1 / 31

Oklahoma’s Weather Enterprise 2025: Capitalizing on Opportunity

Oklahoma’s Weather Enterprise 2025: Capitalizing on Opportunity OSLEP Public Lecture Jeff Kimpel, Director National Severe Storms Laboratory and Professor of Meteorology Emeritus Tonight’s Themes Big Ideas Meteorology in the Early Years (1970s) Capitalizing on Opportunity Up to Now

Roberta
Download Presentation

Oklahoma’s Weather Enterprise 2025: Capitalizing on Opportunity

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Oklahoma’s Weather Enterprise 2025:Capitalizing on Opportunity OSLEP Public Lecture Jeff Kimpel, Director National Severe Storms Laboratory and Professor of Meteorology Emeritus

  2. Tonight’s Themes • Big Ideas • Meteorology in the Early Years (1970s) • Capitalizing on Opportunity Up to Now • The Present • The Road Ahead

  3. Big Ideas Big Ideas Proposals Plans Research Results Proof of Concept Build Prototype Build It Jobs, Enterprise Children’s Education Big Ideas

  4. The Early Years • School of Meteorology Founded in 1960, • NSSL moved to Norman from Kansas City in 1964, • Meteorology enterprise was a “third rate” program until the 1980s, • Oil Boom (1978-1981) • Creation of the College of Geosciences (1981) • Bribery!

  5. Big Ideas • Doppler Weather Radar • Weather Center • Center for Analysis and Prediction of Storms • Oklahoma Mesonet • Clouds/Climate • Dual Polarization • Phased Array Radar

  6. Doppler Weather Radar • NSSL ~1968 • Surplus missile tracking radar from the Cold War • Reengineered into a weather radar • JDOP ~1979 • Evolved into the NEXRAD national network • NWS Modernization

  7. National Doppler Radar Network

  8. Oklahoma Weather Center ~1981 • National Severe Storms Laboratory NOAA • School of Meteorology OU • Oklahoma Climatological Survey OU • Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies OU/NOAA

  9. NOAA Weather Partners National Severe Storms Lab (NSSL) OKC Weather Service Forecast Office (WFO) NEXRAD Radar Operations Center (ROC) Storm Prediction Center (SPC) Warning Decision Training Branch (WDTB) OU School of Meteorology (SOM) Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies (CIMMS) Oklahoma Climatological Survey (OCS) Center for Analysis and Prediction of Storms (CAPS) Collaborative Adaptive Sensing of the Atmosphere (CASA) others Oklahoma Weather Center Today

  10. National Weather Center ~2006

  11. Derived 2D winds from a single Doppler radar (Lilly and Wolfsberg, 1986) Won funding in NSF’s first round of Science and Technology Centers (11 out of 300+) ~$20 M Connection to American Airlines Center for Analysis and Prediction of Storms

  12. Oklahoma Mesonet • Feds Crawford, Doswell,Jensen • Yellow Proposal • OU and OSU • Initial $2.7M from Oil Overcharge Funds • Won Harvard and Stockholm Prizes

  13. Clouds and Climate • Clouds are the #1 scientific challenge to climate modeling • DOE Atmospheric Radiation Meas. Program, Pete Lamb, Site Scientist,~1990 • Lamont, OK site • $10+ M

  14. The Present • The Oklahoma Weather Center has grown to become a $60 million dollar annual enterprise (OU and NOAA). • New companies were created or moved to Central Oklahoma. Vieux & Associates

  15. Dual Polarization Phased Array Radar Present Big Ideas

  16. Very Short Term, Very High Resolution Forecast Models, radar initialized Rainfall-from-radar runoff models More Big Ideas

  17. Dual Polarization

  18. Phased Array Radar

  19. Short Term, High Resolution Modeling

  20. Hydro Modeling • Dual Pol will greatly enhance rainfall estimates. • Improve flash flood warning lead times and accuracy. • Water management is of growing importance. • Can couple hydro models to chemical, biological models in rivers, estuaries.

  21. The Road Ahead • NOAA • Private weather sector • Federal Aviation Administration • Homeland Security • Economic development • More University of Oklahoma research funding

  22. Future FAA Radar Cost Radar Costs F&E Profile $400 $350 $300 $250 Annual Total (BY05 $M) $200 $150 $100 $50 $0 2005 2010 2015 2020 2025 2030 2035 2040

  23. NEXRADs TDWRs ASR-9s U.S. Surveillance Radar Networks NEXRADs ARSR-4s ASR-11s

  24. Solution to Earth Curvature Problem Small radars on every cell phone tower

  25. New Opportunities • Take a radar centric approach • Phased array radars may be so fast that they can perform multiple functions. • Weather surveillance • Aircraft tracking • Homeland security • Mosaic big and little radars into one database. • Develop data mining techniques for many clients. • Save nation billions of dollars.

  26. Concept

  27. Power $ Phased Array RadarRF Solid-State T/R Module Trends Estimated Production Cost ($K) Per module System costs substantially reduced & operation costs lower every year

  28. Conventional radar PAR PAR Cost Objective Acquisition Today Traditional Breakeven Point ….X years Acquisition Cost Reduction Acquisition Cost & Maintenance Years

  29. Preliminary Cost Savings • Replace 506 radars with 300 radars at $10 M each. • Initial procurement savings is $2 billion. • Lifecycle maintenance cost savings $1-2 billion. • Graceful degradation – little unscheduled maintenance • Reliability increase – 90-95% to 99%

  30. Oklahoma Needs • Manufacturing capability • Technical workforce • Electrical engineers • Computer scientists • Data base management • Graphic designers • Civil engineers (hydrologists) • Modelers (meteorologists) • Appropriate private sector companies • Political support

  31. Bottom Line Can we avail ourselves of this opportunity?

More Related