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TECHNICAL PROPOSAL

Implement a Customized Meteorological and River Discharge Forecasting Framework in Sudan

Brahmaputra river 12-day lead-time ensemble flood forecasts (left) and above-critical-level exceedance probabilities (right) for Bangladesh during the 2014, 2015, and 2016 monsoon seasons.

Contact: Thomas HopsonResearch scientist

National Center for Atmospheric [email protected]

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mailto:[email protected]

Table of Contents

Executive Summary........................................................................................................................ 3Reference...............................................................................................................................................3Consultant Lead-organization Overview................................................................................................3Project High-Level Objectives.................................................................................................................3NCAR’s Response to the Consultancy.....................................................................................................4

A - Consultant’s Organization...................................................................................................... 5

B - Consultant’s Experience......................................................................................................... 9B.1 SAWI.................................................................................................................................................9B.2 CFAB...............................................................................................................................................11B.3 Google Meningitis..........................................................................................................................12B.4 Army Test and Evaluation Command.............................................................................................13B.5 Climate Inspector...........................................................................................................................14B.6 System for Integrated Modeling of Metropolitan Extreme Heat Risk............................................15

C – Comments and/or Suggestions on the Terms of Reference.....................................17

D - Description of Approach, Methodology and Work Plan............................................18Technical Approach and Methodology.................................................................................................18Work Plan.............................................................................................................................................34Organization and Staffing.....................................................................................................................37

ANNEX 1: TEAM COMPOSITION, TASK ASSIGNMENTS & LEVEL OF EFFORT (LOE)...........................41

ANNEX 2: CURRICULUM VITAE (CV) OF PROPOSED KEY PERSONNEL...............................................42Dr. Thomas Hopson – Team Leader......................................................................................................42Jennifer Boehnert – Analyst.................................................................................................................47Kevin Sampson – GIS Analyst................................................................................................................52Emily Riddle – Research Analyst...........................................................................................................56

ANNEX 3: WORK SCHEDULE............................................................................................................... 60

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Executive Summary

ReferenceThis proposal is being submitted in response to the World Bank Group Terms of Reference sent April 13, 2017 for “Implement a Customized Meteorological and River Discharge Forecasting Framework in Sudan”.

Consultant Lead-organization Overview

Company Service Domain Roles / Responsibility for this project

Boulder, Colorado. USAwww.ncar.edu

Pure and Applied Research and

Applications in the Atmospheric, Hydrologic,

and Oceanic Sciences

Overall Project Management and execution

NCAR The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) is a federally funded research and development center devoted to service, research and education in the atmospheric and related sciences. NCAR’s mission is to understand the behavior of the atmosphere and related physical, biological and social systems; to support, enhance and extend the capabilities of the university community and the broader scientific community – nationally and internationally; as such, our mission is not to provide operational services, but to foster the transfer of knowledge and technology for the betterment of life on Earth. The National Science Foundation is NCAR's primary sponsor, with significant additional support provided by other U.S. government agencies, other national governments and the private sector.

Project High-Level ObjectivesThe objective of this proposal is for NCAR to provide examples to the Sudanese Water Ministry with river watershed rainfall and discharge ensemble forecasts at time scales from days to weeks, that are web-viewable, and can be downloaded and tailored for a variety of water resource needs by Sudanese water resource and international disaster relief managers. These forecasts will be derived from a robust feed of customized weather ensembles of satellite based rainfall estimates and short-to-medium range ensemble rainfall forecasts. The web-based outputs will also be made available as web services ingestible into tools such as the “Spatial Agent” tool developed at the World Bank. Web-based (remote) training will also be carried out to ensure Sudanese water resource engineers have the understanding of the outputs generated as part of this project. The proposed rainfall and discharge forecasting outputs from this project will be derived from ensembles from multiple global weather forecasting centers, and combined and optimized for hydrologic applications using state of the

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art technologies. Research into multi-model discharge forecasts, in particular, has shown that days of additional forecasting skill can be gained over a single product alone.1

NCAR’s Response to the ConsultancyNCAR and its sub consultants and collaborators are uniquely positioned to respond to and implement the objectives of this project. With respect to the objectives listed above, staff at NCAR have completed in 2016 a World Bank project that developed much of the technologies that will be used in the project. This project was titled, “Development of Flood Forecasting for the Ganges and the Brahmaputra Basins using satellite based precipitation, ensemble weather forecasts, and remotely-sensed river widths and height”, Selection # 1172405. In addition, staff at NCAR constructed one of the first (of only two) in the world systems to produce real-time ensemble river discharge forecasts beginning in 2003. This system was the backbone of the CFAB project, which combined ensemble weather forecasts with satellite-derived precipitation estimates to produce river forecasts of the Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers for Bangladesh, including forecasting the severe 2007 Brahmaputra floods skillfully out to 10-days in advance. In addition, NCAR has worked with ensemble weather forecasts from multiple centers (provided via the Thorpex-Tigge project) to provide meningitis forecasts for the World Health Organziation. NCAR and its collaborators at the DFO have also tested the potential of remotely-sensed river widths derived from microwave imagery to forecast Ganges and Brahmaputra river floods downstream of the imagery locations.

1 Discussed in: “Development of Flood Forecasting for the Ganges and the Brahmaputra Basins using Satellite based precipitation, ensemble weather forecasts and remotely-sensed river widths and height”, World Bank Project Report.

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Selection No. 1172405Technical Proposal

Section A

A - Consultant’s Organization

In this section we describe the the background and organization of the Research Applications Laboratory (RAL) of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), as well as NCAR’s operating and managing consortium, the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR).

The University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) is a non-profit consortium of over 100 universities involved in Earth system science research, education, and policy programs. Over the last 50 years, UCAR has developed a solid track record of creating and

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Science in Service to SocietyResearch Applications Laboratory

(RAL)National Center for Atmospheric Research

(NCAR)University Corporation for Atmospheric Research

(UCAR)

http://www2.ucar.edu/


Section Amanaging effective programs to address pressing scientific and societal needs in collaboration with its member universities, US federal agency partners, as well as a host of commercial and foreign sponsors. UCAR operates and manages the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), an atmospheric sciences research institution, and the UCAR Community Programs (UCP) Office, which provides a variety of support services to the academic community. The National Science Foundation (NSF) serves as the UCAR/NCAR governmental audit and inspection agency.

NCAR was founded in 1959 to serve as a center for the broad geosciences community, bringing together the ideas, people and tools needed to address the scientific questions that are of critical importance to society. Fundamental scientific and infrastructural contributions to the research and operational communities have been made in such areas as development of the basic scientific underpinnings for weather forecast models, modern understanding of the coupled ocean-atmosphere climate system, understanding of the detailed chemistry of the stratosphere and troposphere, studies of solar magnetism, the discovery of extra-solar system planets, the microphysics of clouds, and the socio-economic impacts of severe weather. NCAR also provides advanced observing facilities for use in studies around the world, increasingly powerful supercomputer facilities and related software, a variety of community models, and valuable research data sets that describe the Earth and Sun. NCAR's educational and technology transfer activities have made many of the results of the basic research useful to the public and private sectors.

NCAR is operated by the UCAR under a Cooperative Agreement with the NSF and serves as the NSF's Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC). NSF continues to be NCAR's primary sponsor, but research is also funded by other federal agencies such as NOAA, NASA, DOT/FAA, USDOT, DOE, DoD, USAID, and EPA, as well as by a number of commercial and international entities including the World Bank. As a national center, NCAR interacts broadly with both the research and operational communities, leveraging resources and bringing them to bear across disciplines to address complex problems.

NCAR is organized into five laboratories:

• NCAR Earth Systems Laboratory (NESL) promotes and facilitates atmospheric research areas within NCAR. Research within NESL is highly collaborative, with specialties focused in three major research divisions that administer collaborative projects.

• Research Applications Laboratory (RAL) conducts directed research that contributes to the depth of fundamental scientific understanding, fosters the

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The NCAR Mission

To understand the behavior of the atmosphere and related physical, biological, and social systems

To support, enhance, and extend the capabilities of the university community and the broader scientific community, nationally and internationally

To foster the transfer of knowledge and technology for the betterment of life on Earth

http://www.rap.ucar.edu/

http://www.nesl.ucar.edu/favicon.ico

http://nsf.gov/

http://www.ucp.ucar.edu/

http://www.ucp.ucar.edu/

http://ncar.ucar.edu/

http://ncar.ucar.edu/


Section Atransfer of knowledge and technology for the betterment of life on Earth, and supports technology transfers that expand the reach of atmospheric science.

• Computational and Information Systems Laboratory (CISL) manages shared computational and information systems for researchers at UCAR and UCAR- member universities.

• Earth Observing Laboratory (EOL) develops and deploys observing facilities, and provides data services that UCAR’s research community needs in order to make the observations that are essential to broadening our understanding of the world in which we live.

• The High Altitude Observatory (HAO) program includes numerical simulation of convection, radiation transport, and large-scale dynamics in both the solar and terrestrial atmospheres, plus observational programs to measure the Sun's output of magnetized plasma and radiation over its eleven-year sunspot cycle.

NCAR/RAL is highlighted as its mission is particularly well-aligned with the goals of the World Bank.

RAL’s mission is to: Conduct directed research that contributes to the depth of fundamental

understanding of the atmosphere and its interaction with society Support, enhance, and extend the capabilities of the scientific community,

nationally and internationally Develop and transfer knowledge and technology that contributes to the betterment

of life on Earth

At present the RAL staff is comprised of approximately 220 persons with a diverse set of skills and experience in the physical sciences, social sciences, mathematics, software engineering, project management and administration. Staff members work within six Programs, each of which is focused on specific applications areas. This work is funded by numerous federal agencies (e.g., NSF, NOAA, NASA, DOT, and DOD); domestic and international commercial entities; and foreign governments. RAL’s Programs are summarized here:

• The Aviation Applications Program (AAP) plans, develops, and transfers advanced weather technologies to support current and future aviation operations nationally and internationally.

• The Climate Science and Applications Program (CSAP) conducts research on the interactions among society, the atmosphere and the environment to better understand weather- and climate-related risks and to incorporate this improved understanding into decision making and policy.

• The Hydrometeorological Applications Program (HAP) works to understand how water vapor, precipitation, and land surface hydrology interact across scales to define the hydrological cycle, including under global climate change.

• The Joint Numerical Testbed (JNT) serves as both a facility and a national distributive network of collaborators for testing, validating, and comparing numerical techniques for analyses and forecasts of atmospheric parameters important to scientists and operational decision makers.

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http://www.rap.ucar.edu/jnt/favicon.ico

http://www.rap.ucar.edu/hap/

http://www.rap.ucar.edu/csap/favicon.ico

http://www.rap.ucar.edu/aap/favicon.ico

http://www2.hao.ucar.edu/

http://www.eol.ucar.edu/sites/all/themes/eol_external/favicon.ico

http://www2.cisl.ucar.edu/


Section A• The National Security Applications Program (NSAP) emphasizes research and

development in urbanscale meteorology and plume transport modeling to give operational forecasters, decision makers and emergency planners accurate, timely guidance and support.

• The Weather Systems and Assessment Program (WSAP) develops and implements advanced weather decision support systems for new user sectors such as surface transportation and renewable energy. It also seeks to quantify the needs and economic benefits of improved weather information for society

NCAR GIS Program - NCAR also has a GIS program within RAL’s Climate Science and Applications Program (CSAP) that fosters interdisciplinary science, spatial data interoperability, and knowledge sharing using GIS. The goal of our program is to promote and support the use of GIS as both an analytical and infrastructure tool in atmospheric research, as well as using the discipline to address broader issues of spatial data management, interoperability, and geo-informatics within the geosciences. The focus areas include integrating natural and social sciences into GIS frameworks, community and capacity building, and improving spatial accuracy and usability co weather and climate data. Understanding societal risks and vulnerabilities to weather hazards and climate change requires integration of geo-referenced information from physical and social sciences, including weather and climate data, information about natural and built environments, demographic characteristics, as well as social and behavioral processes. NCAR’s GIS program is working towards developing research frameworks and spatial methods for integration of diverse, multidisciplinary datasets, which are both quantitative and qualitative and exist at different spatial and temporal scales. Current projects in this area of research are focused on extreme heat and human health, as well as on drought and water use at the local, regional, national and international level.

Our GIS program develops methods and tools that facilitate the use of NCAR models in a GIS. We work with industry and international standards organizations to improve interoperability of common atmospheric data formats, as well as develop tools and applications to increase usability of models and their spatial accuracy. The Climate Change GIS data portal provides GIS-compatible user access to AR5 global and downscaled U.S. climate simulations, as well as to the data products that show climate trends and anomalies

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https://gis.ucar.edu/sites/all/themes/gis/favicon.ico

http://www.rap.ucar.edu/wsap/favicon.ico

http://www.rap.ucar.edu/nsap/


Section B

B - Consultant’s Experience

In this section we provide information on previous consulting assignments similar to this assignment, “Implement a Customized Meteorological and Discharge Forecasting Framework in Sudan”, for which NCAR is being engaged. In particular, we draw attention to “B.1 Development of Flood Forecasting for the Ganges and the Brahmaputra Basins using satellite based precipitation, ensemble weather forecasts, and remotely-sensed river widths and height”: the current consultancy assignment’s designated Team Leader Dr. Thomas Hopson was also the Team Leader / Principal Investigator for this “SAWI” assignment, whose rainfall and flow forecasting system is called out explicity for use in meeting the objectives of the Terms of Reference (ToR) of this solicitation. We also note “B.3 Google Meningitis”, in which the Team Leader Hopson utilized ensemble weather forecasts from multiple centers for previous disease forecasts, similar to which this solicitation requests use of in flood forecasting in its objectives.

We also briefly discuss the relationship of the other assignments listed below to meeting the ToR Objectives:

Assignments B.1 – B.3: examples of other international water resource and disease monitoring projects for which Team Leader Hopson is or has been involved, with similarities to ToR oibjectives;

Assignment B.4: example of a large scale numerical weather prediction operational forecasting project for which Team Leader Hopson is involved;

Assignments B.5 – B.6 – examples of GIS-based analyses, outputs, and visualization displays of weather-related data for which GIS Team Leader Boehnert and GIS Analysis Sampson were responsible for, relavant to ToR objectives (GIS analyses and web communication and display development).

B.1 SAWIAssignment name:Development of Flood Forecasting for the Ganges and the Brahmaputra Basins using satellite based precipitation, ensemble weather forecasts, and remotely-sensed river widths and height (for SAWI)

Approx. value of the contract (in current US$):

$189,000

Country: South Asia (India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Butan, China)Location within country: Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Meghna river catchments

Duration of assignment (months):

17 months

Name of Client: World Bank, South Asia Water Initiative

Total No. of staff-months of the assignment:

5.4 staff-monthsContact Person, Title/Designation, Tel. No./Address:Dr. Thomas Hopson, Flood Forecast Scientist, (303) 497-2706, NCAR, P.O. Box 3000, Boulder, CO 80309

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Section CStart date (month/year): 5/2015Completion date (month/year): 10/2016

No. of professional staff-months provided by your consulting firm/organization or your sub consultants:5.4 staff-months

Name of associated Consultants, if any:Professor Robert Brakenridge, Dartmouth Flood ObservatoryDr. Charon Birkett, University of Maryland

Name of senior professional staff of your consulting firm/organization involved and designation and/or functions performed (e.g. Project Director/Coordinator, Team Leader):Dr. Thomas Hopson – Team Leader / Principal InvestigatorDr David Yates – Prominent ResearcherDr Ogla Wilhelmi – Prominent Researcher / GIS Team Leader

Description of Project:The main accomplishements of this project were as follows:• Assessed the skill and estimate the errors in some of the foundational data sets

available for use in flood forecasting for India, focusing on remotely-sensed products useful for catchments with limited on-the-ground monitoring;

• Integrated these data sets into a common hydrologic forecasting framework, showing how this can be achieved from an “engineering perspective”, but also provide real-time forecasts with potential for societal benefit;

• Provided effective displays for these products, including maps of areas of inundation corresponding to forecasted discharge that have potential benefits for “on the ground” operations and decision-making;

• Utilized estimates of the errors in the hydrologic forecasting framework and input data sets, determined the overall predictability of the system to forecast flooding events of differing levels of severity in the Ganges and Brahmaputra watersheds at different locations and forecast lead-times; from this assessment, recommendations were made on where investments should be focused to increase flood forecasting capacity throughout the basins to meet World Bank development goals.

Description of actual services provided by your staff within the assignment: Real-time flood forecasts for approximately 80 gauging sites in the Ganges,

Brahmaputra, and Meghna basins at lead-times of 1- to 16-days in-advance; Test the efficacy of the use of satellite based technologies (precipitation estimates,

remotely-sensed river widths microwave imagery and heights from radar altimetry) in conjunction with ensemble weather forecasts for basin/sub-basin flood forecasting in the Ganges and Brahmaputra catchments;

Implement long-lead time, public-access web sites and forecasting systems of rainfall and river flow for the Ganges and Brahmaputra basins spanning India, Bangladesh and Nepal utilizing new satellite precipitation estimates and ensemble weather forecasts from multiple centers;

Combined Climate Forecast Applications for Bangladesh (CFAB) ensemble discharge forecasts with Dartmouth Flood Observatory (DFO) remotely-sensed river discharge estimates to produce optimal river discharge estimates at select locations along the river course;

Transform forecast flood discharges into inundation extent maps, using analysis of past microwave and optical sensor imagery of actual inundation extent;

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Section C

Validate Radar Altimetry Satellite Data for Operational Flood Forecast.

B.2 CFABAssignment name:Climate Forecasting Applications for Bangladesh (CFAB)


$900,000

Country: BangladeshLocation within country: Bangladesh


84 months

Name of Client: US AID, US National Science Foundation, NOAA


72Contact Person, Title/Designation, Tel. No./Address:Dr. Thomas Hopson, Flood Forecast Scientist, (303) 497-2706, NCAR, P.O. Box 3000, Boulder, CO 80309Start date (month/year): 1/2000Completion date (month/year): 12/2007

No. of professional staff-months provided by your consulting firm/organization or your sub consultants:12

Name of associated Consultants, if any:Professor Peter Webster, Georgia TechHai-Ru Chang, Georgia TechAsian Disaster Preparedness Center

Name of senior professional staff of your consulting firm/organization involved and designation and/or functions performed (e.g. Project Director/Coordinator, Team Leader):Professor Peter Webster – Team LeaderDr. Thomas Hopson – Flood forecast scientist and technical lead

Description of Project:The Climate Forecasting Applications for Bangladesh (CFAB) project issued operational flood forecasts to the country of Bangladesh over a wide-range of time scales to provide advanced warning of severe flood-stage discharges in the catchments of the Ganges and Brahmaputra basins. Specifically, a fully-automated short-range (1- to 10-day in-advance) probabilistic forecast is produced utilizing the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) ensemble weather forecasts, near-real-time NASA TRMM and NOAA CMORPH satellite-derived precipitation estimates, and NOAA CPC-GTS rain gauge-based precipitation estimates, and near-real-time discharge estimates from the Bangladesh Flood Forecasting and Warning Centre (FFWC). These data sets are utilized in conjunction with statistical refinement techniques applied to the weather and discharge forecasts and the use of a multi-model hydrological modeling approach. A long-range (1- to 6-months in-advance) probabilistic forecast is produced based on ECMWF’s 40-member seasonal ensemble forecast.

Description of actual services provided by your staff within the assignment: Operational flood forecasts for the Ganges (Hardinge Bridge) and Brahmaputra

(Bahadurabad) at lead-times of 1- to 10-days in-advance Seasonal ensemble forecasts of rainfall and flood potential in the Ganges and

Brahmaputra catchments Stackholder information and warning systems created and warnings directly

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Section C

disseminated (ADPC)

B.3 Google MeningitisAssignment name:A prototype Earth-gauging system integrating weather and health data to manage meningitis


$500,000

Country: West and East AfricaLocation within country: African Meningitis Belt

Duration of assignment (months):60

Name of Client:Google (non-profit wing) and World Health Organization (WHO)


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Contact Person, Title/Designation, Tel. No./Address:Dr. Rajul Pandya, Project Director, (303) 497-1000, NCAR, P.O. Box 3000, Boulder, CO 80309Start date (month/year): 6/2009Completion date (month/year): 6/2014

No. of professional staff-months provided by your consulting firm/organization or your sub consultants:12

Name of associated Consultants, if any:

Navrongo Health Centre, University of Colorado, North Carolina State, Columbia University

Name of senior professional staff of your consulting firm/organization involved and designation and/or functions performed (e.g. Project Director/Coordinator, Team Leader):Dr. Rajul Pandya – Project DirectorDr. Thomas Hopson – atmospheric scientist and forecasterDr. Abraham Hodgson – Ghana health researcherDr. Mary Hayden – social science and health coordinaterDr. Vanja Dukic – applied mathematicianDr. Thomas Yoksas – software and data specialist

Description of Project:This project examined how public health decision makers might use weather information to inform decisions about where and when to vaccinate against meningitis in Sahelian Africa.Description of actual services provided by your staff within the assignment:

identified the key weather variables that relate to the end of epidemics improved the prediction of meningitis using Thorpex-TIGGE numerical weather

prediction ensembles from multiple centers (CMA, CMC, JMA, KMA, MeteoFrance, NCEP, UKmet, and ECMWF)

built a system to communicate with decision-makers

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Section C

conducted surveys of households in part of the Sahel to understand how weather interacted with a complex set of environmental, social, demographic and economic drivers of meningitis

conducted an economic analysis to quantify the costs and benefits of the weather-related decision-making

B.4 Army Test and Evaluation CommandAssignment name:

4DWX Project


Ranges from $2.8 million to $5.0 million/year

Country: USALocation within country: Boulder, CO


120 monthsName of Client:US Army Test and Evaluation Command (ATEC)

Total No. of staff-months of the assignment:144 months/year

Contact Person, Title/Designation, Tel. No./Address:Mr. John Pace, Program ManagerU.S. Army RDT&ETEDT-DPW-ME, MS#6Building 4531, B StreetDugway, UT 84022-5006

Start date (month/year): 12/2005Completion date (month/year): Ongoing

No. of professional staff-months provided by your consulting firm/organization or your sub consultants:144 months/year

Name of associated Consultants, if any: NA Name of senior professional staff of your consulting firm/organization involved and designation and/or functions performed (e.g. Project Director/Coordinator, Team Leader):

Jason C. Knievel: project management, numerical weather prediction, and applied meteorology

Description of Project:The purpose of the project is to provide to ATEC forecasters the numerical weather prediction technology and expertise they need to produce weather forecasts and analyses at the scales, and with the accuracy and utility, required to support safe and cost-effective testing of materiel by the U.S. Department of Defense

Description of actual services provided by your staff within the assignment:

We develop and deploy to ATEC base code and updates of a numerical weather prediction system called 4DWX, along with associated data and software. 4DWX is the product of nearly two decades of research and development, and is accredited for operational use at

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Section C

eight ATEC test ranges. Through the use of high-resolution mesoscale modeling, short-term thunderstorm prediction, multi-dimensional integrated displays, and fine-scale climatological analysis tools, the ranges provide test customers with state-of-the-art accurate go/no-go guidance.

B.5 Climate InspectorAssignment name:

Climate Inspector

Approx. value of the contract (in current US$):NA (internal funding)

Country: USALocation within country: Boulder, CO

Duration of assignment (months): NA

Name of Client:NCAR GIS Program

Total No. of staff-months of the assignment: NA

Contact Person, Title/Designation, Tel. No./Address:Dr. Olga Wilhelmi, GIS Program Director, NCAR, PO Box 3000, Boulder, CO 80309

Start date (month/year): 1/2014Completion date (month/year): 6/2014

No. of professional staff-months provided by your consulting firm/organization or your sub consultants:

Name of associated Consultants, if any: Name of senior professional staff of your consulting firm/organization involved and designation and/or functions performed (e.g. Project Director/Coordinator, Team Leader):

Dr. Olga Wilhelmi; project oversight and scientific direction

Description of Project:The Climate Inspector is an interactive web application which expands GIS mapping and graphing capabilities to visualize possible temperature and precipitation changes throughout the 21st century. The maps and graphs are generated from a large dataset of climate simulations by the NCAR Community Climate System Model (CCSM4). With Climate Inspector you can explore how temperature and precipitation may change based on different emission trajectories (i.e., Representative Concentration Pathways), investigate climate changes around the globe and through time, inspect climate trends, variability and uncertainty, and download maps and data.

Description of actual services provided by your staff within the assignment: Planning, design, and coordination of the data, technology, and functionality of the web

application. Development of web services consumed by the web application including THREDDS data

server and ArcGIS Server. Development of the web application in Java and dissemination of the code via software

repository. Compilation of the data layers including processing CCSM4 data into anomalies, and

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Section C

multi-year running averages.

B.6 System for Integrated Modeling of Metropolitan Extreme Heat RiskAssignment name: Modeling of Metropolitan Extreme Heat Risk (SIMMER)

Approx. value of the contract (in current US$):$1,500,000

Country: USA and CanadaLocation within country: Houston, TX and Southern Canada

Duration of assignment (months):48 months

Name of Client:NASA

Total No. of staff-months of the assignment:72 months

Contact Person, Title/Designation, Tel. No./Address:

Start date (month/year): 7/2010Completion date (month/year): 9/2014

No. of professional staff-months provided by your consulting firm/organization or your sub consultants:

Name of associated Consultants, if any: Name of senior professional staff of your consulting firm/organization involved and designation and/or functions performed (e.g. Project Director/Coordinator, Team Leader):Dr. Olga Wilhelmi – project oversight, scientific direction, societal vulnerability methods, stakeholder coordination;Dr. Andrew Monaghan – oversight of environmental modeling work, climate modeling at local scale,downscaling CESM CLMU with WRF / Dr. Mary Hayden – social science methods, survey, focus groups, stakeholder workshop/Dr. Keith Oleson – climate modeling of heat extremes/

Description of Project:SIMMER employed a novel extreme heat vulnerability framework (Wilhelmi and Hayden, 2010) and focused on specific research objectives: 1) Characterize and model present and future extreme heat events at regional and local scales; 2) Improve representation of urban land cover and its accompanying radiative and thermal characteristics at local and regional scales; 3) Determine the combined impact of extreme heat and the characteristics of urban environmental and social systems on human health; and 4) Characterize societal vulnerability and responses to extreme heat (i.e., mitigation and adaptation strategies). The project included regional- and local-scale analyses. The regional-scale study domain covered the contiguous United States and portions of southern Canada at ~ 15 km2. A local, intra-urban scale (1 km2; U.S. Census block group) study was conducted in Houston, Texas. Our team collaborated with scientists and public health practitioners in Houston, as well as Toronto, Canada to ensure that the concepts, methods and models developed for Houston are applicable to other cities.Description of actual services provided by your staff within the assignment:

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Section C

- Development of conceptual and methodological framework for heat risk analysis- Model development and simulations of local level and regional level heat indicators

for current and future climate- Analysis of urban heat island- Development of survey instrument, implementation, and analysis of survey- GIS analysis of vulnerable populations- Analysis of relative risk of heat-related mortality- Development of GIS-based tools for heat-health decision making at local (city) and

regional (US and southern Canada) scales- Stakeholder engagement process and stakeholder workshop

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Section C

C – Comments and/or Suggestions on the Terms of Reference

[Present and justify here any modifications to the Terms of Reference your consulting firm/organization would like to propose, if there are any, to perform the assignment better and more effectively (e.g. deleting some activity that you find unnecessary, adding others or proposing a different phasing of the activities). Such suggestions should be concise and incorporated in your Proposal.]

Response: we have no modifications to the Terms of Reference.

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Selection No 1172405_Technical Proposal

Section D

D - Description of Approach, Methodology and Work Plan

In this section, we describe the technical approach, methodology and work plan of the technical components of the assignment, “Implement a Customized Meteorological and River Discharge Forecasting Framework in Sudan”. In addition, we describe the structure and composition of our team assembled to meet this assignment’s objectives.

Technical Approach and Methodology

In this sub section we explain our understanding of the objectives of the assignment and methodology for carrying out the activities and obtaining the expected outputs within the overarching objective of this assignment: to provide examples of web displays and data downloads of rainfall and discharge forecasts to the Sudanese Water Ministry, utilizing a robust feed of customized weather ensembles of satellite based rainfall estimates and short-to-medium range rainfall forecasts, and river discharge forecasts at 3 locations along the Nile River (within and above Sudan) at locations that the Dartmouth Flood Observatory (DFO) is generating real-time RiverWatch discharge estimates. The web-based outputs will also be made available as web services ingestible into tools such as the “Spatial Agent” tool developed at the World Bank. Web-based (remote) training will also be carried out to ensure Sudanese water resource engineers have the understanding of the outputs generated as part of this project. We reproduce each Task given in the ToR below, and give our response directly beneath each one:

Task (1) Tailor catchment-integrated satellite-derived rainfall estimates and ensemble forecasts to river catchments over the Sudanese domain for rainfall monitoring, and also downscale and bias-correction these products (while preserving spatial and temporal covariances) for use in hydrologic forecasting models

Response: NCAR is currently downloading, downscaling, bias-correcting, and calibrating over India, which will be tailored for Sudan, the following: satellite precipitation estimates from NASA (TRMM product), JAXA (GSMaP), Global Telecommunications System (GTS) rain gauge estimates extrapolated and gridded by NOAA in the US; rainfall forecasts from eight of the THORPEX-TIGGE centers: the CMA, CMC, JMA, KMA, MeteoFrance, NCEP, UKmet, and ECMWF. These data products will be extracted over the geographical domain specified by this Contract, and will also be “catchment-integrated” over the catchments over two spatial scales of river catchments. The data extraction will be carried out as long as data sources remain in the public domain and accessible in a timely fashion (i.e. no more than 3-day delays). The ensemble precipitation forecasts will be daily and 5-day averaged for display into precipitation display web sites, and will be bias-corrected singularly (e.g. just NCEP-GEFS forecasts will be bias-corrected in reference to the precipitation estimates specified in 1) above) for ingest into discharge forecasting models.

In the figures we show below, we provide examples of the data products and outputs we are working with and generating for this project.

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Section D

Figure 1: Observed satellite rainfall products used in this project.

19


Section D

Figure 2: Forecasted rainfall products used in this project. The two centers listed at the bottom (BoM and KMA), although part of the TIGGE program, are not used in this project due to their limited data availability in the archive.

The outputs of our project will be available over the Nile basin at different spatial and temporal scales, similar to what is shown in Figure 3 below, which is as an example for our current deployment over India.

20


Section D

Figure 3: Spatial and temporal scales of catchment-integrated rainfall forecast and observation outputs provided in this project (top of figure), along with the temporal integration scales (bottom) provided in our visualization displays for India, to be tailored for Sudan.

Biases are inherent in the ensemble rainfall forecasts. Below in Figure 4, as an example for what may be expected for Sudan, we show the biases for individual rainfall centers for individual watersheds over the Ganges and Brahmaputra catchments.

21


Section D

Figure 4: Differences in the rainfall forecast products (colored lines) compared to the observed (black line; a merger of satellite and rain gauge data) rainfall for locations over India. Similar spatial heterogeneity of biases is expected over the Nile basin. The forecast differences (with observed) are removed for each location using our bias correction algorithms.

In Figure 5 below, we show a schematic of the “quantile-to-quantile” bias correction algorithm we employ in this project, applied to each forecast ensemble member individually.

22


Section D

Figure 5: Schematic of the rainfall bias correction routine – quantile to quantile mapping – that is used in this project for bias removal of rainfall ensemble forecasts (relative to the observed rainfall). Note that this procedure is done independently for each ensemble member.

Below in Figure 6 we show the results of our rainfall forecasts after they have been bias corrected using the quantile-to-quantile bias correction algorithm we developed and shown in Figure 5.

23


Section D

Figure 6: Bias corrected rainfall outputs showing how the spatial covariances of the rainfall fields are preserved (left panels) and the observed rainfall amounts are more “bundled” in the forecasted ensemble members (right panel).

Task (2) Display Sudan-focused catchment-integrated rainfall observations and forecasts on a web displayed spatial-maps and time-series.

Response: Our current displays developed through our previous World Bank / SAWI project will be tailored to cover the Nile Basin and Sudan region. The catchment-integrated web displays of both the satellite-rain gauge precipitation estimates and the ensemble precipitation forecasts will be available at two different scales of river basins over the Sudan-focused domain of interest.

Below we show examples of our current spatial maps and time-series that are being generated over the larger Ganges and Brahmaputra river catchments, similar to what we will produce over our specific domain of interest for this project for Sudan. Shown below is our home page for our SAWI/India project.

24


Section D

Figure 7: Home page of our project – to be hosted on NCAR server – highlighted where the rainfall accumulation web displays are found.

Shown below in Figure 8 is the schematic we employ to generate our rainfall web products.

25


Section D

Figure 8: Processing steps for our rainfall web displays.

Shown below in Figure 9 is an example map of rainfall forecasts we generate over the Ganges-Brahmaputra catchment domain, which will similarly be tailored for Sudan.

26


Section D

Figure 9: Example day’s displays of rainfall forecasts over the Brahamaputra-Ganges catchment domain, which will similarly be produced over the Sudanese region of interest.

Figure 10 provides an example of river stage observation displays at two gauging station locations over India, whose displays will similarly be employed for Sudan. Also shown in Figure 10 are the associated ensemble river stage forecasts our past World Bank / SAWI project generates, whose technologies will be tailored for this project’s Nile basin DFO locations.

27


Section D

Figure 10: Example from the river stage web display over India, which will be tailored for Sudan. Left panel shows the overview visible of the whole domain. Zooming in and clicking on one gauging location (right panel) provides subdisplays of river stage obsesrvations (middle subpanels of rightmost panel) at one gauging station, and associated ensemble river stage forecasts (lowest subpanel of rightmost panel).

Task (3) Generate hydrologic forecasts at three DFO locations using three separate approaches: a) local gauge time-series analysis, b) analogue upstream river flow forecasting based on information gathered from upstream DFO RiverWatch locations, and c) data-based river discharge forecasting models driven by satellite rainfall observations and multi-model ensemble rainfall forecasts of Task (1) Above

In Figure 11 below we show a simplified schematic of the automated rainfall and river discharge processing, calibration, and forecasting schemes that will be employed to generate forecasts for the three DFO RiverWatch discharge locations.

28


Section D

Figure 11: Simplified overview of the automated rainfall and river discharge processing, calibration, and forecasting schemes that will be employed to forecast at the three DFO RiverWatch locations.

29


Section D

Task (4) Gain additional forecast skill, robustness, and enhance the accuracy of uncertainty estimates of extremes through optimally-combining/multi-modeling of discharge forecasting products of Task (3) above, and outputs available on web displays

Response: For this project, we will “multi-model all discharge forecasting products together to enhance overall forecasting skill. Below in Figure 12 we show a simple application of our combined calibration and multi-modeling “quantile regression” algorithm we use for this task (the example is for temperature, only for purposes of exposition). This approach is used extensively throughout this project, used for basin-averaged rainfall amounts, river discharge, and multimodeling (of both rainfall and discharge forecasts).

Figure 12: Schematic of a simple application of our “quantile regression” calibration routine used in this project. For exposition purposes, shown is an example for temperature forecasts; however for this project, this technique is applied for catchment-integrated rainfall amounts, as well as multi-model discharge and river stage forecasts.

Below in Figure 13 we show example gauge locations of where catchment-integrated rainfall observations and calibrated ensemble forecasts are derived, using the methodology discussed above and shown in Figure 12. Shown further below in Figure 14 we show the outputs from

30


Section Dour calibration routines at these locations, including the overall multi-model forecasts we derive using all forecasting centers combined.

Figure 13: Example gauge locations of where catchment-integrated rainfall observations and calibrated ensemble forecasts are derived and shown in Figure 9.

31


Section D

Figure 14: Calibrated catchment-integrated rainfall (above gauge locations shown in Figure 8) forecasts (colored lines) compared to observations (black line), where the calibration is done for individual forecast centers (shown here: CMA, CMC, ECMWF, NCEP, and CPTEC), and results for multi-modeled rainfall forecasts (right panels).

Task (5) Automate all of the above technologies into stand-alone operations on a computer server located at NCAR

Response: all tasking will be automated based on data availability at that particular forecasting initializations, on NCAR computers.

Task (6) Provide remote training on the above to Sudanese Water Ministry personnel

Response: training on all aspects can be provided to Sudanese staff based on consult with World Bank staff, so as to understand both the technologies involved, and develop the capability to modify them on an “as needed” basis – topics to potentially include (but not limited to) atmospheric and rainfall forecasting, ensemble approaches, forecast verification, training on web display development, time-series and statistical analysis, hydrologic modeling.

32


Section D

In addition, the training will be devoted to training on the technologies themselves, as well as presentations on the forecast outputs, displayed information and visuals, technical findings on forecast skill, and steps forward for potential future modifications and applications. The workshops may also rely on material Team Leader Hopson has presented at three previous week-long workshops in India covering long-lead flood forecasting (Patna, Bihar, August 2009; National Water Academy, Pune, June 2012; National Institute of Hydrology, Roorkee, November 2013), but also include more extensive discussions on RiverWatch DFO satellite technologies as well.

Task (7) ensure data products developed above will be available as web services for ingest into World Bank data services for one year after contractual start date

Response: support to sustain the feed of satellite estimates and weather forecasts will be available to World Bank data services, and on NCAR web displays, for one year after Contractual start date, and contingent on the availability of the data streams utilized externally by NCAR (i.e. NASA, JAXA, NCEP’s GEFS portal, ECMWF’s Thorpex portal, etc.)

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Section D

Work Plan

In this sub section we discuss the main activities of the assignment, including their content and duration, and dates of the milestones to be reached. In particular, the main activities have been divided into four modules, with subtasks tied to each module, and list of scheduled deliverables also tied to each module. A list of the outputs, and trainings to be delivered is also provided. With reference to the timing and duration of these tasks, please also see Annex 3 – Work Schedule. We provide anticipated task begin date relative to the beginning of the consultancy period of performance (PoP) and duration (in weeks). These tasks are:

Module 1: Rainfall Products Processed and Displayed

All rainfall products (observations and forecasts) will be processed (time- and basin-integrated), and bias corrected for ingest into a tailored Sudan- and Nile-focused website and for ingest into hydrologic forecasting models (see Module 2). Specific tasks to meet this goal are discussed below:

Technologies that are already developed by NCAR under the previously-completed World Bank/SAWI project, “Development of Flood Forecasting for the Ganges and the Brahmaputra Basins using satellite based precipitation, ensemble weather forecasts, and remotely-sensed river widths and height” (e.g. Data processing modules, scripts, and forecasting algorithms, along with web display dashboards) will be customized to be run in a fully-automated mode on an NCAR server. In particular, the following data products will be accessed: satellite precipitation estimates from NASA (TRMM product), JAXA (GSMaP), Global Telecommunications System (GTS) rain gauge estimates extrapolated and gridded by NOAA in the US, rainfall forecasts from eight of the THORPEX-TIGGE ensemble precipitation forecasts provided 2-day delayed from ECMWF’s MARS data delivery system (US-NCEP, CMC-Canada, ECMWF, UKmet Office, Brazil, China, MeteoFrance, and Japan).

A merged satellite rainfall-rain gauge product will be generated as nominal “best estimate” of observed rainfall for website precipitation displays.

“Correspondence files” will be generated, that map the gridded precipitation data listed above to the delineated HydroSHEDS catchment “polygons”.

The data products listed above will be extracted over the geographical domain of interest, and will also be “catchment-integrated” over the catchments using the “correspondence files” discussed above.

The THORPEX-TIGGE ensemble precipitation forecasts will be calibrated singularly (e.g. just NCEP-GEFS forecasts will be calibrated in reference to the precipitation estimates specified in 1) above — the calibrated forecasts will be generated into daily time-steps for ingest into hydrologic models, going out to 16-day lead-times.

Catchment-integrated web displays of both the satellite-rain gauge precipitation estimates and the ensemble precipitation forecasts over the Sudan-focused domain of interest will be tailored from pre-existing completed World Bank/SAWI project displays to cover just the domain of interest for this project, and also will run in an automated fashion on the NCAR server environment; outputs accessible to Sudan Water Ministry and World Bank staff.

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Section D All the tasks listed above and any contingency processes for which the tasks above are

reliant will be fully automated on the NCAR server.

Duration/completion date: nominally 4 weeks / completing June 30th, 2017Reported Milestones: web sites of rainfall observations and rainfall forecasts will be viewable to Sudanese Water Ministry and World Bank staff.

Module II: Discharge Forecasting and Dartmouth Flood Observatory (DFO) RiverWatch Sites

Based on DFO RiverWatch data availability, three data points and locations of outputs will be incorporated into the automated system along the Nile (mainstem, White and Blue tributaries), treating the RiverWatch discharge estimates at these sites as nominal “truth”. Specific tasks to meet this goal are discussed below:

Data-based hydrologic models will be calibrated for RiverWatch sites, utilizing estimated satellite rainfall of Module I at the following RiverWatch sites (for three, possibly all five of the following sites):DFO site identifier #, longitude coordinates, latitude coordinates, Location1548, 32.895, 16.514, Nile1547, 32.445, 15.524, Nile1541, 32.805, 12.374, White Nile1545, 33.615, 13.724, Blue Nile1544, 33.975, 13.094, Blue Nile

The combinations of rainfall estimates and THORPEX-TIGGE forecasts will be run through the data-based hydrologic model, then calibrated into optimal multi-model data-based forecasts (at daily time-steps going out to 16-day lead-times); benefits of multi-modeling are: enhanced redundancy and gaining improved accuracy, and day-specific, location-specific error estimates.

Independent local gauge time-series analysis forecasts and analogue upstream river flow forecasts (all based on information gathered from local and upstream DFO RiverWatch locations) will be calibrated and generated going out to 16-day lead-times.

The data-based, local time-series, and upstream analogue discharge forecasts discussed above will be combined into an optimal calibrated multi-model ensemble discharge forecasts (with the number of ensemble members and data formats specified by the Sudanese Water Ministry and World Bank) at each of the three DFO RiverWatch sites going out to 16-day lead-times; these are multi-model forecasts derived by combining together approximately 500 distinct weather forecasts at each lead-time. The system combines together forecasts that are available at that particular time, so it does not rely on just one data stream. In total, the data streams included are satellite and rain gauge precipitation from 3 sources (listed above), ensemble weather forecasts from 8 different global center (listed above), upstream RiverWatch measurements, and a variety of hydrologic modeling approaches, and it also includes automatic quality control of all of these data streams.

Automate all of these module processes on the NCAR server and post results to websites for display.

35


Section DDuration/completion date: nominally 4 weeks / completing June 30th, 2017Reported Milestones: web sites of river discharge forecasts will be automated and viewable to Sudanese Water Ministry and World Bank staff.

Module III: Training

Training and capacity building for Sudanese Water Ministry and World Bank staff covering background and technical developments carried out and outputs generated in this project will be done informing Sudanese Water Ministry and World Bank of the forecasting capacity they can build from. Specific tasks to meet this goal are discussed below:

Training on forecasting aspects will be provided to Sudanese Water Ministry and World Bank staff to understand both the technologies involved, and lay the foundation to begin tailoring these forecasts to their specific needs – to include training on web display development, in addition to the primary hydrologic-atmospheric components. This training is planned to be carried out over a one week period during this specific module’s PoP, with Sudanese Water Ministry and World Bank connected to NCAR staff view weblinks.

Duration/completion date: 1 week / completed before end of the PoP.Reported Milestones: training of Sudanese Water Ministry and World Bank completed.

Module IV: Support

One year of support by NCAR staff will be available to ensure the meteorological and hydrological data feeds and products are consistently available to Sudanese Water Ministry and World Bank staff until the end of the PoP of this contract (i.e. 1 year after PoP start date). Specific tasks to meet this goal are discussed below:

Support of the technologies generated and provided over the Period of Performance of this contract by NCAR personnel for Sudanese Water Ministry and World Bank staff.

Through active discussions to ensure they are based on user needs, the outputs will be developed to continuously run and provided in formats that can easily be ingested as web services by existing World Bank and Sudanese Water Ministry technologies in use.

Duration/completion date: 1 year / completing 1 year after the beginning of the PoP.Reported Milestones: self-evident through active discussions and as-needed basis with Sudanese Water Ministry and World Bank and World Bank staff.

Deliverables and ScheduleThe expected deliverables and their schedule are provided as below:

Deliverables Description Completiondate

(relative to PoP start)

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Section DRainfall forecasts and web sites running on NCAR server

Module 1 tasking will be completed, which includes processing all rainfall observations and forecast products generated over Sudan under the previous World Bank/SAWI contract, “Development of Flood Forecasting for the Ganges and the Brahmaputra Basins using satellite based precipitation, ensemble weather forecasts, and remotely-sensed river widths and height” will run on NCAR server

4 weeks

DFO sites discharge automated forecasts

Module 2 tasking will be completed for at least 3 DFO RiverWatch sites along the Nile basin.

4 weeks

Training of Sudanese Water Ministry and World Bank staff

Training of Sudanese Water Ministry and World Bank staff during a one week period via web links.

1 year

Ongoing support of deliverables

Ongoing support will be available to Sudanese Water Ministry and World Bank staff of the deliverables completed in Modules I and II over a year period (contractual PoP length)

1 year

Relation to Prior Research – leveraging previous resourcesThis assignment will heavily leverage technologies developed under the previous World Bank / South Asia Water Initiative contract titled, “Development of Flood Forecasting for the Ganges and the Brahmaputra Basins using satellite based precipitation, ensemble weather forecasts, and remotely-sensed river widths and height”, Selection # 1172405.

Organization and Staffing

In this sub section we describe the structure and composition of our team, listing the main disciplines of the assignment, the key expert responsible, and proposed technical and support staff. We refer to the Senior Personnel provided below, as well as the Objectives and Tasking discussed above. Further details are referred to Section B – Consultants’s Experience, Annex 1 listing of Team composition, Task assignments, and Level of Effort, and Annex 2 which provides a listing of the Curriculum Vitae (CV) of these key personnel.

Senior PersonnelNCAR Hopson, Thomas. Team Leader / Prominent Researcher / Scientist: National Center for

Atmospheric ResearchBoehnert, Jennifer. GIS Analyst / Web Developer: National Center for Atmospheric

ResearchSampson, Arnaud. Analyst / Software engineer: National Center for Atmospheric ResearchRiddle, Emily. Research Analyst: National Center for Atmospheric Research

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Section D

Team leadership for this consultancy requires knowledge of the underlying science and primary technologies required to reach the objectives and complete the tasking, along with management capability, and teaching experience and technology transfer for conducting effective training on developed technologies (the latter called out in the ToR as required outputs). Team Leader Hopson has over 15 years experience both with the science and technologies required to reach the objectives and tasking, having been the primary architect of the current World Bank funded automated rainfall and river flow forecasting sytem specified in the tasking (Task 1) and modules (Module 1), as well as the engineer of the automated system implementing of the modeling components. He recently also conducted three World-Bank funded training workshops in India to engineers and scientists working on long-lead river forecasting.

Expertise with satellite precipitation estimates is also required for this consultancy. Hopson also has experience in implementing and ingesting satellite precipitation estimates from NOAA (“CMORPH”) and NASA (“TRMM 3B42”) into the current automated World Bank / SAWI system. With colleagues Prof Mekonnen Gebremichael (UCLA) and Dr. Feyera Aga Hirpa (EU Joint Research Council) investigated multiple satellite precipitation products for hydrologic applications for East Africa (Hirpa et al. 2010). As such, Hopson (with assistance from a post-doc) will be responsible for Tasks (1), (3), (4), (5), and (6) and Modules I, II, III, and IV above.

The consultancy also requires experience with automated ensemble forecast systems. In addition to the World Bank system, Hopson has expertise working with ensemble weather forecasts from multiple centers (provided via the Thorpex-Tigge project, see Section B.3), providing the World Health Organization and African National Health Agencies with ensemble humidity forecasts over the meningitis belt of Africa to inform meningitis transmission models about optimal allocation of vaccine, which is important for Tasks (1) and (3) for which he will be responsible for. Hopson also has experience providing multi-model forecasts to the US Army with ensemble weather forecasts across the U.S. via the ATEC project, and also Hopson via the multi-hydrologic model of the CFAB system. As such, Hopson will be responsible for generating the multimodel forecasts given in Task (3).

GIS and visualization capabilities are also critical for consultancy technology developments and outputs. NCAR GIS Analyst Boehnert and Sampson have extensive expertise in delineating river catchments, in developed GIS tools for mapping numerical weather prediction outputs to river catchment areal domains (Task (1)), and visualization of GIS-derived outputs (Task (2)). With respect to Tasks (2) and (4), Analyst Boehnert has extensive expertise in generating effective web-based visualizations both for the past World Bank / SAWI project and on other projects, and will also be utilized for generating displays of these products.

With respect to Task (5) and (7), Research Analyst Riddle has recent experience engineering computer systems to run under real-time forecasting purposes, and will support efforts under this task.

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Section DComputational demands in generating automated production of forecasts provides its own challenges. For this, we will utilize a devoted computer server (purchased through previous project funding): Dell PowerEdge R820 with an 8-core CPU configured with 128GB system RAM and an 8TB RAID to develop and run algorithms.

Coordination of Group Effort We will have project team meetings twice a month and more frequently as needed, such as in the early stages of task developement that will include key researchers on the project.

Collaborations and Partnerships We view the organization of our undertaking as an interconnected collaborative partnership, beginning with the collaborative partnership which is our interdisciplinary research team at the NCAR. The next scale of partnership involves our international partners engaged in generating forecasts, such as the South Asia Water Initiative, and the Dartmouth Flood Observatory. These partners are currently engaged with regional and global institutions in a manner that will allow other regions at risk of similar flood hazards to capitalize on improved flood forecasting. Finally, the next (and arguably the most important) scale will be the partnership with the Water Ministry of the Government of Sudan, and those engineers who help integrate the project’s outputs into Sudanese Water Ministry and World Bank observing and forecasting systems and those who engage in the project’s training—including technical experts (scientists and engineers), decision makers and policymakers, with potential of directly reaching vulnerable area residents within Sudan. As such, our work is intended to create a network of expanded connections among the Sudanese Water Ministry and World Bank and people within and outside of Sudan attempting to mitigate the flood threat across different scales throughout the area.

ReferencesBrakenridge, G. R., Nghiem, S. V., Anderson, E., & Chien, S. (2005). Space-based

measurement of river runoff. EOS, Transactions of the American Geophysical Union, 86(19), 185-188.

Brakenridge, G. R., Nghiem, S. V., Anderson, E., & Mic, R. (2007). Orbital microwave measurement of river discharge and ice status. Water Resources Research, 43, W04405. doi: 10.1029/2006WR005238

CEGIS. (2006). Sustainable end-to-end climate/flood forecast application through pilot projects showing measurable improvements. CEGIS Base Line Report, 78 pp.

Hirpa, F. A., Hopson, T. M., De Groeve, T., Brakenridge, G. R., Gebremichael, M., & Restrepo, P. J. (2013). Upstream satellite remote sensing for river discharge forecasting: Application to major rivers in South Asia. Remote Sensing of Environment, 131, 140-151. doi: DOI:10.1016/j.rse.2012.11.013

Hopson, T. M., & Webster, P. J. (2010). A 1-10-Day ensemble forecasting scheme for the major river basins of Bangladesh: Forecasting severe floods of 2003-07. Journal of Hydrology, 11, 618-641.

Huffman, G. J., R. F. Adler, S. Curtis, D. T. Bolvin, and E. J.Nelkin (2005). Global rainfall analyses at monthly and 3-hr time scales. Measuring Precipitation from Space:

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Section DEURAINSAT and the Future, V. Levizzani, P. Bauer, and J. F. Turk, Eds., Springer, 722 pp.

Huffman, G. J., Bolvin, D. T., Nelkin, E. J., Wolff, D. B., Adler, R. F., Gu, G., . . . Stocker, E. F. (2007). The TRMM multisatellite precipitation analysis (TMPA): Quasi-global, multiyear, combined-sensor precipitation estimates at fine scales. Journal of Hydrometeorology, 8(1), 38-55.

Joyce, R. J., J. E. Janowiak, P. A. Arkin, and P. Xie (2004). CMORPH: A method that produces global precipitation estimates from passive microwave and infrared data at high spatial and temporal resolution. J. Hydrometeor., 5, 487–503.

Kleuskens, M., Westerhoff, R. S., & Huizinga, J. (2011). Operational flood mapping: A pilot study in the Mekong Area. Paper presented at the Proceedings of the International Symposium of Remote Sensing of the Environment, Sydney, Australia.

Webster, P. J. (2013). Improve weather forecasts for the developing world. Nature, 493, 17-19.

Webster, P. J., Jian, J., Hopson, T. M., Hoyos, C. D., Agudelo, P., Chang, H.-R., . . . Subbiah, A. R. (2010). Extended-range probabilistic forecasts of Ganges and Brahmaputa floods in Bangladesh. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 91, 1493-1514.

Westerhoff, R. S., Huizinga, J., Kleuskens, M., Burren, R., & Casey, S. (2010). Operational satellite-based flood mapping using the Delft-FEWS System. In Proceedings of the ESA Living Planet Symposium, Bergen, Norway, June 28-July 2, 2010. Retrieved Jan 10, 2013, from http:/kennisonline.deltares.nl/product/22381

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Annex 1

ANNEX 1: TEAM COMPOSITION, TASK ASSIGNMENTS & LEVEL OF EFFORT (LOE)

Key Personnel

Name of Staff & Firm associated with2

Area of Expertise Relevant to the

Assignment

Designation for this Assignment3 Assigned Tasks or Deliverables

Location4 Number of Days

Dr. Thomas Hopson, NCAR

Ensemble flood forecasting; satellite precipitation estimates

Team Leader;Prominent Researcher / Scientist

Coordination of all activities; technical focal point for discussions of all the tasks and will have overall reporting responsibility; channel of communication with the World Bank; development of satellite precipitation estimates and satellite- and weather forecast-based flood forecasting techniques

Boulder, CO, USA

20

Jennifer Boehnert, NCAR

GIS technologies GIS Analyst / Web developer

GIS and DEM-related tasking and rainfall and discharge product visualizations

Boulder, CO, USA

7.5

Kevin Sampson,NCAR

GIS technologies GIS Analyst GIS and DEM-related tasking Boulder, CO, USA

7.5

Dr. Emily Riddle,NCAR

East Africa Climate Science; Ensemble forecasting; satellite precipitation estimates

Research Analyst Computer modelling technologies and operatability

Boulder, CO, USA

10

2 Indicate if the proposed staff is an employee or agent of your consulting firm/organization or a sub consultant.3 Title or position as described in the TOR or otherwise named in your proposed Organization and Staffing under Section D, sub section (c).4 Relative to the assignment subject of the Contract, indicate if the staff/consultant local or international.

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Annex 2

ANNEX 2: CURRICULUM VITAE (CV) OF PROPOSED KEY PERSONNEL

Dr. Thomas Hopson – Team Leader

1. Name of Staff [Insert full name]: Dr. Thomas Hopson

2. Proposed Position Team Leader -- Coordination of all activities; technical focal point for discussions of all the tasks and will have overall reporting responsibility; channel of communication with the World Bank

3. Employer: National Center for Atmospheric Research

4. Date of Birth: July 9, 1965 Nationality: USA

5. Education School, college and/or University Attended

Degree/certificate or other specialized education obtained

Date Obtained

University of Colorado Ph.D. Astrophysical, Planetary, and Atmospheric Sciences

2005

University of Colorado M.S. Astrophysical, Planetary, and Atmospheric Sciences

2001

University of Colorado M.S. Civil Engineering, Water Resources Emphasis

1999

Rice University B.A. Physics 1989

6. Professional Certification or Membership in Professional Associations: Sigma Pi Sigma Physics Honor Society; the Fulbright Association; American Geophysical Union; American Meteorological Society

7. Other Relevant Training:

8. Countries of Work Experience: [List countries where staff has worked in the last ten years]: Bangladesh, India, Ghana, Colombia, Ethiopia

9. Languages [For each language indicate proficiency: good, fair, or poor in speaking, reading, and writing]: English – good; Spanish – fair-to-poor (speaking, reading, writing)


Annex 210. Employment Record [Starting with present position, list in reverse order every employment held]:

From [Year]: 2008 To [Year]: present

Employer: National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO USA

Positions held: Scientist I / Project Scientist I

From [Year]: 2006 To [Year]: 2008

Employer: National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO USA

Positions held: Postdoctoral Fellow, Advanced Study Program


Employer: University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA

Positions held: Research Associate, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Science


Employer: University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA

Positions held: Graduate Research Assistant, Department of Astrophysical, Planetary and

Atmospheric Sciences


Employer: United States Government

Positions held: Fulbright Scholar, Harare, Zimbabwe


Employer: U.S. Geological Survey, Boulder, CO, USA

Positions held: Hydrologist, Geomorphology Group, Water Resources Division

11. Detailed Tasks Assigned [List all tasks to be performed under this assignment]

As the Team Leader, I will be responsible for all tasks listed under the ToR of the project’s terms of reference:


Annex 2 Help to tailor rainfall forecasts to their particular pre-existing hydrologic applications,

which includes downscaling, bias-correction, and calibration of products (while preserving spatial and temporal covariances) for use in the specific hydrologic models used for this project;

Gain additional forecast skill, robustness, and enhance the confidence through multi-modeling of discharge forecasting products;

Display Sudan-focused catchment-integrated rainfall and discharge observations and forecasts on a web displayed spatial-maps and time-series;

Automate all of the above technologies into stand-alone operations on an NCAR server;

Provide training and support on the above needed in support of this effort.

12. Work Undertaken that Best Illustrates Capability to Handle the Tasks Assigned

[Among the assignments in which the staff has been involved, indicate the following information for those assignments that best illustrate staff capability to handle the tasks listed under point 11.]

Name of assignment or project: Development of Flood Forecasting for the Ganges and the Brahmaputra Basins using satellite based precipitation, ensemble weather forecasts, and remotely-sensed river widths and height

Year: 2015-2016

Location: Ganges and Brahmaputra river catchments

Client: World Bank and South Asia Water Initiative

Main project features: Test the efficacy of the use of satellite based technologies (precipitation estimates, remotely-sensed river widths microwave imagery and heights from radar altimetry) in conjunction with ensemble weather forecasts for basin/sub-basin flood forecasting in the Ganges and Brahmaputra catchments. Implement long-lead time, public-access flood forecasting systems for the Ganges and Brahmaputra basins spanning India, Bangladesh and Nepal utilizing new satellite precipitation estimates and ensemble weather forecasts from multiple centers. Combine Climate Forecast Applications for Bangladesh (CFAB) ensemble discharge forecasts with Dartmouth Flood Observatory (DFO) remotely-sensed river discharge estimates to produce optimal river discharge estimates at select locations along the river course. Transform forecast flood discharges into inundation extent maps, using analysis of past microwave and optical sensor imagery of actual inundation extent. Validate Radar Altimetry Satellite Data for Operational Flood Forecast.

Positions held: Principle Investigator

Activities performed: As the Team Leader, I was responsible for all tasks listed above for this contract.


Annex 2

Name of assignment or project: Climate Forecasting Applications for Bangladesh

Year: 2000 to 2007

Location: Bangladesh

Client: USAID

Main project features: The Climate Forecasting Applications for Bangladesh (CFAB) project issued operational flood forecasts to the country of Bangladesh over a daily- to seasonal-lead-times, provide advanced warning of severe flood-stage discharges in the catchments of the Ganges and Brahmaputra basins. Specifically, a fully-automated short-range (1- to 10-day in-advance) probabilistic forecast was produced utilizing the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) ensemble weather forecasts, near-real-time NASA TRMM and NOAA CMORPH satellite-derived precipitation estimates, and NOAA CPC-GTS rain gauge-based precipitation estimates, and near-real-time discharge estimates from the Bangladesh Flood Forecasting and Warning Centre (FFWC). These data sets were utilized in conjunction with statistical refinement techniques applied to the weather and discharge forecasts and the use of a multi-model hydrological modeling approach. A long-range (1- to 6-months in-advance) probabilistic forecast was produced based on ECMWF’s 40-member seasonal ensemble forecast.

Positions held: Flood forecast scientist / graduate student / creator of 1-10day and seasonal lead-time forecast systems

Activities performed: Creation of the following (and all associated tasks): Operational flood forecasts for the Ganges (Hardinge Bridge) and Brahmaputra (Bahadurabad) at lead-times of 1- to 10-days in-advance; Seasonal ensemble forecasts of rainfall and flood potential in the Ganges and Brahmaputra catchments

Name of assignment or project: A prototype Earth-gauging system integrating weather and health data to manage meningitis

Year: 2009 to 2014

Location: West and East Africa

Client: Google (non-profit wing) and World Health Organization

Main project features: This project examined how public health decision makers might use weather information to inform decisions about where and when to vaccinate against meningitis in Sahelian Africa

Positions held: atmospheric scientist and forecaster

Activities performed: identified the key weather variables that relate to the end of epidemics; improved the prediction of those variables; built a system to communicate with decision-makers based on Thorpex-Tigge ensemble weather forecasts

Name of assignment or project: Optimizing Reservoir Operations for Hydropower Production in Africa through the use of Remote Sensing Data and Seasonal Climate


Annex 2Forecasts

Year: 2014 ongoing

Location: East African reservoirs

Client: NASA

Main project features: Develop a Decision Support System (DSS) aimed at optimizing reservoir operations for hydropower production in Africa. The DSS will allow hydropower schedulers and other water resource managers to develop reliable seasonal (30 – 180 day) reservoir planning that will guide the reservoir operations.

Positions held: Scientist/Atmospheric Researcher and Forecast Lead

Activities performed: Generate ensemble daily, monthly, and seasonal ensemble forecasts to drive hydrologic models (NCAR-Hopson); Develop hydrologic and water resource components of the reservoir systems (UCLA/NCAR-Hopson); Develop optimization algorithms for hydropower production (UCLA); Develop and implement the DSS at end users’ organizations (UCLA/NCAR-Hopson)

13. Do you currently or have you ever worked for the World Bank Group including any of the following types of appointments: Regular, term, ETC, ETT, STC, STT, JPA, or JPO? If yes, please provide details, including start/end dates of appointment.

I worked as a STC consultant conducting week-long workshops on Long-Lead Flood Forecasting for the following dates and locations:

1) June, 2012 – National Water Academy, Pune, India;2) November, 2013 – National Institute of Hydrology, Roorkee, India ____________

Certification

I certify that (1) to the best of my knowledge and belief, this CV correctly describes me, my qualifications, and my experience; (2) that I am available for the assignment for which I am proposed; and (3) that I am proposed only by one Offeror and under one proposal.

I understand that any wilful misstatement or misrepresentation herein may lead to my disqualification or removal from the selected team undertaking the assignment.

Date: 17 April, 2017 [Signature of staff member or authorized representative of the staff] Day/Month/Year


Annex 2

Jennifer Boehnert – Analyst

1. Name of Staff [Insert full name): Jennifer Boehnert

2. Proposed Position Analyst: GIS Analyst and Web Developer

3. Employer: National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO USA

4. Date of Birth: Nationality: United States of America



Date Obtained

University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada

Bachelor of Arts, Honors; International Development and Geography

1995

6. Professional Certification or Membership in Professional Associations: GISP (Certification as a GIS Professional), GIS Certification Institute (gisci.org), Des Plaiones, IL, 2011

7.Other Relevant Training: GIS Analyst Cetificate, Sir Stanford Fleming, Ontario, Canada, 1997

8. Countries of Work Experience: [List countries where staff has worked in the last ten years]: United States of America

9. Languages [For each language indicate proficiency: good, fair, or poor in speaking, reading, and writing]: English – native speaker, highly proficientFrench – fair speaker, reader, and writer

10. Employment Record [Starting with present position, list in reverse order every employment held]:

From [Year]: 2003 To [Year]: Present

Employer: National Center for Atmospheric Researc (NCAR)

Positions held: Geographic Information Systems Coordinator


Annex 2From [Year]: 2001 To [Year]: 2003

Employer: ESRI, Boulder, CO

Positions held: Geographic Information Systems Consultant


Employer: ESRI, Boulder, CO

Positions held: Gographic Information Systems Instructor


Employer: Mesa County, Grand Junction, CO

Positions held: Geographic Information Systems Analyst


Employer: Bureau of Land Management, Idaho Falls, ID

Positions held: Geographic Information Systems Specialist


Help to tailor rainfall forecasts to their particular pre-existing hydrologic applications, which includes downscaling, bias-correction, and calibration of products (while preserving spatial and temporal covariances) for use in the specific hydrologic models used in this project;

Gain additional forecast skill, robustness, and enhance the confidence through multi-modeling of discharge products;


Automate all of the above technologies into stand-alone operations on an NCAR server, while providing modifiable source code;



Annex 2




Year: 2015-2016




Positions held: GIS Analyst and Web Developer

Activities performed: Carried out GIS activities in support of this project. Also, developedan interactive web application which expands GIS mapping and graphing capabilities to visualize observed and forecasted ensemble precipitation over different spatial scales of river catchments over the Ganges and Brahmaputra river catchments.

Name of assignment or project: Climate Inspector

Year: 2014

Location: Boulder, Colorado

Client: U.S. National Science Foundation

Main project features: web app to explore climate anomalies, variability and uncertainty in space and time; mapping and graphing of complex data in a simple way


Activities performed: Developed an interactive web application which expands GIS


Annex 2 mapping and graphing capabilities to visualize possible temperature and precipitation changes throughout the 21st century. This included development of advanced data interactions and visualizations of CMIP5 CCSM4 simulations for the globe and specific geographic locations.

Name of assignment or project: System for Integrated Modeling of Metropolitan Extreme Heat Risk (SIMMER)

Year: 2010-2014

Location: Houston, TX and Continental US and southern Canada

Client: U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Main project features: 1)This international, multi-instituional project has advanced the methodology for assessing current and future urban vulnerability from heat waves through the integration of physical and social science models, research results, and NASA data; and 2) developed models and tools for building local capacity for heat hazard mitigation and climate change adaptation in the public health sector.


Activities performed: 1) Characterized and modeled present and future extreme heat events at regional and local scales; 2) Improved representation of urban land cover and its accompanying radiative and thermal characteristics at local and regional scales; 3) Determined the combined impact of extreme heat and the characteristics of urban environmental and social systems on human health; 4) Characterized societal vulnerability and responses to extreme heat (i.e., mitigation and adaptation strategies) and 5) Developed GIS-based decision-support tools for local and regional applications

Name of assignment or project: Integrating Extreme Weather, Hydrology, and Societal Impacts with GIS

Year: 2010-present

Location: global applications

Client: U.S. National Science Foundation/ U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Office of Hydrologic Development

Main project features: This project was desined to integrate spatial methods and data processing capabilities into atmospheric and hydrological modelling packages for more robust applications of extreme weather, hydrology and societal applications.


Activities performed: Under this project the following activities were perfomed: vector- and grid-based routing routines, basin delineation, sub grid-scale aggregation of land


Annex 2

surface model input parameters, and grid-to-basin correspondence for aggregating model results. Working with NCAR hydrologists, the NCAR GIS Program developed both stand-alone and server based tools for processing geographic data for input into the Noah-LSM (WRF), WRFHydro, and NCAR Distributed Hydrological Modeling System (NDHMS). In addition, spatial methods for urban flash flood risk assessment and mapping were developed.


No_________________________________________________________________________

Certification



Date: 17/04/2017 [Signature of staff member or authorized representative of the staff] Day/Month/Year


Annex 2

Kevin Sampson – GIS Analyst

1. Name of Staff [Insert full name]: Kevin Sampson

2. Proposed Position GIS Analyst -- Support for GIS and DEM processes

3. Employer: National Center for Atmospheric Research

4. Date of Birth: 1982 Nationality: USA



Date Obtained

UCLA BA Geography and Environmental Studies

2004

University of Colorado MA Geography 2009

6. Professional Certification or Membership in Professional Associations: GISP (Certification as a GIS Professional), GIS Certification Institute (gisci.org), Des Plaines, IL, 2012

7. Other Relevant Training: N.A.

8. Countries of Work Experience: [List countries where staff has worked in the last ten years]: U.S.

9. Languages [For each language indicate proficiency: good, fair, or poor in speaking, reading, and writing]: English (good speaking, reading, writing), Swedish (fair speaking, reading, and writing)


From [Year]: 2009 To [Year]: present

Employer: National Center for Atmospheric Research

Positions held: Associate Scientist



Annex 2Employer: Environmental Management and Planning Solutions, Inc. (EMPSi)

Positions held: Geographic Information Systems Specialist


Key Tasks:

Help to tailor rainfall forecasts to their particular pre-existing hydrologic applications, which includes downscaling, bias-correction, and calibration of products (while preserving spatial and temporal covariances) for use in the specific hydrologic models used in this project;






Year: 2015-2016




Positions held: GIS Analyst


Annex 2Activities performed: Carried out GIS activities in support of this project. Also, assisted in the development ofan interactive web application which expands GIS mapping and graphing capabilities to visualize observed and forecasted ensemble precipitation over different spatial scales of river catchments over the Ganges and Brahmaputra river catchments.

Name of assignment or project: NOAA/NWS National Water Model Development

Year: 2015-2017

Location: Continental United States and contributing areas

Client: National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Weather Service (NWS) Office of Hydrologic Development

Main project features: Building the hydrologic fabric of hydrographic features suitable for performing hydrologic routing of simulated streamflow in the National Water Model. Utilization of existing hydrofabric features and development and integration of custom delineated subcatchment for complete coverage of CONUS and CONUS-contributing basins. Development of hydrologic routing parameters based on the hydrologic network and network connectivity. Production of spatial correspondence files for regridding numerical weather simulation variables from grids to unstructured meshes. Development of custom GIS pre-processing tools in support of WRF-Hydro and National Water Model priorities.

Positions held: GIS Analyst

Activities performed:


No_______________________________________________________________________

Certification




Annex 2

Date: 17/04/2017 [Signature of staff member or authorized representative of the staff] Day/Month/Year


Annex 2

Emily Riddle – Research Analyst

1. Name of Staff [Insert full name]: Emily Riddle

2. Proposed Position Research Analyst

3. Employer: National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO

4. Date of Birth: 1977 Nationality: United States of America



Date Obtained

Carleton College B.A. in Physics 2000Univ. of Massachusetts M.S. in Geosciences 2005Cornell University Ph.D. Atmospheric Science 2011

6. Professional Certification or Membership in Professional Associations: American Geophysical Union; American Meteorological Society

7. Other Relevant Training:

8. Countries of Work Experience: [List countries where staff has worked in the last ten years]: United States of America

9. Languages [For each language indicate proficiency: good, fair, or poor in speaking, reading, and writing]: English


From [Year]: 2015 To [Year]: Present

Employer: National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO

Positions held: Visiting Scientist



Annex 2Employer: Univ. of Massachusetts

Positions held: Adjunct Assistant Professor


Employer: NOAA Climate Prediction Center

Positions held: Contract Scientist


Employer: Cornell University

Positions held: Graduate Research Fellow


Emily will be responsible for technical support of the tasks listed below under the ToR of the

project’s terms of reference:

Help to tailor rainfall forecasts to their particular pre-existing hydrologic applications, which includes downscaling, bias-correction, and calibration of products (while preserving spatial and temporal covariances) for use in the specific hydrologic models used for this project;

Gain additional forecast skill, robustness, and enhance the confidence through multi-modeling of discharge forecasting products;


Automate all of the above technologies into stand-alone operations on an NCAR server;



Annex 2




Year: 2015-2016




Positions held: Research Analyst

Activities performed: As the Research Analyst, Emily was responsible for supporting all tasks listed above for this contract.


No_______________________________________________________________________

Certification




Annex 2

Date: May 5, 2017 [Signature of staff member or authorized representative of the staff] Day/Month/Year

Selection No1172405Technical Proposal

Annex 3

ANNEX 3: WORK SCHEDULE

Project Tasking Timelinew1

w2

w3

w4

w5

w6

w7

w8

w9

w10

w11

w12

w13

w14

w15

… w52

Module 1: Rainfall Products Processed and Displayed

Subtask 1

Subtask 2

Subtask 3

Subtask 4

Subtask 5

Subtask 6

Subtask 7

Module 2: FMISC Tailoring

Subtask 1

Subtask 2

Subtask 3

Subtask 4

Subtask 5

Module 3: Training and Capacity Building

Subtask 1

Module 4: Support

Subtask 1

Subtask 2

Note: w1=week1, w2=week2, etc.

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