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
Background
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 21st 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
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 low-level yet active collaboration
that is being conducted in spare time.
Recent Activities of Note
Inaugurated the IDD-Brazil at the end of December, 2003.
Initial participants included:
Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) - top level relay and
data injection node
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 de Sao Paulo - leaf node and soon to be a data injection node
Universidade Federal do Para (UFPA) - leaf node (RMTC) (in progress to return to active status)
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.
Sites now participating in the IDD-Brazil because of
these outreach activities include:
CEFET-RJ - Technical school of Meteorology in Rio de Janeiro
INMET - Brazilian National Weather Service
Univesadad de Aveiro - Portugal
Laboratorio Nacional de Computaçao Cientifica (LNCC)
Sites that are expected to join the IDD-Brazil in
the coming months include:
National Institute for Amazonic Studies (INPA)
Catholic University of Minas Gerais
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.
Attended the XIII Congresso Brasileiro de Meteorologia (CBMET, the 13th
Brazilian Meteorological Congress) in September 2004 to:
present a poster titled: Internet Data Distribution - Extending
Real-Time Data Sharing throughout the Americas.
provide support to the CPTEC contact, Waldenio Gambi de Almeida,
for his oral presentation on IDD-Brazil deployment
efforts
serve as a member of a plenary panel for Acesso a
Informacao Meteorologicica no Contexto Operacional E Cientifico.
Panel members included:
Dr. Eduardo Alvim Leite - SIMPAR
Dr. Antonio Divino Moura - Director of INMET (the
national weather service of Brazil)
Dr. Jerson Kelman - Director Presidente da ANA (National Water
Agency) e Valdo da Silva Marques - UENF
Tom Yoksas - Unidata/UCAR
After CBMET, I traveled to Sao Paulo to talk with several
professors in the Atmospheric Science Department (Dr. Pedro
Leite da Silva Dias, Dr. Oswaldo Massambani, Dr. Augusto Jose
Pereira Filho, and Dr. Tercio Ambrizzi (Chairman)) about
real-time data sharing through the IDD-Brazil.
I traveled to Cachoeira Paulista to visit CPTEC to
continue discussions related to the IDD-Brazil
with the Director of CPTEC, Dra. Maria Assuncao Faus da Silva
Dias and Dr. Pedro Leite da Silva Dias.
I traveled to the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro
to meet with Dra. Maria Gertrudes Alvarez Justi da Silva to
discuss furthering efforts for expanding the IDD-Brazil.
The trip was highly successful.
Attended the El Nino conference of the Red de Universidades del Pacifico
Sur (RUPSUR) in Santiago, Chile in November, 2004. The NSF-funded
trip was made to inform university conference attendees of the
availability of real-time meteorological data available in the
Unidata North American IDD and its South
American peer, the IDD-Brazil. My talk
successfully raised awareness of the IDD's expansion and has
led to efforts to connect to the
IDD/IDD-Brazil at:
Universidad de Simon Bolivar, Caracas, Venezuela (in progress)
Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile (in planning)
Visited the Caribbean Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology (CIMH)
in Husbands, St. James Barbados in November, 2004. Met with CIMH
director Dr. Colin Depradine and Chief of Data and Information Services
Dr. Selvin Burton to learn as much as possible about:
existing Institute capabilities
need for real-time data
meteorological analysis and display capabilities and directions
infrastructure that could support real-time data ingestion through
the IDD
After a long period of inactivity, have started working with
Universidade de Buenos Aires (UBA) personnel to establish real-time
meteorological data ingestion through the IDD/IDD-Brazil.
This effort had been slowed
by a lack of time for both Unidata and UBA personnel, and schedule
mismatches. The full suite of application packages will be installed
on the UBA machine that was procured as a result of a Unidata Equipment
Grants award:
GEMPAK
IDV
LDM
McIDAS-X, -XCD
Attended the Annual AMS meeting in San Diego to present a status update
on Unidata's international data sharing efforts in a paper entitled
MeteoForum—Extending Real-time Throughout Central and South America.
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 the Caribbean Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology (CIMH)
in Husbands, St. James Barbados to discuss strategies and timelines
for installation of Unidata applications (e.g., LDM, GEMPAK, IDV, McIDAS)
at their sites. A high end server class PC, assembled at
the UPC, was shipped to the CIMH at the end of August. The passage
of two hurricanes (Frances and Ivan) delayed the delivery to the
CIMH until the third week of September!
I have been working with Universadad de Costa Rica personnel to
transition the Unidata EFData-based NOAAPORT data reception system
to the DVB-S broadcast that is now operational.
This effort has been hampered by the failure of the UCR satellite
dish LNB, and the inability to get it replaced.
Additional MeteoForum Information
Background material on MeteoForum can be found in previous User and Policy
Committee Meeting reports:
October 2004 User Committee Meeting
MeteoForum - Yoksas.
October 2004 Policy Committee Meeting
MeteoForum - Yoksas
