The MAP ’06 Project:
A NASA Contribution to Tropical Cyclone Research
Introduction:
During
the summer of 2006 The Earth-Sun
Exploration Division of Goddard
Space Flight Center(GSFC) and the Science
and Mission Systems Office at Marshall
Space Flight Center will bring together resources from NASA and
from corporate partners to study tropical
cyclones. The “MAP ’06
Project,” so named for its affiliation with NASA’s Modeling,
Analysis, and Prediction (MAP) program, will apply NASA’s advanced
satellite remote sensing technologies and earth system modeling
capabilities to improve our understanding of tropical cyclones
that develop in and move across the Atlantic basin. MAP '06
will implement the most recent version of the Goddard Earth
Observing System (GEOS) fifth-generation global atmospheric
model and the Grid point Statistical Interpolation (GSI)
analysis system under development as a collaboration between
NOAA's National Centers for Environmental
Prediction (NCEP)
and the Global Modeling and Assimilation
Office (GMAO) at
GSFC. In
addition, the capability to initialize the Weather Research
and Forecast (WRF) regional model using GEOS-5 will be developed
and implemented. The
project will begin in the early portion of the 2006 hurricane
season and continue through late autumn.
Project Objectives:
The
primary objective of MAP ’06 is the application of NASA’s
advanced satellite remote sensing technologies and earth system modeling
capabilities to improve understanding and prediction of tropical cyclones. Specific
science questions to be addressed include:
- Can satellite data assimilation improve prediction (out
to 5 days) of easterly waves, tropical cyclogenesis and
hurricanes?
- How sensitive are tropical cyclone predictions to the
types and distributions of assimilated satellite data?
- What are the impacts of increased horizontal resolution
in the model and data assimilation system on tropical cyclogenesis
and subsequent track and intensity forecasts?
- What role do aerosols play in tropical cyclogenesis in
the Atlantic basin?
- What roles do land – ocean – atmosphere interactions
play in the structure and evolution of easterly waves as
they propagate off the western African coast?
Global Modeling
A unique aspect of the project will be the use of new satellite
data sets by scientists at the Global
Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO). The GEOS-5 atmospheric model
is a weather-and-climate capable model which has been integrated with the
NCEP/GMAO GSI to produce a new atmospheric data assimilation system (DAS),
the GEOS-5 DAS. The global model forecasts for MAP '06 will be at 1/4 degree
with 72 vertical levels. Initial conditions during the early phase of the
project will be acquired from the NCEP Global Forecast System (GFS). Analyses
from the GEOS-5 DAS are expected to be available for model initialization
in late August. During the course of the project, depending on the
availability of computational resources, tests of the data assimilation
system will be conducted at 1/4 degree resolution. Five-day global model
forecasts will be conducted up to twice per day. It is envisioned that
a prototype version of GEOS-5 that incorporates the direct effect of aerosols
on radiation will be incorporated into the project later in the summer
to study the impact of sub-Saharan dust on tropical cyclone development
in the eastern Atlantic.
Regional Modeling
The Weather
Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model is a next-generation
mesocale numerical weather prediction system designed to serve
both operational forecasting and atmospheric research needs. It can
be operated across a wide range of scales ranging from 100’s of meters
in cloud resolving mode and 100’s of kilometers on the synoptic scale.
Use of WRF in MAP '06 will link the activities of the MSFC
Short-term Prediction Research
and Transition Center (SPoRT)
with regional modeling activities at GSFC and global modeling
capabilities at the GMAO. The intent is to initialize WRF with
GEOS-5 analyses produced by the GSI analysis system in the
tropical Atlantic basin at resolutions of 2-km. This will be
done on an on-demand basis as events of interest unfold in
the tropical Atlantic. The regional modeling component of the
project will investigate the impact of high-resolution (1-km)
sea surface temperature composites generated from the MODIS
instrument on air-sea interactions from the perspective of
tropical cyclogenesis and subsequent tropical cyclone track
and intensity prediction. Another
area of interest is land-atmosphere interactions over western
Africa. It
is envisioned that MAP '06
will test a prototype version of WRF dynamically coupled
with the Goddard high resolution Land Information System
(LIS). In
addition, MAP '06
provides a framework to test alternative versions of WRF
developed through NASA projects designed to study cloud-microphysical
processes.
Potential Field Support for NAMMA-06
The project coincides with the NASA
African Monsoon Multidisciplinary Activities (NAMMA)
Extended Observing Period (EOP). MAP '06 will work with NAMMA-06
mission scientists to contribute the global model forecasts
for potential field support of research aircraft in the study
cyclogenesis off the west coast of Africa during Special Observing
Period 3 (SOP3: August 15 – September
15). MAP '06 experiments have the potential to advance our
knowledge of the impact of aerosols and land-sea-ocean interactions
on tropical cyclogenesis in concert with the NAMMA-06 program.
Goddard scientists will use satellite data in conjunction with
the GEOS-5 analyses and forecasts to identify direct forcing
by dust and black carbonaceous aerosols prior to and during
cyclogenesis. The WRF regional model will be run over areas
at high resolution (2-km) where the global model suggests cyclogenesis
might occur. Special attention will be given to air-sea-atmosphere
interactions using the MODIS SST fields and the LIS coupled
to WRF.
Technology and Visualization:
Northrop
Grumman Information Technology, GSFC, and Intel have
joined forces to deliver StormGrid, a unique computational
solution for NASA's tropical weather forecasting research.
Northrop Grumman IT, through its Business Integration Competency
Center (BICC) laboratory located at its Colshire facility in
McClean, VA, in collaboration with Intel, will provide a high
performance computing (HPC) capability designed to leverage
10 Gig optical network access and distributed data servers.
StormGrid will demonstrate a highly accessible on-demand HPC
solution for delivering services in support of NASA's "MAP
'06" tropical
cyclone prediction effort based on the GEOS-5 global forecast
model and the high resolution WRF regional forecast
model.
Northrop Grumman's StormGrid will provide an HPC system, a Linux cluster
consisting of 256 Itanium processors, capable of generating
terabytes of research data per day. This research data will
be seamlessly transferred back to NASA Goddard's scientific
data portal via the 10-40Gb/s National Lambda Rail ultrafast optical
network to Goddard as
it is produced. The StormGrid project will leverage Northrop
Grumman's internal research in lambda optical networks, distributed SAN's,
HPC, and grid computing systems. NASA will use the data from the model
runs to analyze hurricane formation with the goal of improving future
hurricane forecast systems. StormGrid will augment Agency computing resources
provided by the NASA
Center for Computational Sciences (NCCS) at Goddard and Project
Columbia at the NASA
Ames Research Center.
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