MeteoForum Activities - Spring 2004

Tom Yoksas
Timothy Spangler
May 14, 2004

Vision

Efforts referenced within this report are based on five of the six endeavors articulated in the Unidata 2008 Proposal:

• Endeavor 1: Responding to a broader and more diverse community
• Endeavor 2: Comprehensive Support Services
• Endeavor 4: Software to analyze and visualize geoscience data
• Endeavor 5: Distributed, organized collections of digital material
• Endeavor 6: Improved data access infrastructure

MeteoForum - Unidata/COMET

The MeteoForum vision was articulated in the 2001 Fulker/Spangler proposal submitted in application for UCAR Director's Opportunity Funding (Jack Fellows):

MeteoForum - An International Network of Meteorological Training Centers for the 21^st Century

"The MeteoForum pilot project will include a small group of educational institutions (some universities and some WMO RMTCs) that are motivated to enhance the contributions of modern meteorology in their regions. Participants will be expected to have relatively fast Internet access, appropriate computers, and suitable personnel. Some of these personnel will be trained to run MeteoForum software on their computers so as to access real-time data, training materials, and other resources. Where practical, participants in the MeteoForum pilot also will contribute real-time data and educational resources to the effort. By integrating these elements, the pilot project will serve as a model on which to build a full-scale international MeteoForum. Initially, the MeteoForum pilot project will build upon capabilities now offered in the U.S. by the government-sponsored COMET and Unidata programs"

The MeteoForum initiative is a very active collaboration, even though it is being conducted in spare time.

The following are highlights of the Unidata (Yoksas) MeteoForum activities for the past quarter:

• participated in MeteoForum planning meeting at Seattle AMS conference

• inaugurated the IDD-Brazil at the end of December. Participants currently include:
  • Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) - top level relay
  • INPE/CPTEC - top level relay and data injection node (INPE is the Brazilian equivalent of NASA; CPTEC runs models operationally for Brazil in a role that is similar to NCEP's role in the US)
  • Universidade Federal do Para (UFPA) - leaf node (RMTC)
  • Universidade de Sao Paulo (USP) - leaf node

  The Universidade de Buenos Aires (RMTC) will begin participation in the IDD-Brazil after they have completed infrastructure upgrades made possible from monies received through the Unidata Equipment Grants Program. Participation is imminent.

  UFRJ and CPTEC personnel have been conducting outreach to Brazilian universities to inform them of the availability of real time data and to see if they have unique data holdings that they would be willing to share. Educational sites contacted include:

  • Universidade Estadual do Mananhao (UEMA)
  • Universidade de Alagoas (UFAL)
  • Universidade da Paraiba (UFPB)
  • Universidade de Pelotas (UFPel)
  • Universidade do Vale do Paraiba (UNIVAP))
  • Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazonia (INPA)

  In addition to the sites above, an operational organization named FURNAS has also expressed interest in participating in IDD-Brazil data exchange. Their participation will require a quid pro quo arrangement with other IDD-Brazil participants.

• submitted a paper on the IDD-Brazil for the Brazilian Meteorological Congress (XIII CBMET) to be held in Fortaleza, BR at the end of August/beginning of September, 2004. Two additional papers on the IDD-Brazil are being submitted to CBMET, one by David Garrana of the UFRJ and the other by Waldenio Gambi de Almeida of CPTEC/INPE.

• real time data reception through the IDD-Brazil and Unidata display and analysis applications GEMPAK, IDV, and McIDAS will be showcased in the CPTEC booth at CBMET

• presented an Overview of MeteoForum as part of the Unidata Seminar series in April

• continued working with MeteoForum WMO RMTC representatives to explore use of LDM to feed conventional, model, and satellite datasets. Most recently, met with representatives from Barbados and Venezuela to discuss strategies and timelines for installation of Unidata offerings (e.g., LDM, GEMPAK, IDV, McIDAS) at their sites.

• presented a paper at the AMS annual meeting in Seattle: Meteoforum - Initial Successes in Data Sharing Leading to the Creation of the IDD-Brazil. This was included in Session 11: European and Other International Applications Part II. The extended abstract for this presentation is available through the American Meteorological Society web page in the link above.

• installed a single channel Unidata NOAAPORT data ingest system at Universidad de Costa Rica at the end of February. (Yoksas, Schmidt).

• installed a high performance server at the UCR at the end of February (system was funded by monies received from the US and Canadian National Weather Services (Spangler).

• assembled a high performance server for the Caribbean Institute of Meteorology and Hydrology (CIMH located in Husbands, Barbados) from monies procured from the US National Weather Services (Yoksas, Spangler). The server is scheduled to be shipped to the Barbados RMTC in early June (Yoksas).

• in initial phases of planning a possible regional training workshop at the Universidad de Costa Rica. Targeted participants would include RMTC representatives from Barbados, Venezuela, and Costa Rica and students from those same institutions.

Tim Spangler's informal summary of the MeteoForum planning session held at the 2004 AMS Annual Meeting in Seattle, WA. can be found in the February 2004 MeteoForum Report to the Policy Committee.

The MeteoForum 2003 annual report prepared by Tim Spangler and Tom Yoksas and submitted to the Director of the UCAR Office of Programs, Jack Fellows can be found in the February 2004 MeteoForum Report to the Policy Committee.

This page was prepared by Tom Yoksas.