Extended Abstract (240K)J7.12
The U.S. Weather Research Program and its Contributions to Understanding the Variability of Water in Weather
Ward R. Seguin, NOAA/U.S. Weather Research Program Interagency Program Office, Silver Spring, MD; and J. E. Gaynor and R. Gall
Meeting the Nation's increasing weather forecast improvements needs requires a coordinated program of research, development, and technology transfer. The U.S. Weather Research Program (USWRP) has specific goals for improved Quantitative Precipitation Forecasts (QPF) through improved observations, weather prediction models, and use of weather information. The USWRP is a partnership among science and operational governmental agencies, and the academic and commercial communities. The broad purpose of the Program is to increase the resiliency of the Nation to weather to ensure that the federal, state and local governments, the private sector and general public make well-informed and timely weather-sensitive decisions with respect to past, present, and future weather conditions. The vulnerability of the United States to weather is increasing because rapid growth in the need for weather information has outpaced improvements in weather prediction technology. Forecasts of precipitation are unlikely to be improved without improved observations over data-sparse areas and our ability to assimilate them for numerical weather prediction and techniques. The lack of data or our inability to use existing data limit the accuracy and lead times of QPF. Through the cooperation, coordination, and support of eight Government agencies, the academic and commercial communities, the Program is implemented through a series of highly focused projects such as PACJET, IHOP, THORpex and Hurricane Landfall. These projects span atmospheric, oceanic and in situ and remote sensing technologies for time scales of hours to two weeks. They are addressing the needs to observe weather and water in all of its phases to improve our understanding of temporal and spatial variability and the relationships to predictability. This paper will discuss revitalized cooperation among the USWRP communities and the Program's influence and impacts on future cooperative research.
Joint Session 7, U. S. Global Change Research Program water cycle initiative (Joint with the Symposium on Observing and Understanding the Variability of Water in Weather and Climate and the 14th Symposium on Global Change and Climate Variation and the 17th Conference on Hydrology)
Wednesday, 12 February 2003, 1:25 PM-5:29 PM
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