Tropospheric Airborne Meteorological Data Reporting (TAMDAR) Overview

This paper is an overview of TAMDAR, giving some history on the project, various applications of the atmospheric data (listed below), and future ideas and plans. As part of NASA's Aviation Safety and Security Program, the TAMDAR project developed a small low-cost sensor that collects useful meteorological data and makes them available in near real time to improve weather forecasts. This activity has been a joint effort with FAA, NOAA, universities, and industry. Under contract with Georgia Tech Research Institute, NASA worked with AirDat of Raleigh, NC to develop the sensor. The sensor is capable of measuring temperature, relative humidity, pressure, and icing. It can compute pressure altitude, indicated and true air speed, ice accretion rate, wind speed and direction, peak and average turbulence, and eddy dissipation rate. Mesaba Airlines aircraft were equipped to perform the twelve-month Great Lakes Fleet Experiment (GLFE). During the GLFE, particularly interesting case studies of significant weather were analyzed and documented at AirDat, NOAA FSL, AWC, CWSU and NWS forecast offices. Significant evaluations of the data were performed by researchers at NOAA FSL as detailed in other session papers. Additional details on aviation related uses TAMDAR data will be presented at the 12th Conference on Aviation, Range, and Aerospace Meteorology at the 2006 AMS Annual meeting. Other evaluations include direct comparison between wind, temperature and humidity data from TAMDAR and radiosonde. This was facilitated by extra radiosonde launches made at Memphis International Airport by the University of Wisconsin CIMSS sounding team. Other researchers at National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) analyzed the potential for improvements in the Current Icing Potential (CIP) algorithm, prediction of convective precipitation, short-term forecasts of convection, and precipitation forecast skill. Finally, they performed an evaluation of the TAMDAR turbulence algorithm and made recommendations for improvement. TAMDAR data is also being compared to GOES-derived cloud products as described in papers to be presented at the 14th Conference on Satellite Meteorology and Oceanography. During the GLFE, Mesaba pilots completed PIREP forms for each phase of flight. The forms were collected and analyzed by researchers at NCAR for real time verification. The future of TAMDAR includes an expansion of the current research by each of the Aviation Weather Research Program Product Development Teams. This effort would culminate in flight demonstrations of TAMDAR-enhanced weather products on color-moving map displays simultaneously with similar Flight Service Station displays for collaborative decision making. Additional potential uses of TAMDAR data and potential research areas include wake vortex detection, auto-PIREP generation for GA pilots, and human factors issues of flight deck display of TAMDAR-enhanced weather products.