modeling urban
atmospheres
• Modeling plumes of
hazardous materials
• Mesoscale ensemble
prediction
Project Composition
• U.S. Department of Defense
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Army
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Army Intelligence: CFDDA & T&D
DTRA
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Test & Evaluation 4DWX
Future Combat Systems M&S
Global CFDDA
Met Data Server
Coastal Urban
Next-generation WRF-RTFDDA
Basic Research BL
Coupled WRF-CFD
Sensor Data Fusion
Missile Defense Agency: Hydrometeor
Impacts
Joint S&T Office: Portable Chem-Bio Test
Grid R&D
• Other
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NASA:Improve Chem-Bio defense using
NASA sensors in NWP model over NYC
AirDat: NWP Forecast Improvements
from TAMDAR Sensors
• International
– French military:
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CFDDA for French Army (2)
CFDDA for French Navy
– UCAR Africa Initiative:
NWP in Ghana
– UAE Dept of Atm Sci in
Abu Dhabi: NWP
improvements
• Pending (> 50% odds)
– Xcel Energy operational
NWP component
– Israeli Air Force NWP
improvements
– Saudi govt: Impact of
Industrial Park Cooling
Towers on Microclimate
Staff Composition (funded 50% or
more by NSAP)
• 22 NWP modelers, 16 engineers, and 3
systems administrators
• Near-future anticipated hires: ~ 4
scientists, 4 engineers, and 1 sysadmin
STAR Institute: Science and
Technology in Atmospheric Research
• STAR furthers NCAR’s mission by using shared IP to
meet defense needs that NCAR cannot
• Incorporated in Colorado in Dec ’05, and now a 501(c)(3)
• Debt free as of 4 Nov ‘08 ($400 k UCARF loan paid off)
• 3 current contracts worth $2 M/yr
• 2 full-time, 28 part-time employees
• Facility cleared for SECRET ~10 cleared to date
• Added security measures on site
Pentagon and urban Shield: Coupling
NWP and T&D models from the
continental scale to street canyons
Animation
Frontiers
Coupling numerical weather and climate prediction
models with infectious disease decision support
processes
Develop software toolkit and best practices guidelines
for experiments to allow quick response to
stakeholders requiring climate projections
Develop modeling methods for better predicting urban
weather for providing alerts of threat events like poor
air quality, flash-floods, heat waves, etc