13A.1 NASA Participation in the International Collaborative Experiment for the PyeongChang Olympics and Paralympic Winter 2018 Games (ICE-POP)

Thursday, 7 June 2018: 10:30 AM
Colorado A (Grand Hyatt Denver)
Walter A. Petersen, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL; and J. L. Case, J. Srikishen, R. E. Allen, P. J. Meyer, J. B. Roberts, W. K. Tao, T. Iguchi, M. R. Smith, F. J. LaFontaine, E. B. Berndt, A. L. Molthan, and B. T. Zavodsky

The International Collaborative Experiment for the PyeongChang Olympics and Paralympic Winter 2018 Games (ICE-POP) focuses on the measurement, physics, modeling, and prediction of heavy orographic snow in the PyeongChang Region of South Korea from January to March, 2018. ICE-POP is led by the Korean Meteorological Administration (KMA) as a component of the World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO) World Weather Research Program (WWRP) Research and Development and Forecast Demonstration Projects (RDP/FDP). The overarching ICE-POP goal is to gain a better understanding of orographic frozen precipitation processes, with the expectation that ICE-POP activities will also improve operational weather forecasts and KMA-led decision support during the 2018 Winter Olympics. A coordinated array of surface, air and ship-borne meteorological instrumentation, radars, and numerical weather prediction (NWP) tools from numerous international partners (including NASA) support meeting ICE-POP objectives. NASA’s participation in the ICE-POP RDP/FDP involves Marshall and Goddard Space Flight Centers collaborating as a team to achieve the following:
  • Conduct physical validation of GPM satellite-based falling snow retrievals over orography through deployment of the GPM Ground-Validation Dual-Frequency Dual-Polarimetric Doppler Radar (D3R; Ku-Ka bands) with accompanying Micro Rain Radars, weighing gauges, disdrometers and snow imaging instrumentation,
  • Apply the analysis of ICE-POP observations to test and improve bulk microphysical parameterizations used for representing ice and snowfall growth processes in cloud-resolving models, the NASA Unified-Weather Research and Forecasting (NU-WRF) model, and satellite data simulators,
  • Provide and evaluate NASA Earth Science data products to weather prediction and decision support activities during ICE-POP. This effort includes the development, refinement and testing of new satellite-based passive microwave imager retrievals of sensible/latent-heat fluxes for testing during the RDP in model data assimilation, and
  • Test and demonstrate NU-WRF NWP system as part of the ICE-POP FDP and evaluate different model configurations (parameterizations, resolution, assimilation, etc.) as part of the RDP.

The outcome of NASA’s involvement in ICE-POP will be the contribution of observational and modeling data that, as part of the larger ICE-POP dataset, will provide a more comprehensive understanding of orographic snowfall processes — a necessary step for improving and/or developing satellite-based snowfall retrieval algorithms and improved snow microphysics in weather prediction models. This presentation will give an overview of NASA’s participation in ICE-POP, offering highlights of the topics noted above using examples from the Winter Olympics and Paralympics field campaign.

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