Travel Support: 4thInternational Conference on Renalyses

Travel support applications for the 4th International Conference on Reanalyses are due Jan 27. Interested students and early career scientists should visit http://icr4.org/support.html for more information.

4th Reanalysis Conference, Deadline extension

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS (Deadline: EXTENDED 13 February 2012)

4th WCRP International Conference on Reanalyses
7-11 May 2012
Silver Spring, Maryland USA

The 4th World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) International Conference on Reanalyses provides an exciting opportunity for the modeling community to review and discuss the major observations and modeling research associated with reanalyses.

Conference Agenda:

Keynote Speaker: Adrian Simmons, ECMWF

Status and Plans: Major international reanalysis development, including broad disciplinary overviews (ECMWF, NCEP, JMA and GMAO)

Validation and Metrics: Intercomparison and validation studies; assessing the impact of the assimilation and analysis increments; innovative diagnostics that characterize the degree to which a reanalysis represents reality and ultimately applicability for weather and climate research. (Kevin Trenberth, Rolf Reichle, Arlindo Da Silva, others TBD)

Data Assimilation: Data assimilation techniques and impact on eventual reanalysis data products, especially producing a climate quality time series. (Dick Dee, others TBD)

Space and In Situ Observations: Studies on the quality and stewardship of observations and their use in reanalyses and exploiting new data types and sources. (Roger Saunders, others TBD)

Application in Support of Climate, Weather and Environmental Services: Innovative research using reanalysis to study the weather, ocean, hydrology and climate, including operational climate monitoring, study of extremes and high impact weather, climate assessment and end-to-end decision making studies. (Siegfried Schubert, others TBD)

International Collaborative Efforts: Projects and plans for developing and using reanalysis to the benefit of the international community.

Abstracts are submitted as a part of the registration process. During registration you will be asked to create a Username and Password, which will allow you to upload a revised abstract at any time and make changes to your registration. Note, that at the end of the registration process you can select an option to "Pay Later." If you choose to this option the registration fee will be based on the date of the payment according to the fee schedule at http://icr4.org/registration.html.

To submit an abstract, visit the Conference website at: http://icr4.org/about.html

Conference Deadlines:
Abstract Submission: 13 February 2012
Early Bird Registration: 13 February 2012
Hotel Reservations: 13 March 2012

4th International Conference on Reanalysis

The 4th WCRP International Conference on Reanalysis is scheduled for May 7-11, 2012, just outside Washington DC, on the Metro Line in Silver Spring MD. At this time, Registration and Abstract submission forms are under development, but should be available soon.

For details on the objectives of the conference and agenda, please visit: http://icr4.org

Production Delay Resolved

TRMM TMI rainfall data updated to version seven, which included a format change (starting July 1). MERRA data production was put on hold while the data ingest of version 7 was updated. This was only a short delay. Current tests indicate no anomalous behavior in the time series that can be attributed to this change. June 2011 data should be online within a few days, and July production and distribution should be available by mid-August, back on schedule.

US Reanalysis Workshop Summary

Following the USCLIVAR Reanalysis workshop (Nov 2010, Baltimore MD), a short summary of the proceedings and recommendations was developed. It was published in AGU EOS last week.

The aim of the workshop was to bring together separate disciplines working on data assimilation and reanalysis in separate disciplines, to discuss the needs for and direction to integrated Earth system analysis (IESA). The strengths and weaknesses of the current reanalyses were discussed, as well as potential improvements to each of the major components of reanalyses (model, data assimilation and observations). Despite the current number of reanalyses, they remain in demand, and still have room for improvement, especially in the representation of present climate.

April 2011 Precipitation Extremes

During last April, record or near-record precipitation occurred across a large section of the United States (from the Midwest through the Ohio Valley). This rain, and likely snow melt from the Northern Great Plains, are contributing to the current prolonged and severe flooding along the Mississippi River and its delta. In addition, a prolonged drought of varying degrees persists across the Gulf Coast states.

MERRA precipitation (color shaded) with CPC gauge observations (black contour) time averaged for April 2011. (units: mm/day)

This week, MERRA data for April 2011 was released at the MDISC, roughly two weeks behind real time. Preliminary comparison with the CPC gauge data shows that MERRA precipitation is generally weaker than observed especially in southern Missouri, though the maximum in Pennsylvania is an overestimate. Because the reanalysis system is strongly constrained by observations, the weather systems that produce the rain, and hence the occurrence of rain events, are faithfully reproduced. The physical process of producing the precipitating water then leads to the error in the data product (assuming that the rain gauges capture the extent of the precipitating mass). It is worthwhile to note that MERRA does not assimilate precipitation observations over land, as in NARR.

Giovanni for Quick look and data download

Recently a question about some regional climate data came in, it needed to be independently checked. It seemed like a good opportunity to make use of the Giovanni portal into the MERRA data. Many of the MERRA data collections are available to Giovanni, even 2D one hourly data. MERRA data is directly linked through the Giovanni page, but also from the MERRA data holdings page, which may be more desirable since there is more documentation about what is in each MERRA collection.

Once at the MERRA/Giovanni page, there are options to choose variable(s), region, level and time. There are several hardwired calculation/visualization options in which the data can be presented. Depending on the size of the request, there may be a few minutes before the results are available. However, once they are there is options to download the visualizations, or the data. Both source data and processed data can be retrieved. At this time, HDF, NetCDF and ASCII formats are supported for download.

The FTP Subset is the best way for large requests, and OpenDAP/GDS still serves a purpose for some on the fly live calculation jobs needing flexibility. However, Giovanni fills the middle ground in data visualization and retrieval. It certainly is worth a test drive, and may be a useful option in many cases. Given the range of what can be done with MERRA data, the wide array of ways to access the data should fit most needs.