1st national weather and climate enterprise partnership summit john horel noaa cooperative institute...

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1st National Weather and Climate Enterprise Partnership Summit John Horel John Horel NOAA Cooperative Institute for NOAA Cooperative Institute for Regional Prediction Regional Prediction Department of Meteorology Department of Meteorology University of Utah University of Utah [email protected] [email protected] MesoWest: Ad Hoc Approach to MesoWest: Ad Hoc Approach to Integrating Mesonets Integrating Mesonets

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Page 1: 1st National Weather and Climate Enterprise Partnership Summit John Horel NOAA Cooperative Institute for Regional Prediction Department of Meteorology

1st National Weather and Climate Enterprise Partnership Summit

John HorelJohn HorelNOAA Cooperative Institute for Regional NOAA Cooperative Institute for Regional

PredictionPredictionDepartment of MeteorologyDepartment of Meteorology

University of UtahUniversity of [email protected]@met.utah.edu

MesoWest: Ad Hoc Approach to MesoWest: Ad Hoc Approach to Integrating MesonetsIntegrating Mesonets

Page 2: 1st National Weather and Climate Enterprise Partnership Summit John Horel NOAA Cooperative Institute for Regional Prediction Department of Meteorology

MesoWestMesoWest• A cooperative program to collect, archive, and distribute environmental observations across the Nation

with emphasis on the western United States– 200+ agencies/commercial firms – 1000s of HAM radio operators– 9000+ stations nationally (3500+ stations in western US)

• Primary support: NWS and BLM• Considerable effort placed on basic metadata and MySQL database• Delivery of data via web portal

(http://www.met.utah.edu/mesowest)• For high end users: FTP and LDM

delivery; direct access to MySQL database planned

Page 3: 1st National Weather and Climate Enterprise Partnership Summit John Horel NOAA Cooperative Institute for Regional Prediction Department of Meteorology

MesoWestMesoWest

Ben Lomond Peak Snotel, UT (8000’)

Beacon Light RAWS, NV (4800’)

Gunnison Is, UT (4242’)Ben Lomond Peak Snotel, UT (8000’)

Portable fire RAWS, USFS

Mt. Allen, UT (9400’)

Page 4: 1st National Weather and Climate Enterprise Partnership Summit John Horel NOAA Cooperative Institute for Regional Prediction Department of Meteorology

MODIS Active Fire MapsMODIS Active Fire Maps

October 29October 31

Page 5: 1st National Weather and Climate Enterprise Partnership Summit John Horel NOAA Cooperative Institute for Regional Prediction Department of Meteorology

Establishing Standards for Data Quality: Establishing Standards for Data Quality: Data Quality classes could be misleadingData Quality classes could be misleading

• Quality standards tied to meteorological reporting practices ignore observing needs and sampling strategies required for other environmental applications

• Accurate metadata are critical

• Automated and manual quality control procedures applied to mesonet data are vital

• Mesonet observations must be tagged with estimate of uncertainty for value added products such as gridded analyses

Mt. Allen, UT (9400’)

Page 6: 1st National Weather and Climate Enterprise Partnership Summit John Horel NOAA Cooperative Institute for Regional Prediction Department of Meteorology

MetaData Example: Assigning Station IDsMetaData Example: Assigning Station IDs• MesoWest:

– Use NWS Handbook 5 ID if available from NWS Location Identifier (NWSLI) system

– Other networks have often confusing internal ID systems, e.g., RAWS: Satellite ID; non-Satellite; HADS ID; WIMS ID

– We assign temporary IDs to stations that are likely to eventually obtain a NWSLI ID

– We define IDs for all other stations avoiding conflicts with NWSLI

• Recommendations:– Establish an automated nationwide registry for environmental observing

platforms– Encourage equipment manufacturers to develop simple procedures for

station owners to register platforms during installation process– Keep zeroth order registry simple (station name, location, parameters

measured; station owner, contact information) but allow flexibility for owners willing to take effort to provide additional metadata

– Recognize need for metadata for mobile platforms: fire RAWS; instrumented vehicles

Page 7: 1st National Weather and Climate Enterprise Partnership Summit John Horel NOAA Cooperative Institute for Regional Prediction Department of Meteorology

Data Rights IssuesData Rights Issues• MesoWest paradigm:

– We accept provisional data from anyone willing to share the data at no cost and allow dissemination of the data to users without additional charge

– We stress to prospective data providers that increased use of their data will help to justify deployment of the existing equipment and future upgrades

– Data ownership resides with the station owner– We coordinate with other groups (FSL/MADIS, WFOs, universities) to

exchange data collected locally, regionally, nationally to minimize duplication of effort

– Disclaimer: Data contained in MesoWest arise …

• Recommendation:– Encourage unfettered exchange of weather data especially from

equipment deployed by government agencies

Page 8: 1st National Weather and Climate Enterprise Partnership Summit John Horel NOAA Cooperative Institute for Regional Prediction Department of Meteorology

Data Distribution and Availability:Data Distribution and Availability:Real-time and Retrospective AccessReal-time and Retrospective Access

• MesoWest approach:– We accept provisional data in any format and store it in a MySQL

database– Access to real-time and retrospective data is seamless for many

types of applications– Require users to fill out request form if can’t be retrieved from web

interface

• Recommendations:– Many data providers perform QC on provisional data with time

delays of order a day. Should develop procedures to collect QC’d data for retrospective access

– Acceptance of mesonet data into regional/national climate databases should be encouraged

Page 9: 1st National Weather and Climate Enterprise Partnership Summit John Horel NOAA Cooperative Institute for Regional Prediction Department of Meteorology

Legal and Economic IssuesLegal and Economic Issues• Data providers to MesoWest are often initially concerned about the use

of provisional data in litigation (permitting, agency actions and accidents, etc.)

• Local & regional efforts to deploy, collect, archive, and disseminate environmental information are chronically underfunded. National efforts will succeed if they build upon local needs/expertise/experience.

• The economics of MesoWest:– Current “business model”:

• Data are free• Value added products and direct access to database should be

supported by users• Considerable effort justified (inappropriately?) as public service

– Limited support for ongoing development and maintenance by NWS and BLM

– Consortium established to provide way for major users of MesoWest to contribute to maintenance and R&D

– MesoWest resources are underexploited for commercial applications

Page 10: 1st National Weather and Climate Enterprise Partnership Summit John Horel NOAA Cooperative Institute for Regional Prediction Department of Meteorology

What’s Required for Success?What’s Required for Success?• Recognize the diverse needs, requirements, and approaches for collecting

environmental information– Support ongoing local and regional efforts to collect environmental information

– Encourage best-practice models for installation and maintenance

– Promote data quality standards that are not biased by user community, sampling strategy, etc.

• Develop straightforward procedures to register environmental platforms• Distinguish between the needs for provisional data in near real time vs. QC’d data

retrospectively– Provisional data requires automated QC procedures

– Incorporating more extensive QC procedures, including human evaluation, should be encouraged for archival level data

• Encourage coordination and reduce duplication of effort by establishing stations that have multiple purposes

– For example, COOP Modernization would be greatly enhanced if additional sensors added: wind, RH, pressure. Pavement sensors? Air quality?

• Support R&D that helps to develop new sensor and communication technologies, deployment strategies, QC methodologies, value added products, etc.