Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) - Pentad, Version 2.2

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National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — The Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) comprises a total of 27 products. The Version 2.2 Pentad product covers the period January 1979 to the present,...

A daytime climatological distribution of high opaque ice cloud classes over the Indian summer monsoon region observed from 25-year AVHRR data

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

A. Devasthale

2009-06-01

Full Text Available A daytime climatological spatio-temporal distribution of high opaque ice cloud (HOIC classes over the Indian subcontinent (0–40° N, 60° E–100° E is presented using 25-year data from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometers (AVHRRs for the summer monsoon months. The HOICs are important for regional radiative balance, precipitation and troposphere-stratosphere exchange. In this study, HOICs are sub-divided into three classes based on their cloud top brightness temperatures (BT. Class I represents very deep convection (BT<220 K. Class II represents deep convection (220 K<=BT<233 K and Class III background convection (233 K<=BT<253 K. Apart from presenting finest spatial resolution (0.1×0.1 degrees and long-term climatology of such cloud classes from AVHRRs to date, this study for the first time illustrates on (1 how these three cloud classes are climatologically distributed during monsoon months, and (2 how their distribution changes during active and break monsoon conditions. It is also investigated that how many deep convective clouds reach the tropopause layer during individual monsoon months. It is seen that Class I and Class II clouds dominate the Indian subcontinent during monsoon. The movement of monsoon over continent is very well reflected in these cloud classes. During monsoon breaks strong suppression of convective activity is observed over the Arabian Sea and the western coast of India. On the other hand, the presence of such convective activity is crucial for active monsoon conditions and all-India rainfall. It is found that a significant fraction of HOICs (3–5% reach the tropopause layer over the Bay of Bengal during June and over the north and northeast India during July and August. Many cases are observed when clouds penetrate the tropopause layer and reach the lower stratosphere. Such cases mostly occur during June compared to the other months.

Estimating total solar radiation in different climatological of region in Iran using cloud factor

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jafarpour, Kh.; Karshenas, M.

2002-01-01

Iran is among the countries located on the belt pertaining to lands with a high rate of solar insolation. Statistics shows that, for instance, the solar energy which hi ted the Iranian contention al land just in the year of 1990, was more than 1600 times that of the energy exported by Iran in the same year. This high rate of solar insolation, on the one hand and the limitation of fossil-fuel reservoirs (specially, utilizing energy from such sources is polluting the environment) on the other hand, show that harnessing the solar energy is not anymore a choice of decision but rather on obligation. To fulfill this obligation one needs solar insolation data to be able to design and evaluate solar energy utilizing systems and other uses under different climatological conditions of Iran. As a first step, this article provides total solar radiation data for various cities in Iran under different climatological conditions using cloud factor as a parameter

Global cloud database from VIRS and MODIS for CERES

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Minnis, Patrick; Young, David F.; Wielicki, Bruce A.; Sun-Mack, Sunny; Trepte, Qing Z.; Chen, Yan; Heck, Patrick W.; Dong, Xiquan

2003-04-01

The NASA CERES Project has developed a combined radiation and cloud property dataset using the CERES scanners and matched spectral data from high-resolution imagers, the Visible Infrared Scanner (VIRS) on the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on Terra and Aqua. The diurnal cycle can be well-characterized over most of the globe using the combinations of TRMM, Aqua, and Terra data. The cloud properties are derived from the imagers using state-of-the-art methods and include cloud fraction, height, optical depth, phase, effective particle size, emissivity, and ice or liquid water path. These cloud products are convolved into the matching CERES fields of view to provide simultaneous cloud and radiation data at an unprecedented accuracy. Results are available for at least 3 years of VIRS data and 1 year of Terra MODIS data. The various cloud products are compared with similar quantities from climatological sources and instantaneous active remote sensors. The cloud amounts are very similar to those from surface observer climatologies and are 6-7% less than those from a satellite-based climatology. Optical depths are 2-3 times smaller than those from the satellite climatology, but are within 5% of those from the surface remote sensing. Cloud droplet sizes and liquid water paths are within 10% of the surface results on average for stratus clouds. The VIRS and MODIS retrievals are very consistent with differences that usually can be explained by sampling, calibration, or resolution differences. The results should be extremely valuable for model validation and improvement and for improving our understanding of the relationship between clouds and the radiation budget.

A CERES-like Cloud Property Climatology Using AVHRR Data

Science.gov (United States)

Minnis, P.; Bedka, K. M.; Yost, C. R.; Trepte, Q.; Bedka, S. T.; Sun-Mack, S.; Doelling, D.

2015-12-01

Clouds affect the climate system by modulating the radiation budget and distributing precipitation. Variations in cloud patterns and properties are expected to accompany changes in climate. The NASA Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) Project developed an end-to-end analysis system to measure broadband radiances from a radiometer and retrieve cloud properties from collocated high-resolution MODerate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data to generate a long-term climate data record of clouds and clear-sky properties and top-of-atmosphere radiation budget. The first MODIS was not launched until 2000, so the current CERES record is only 15 years long at this point. The core of the algorithms used to retrieve the cloud properties from MODIS is based on the spectral complement of the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR), which has been aboard a string of satellites since 1978. The CERES cloud algorithms were adapted for application to AVHRR data and have been used to produce an ongoing CERES-like cloud property and surface temperature product that includes an initial narrowband-based radiation budget. This presentation will summarize this new product, which covers nearly 37 years, and its comparability with cloud parameters from CERES, CALIPSO, and other satellites. Examples of some applications of this dataset are given and the potential for generating a long-term radiation budget CDR is also discussed.

Partitioning the LIS/OTD Lightning Climatological Dataset into Separate Ground and Cloud Flash Distributions

Science.gov (United States)

Koshak, W. J.; Solarkiewicz, R. J.

2009-01-01

Presently, it is not well understood how to best model nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions from lightning because lightning is highly variable. Peak current, channel length, channel altitude, stroke multiplicity, and the number of flashes that occur in a particular region (i.e., flash density) all influence the amount of lightning NOx produced. Moreover, these 5 variables are not the same for ground and cloud flashes; e.g., cloud flashes normally have lower peak currents, higher altitudes, and higher flash densities than ground flashes [see (Koshak, 2009) for additional details]. Because the existing satellite observations of lightning (Fig. 1) from the Lightning Imaging Sensor/Optical Transient Detector (LIS/OTD) do not distinguish between ground and cloud fashes, which produce different amounts of NOx, it is very difficult to accurately account for the regional/global production of lightning NOx. Hence, the ability to partition the LIS/OTD lightning climatology into separate ground and cloud flash distributions would substantially benefit the atmospheric chemistry modeling community. NOx indirectly influences climate because it controls the concentration of ozone and hydroxyl radicals in the atmosphere. The importance of lightning-produced NOx is empasized throughout the scientific literature (see for example, Huntrieser et al. 1998). In fact, lightning is the most important NOx source in the upper troposphere with a global production rate estimated to vary between 2 and 20 Tg (N)yr(sup -1) (Lee et al., 1997), with more recent estimates of about 6 Tg(N)yr(sup -1) (Martin et al., 2007). In order to make accurate predictions, global chemistry/climate models (as well as regional air quality modells) must more accurately account for the effects of lightning NOx. In particular, the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) Model E (Schmidt et al., 2005) and the GEOS-CHEM global chemical transport model (Bey et al., 2001) would each benefit from a partitioning of the

A Climatology of Polar Stratospheric Cloud Types by MIPAS-Envisat

Science.gov (United States)

Spang, Reinhold; Hoffmann, Lars; Griessbach, Sabine; Orr, Andrew; Höpfner, Michael; Müller, Rolf

2015-04-01

For Chemistry Climate Models (CCM) it is still a challenging task to properly represent the evolution of the polar vortices over the entire winter season. The models usually do not include comprehensive microphysical modules to evolve the formation of different types of polar stratospheric clouds (PSC) over the winter. Consequently, predictions on the development and recovery of the future ozone hole have relatively large uncertainties. A climatological record of hemispheric measurement of PSC types could help to better validate and improve the PSC schemes in CCMs. The Michelson Interferometer for Passive Atmospheric Sounding (MIPAS) instrument onboard the ESA Envisat satellite operated from July 2002 to April 2012. The infra-red limb emission measurements compile a unique dataset of day and night measurements of polar stratospheric clouds up to the poles. From the spectral measurements in the 4.15-14.6 microns range it is possible to select a number of atmospheric window regions and spectral signatures to classify PSC cloud types like nitric acid hydrates, sulfuric ternary solution droplets, and ice particles. The cloud detection sensitivity is similar to space borne lidars, but MIPAS adds complementary information due to its different measurement technique (limb instead of nadir) and wavelength region. Here we will describe a new classification method for PSCs based on the combination of multiple brightness temperature differences (BTD) and colour ratios. Probability density functions (PDF) of the MIPAS measurements in conjunction with a database of radiative transfer model calculations of realistic PSC particle size distributions enable the definition of regions attributed to specific or mixed types clouds. Applying a naive bias classifier for independent criteria to all defined classes in four 2D PDF distributions, it is possible to assign the most likely PSC type to any measured cloud spectrum. Statistical Monte Carlo test have been applied to quantify

A climatology of polar stratospheric cloud composition between 2002 and 2012 based on MIPAS/Envisat observations

Science.gov (United States)

Spang, Reinhold; Hoffmann, Lars; Müller, Rolf; Grooß, Jens-Uwe; Tritscher, Ines; Höpfner, Michael; Pitts, Michael; Orr, Andrew; Riese, Martin

2018-04-01

The Michelson Interferometer for Passive Atmospheric Sounding (MIPAS) instrument aboard the European Space Agency (ESA) Envisat satellite operated from July 2002 to April 2012. The infrared limb emission measurements provide a unique dataset of day and night observations of polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs) up to both poles. A recent classification method for PSC types in infrared (IR) limb spectra using spectral measurements in different atmospheric window regions has been applied to the complete mission period of MIPAS. The method uses a simple probabilistic classifier based on Bayes' theorem with a strong independence assumption on a combination of a well-established two-colour ratio method and multiple 2-D probability density functions of brightness temperature differences. The Bayesian classifier distinguishes between solid particles of ice, nitric acid trihydrate (NAT), and liquid droplets of supercooled ternary solution (STS), as well as mixed types. A climatology of MIPAS PSC occurrence and specific PSC classes has been compiled. Comparisons with results from the classification scheme of the spaceborne lidar Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP) on the Cloud-Aerosol-Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO) satellite show excellent correspondence in the spatial and temporal evolution for the area of PSC coverage (APSC) even for each PSC class. Probability density functions of the PSC temperature, retrieved for each class with respect to equilibrium temperature of ice and based on coincident temperatures from meteorological reanalyses, are in accordance with the microphysical knowledge of the formation processes with respect to temperature for all three PSC types.This paper represents unprecedented pole-covering day- and nighttime climatology of the PSC distributions and their composition of different particle types. The dataset allows analyses on the temporal and spatial development of the PSC formation process over

A climatology of polar stratospheric cloud composition between 2002 and 2012 based on MIPAS/Envisat observations

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

R. Spang

2018-04-01

Full Text Available The Michelson Interferometer for Passive Atmospheric Sounding (MIPAS instrument aboard the European Space Agency (ESA Envisat satellite operated from July 2002 to April 2012. The infrared limb emission measurements provide a unique dataset of day and night observations of polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs up to both poles. A recent classification method for PSC types in infrared (IR limb spectra using spectral measurements in different atmospheric window regions has been applied to the complete mission period of MIPAS. The method uses a simple probabilistic classifier based on Bayes' theorem with a strong independence assumption on a combination of a well-established two-colour ratio method and multiple 2-D probability density functions of brightness temperature differences. The Bayesian classifier distinguishes between solid particles of ice, nitric acid trihydrate (NAT, and liquid droplets of supercooled ternary solution (STS, as well as mixed types. A climatology of MIPAS PSC occurrence and specific PSC classes has been compiled. Comparisons with results from the classification scheme of the spaceborne lidar Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP on the Cloud-Aerosol-Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO satellite show excellent correspondence in the spatial and temporal evolution for the area of PSC coverage (APSC even for each PSC class. Probability density functions of the PSC temperature, retrieved for each class with respect to equilibrium temperature of ice and based on coincident temperatures from meteorological reanalyses, are in accordance with the microphysical knowledge of the formation processes with respect to temperature for all three PSC types.This paper represents unprecedented pole-covering day- and nighttime climatology of the PSC distributions and their composition of different particle types. The dataset allows analyses on the temporal and spatial development of the PSC formation

Cloud radiative effects and changes simulated by the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 models

Science.gov (United States)

Shin, Sun-Hee; Kim, Ok-Yeon; Kim, Dongmin; Lee, Myong-In

2017-07-01

Using 32 CMIP5 (Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5) models, this study examines the veracity in the simulation of cloud amount and their radiative effects (CREs) in the historical run driven by observed external radiative forcing for 1850-2005, and their future changes in the RCP (Representative Concentration Pathway) 4.5 scenario runs for 2006-2100. Validation metrics for the historical run are designed to examine the accuracy in the representation of spatial patterns for climatological mean, and annual and interannual variations of clouds and CREs. The models show large spread in the simulation of cloud amounts, specifically in the low cloud amount. The observed relationship between cloud amount and the controlling large-scale environment are also reproduced diversely by various models. Based on the validation metrics, four models—ACCESS1.0, ACCESS1.3, HadGEM2-CC, and HadGEM2-ES—are selected as best models, and the average of the four models performs more skillfully than the multimodel ensemble average. All models project global-mean SST warming at the increase of the greenhouse gases, but the magnitude varies across the simulations between 1 and 2 K, which is largely attributable to the difference in the change of cloud amount and distribution. The models that simulate more SST warming show a greater increase in the net CRE due to reduced low cloud and increased incoming shortwave radiation, particularly over the regions of marine boundary layer in the subtropics. Selected best-performing models project a significant reduction in global-mean cloud amount of about -0.99% K-1 and net radiative warming of 0.46 W m-2 K-1, suggesting a role of positive feedback to global warming.

Thermal structure of intense convective clouds derived from GPS radio occultations

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Biondi, Riccardo; Randel, W. J.; Ho, S. -P.

2012-01-01

Thermal structure associated with deep convective clouds is investigated using Global Positioning System (GPS) radio occultation measurements. GPS data are insensitive to the presence of clouds, and provide high vertical resolution and high accuracy measurements to identify associated temperature...... behavior. Deep convective systems are identified using International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) satellite data, and cloud tops are accurately measured using Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIPSO) lidar observations; we focus on 53 cases of near-coincident GPS...

Thermal structure of intense convective clouds derived from GPS radio occultations

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Biondi, Riccardo; Randel, W. J.; Ho, S.-P.

2011-01-01

Thermal structure associated with deep convective clouds is investigated using Global Positioning System (GPS) radio occultation measurements. GPS data are insensitive to the presence of clouds, and provide high vertical resolution and high accuracy measurements to identify associated temperature...... behavior. Deep convective systems are identified using International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) satellite data, and cloud tops are accurately measured using Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIPSO) lidar observations; we focus on 53 cases of near-coincident GPS...

The Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) Combined Precipitation Dataset

Science.gov (United States)

Huffman, George J.; Adler, Robert F.; Arkin, Philip; Chang, Alfred; Ferraro, Ralph; Gruber, Arnold; Janowiak, John; McNab, Alan; Rudolf, Bruno; Schneider, Udo

1997-01-01

The Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) has released the GPCP Version 1 Combined Precipitation Data Set, a global, monthly precipitation dataset covering the period July 1987 through December 1995. The primary product in the dataset is a merged analysis incorporating precipitation estimates from low-orbit-satellite microwave data, geosynchronous-orbit -satellite infrared data, and rain gauge observations. The dataset also contains the individual input fields, a combination of the microwave and infrared satellite estimates, and error estimates for each field. The data are provided on 2.5 deg x 2.5 deg latitude-longitude global grids. Preliminary analyses show general agreement with prior studies of global precipitation and extends prior studies of El Nino-Southern Oscillation precipitation patterns. At the regional scale there are systematic differences with standard climatologies.

Determining Cloud Thermodynamic Phase from Micropulse Lidar Network Data

Science.gov (United States)

Lewis, Jasper R.; Campbell, James; Lolli, Simone; Tan, Ivy; Welton, Ellsworth J.

2017-01-01

Determining cloud thermodynamic phase is a critical factor in studies of Earth's radiation budget. Here we use observations from the NASA Micro Pulse Lidar Network (MPLNET) and thermodynamic profiles from the Goddard Earth Observing System, version 5 (GEOS-5) to distinguish liquid water, mixed-phase, and ice water clouds. The MPLNET provides sparse global, autonomous, and continuous measurements of clouds and aerosols which have been used in a number of scientific investigations to date. The use of a standardized instrument and a common suite of data processing algorithms with thorough uncertainty characterization allows for straightforward comparisons between sites. Lidars with polarization capabilities have recently been incorporated into the MPLNET project which allows, for the first time, the ability to infer a cloud thermodynamic phase. This presentation will look specifically at the occurrence of ice and mixed phase clouds in the temperature region of -10 C to -40 C for different climatological regions and seasons. We compare MPLNET occurrences of mixed-phase clouds to an historical climatology based on observations from the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP) instrument aboard the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO) spacecraft.

Estimating Climatological Bias Errors for the Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP)

Science.gov (United States)

Adler, Robert; Gu, Guojun; Huffman, George

2012-01-01

A procedure is described to estimate bias errors for mean precipitation by using multiple estimates from different algorithms, satellite sources, and merged products. The Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) monthly product is used as a base precipitation estimate, with other input products included when they are within +/- 50% of the GPCP estimates on a zonal-mean basis (ocean and land separately). The standard deviation s of the included products is then taken to be the estimated systematic, or bias, error. The results allow one to examine monthly climatologies and the annual climatology, producing maps of estimated bias errors, zonal-mean errors, and estimated errors over large areas such as ocean and land for both the tropics and the globe. For ocean areas, where there is the largest question as to absolute magnitude of precipitation, the analysis shows spatial variations in the estimated bias errors, indicating areas where one should have more or less confidence in the mean precipitation estimates. In the tropics, relative bias error estimates (s/m, where m is the mean precipitation) over the eastern Pacific Ocean are as large as 20%, as compared with 10%-15% in the western Pacific part of the ITCZ. An examination of latitudinal differences over ocean clearly shows an increase in estimated bias error at higher latitudes, reaching up to 50%. Over land, the error estimates also locate regions of potential problems in the tropics and larger cold-season errors at high latitudes that are due to snow. An empirical technique to area average the gridded errors (s) is described that allows one to make error estimates for arbitrary areas and for the tropics and the globe (land and ocean separately, and combined). Over the tropics this calculation leads to a relative error estimate for tropical land and ocean combined of 7%, which is considered to be an upper bound because of the lack of sign-of-the-error canceling when integrating over different areas with a

Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) Climate Data Record (CDR), Version 2.3 (Monthly)

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — The Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) consists of monthly satellite-gauge and associated precipitation error estimates and covers the period January...

Investigating a solar influence on cloud cover using the North American Regional Reanalysis data

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Krahenbuhl Daniel Scott

2015-01-01

Full Text Available The controversial connection between cosmic rays, solar activity, and cloud cover is investigated using a climatological reconstructed reanalysis product: the North American Regional Reanalysis which provides high-resolution, low, mid-level, high, and total cloud cover data over a Lambert conformal conic projection permitting land/ocean discrimination. Pearson’s product-moment regional correlations were obtained between monthly cloud cover data and solar variability indicators, cosmic ray neutron monitors, several climatological indices, including the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO, and between cloud layers. Regions of the mid-latitude oceans exhibited a positive correlation with cosmic ray flux. Additionally, this maritime low cloud cover exhibits the only failed correlation significance with other altitudes. The cross correlation reveals that cloud cover is positively correlated everywhere but for ocean low cloud cover, supporting the unique response of the marine layer. The results of this investigation suggest that with the assumption that solar forcing does impact cloud cover, measurements of solar activity exhibits a slightly higher correlation than GCRs. The only instance where GCRs exhibit a positive regional correlation with cloud cover is for maritime low clouds. The AMO exerts the greatest control of cloud cover in the NARR domain.

Cloud-to-ground lightning over Mexico and adjacent oceanic regions. A preliminary climatology using the WWLLN dataset

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kucienska, B.; Raga, G.B. [Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (Mexico). Centro de Ciencias de la Atmosfera; Rodriguez, O. [Instituto Mexicano de Tecnologia del Agua, Morelos (Mexico)

2010-07-01

This work constitutes the first climatological study of lightning over Mexico and adjacent oceanic areas for the period 2005-2009. Spatial and temporal distributions of cloud to ground lightning are presented and the processes that contribute to the lightning variability are analysed. The data are retrieved from theWorldWide Lightning Location Network (WWLLN) dataset. The current WWLL network includes 40 stations which cover much of the globe and detect very low frequency radiation (''spherics'') associated with lightning. The spatial distribution of the average yearly lightning over the continental region of Mexico shows the influence of orographic forcing in producing convective clouds with high lightning activity. However, a very high number of strikes is also observed in the States of Tabasco and Campeche, which are low-lying areas. This maximum is related to the climatological maximum of precipitation for the country and it may be associated with a region of persistent low-level convergence and convection in the southern portion of the Gulf of Mexico. The maps of correlation between rainfall and lightning provide insight into the microphysical processes occurring within the clouds. The maritime clouds close to the coastline exhibit similar properties to continental clouds as they produce very high lightning activity. The seasonal cycle of lightning registered by WWLLN is consistent with the LIS/OTD dataset for the selected regions. In terms of the annual distribution of cloud-to-ground strikes, July, August and September exhibit the highest number of strikes over continental Mexico. The diurnal cycle indicates that the maximum number of strikes over the continent is observed between 6 and 9 p.m. LT. The surrounding oceanic regions were subdivided into four distinct sectors: Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean, Subtropical Pacific and Tropical Pacific. The Gulf of Mexico has the broadest seasonal distribution, since during winter lightning associated

Experimental project - Cloud chamber

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nour, Elena; Quinchard, Gregory; Soudon, Paul

2015-01-01

This document reports an academic experimental project dealing with the general concepts of radioactivity and their application to the cloud room experiment. The author first recalls the history of the design and development of a cloud room, and some definitions and characteristics of cosmic radiation, and proposes a description of the principle and physics of a cloud room. The second part is a theoretical one, and addresses the involved particles, the origins of electrons, and issues related to the transfer of energy (Bremsstrahlung effect, Bragg peak). The third part reports the experimental work with the assessment of a cloud droplet radius, the identification of a trace for each particle (alphas and electrons), and the study of the magnetic field deviation

Derivation of Tropospheric Ozone Climatology and Trends from TOMS Data

Science.gov (United States)

Newchurch, Michael J.; McPeters, Rich; Logan, Jennifer; Kim, Jae-Hwan

2002-01-01

This research addresses the following three objectives: (1) Derive tropospheric ozone columns from the TOMS instruments by computing the difference between total-ozone columns over cloudy areas and over clear areas in the tropics; (2) Compute secular trends in Nimbus-7 derived tropospheric Ozone column amounts and associated potential trends in the decadal-scale tropical cloud climatology; (3) Explain the occurrence of anomalously high ozone retrievals over high ice clouds.

Constructing an AIRS Climatology for Data Visualization and Analysis to Serve the Climate Science and Application Communities

Science.gov (United States)

Ding, Feng; Keim, Elaine; Hearty, Thomas J.; Wei, Jennifer; Savtchenko, Andrey; Theobald, Michael; Vollmer, Bruce

2016-01-01

The NASA Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC) is the home of processing, archiving, and distribution services for NASA sounders: the present Aqua AIRS mission and the succeeding SNPP CrIS mission. The AIRS mission is entering its 15th year of global observations of the atmospheric state, including temperature and humidity profiles, outgoing longwave radiation, cloud properties, and trace gases. The GES DISC, in collaboration with the AIRS Project, released product from the version 6 algorithm in early 2013. Giovanni, a Web-based application developed by the GES DISC, provides a simple and intuitive way to visualize, analyze, and access vast amounts of Earth science remote sensing data without having to download the data. Most important variables from version 6 AIRS product are available in Giovanni. We are developing a climatology product using 14-year AIRS retrievals. The study can be a good start for the long term climatology from NASA sounders: the AIRS and the succeeding CrIS. This presentation will show the impacts to the climatology product from different aggregation methods. The climatology can serve climate science and application communities in data visualization and analysis, which will be demonstrated using a variety of functions in version 4 Giovanni. The highlights of these functions include user-defined monthly and seasonal climatology, inter annual seasonal time series, anomaly analysis.

GPM GROUND VALIDATION OKLAHOMA CLIMATOLOGICAL SURVEY MESONET MC3E V1

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — The GPM Ground Validation Oklahoma Climatological Survey Mesonet MC3E data were collected during the Midlatitude Continental Convective Clouds Experiment (MC3E) in...

Cloud cover over the equatorial eastern Pacific derived from July 1983 International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project data using a hybrid bispectral threshold method

Science.gov (United States)

Minnis, Patrick; Harrison, Edwin F.; Gibson, Gary G.

1987-01-01

A set of visible and IR data obtained with GOES from July 17-31, 1983 is analyzed using a modified version of the hybrid bispectral threshold method developed by Minnis and Harrison (1984). This methodology can be divided into a set of procedures or optional techniques to determine the proper contaminate clear-sky temperature or IR threshold. The various optional techniques are described; the options are: standard, low-temperature limit, high-reflectance limit, low-reflectance limit, coldest pixel and thermal adjustment limit, IR-only low-cloud temperature limit, IR clear-sky limit, and IR overcast limit. Variations in the cloud parameters and the characteristics and diurnal cycles of trade cumulus and stratocumulus clouds over the eastern equatorial Pacific are examined. It is noted that the new method produces substantial changes in about one third of the cloud amount retrieval; and low cloud retrievals are affected most by the new constraints.

Exploitation of cloud computing in management of construction projects in Slovakia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mandičák Tomáš

2016-12-01

Full Text Available The issue of cloud computing is a highly topical issue. Cloud computing represents a new model for information technology (IT services based on the exploitation of Web (it represents a cloud and other application platforms, as well as software as a service. In general, the exploitation of cloud computing in construction project management has several advantages, as demonstrated by several research reports. Currently, research quantifying the exploitation of cloud computing in the Slovak construction industry has not yet been carried out. The article discusses the issue of exploitation of cloud computing in construction project management in Slovakia. The main objective of the research is to confirm whether factors such as size of construction enterprise, owner of construction enterprise and participant of construction project have any impact on the exploitation level of cloud computing in construction project management. It includes confirmation of differences in use between different participants of the construction project or between construction enterprises broken down by size and shareholders.

16-year Climatology of Cirrus cloud properties using ground-based Lidar over Gadanki (13.45˚N, 79.18˚E)

Science.gov (United States)

Pandit, Amit Kumar; Raghunath, Karnam; Jayaraman, Achuthan; Venkat Ratnam, Madineni; Gadhavi, Harish

Cirrus clouds are ubiquitous high level cold clouds predominantly consisting of ice-crystals. With their highest coverage over the tropics, these are one of the most vital and complex components of Tropical Tropopause Layer (TTL) due to their strong radiative feedback and dehydration in upper troposphere and lower stratosphere (UTLS) regions. The continuous changes in their coverage, position, thickness, and ice-crystal size and shape distributions bring uncertainties in the estimates of cirrus cloud radiative forcing. Long-term changes in the distribution of aerosols and water vapour in the TTL can influence cirrus properties. This necessitates long-term studies of tropical cirrus clouds, which are only few. The present study provides 16-year climatology of physical and optical properties of cirrus clouds observed using a ground-based Lidar located at Gadanki (13.45(°) N, 79.18(°) ˚E and 375 m amsl) in south-India. In general, cirrus clouds occurred for about 44% of the total Lidar observation time. Owing to the increased convective activities, the occurrence of cirrus clouds during the southwest-monsoon season is highest while it is lowest during the winter. Altitude distribution of cirrus clouds reveals that the peak occurrence was about 25% at 14.5 km. The most probable base and top height of cirrus clouds are 14 and 15.5 km, respectively. This is also reflected in the bulk extinction coefficient profile (at 532 nm) of cirrus clouds. These results are compared with the CALIPSO observations. Most of the time cirrus clouds are located within the TTL bounded by convective outflow level and cold-point tropopause. Cirrus clouds are thick during the monsoon season as compared to that during winter. An inverse relation between the thickness of cirrus clouds and TTL thickness is found. The occurrence of cirrus clouds at an altitude close to the tropopause (16 km) showed an increase of 8.4% in the last 16 years. Base and top heights of cirrus clouds also showed

Challenges and opportunities of cloud computing for atmospheric sciences

Science.gov (United States)

Pérez Montes, Diego A.; Añel, Juan A.; Pena, Tomás F.; Wallom, David C. H.

2016-04-01

Cloud computing is an emerging technological solution widely used in many fields. Initially developed as a flexible way of managing peak demand it has began to make its way in scientific research. One of the greatest advantages of cloud computing for scientific research is independence of having access to a large cyberinfrastructure to fund or perform a research project. Cloud computing can avoid maintenance expenses for large supercomputers and has the potential to 'democratize' the access to high-performance computing, giving flexibility to funding bodies for allocating budgets for the computational costs associated with a project. Two of the most challenging problems in atmospheric sciences are computational cost and uncertainty in meteorological forecasting and climate projections. Both problems are closely related. Usually uncertainty can be reduced with the availability of computational resources to better reproduce a phenomenon or to perform a larger number of experiments. Here we expose results of the application of cloud computing resources for climate modeling using cloud computing infrastructures of three major vendors and two climate models. We show how the cloud infrastructure compares in performance to traditional supercomputers and how it provides the capability to complete experiments in shorter periods of time. The monetary cost associated is also analyzed. Finally we discuss the future potential of this technology for meteorological and climatological applications, both from the point of view of operational use and research.

Toward low-cloud-permitting cloud superparameterization with explicit boundary layer turbulence

Science.gov (United States)

Parishani, Hossein; Pritchard, Michael S.; Bretherton, Christopher S.; Wyant, Matthew C.; Khairoutdinov, Marat

2017-07-01

Systematic biases in the representation of boundary layer (BL) clouds are a leading source of uncertainty in climate projections. A variation on superparameterization (SP) called "ultraparameterization" (UP) is developed, in which the grid spacing of the cloud-resolving models (CRMs) is fine enough (250 × 20 m) to explicitly capture the BL turbulence, associated clouds, and entrainment in a global climate model capable of multiyear simulations. UP is implemented within the Community Atmosphere Model using 2° resolution (˜14,000 embedded CRMs) with one-moment microphysics. By using a small domain and mean-state acceleration, UP is computationally feasible today and promising for exascale computers. Short-duration global UP hindcasts are compared with SP and satellite observations of top-of-atmosphere radiation and cloud vertical structure. The most encouraging improvement is a deeper BL and more realistic vertical structure of subtropical stratocumulus (Sc) clouds, due to stronger vertical eddy motions that promote entrainment. Results from 90 day integrations show climatological errors that are competitive with SP, with a significant improvement in the diurnal cycle of offshore Sc liquid water. Ongoing concerns with the current UP implementation include a dim bias for near-coastal Sc that also occurs less prominently in SP and a bright bias over tropical continental deep convection zones. Nevertheless, UP makes global eddy-permitting simulation a feasible and interesting alternative to conventionally parameterized GCMs or SP-GCMs with turbulence parameterizations for studying BL cloud-climate and cloud-aerosol feedback.

The Version 2 Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) Monthly Precipitation Analysis (1979-Present)

Science.gov (United States)

Adler, Robert F.; Huffman, George J.; Chang, Alfred; Ferraro, Ralph; Xie, Ping-Ping; Janowiak, John; Rudolf, Bruno; Schneider, Udo; Curtis, Scott; Bolvin, David

2003-01-01

The Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) Version 2 Monthly Precipitation Analysis is described. This globally complete, monthly analysis of surface precipitation at 2.5 degrees x 2.5 degrees latitude-longitude resolution is available from January 1979 to the present. It is a merged analysis that incorporates precipitation estimates from low-orbit-satellite microwave data, geosynchronous-orbit-satellite infrared data, and rain gauge observations. The merging approach utilizes the higher accuracy of the low-orbit microwave observations to calibrate, or adjust, the more frequent geosynchronous infrared observations. The data set is extended back into the premicrowave era (before 1987) by using infrared-only observations calibrated to the microwave-based analysis of the later years. The combined satellite-based product is adjusted by the raingauge analysis. This monthly analysis is the foundation for the GPCP suite of products including those at finer temporal resolution, satellite estimate, and error estimates for each field. The 23-year GPCP climatology is characterized, along with time and space variations of precipitation.

Mesoscale to Synoptic Scale Cloud Variability

Science.gov (United States)

Rossow, William B.

1998-01-01

The atmospheric circulation and its interaction with the oceanic circulation involve non-linear and non-local exchanges of energy and water over a very large range of space and time scales. These exchanges are revealed, in part, by the related variations of clouds, which occur on a similar range of scales as the atmospheric motions that produce them. Collection of comprehensive measurements of the properties of the atmosphere, clouds and surface allows for diagnosis of some of these exchanges. The use of a multi-satellite-network approach by the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) comes closest to providing complete coverage of the relevant range space and time scales over which the clouds, atmosphere and ocean vary. A nearly 15-yr dataset is now available that covers the range from 3 hr and 30 km to decade and planetary. This paper considers three topics: (1) cloud variations at the smallest scales and how they may influence radiation-cloud interactions, and (2) cloud variations at "moderate" scales and how they may cause natural climate variability, and (3) cloud variations at the largest scales and how they affect the climate. The emphasis in this discussion is on the more mature subject of cloud-radiation interactions. There is now a need to begin similar detailed diagnostic studies of water exchange processes.

Improving Climate Projections by Understanding How Cloud Phase affects Radiation

Science.gov (United States)

Cesana, Gregory; Storelvmo, Trude

2017-01-01

Whether a cloud is predominantly water or ice strongly influences interactions between clouds and radiation coming down from the Sun or up from the Earth. Being able to simulate cloud phase transitions accurately in climate models based on observational data sets is critical in order to improve confidence in climate projections, because this uncertainty contributes greatly to the overall uncertainty associated with cloud-climate feedbacks. Ultimately, it translates into uncertainties in Earth's sensitivity to higher CO2 levels. While a lot of effort has recently been made toward constraining cloud phase in climate models, more remains to be done to document the radiative properties of clouds according to their phase. Here we discuss the added value of a new satellite data set that advances the field by providing estimates of the cloud radiative effect as a function of cloud phase and the implications for climate projections.

Evaluation of cloud prediction and determination of critical relative humidity for a mesoscale numerical weather prediction model

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Seaman, N.L.; Guo, Z.; Ackerman, T.P. [Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park, PA (United States)

1996-04-01

Predictions of cloud occurrence and vertical location from the Pennsylvannia State University/National Center for Atmospheric Research nonhydrostatic mesoscale model (MM5) were evaluated statistically using cloud observations obtained at Coffeyville, Kansas, as part of the Second International satellite Cloud Climatology Project Regional Experiment campaign. Seventeen cases were selected for simulation during a November-December 1991 field study. MM5 was used to produce two sets of 36-km simulations, one with and one without four-dimensional data assimilation (FDDA), and a set of 12-km simulations without FDDA, but nested within the 36-km FDDA runs.

An Examination of the Nature of Global MODIS Cloud Regimes

Science.gov (United States)

Oreopoulos, Lazaros; Cho, Nayeong; Lee, Dongmin; Kato, Seiji; Huffman, George J.

2014-01-01

We introduce global cloud regimes (previously also referred to as "weather states") derived from cloud retrievals that use measurements by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument aboard the Aqua and Terra satellites. The regimes are obtained by applying clustering analysis on joint histograms of retrieved cloud top pressure and cloud optical thickness. By employing a compositing approach on data sets from satellites and other sources, we examine regime structural and thermodynamical characteristics. We establish that the MODIS cloud regimes tend to form in distinct dynamical and thermodynamical environments and have diverse profiles of cloud fraction and water content. When compositing radiative fluxes from the Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System instrument and surface precipitation from the Global Precipitation Climatology Project, we find that regimes with a radiative warming effect on the atmosphere also produce the largest implied latent heat. Taken as a whole, the results of the study corroborate the usefulness of the cloud regime concept, reaffirm the fundamental nature of the regimes as appropriate building blocks for cloud system classification, clarify their association with standard cloud types, and underscore their distinct radiative and hydrological signatures.

A climatological study of sea breeze clouds in the southeast of the Iberian Peninsula (Alicante, Spain)

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Azorin-Molina, C. [Grupo de Climatologia, Universidad de Barcelona, Barcelona, Cataluna (Spain)]. E-mail: cazorin@ceam.es; Sanchez-Lorenzo, A. [Grupo de Climatologia, Universidad de Barcelona, Barcelona, Cataluna (Spain); Calbo, J. [Grupo de Fisica Ambiental, Universidad de Girona, Campus Montilivi, Cataluna (Spain)

2009-01-15

Sea breezes blow under anticyclonic weather types, weak surface pressure gradients, intense solar radiation and relatively cloud-free skies. Generally, total cloud cover must be less than 4/8 in order to cause a thermal and pressure difference between land and sea air which allows the development of this local wind circulation. However, many numerical and observational studies have analyzed the ability of sea breezes to generate clouds in the convective internal boundary layer and in the sea breeze convergence zone. Accordingly, the aim of this study is to statistically analyze the impact of sea breezes on cloud types in the convective internal boundary layer and in the sea breeze convergence zone. The study area is located in the southeast of the Iberian Peninsula (province of Alicante, Spain) and the survey corresponds to a 6-yr study period (2000-2005). This climatological study is mainly based on surface cloud observations at the Alicante-Ciudad Jardin station (central coastal plain) and on an extensive cloud observation field campaign at the Villena-Ciudad station (Prebetic mountain ranges) over a 3-yr study period (2003-2005). The results confirm the hypothesis that the effect of sea breezes on cloud genera is to increase the frequency of low (Stratus) and convective (Cumulus) clouds. Sea breezes trigger the formation of thunderstorm clouds (Cumulonimbus) at the sea breeze convergence zone, which also have a secondary impact on high-level (Cirrus, Cirrocumulus, Cirrostratus), medium-level (Altostratus, Altocumulus) and low-level clouds (Stratus, Stratocumulus, Nimbostratus) associated with the Cumulonimbus clouds (e.g., Cumulonimbus anvil). [Spanish] Las brisas marinas soplan bajo tipos de tiempo anticiclonicos, debiles gradientes de presion atmosferica, radiacion solar intensa y cielos practicamente despejados. Por lo general, la cobertura nubosa total debe ser inferior a 4/8 para que se genere un diferencial termico y de presion entre el aire sobre las

Eight Year Climatologies from Observational (AIRS) and Model (MERRA) Data

Science.gov (United States)

Hearty, Thomas; Savtchenko, Andrey; Won, Young-In; Theobalk, Mike; Vollmer, Bruce; Manning, Evan; Smith, Peter; Ostrenga, Dana; Leptoukh, Greg

2010-01-01

We examine climatologies derived from eight years of temperature, water vapor, cloud, and trace gas observations made by the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument flying on the Aqua satellite and compare them to similar climatologies constructed with data from a global assimilation model, the Modern Era Retrospective-Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA). We use the AIRS climatologies to examine anomalies and trends in the AIRS data record. Since sampling can be an issue for infrared satellites in low earth orbit, we also use the MERRA data to examine the AIRS sampling biases. By sampling the MERRA data at the AIRS space-time locations both with and without the AIRS quality control we estimate the sampling bias of the AIRS climatology and the atmospheric conditions where AIRS has a lower sampling rate. While the AIRS temperature and water vapor sampling biases are small at low latitudes, they can be more than a few degrees in temperature or 10 percent in water vapor at higher latitudes. The largest sampling biases are over desert. The AIRS and MERRA data are available from the Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC). The AIRS climatologies we used are available for analysis with the GIOVANNI data exploration tool. (see, http://disc.gsfc.nasa.gov).

Assessment of Global Cloud Datasets from Satellites: Project and Database Initiated by the GEWEX Radiation Panel

Science.gov (United States)

Stubenrauch, C. J.; Rossow, W. B.; Kinne, S.; Ackerman, S.; Cesana, G.; Chepfer, H.; Getzewich, B.; Di Girolamo, L.; Guignard, A.; Heidinger, A.;

Using Cloud-to-Ground Lightning Climatologies to Initialize Gridded Lightning Threat Forecasts for East Central Florida

Science.gov (United States)

Lambert, Winnie; Sharp, David; Spratt, Scott; Volkmer, Matthew

2005-01-01

Each morning, the forecasters at the National Weather Service in Melbourn, FL (NWS MLB) produce an experimental cloud-to-ground (CG) lightning threat index map for their county warning area (CWA) that is posted to their web site (http://www.srh.weather.gov/mlb/ghwo/lightning.shtml) . Given the hazardous nature of lightning in central Florida, especially during the warm season months of May-September, these maps help users factor the threat of lightning, relative to their location, into their daily plans. The maps are color-coded in five levels from Very Low to Extreme, with threat level definitions based on the probability of lightning occurrence and the expected amount of CG activity. On a day in which thunderstorms are expected, there are typically two or more threat levels depicted spatially across the CWA. The locations of relative lightning threat maxima and minima often depend on the position and orientation of the low-level ridge axis, forecast propagation and interaction of sea/lake/outflow boundaries, expected evolution of moisture and stability fields, and other factors that can influence the spatial distribution of thunderstorms over the CWA. The lightning threat index maps are issued for the 24-hour period beginning at 1200 UTC (0700 AM EST) each day with a grid resolution of 5 km x 5 km. Product preparation is performed on the AWIPS Graphical Forecast Editor (GFE), which is the standard NWS platform for graphical editing. Currently, the forecasters create each map manually, starting with a blank map. To improve efficiency of the forecast process, NWS MLB requested that the Applied Meteorology Unit (AMU) create gridded warm season lightning climatologies that could be used as first-guess inputs to initialize lightning threat index maps. The gridded values requested included CG strike densities and frequency of occurrence stratified by synoptic-scale flow regime. The intent is to increase consistency between forecasters while enabling them to focus on

Climatology analysis of cirrus cloud in ARM site: South Great Plain

Science.gov (United States)

Olayinka, K.

2017-12-01

Cirrus cloud play an important role in the atmospheric energy balance and hence in the earth's climate system. The properties of optically thin clouds can be determined from measurements of transmission of the direct solar beam. The accuracy of cloud optical properties determined in this way is compromised by contamination of the direct transmission by light that is scattered into the sensors field of view. With the forward scattering correction method developed by Min et al., (2004), the accuracy of thin cloud retrievals from MFRSR has been improved. Our result shows over 30% of cirrus cloud present in the atmosphere are within optical depth between (1-2). In this study, we do statistics studies on cirrus clouds properties based on multi-years cirrus cloud measurements from MFRSR at ARM site from the South Great Plain (SGP) site due to its relatively easy accessibility, wide variability of climate cloud types and surface flux properties, large seasonal variation in temperature and specific humidity. Through the statistic studies, temporal and spatial variations of cirrus clouds are investigated. Since the presence of cirrus cloud increases the effect of greenhouse gases, we will retrieve the aerosol optical depth in all the cirrus cloud regions using a radiative transfer model for atmospheric correction. Calculate thin clouds optical depth (COD), and aerosol optical depth (AOD) using a radiative transfer model algorithm, e.g.: MODTRAN (MODerate resolution atmospheric TRANsmission)

Variability in modeled cloud feedback tied to differences in the climatological spatial pattern of clouds

Science.gov (United States)

Siler, Nicholas; Po-Chedley, Stephen; Bretherton, Christopher S.

2018-02-01

Despite the increasing sophistication of climate models, the amount of surface warming expected from a doubling of atmospheric CO_2 (equilibrium climate sensitivity) remains stubbornly uncertain, in part because of differences in how models simulate the change in global albedo due to clouds (the shortwave cloud feedback). Here, model differences in the shortwave cloud feedback are found to be closely related to the spatial pattern of the cloud contribution to albedo (α) in simulations of the current climate: high-feedback models exhibit lower (higher) α in regions of warm (cool) sea-surface temperatures, and therefore predict a larger reduction in global-mean α as temperatures rise and warm regions expand. The spatial pattern of α is found to be strongly predictive (r=0.84) of a model's global cloud feedback, with satellite observations indicating a most-likely value of 0.58± 0.31 Wm^{-2} K^{-1} (90% confidence). This estimate is higher than the model-average cloud feedback of 0.43 Wm^{-2} K^{-1}, with half the range of uncertainty. The observational constraint on climate sensitivity is weaker but still significant, suggesting a likely value of 3.68 ± 1.30 K (90% confidence), which also favors the upper range of model estimates. These results suggest that uncertainty in model estimates of the global cloud feedback may be substantially reduced by ensuring a realistic distribution of clouds between regions of warm and cool SSTs in simulations of the current climate.

Climatology of surface ultraviolet-radiation in Valparaiso, Chile

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cordero, Raul R.; Roth, Pedro; Georgiev, Aleksandar; Silva, Luis da

2005-01-01

Despite the lack of long-term records, it is possible to describe many of the short term characteristics, dependencies and climatology of surface UV irradiance. This paper describes the climatology of on ground UV irradiance at Valparaiso (33.05 deg. S, 71.63 deg. W, sea level), Chile. The dependence of UV-B irradiance on ozone and on other climate variables is discussed with reference to our observations conducted during the last four years. Special attention was paid to detect 'ozone events' by surface UV irradiance measurements. By analyzing time series of the UV-B/UV-A ratio, we suppressed the cloud variability effect and detected events that implied ozone column changes of about 15%. According to our measurements, during the last four years, the ozone column over Valparaiso was not affected negatively by the Antarctic ozone hole phenomenon

An assessment of the quality of aerosol retrievals over the Red Sea and evaluation of the climatological cloud-free dust direct radiative effect in the region

KAUST Repository

Brindley, H.

2015-10-20

Ground-based and satellite observations are used in conjunction with the Rapid Radiative Transfer Model (RRTM) to assess climatological aerosol loading and the associated cloud-free aerosol direct radiative effect (DRE) over the Red Sea. Aerosol optical depth (AOD) retrievals from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer and Spinning Enhanced Visible and InfraRed Imager (SEVIRI) instruments are first evaluated via comparison with ship-based observations. Correlations are typically better than 0.9 with very small root-mean-square and bias differences. Calculations of the DRE along the ship cruises using RRTM also show good agreement with colocated estimates from the Geostationary Earth Radiation Budget instrument if the aerosol asymmetry parameter is adjusted to account for the presence of large particles. A monthly climatology of AOD over the Red Sea is then created from 5 years of SEVIRI retrievals. This shows enhanced aerosol loading and a distinct north to south gradient across the basin in the summer relative to the winter months. The climatology is used with RRTM to estimate the DRE at the top and bottom of the atmosphere and the atmospheric absorption due to dust aerosol. These climatological estimates indicate that although longwave effects can reach tens of W m−2, shortwave cooling typically dominates the net radiative effect over the Sea, being particularly pronounced in the summer, reaching 120 W m−2 at the surface. The spatial gradient in summertime AOD is reflected in the radiative effect at the surface and in associated differential heating by aerosol within the atmosphere above the Sea. This asymmetric effect is expected to exert a significant influence on the regional atmospheric and oceanic circulation.

An assessment of the quality of aerosol retrievals over the Red Sea and evaluation of the climatological cloud-free dust direct radiative effect in the region

KAUST Repository

Brindley, H.; Osipov, Sergey; Bantges, R.; Smirnov, A.; Banks, J.; Levy, R.; Jish Prakash, P.; Stenchikov, Georgiy L.

2015-01-01

Ground-based and satellite observations are used in conjunction with the Rapid Radiative Transfer Model (RRTM) to assess climatological aerosol loading and the associated cloud-free aerosol direct radiative effect (DRE) over the Red Sea. Aerosol optical depth (AOD) retrievals from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer and Spinning Enhanced Visible and InfraRed Imager (SEVIRI) instruments are first evaluated via comparison with ship-based observations. Correlations are typically better than 0.9 with very small root-mean-square and bias differences. Calculations of the DRE along the ship cruises using RRTM also show good agreement with colocated estimates from the Geostationary Earth Radiation Budget instrument if the aerosol asymmetry parameter is adjusted to account for the presence of large particles. A monthly climatology of AOD over the Red Sea is then created from 5 years of SEVIRI retrievals. This shows enhanced aerosol loading and a distinct north to south gradient across the basin in the summer relative to the winter months. The climatology is used with RRTM to estimate the DRE at the top and bottom of the atmosphere and the atmospheric absorption due to dust aerosol. These climatological estimates indicate that although longwave effects can reach tens of W m−2, shortwave cooling typically dominates the net radiative effect over the Sea, being particularly pronounced in the summer, reaching 120 W m−2 at the surface. The spatial gradient in summertime AOD is reflected in the radiative effect at the surface and in associated differential heating by aerosol within the atmosphere above the Sea. This asymmetric effect is expected to exert a significant influence on the regional atmospheric and oceanic circulation.

Quantifying the climatological cloud-free direct radiative forcing of aerosol over the Red Sea

KAUST Repository

Brindley, Helen

2015-04-01

A combination of ground-based and satellite observations are used, in conjunction with column radiative transfer modelling, to assess the climatological aerosol loading and quantify its corresponding cloud-free direct radiative forcing (DRF) over the Red Sea. While there have been campaigns designed to probe aerosol-climate interactions over much of the world, relatively little attention has been paid to this region. Because of the remoteness of the area, satellite retrievals provide a crucial tool for assessing aerosol loading over the Sea. However, agreement between aerosol properties inferred from measurements from different instruments, and even in some cases from the same measurements using different retrieval algorithms can be poor, particularly in the case of mineral dust. Ground based measurements which can be used to evaluate retrievals are thus highly desirable. Here we take advantage of ship-based sun-photometer micro-tops observations gathered from a series of cruises which took place across the Red Sea during 2011 and 2013. To our knowledge these data represent the first set of detailed aerosol measurements from the Sea. They thus provide a unique opportunity to assess the performance of satellite retrieval algorithms in this region. Initially two aerosol optical depth (AOD) retrieval algorithms developed for the MODerate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and Spinning Enhanced Visible and InfraRed Imager (SEVIRI) instruments are evaluated via comparison with the co-located cruise observations. These show excellent agreement, with correlations typically better than 0.9 and very small root-mean-square and bias differences. Calculations of radiative fluxes and DRF along one of the cruises using the observed aerosol and meteorological conditions also show good agreement with co-located estimates from the Geostationary Earth Radiation Budget (GERB) instrument if the aerosol asymmetry parameter is adjusted to account for the presence of large

The MJO Transition from Shallow to Deep Convection in CloudSat/CALIPSO Data and GISS GCM Simulations

Science.gov (United States)

DelGenio, Anthony G.; Chen, Yonghua; Kim, Daehyun; Yao, Mao-Sung

2013-01-01

The relationship between convective penetration depth and tropospheric humidity is central to recent theories of the Madden-Julian oscillation (MJO). It has been suggested that general circulation models (GCMs) poorly simulate the MJO because they fail to gradually moisten the troposphere by shallow convection and simulate a slow transition to deep convection. CloudSat and Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO) data are analyzed to document the variability of convection depth and its relation to water vapor during the MJO transition from shallow to deep convection and to constrain GCM cumulus parameterizations. Composites of cloud occurrence for 10MJO events show the following anticipatedMJO cloud structure: shallow and congestus clouds in advance of the peak, deep clouds near the peak, and upper-level anvils after the peak. Cirrus clouds are also frequent in advance of the peak. The Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for EarthObserving System (EOS) (AMSR-E) columnwater vapor (CWV) increases by;5 mmduring the shallow- deep transition phase, consistent with the idea of moisture preconditioning. Echo-top height of clouds rooted in the boundary layer increases sharply with CWV, with large variability in depth when CWV is between;46 and 68 mm. International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project cloud classifications reproduce these climatological relationships but correctly identify congestus-dominated scenes only about half the time. A version of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies Model E2 (GISS-E2) GCM with strengthened entrainment and rain evaporation that produces MJO-like variability also reproduces the shallow-deep convection transition, including the large variability of cloud-top height at intermediate CWV values. The variability is due to small grid-scale relative humidity and lapse rate anomalies for similar values of CWV. 1.

Impact of deforestation in the Amazon basin on cloud climatology.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Jingfeng; Chagnon, Frédéric J F; Williams, Earle R; Betts, Alan K; Renno, Nilton O; Machado, Luiz A T; Bisht, Gautam; Knox, Ryan; Bras, Rafael L

2009-03-10

Shallow clouds are prone to appear over deforested surfaces whereas deep clouds, much less frequent than shallow clouds, favor forested surfaces. Simultaneous atmospheric soundings at forest and pasture sites during the Rondonian Boundary Layer Experiment (RBLE-3) elucidate the physical mechanisms responsible for the observed correlation between clouds and land cover. We demonstrate that the atmospheric boundary layer over the forested areas is more unstable and characterized by larger values of the convective available potential energy (CAPE) due to greater humidity than that which is found over the deforested area. The shallow convection over the deforested areas is relatively more active than the deep convection over the forested areas. This greater activity results from a stronger lifting mechanism caused by mesoscale circulations driven by deforestation-induced heterogeneities in land cover.

Cloud Infrastructure & Applications - CloudIA

Science.gov (United States)

Sulistio, Anthony; Reich, Christoph; Doelitzscher, Frank

The idea behind Cloud Computing is to deliver Infrastructure-as-a-Services and Software-as-a-Service over the Internet on an easy pay-per-use business model. To harness the potentials of Cloud Computing for e-Learning and research purposes, and to small- and medium-sized enterprises, the Hochschule Furtwangen University establishes a new project, called Cloud Infrastructure & Applications (CloudIA). The CloudIA project is a market-oriented cloud infrastructure that leverages different virtualization technologies, by supporting Service-Level Agreements for various service offerings. This paper describes the CloudIA project in details and mentions our early experiences in building a private cloud using an existing infrastructure.

Evaluation results of the optimal estimation based, multi-sensor cloud property data sets derived from AVHRR heritage measurements in the Cloud_cci project.

Science.gov (United States)

Stapelberg, S.; Jerg, M.; Stengel, M.; Hollmann, R.

2014-12-01

In 2010 the ESA Climate Change Initiative (CCI) Cloud project was started with the objectives of generating a long-term coherent data set of cloud properties. The cloud properties considered are cloud mask, cloud top estimates, cloud optical thickness, cloud effective radius and post processed parameters such as cloud liquid and ice water path. During the first phase of the project 3 years of data spanning 2007 to 2009 have been produced on a global gridded daily and monthly mean basis. Next to the processing an extended evaluation study was started in order to gain a first understanding of the quality of the retrieved data. The critical discussion of the results of the evaluation holds a key role for the further development and improvement of the dataset's quality. The presentation will give a short overview of the evaluation study undertaken in the Cloud_cci project. The focus will be on the evaluation of gridded, monthly mean cloud fraction and cloud top data from the Cloud_cci AVHRR-heritage dataset with CLARA-A1, MODIS-Coll5, PATMOS-X and ISCCP data. Exemplary results will be shown. Strengths and shortcomings of the retrieval scheme as well as possible impacts of averaging approaches on the evaluation will be discussed. An Overview of Cloud_cci Phase 2 will be given.

NASA/Max Planck Institute Barium Ion Cloud Project.

Science.gov (United States)

Brence, W. A.; Carr, R. E.; Gerlach, J. C.; Neuss, H.

1973-01-01

NASA and the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE), Munich, Germany, conducted a cooperative experiment involving the release and study of a barium cloud at 31,500 km altitude near the equatorial plane. The release was made near local magnetic midnight on Sept. 21, 1971. The MPE-built spacecraft contained a canister of 16 kg of Ba CuO mixture, a two-axis magnetometer, and other payload instrumentation. The objectives of the experiment were to investigate the interaction of the ionized barium cloud with the ambient medium and to deduce the properties of electric fields in the proximity of the release. An overview of the project is given to briefly summarize the organization, responsibilities, objectives, instrumentation, and operational aspects of the project.

Banner clouds observed at Mount Zugspitze

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

V. Wirth

2012-04-01

Full Text Available Systematic observations of banner clouds at Mount Zugspitze in the Bavarian Alps are presented and discussed. One set of observations draws on daily time lapse movies, which were taken over several years at this mountain. Identifying banner clouds with the help of these movies and using simultaneous observations of standard variables at the summit of the mountain provides climatological information regarding the banner clouds. In addition, a week-long measurement campaign with an entire suite of instruments was carried through yielding a comprehensive set of data for two specific banner cloud events.

The duration of banner cloud events has a long-tailed distribution with a mean of about 40 min. The probability of occurrence has both a distinct diurnal and a distinct seasonal cycle, with a maximum in the afternoon and in the warm season, respectively. These cycles appear to correspond closely to analogous cycles of relative humidity, which maximize in the late afternoon and during the warm season. In addition, the dependence of banner cloud occurrence on wind speed is weak. Both results suggest that moisture conditions are a key factor for banner cloud occurrence. The distribution of wind direction during banner cloud events slightly deviates from climatology, suggesting an influence from the specific Zugspitz orography.

The two banner cloud events during the campaign have a number of common features: the windward and the leeward side are characterized by different wind regimes, however, with mean upward flow on both sides; the leeward air is both moister and warmer than the windward air; the background atmosphere has an inversion just above the summit of Mt. Zugspitze; the lifting condensation level increases with altitude. The results are discussed, and it is argued that they are consistent with previous Large Eddy Simulations using idealized orography.

The NEWS Water Cycle Climatology

Science.gov (United States)

Rodell, M.; Beaudoing, H. K.; L'Ecuyer, T.; Olson, W. S.

2012-12-01

NASA's Energy and Water Cycle Study (NEWS) program fosters collaborative research towards improved quantification and prediction of water and energy cycle consequences of climate change. In order to measure change, it is first necessary to describe current conditions. The goal of the first phase of the NEWS Water and Energy Cycle Climatology project was to develop "state of the global water cycle" and "state of the global energy cycle" assessments based on data from modern ground and space based observing systems and data integrating models. The project was a multi-institutional collaboration with more than 20 active contributors. This presentation will describe the results of the water cycle component of the first phase of the project, which include seasonal (monthly) climatologies of water fluxes over land, ocean, and atmosphere at continental and ocean basin scales. The requirement of closure of the water budget (i.e., mass conservation) at various scales was exploited to constrain the flux estimates via an optimization approach that will also be described. Further, error assessments were included with the input datasets, and we examine these in relation to inferred uncertainty in the optimized flux estimates in order to gauge our current ability to close the water budget within an expected uncertainty range.

The NEWS Water Cycle Climatology

Science.gov (United States)

Rodell, Matthew; Beaudoing, Hiroko Kato; L'Ecuyer, Tristan; William, Olson

2012-01-01

NASA's Energy and Water Cycle Study (NEWS) program fosters collaborative research towards improved quantification and prediction of water and energy cycle consequences of climate change. In order to measure change, it is first necessary to describe current conditions. The goal of the first phase of the NEWS Water and Energy Cycle Climatology project was to develop "state of the global water cycle" and "state of the global energy cycle" assessments based on data from modern ground and space based observing systems and data integrating models. The project was a multi-institutional collaboration with more than 20 active contributors. This presentation will describe the results of the water cycle component of the first phase of the project, which include seasonal (monthly) climatologies of water fluxes over land, ocean, and atmosphere at continental and ocean basin scales. The requirement of closure of the water budget (i.e., mass conservation) at various scales was exploited to constrain the flux estimates via an optimization approach that will also be described. Further, error assessments were included with the input datasets, and we examine these in relation to inferred uncertainty in the optimized flux estimates in order to gauge our current ability to close the water budget within an expected uncertainty range.

Tropical cloud and precipitation regimes as seen from near-simultaneous TRMM, CloudSat, and CALIPSO observations and comparison with ISCCP

Science.gov (United States)

Luo, Zhengzhao Johnny; Anderson, Ricardo C.; Rossow, William B.; Takahashi, Hanii

2017-06-01

Although Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) and CloudSat/CALIPSO fly in different orbits, they frequently cross each other so that for the period between 2006 and 2010, a total of 15,986 intersect lines occurred within 20 min of each other from 30°S to 30°N, providing a rare opportunity to study tropical cloud and precipitation regimes and their internal vertical structure from near-simultaneous measurements by these active sensors. A k-means cluster analysis of TRMM and CloudSat matchups identifies three tropical cloud and precipitation regimes: the first two regimes correspond to, respectively, organized deep convection with heavy rain and cirrus anvils with moderate rain; the third regime is a convectively suppressed regime that can be further divided into three subregimes, which correspond to, respectively, stratocumulus clouds with drizzle, cirrus overlying low clouds, and nonprecipitating cumulus. Inclusion of CALIPSO data adds to the dynamic range of cloud properties and identifies one more cluster; subcluster analysis further identifies a thin, midlevel cloud regime associated with tropical mountain ranges. The radar-lidar cloud regimes are compared with the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) weather states (WSs) for the extended tropics. Focus is placed on the four convectively active WSs, namely, WS1-WS4. ISCCP WS1 and WS2 are found to be counterparts of Regime 1 and Regime 2 in radar-lidar observations, respectively. ISCCP WS3 and WS4, which are mainly isolated convection and broken, detached cirrus, do not have a strong association with any individual radar and lidar regimes, a likely effect of the different sampling strategies between ISCCP and active sensors and patchy cloudiness of these WSs.

Evaluation of the MiKlip decadal prediction system using satellite based cloud products

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Thomas Spangehl

2016-12-01

Full Text Available The decadal hindcast simulations performed for the Mittelfristige Klimaprognosen (MiKlip project are evaluated using satellite-retrieved cloud parameters from the CM SAF cLoud, Albedo and RAdiation dataset from AVHRR data (CLARA-A1 provided by the EUMETSAT Satellite Application Facility on Climate Monitoring (CM SAF and from the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP. The forecast quality of two sets of hindcasts, Baseline-1-LR and Baseline-0, which use differing initialisations, is assessed. Basic evaluation focuses on multi-year ensemble mean fields and cloud-type histograms utilizing satellite simulator output. Additionally, ensemble evaluation employing analysis of variance (ANOVA, analysis rank histograms (ARH and a deterministic correlation score is performed. Satellite simulator output is available for a subset of the full hindcast ensembles only. Therefore, the raw model cloud cover is complementary used. The new Baseline-1-LR hindcasts are closer to satellite data with respect to the simulated tropical/subtropical mean cloud cover pattern than the reference hindcasts (Baseline-0 emphasizing improvements of the new MiKlip initialisation procedure. A slightly overestimated occurrence rate of optically thick cloud-types is analysed for different experiments including hindcasts and simulations using realistic sea surface boundaries according to the Atmospheric Model Intercomparison Project (AMIP. By contrast, the evaluation of cirrus and cirrostratus clouds is complicated by observational based uncertainties. Time series of the 3-year mean total cloud cover averaged over the tropical warm pool (TWP region show some correlation with the CLARA-A1 cloud fractional cover. Moreover, ensemble evaluation of the Baseline-1-LR hindcasts reveals potential predictability of the 2–5 lead year averaged total cloud cover for a large part of this region when regarding the full observational period. However, the hindcasts show only

Life in the clouds: are tropical montane cloud forests responding to changes in climate?

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Hu, Jia; Riveros-Iregui, Diego A

2016-04-01

The humid tropics represent only one example of the many places worldwide where anthropogenic disturbance and climate change are quickly affecting the feedbacks between water and trees. In this article, we address the need for a more long-term perspective on the effects of climate change on tropical montane cloud forests (TMCF) in order to fully assess the combined vulnerability and long-term response of tropical trees to changes in precipitation regimes, including cloud immersion. We first review the ecophysiological benefits that cloud water interception offers to trees in TMCF and then examine current climatological evidence that suggests changes in cloud base height and impending changes in cloud immersion for TMCF. Finally, we propose an experimental approach to examine the long-term dynamics of tropical trees in TMCF in response to environmental conditions on decade-to-century time scales. This information is important to assess the vulnerability and long-term response of TMCF to changes in cloud cover and fog frequency and duration.

Relating tropical ocean clouds to moist processes using water vapor isotope measurements

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

J. Lee

2011-01-01

Full Text Available We examine the co-variations of tropospheric water vapor, its isotopic composition and cloud types and relate these distributions to tropospheric mixing and distillation models using satellite observations from the Aura Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer (TES over the summertime tropical ocean. Interpretation of these process distributions must take into account the sensitivity of the TES isotope and water vapor measurements to variations in cloud, water, and temperature amount. Consequently, comparisons are made between cloud-types based on the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISSCP classification; these are clear sky, non-precipitating (e.g., cumulus, boundary layer (e.g., stratocumulus, and precipitating clouds (e.g. regions of deep convection. In general, we find that the free tropospheric vapor over tropical oceans does not strictly follow a Rayleigh model in which air parcels become dry and isotopically depleted through condensation. Instead, mixing processes related to convection as well as subsidence, and re-evaporation of rainfall associated with organized deep convection all play significant roles in controlling the water vapor distribution. The relative role of these moisture processes are examined for different tropical oceanic regions.

A Climatology of Midlatitude Continental Clouds from the ARM SGP Site. Part II; Cloud Fraction and Surface Radiative Forcing

Science.gov (United States)

Xi, B.; Minnis, P.

2006-01-01

Data collected at the Department of Energy Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Southern Great Plains (SGP) Central Facility (SCF) are analyzed to determine the monthly and hourly variations of cloud fraction and radiative forcing between January 1997 and December 2002. Cloud fractions are estimated for total cloud cover and for single-layered low (0-3 km), middle (3-6 km), and high clouds (more than 6 km) using ARM SCG ground-based paired lidar-radar measurements. Shortwave (SW) and longwave (LW) fluxes are derived from up- and down-looking standard precision spectral pyranometers and precision infrared radiometer measurements with uncertainties of approximately 10 Wm(exp -2). The annual averages of total, and single-layered low, middle and high cloud fractions are 0.49, 0.11, 0.03, and 0.17, respectively. Both total and low cloud amounts peak during January and February and reach a minimum during July and August, high clouds occur more frequently than other types of clouds with a peak in summer. The average annual downwelling surface SW fluxes for total and low clouds (151 and 138 Wm(exp-2), respectively) are less than those under middle and high clouds (188 and 201 Wm(exp -2), respectively), but the downwelling LW fluxes (349 and 356 Wm(exp -2)) underneath total and low clouds are greater than those from middle and high clouds (337 and 333 Wm(exp -2)). Low clouds produce the largest LW warming (55 Wm(exp -2) and SW cooling (-91 Wm(exp -2)) effects with maximum and minimum absolute values in spring and summer, respectively. High clouds have the smallest LW warming (17 Wm(exp -2)) and SW cooling (-37 Wm(exp -2)) effects at the surface. All-sky SW CRF decreases and LW CRF increases with increasing cloud fraction with mean slopes of -0.984 and 0.616 Wm(exp -2)%(exp -1), respectively. Over the entire diurnal cycle, clouds deplete the amount of surface insolation more than they add to the downwelling LW flux. The calculated CRFs do not appear to be significantly

NEWS Climatology Project: The State of the Water Cycle at Continental to Global Scales

Science.gov (United States)

Rodell, Matthew; LEcuyer, Tristan; Beaudoing, Hiroko Kato; Olson, Bill

2011-01-01

NASA's Energy and Water Cycle Study (NEWS) program fosters collaborative research towards improved quantification and prediction of water and energy cycle consequences of climate change. In order to measure change, it is first necessary to describe current conditions. The goal of the NEWS Water and Energy Cycle Climatology project is to develop "state of the global water cycle" and "state of the global energy cycle" assessments based on data from modern ground and space based observing systems and data integrating models. The project is a multiinstitutional collaboration with more than 20 active contributors. This presentation will describe results of the first stage of the water budget analysis, whose goal was to characterize the current state of the water cycle on mean monthly, continental scales. We examine our success in closing the water budget within the expected uncertainty range and the effects of forcing budget closure as a method for refining individual flux estimates.

A Climatology of Midlatitude Continental Clouds from the ARM SGP Central Facility. Part II; Cloud Fraction and Radiative Forcing

Science.gov (United States)

Dong, Xiquan; Xi, Baike; Minnis, Patrick

2006-01-01

Data collected at the Department of Energy Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Southern Great Plains (SGP) central facility are analyzed for determining the variability of cloud fraction and radiative forcing at several temporal scales between January 1997 and December 2002. Cloud fractions are estimated for total cloud cover and for single-layer low (0-3 km), middle (3-6 km), and high clouds (greater than 6 km) using ARM SGP ground-based paired lidar-radar measurements. Shortwave (SW), longwave (LW), and net cloud radiative forcings (CRF) are derived from up- and down-looking standard precision spectral pyranometers and precision infrared radiometer measurements. The annual averages of total, and single-layer, nonoverlapped low, middle and high cloud fractions are 0.49, 0.11, 0.03, and 0.17, respectively. Total and low cloud amounts were greatest from December through March and least during July and August. The monthly variation of high cloud amount is relatively small with a broad maximum from May to August. During winter, total cloud cover varies diurnally with a small amplitude, mid-morning maximum and early evening minimum, and during summer it changes by more than 0.14 over the daily cycle with a pronounced early evening minimum. The diurnal variations of mean single-layer cloud cover change with season and cloud height. Annual averages of all-sky, total, and single-layer high, middle, and low LW CRFs are 21.4, 40.2, 16.7, 27.2, and 55.0 Wm(sup -2), respectively; and their SW CRFs are -41.5, -77.2, -37.0, -47.0, and -90.5 Wm(sup -2). Their net CRFs range from -20 to -37 Wm(sup -2). For all-sky, total, and low clouds, the maximum negative net CRFs of -40.1, -70, and -69.5 Wm(sup -2), occur during April; while the respective minimum values of -3.9, -5.7, and -4.6 Wm(sup -2), are found during December. July is the month having maximum negative net CRF of -46.2 Wm(sup -2) for middle clouds, and May has the maximum value of -45.9 Wm(sup -2) for high clouds. An

Regional and applied climatology-contributions

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Endlicher, W.; Gossmann, H.

1991-01-01

The first three articles of this book, which is dedicated to Wolfgang Weischet, are closely related to his work on unban climatology: - A comprehensive research programme on urban climatology for the example of a medium-sized Swiss town; - A wind tunnel test in preparation of a large-scale urban construction project; - Modelling of human thermal comfort in different urban environments on the basis of comprehensive data sets of geofactors. At the same time, they provide a survey of the status and methods of modern urban climate research. The second group of contributions comprises texts which discuss the effects of individual climate elements in the biosphere and pedosphere. The third group consists of two contributions on the stability of tropical environments. Both of them discuss the semiarid regions of northern Kenia. Finally, there is a group of contributions stimulated and influenced by W. Weischet's work in Latin America. (orig./KW) [de

The Cloud2SM Project

Science.gov (United States)

Crinière, Antoine; Dumoulin, Jean; Mevel, Laurent; Andrade-Barosso, Guillermo; Simonin, Matthieu

2015-04-01

From the past decades the monitoring of civil engineering structure became a major field of research and development process in the domains of modelling and integrated instrumentation. This increasing of interest can be attributed in part to the need of controlling the aging of such structures and on the other hand to the need to optimize maintenance costs. From this standpoint the project Cloud2SM (Cloud architecture design for Structural Monitoring with in-line Sensors and Models tasking), has been launched to develop a robust information system able to assess the long term monitoring of civil engineering structures as well as interfacing various sensors and data. The specificity of such architecture is to be based on the notion of data processing through physical or statistical models. Thus the data processing, whether material or mathematical, can be seen here as a resource of the main architecture. The project can be divided in various items: -The sensors and their measurement process: Those items provide data to the main architecture and can embed storage or computational resources. Dependent of onboard capacity and the amount of data generated it can be distinguished heavy and light sensors. - The storage resources: Based on the cloud concept this resource can store at least two types of data, raw data and processed ones. - The computational resources: This item includes embedded "pseudo real time" resources as the dedicated computer cluster or computational resources. - The models: Used for the conversion of raw data to meaningful data. Those types of resources inform the system of their needs they can be seen as independents blocks of the system. - The user interface: This item can be divided in various HMI to assess maintaining operation on the sensors or pop-up some information to the user. - The demonstrators: The structures themselves. This project follows previous research works initiated in the European project ISTIMES [1]. It includes the infrared

A Climatology of Surface Cloud Radiative Effects at the ARM Tropical Western Pacific Sites

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

McFarlane, Sally A.; Long, Charles N.; Flaherty, Julia E.

2013-04-01

Cloud radiative effects on surface downwelling fluxes are investigated using long-term datasets from the three Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) sites in the Tropical Western Pacific (TWP) region. The Nauru and Darwin sites show significant variability in sky cover, downwelling radiative fluxes, and surface cloud radiative effect (CRE) due to El Niño and the Australian monsoon, respectively, while the Manus site shows little intra-seasonal or interannual variability. Cloud radar measurement of cloud base and top heights are used to define cloud types so that the effect of cloud type on the surface CRE can be examined. Clouds with low bases contribute 71-75% of the surface shortwave (SW) CRE and 66-74% of the surface longwave (LW) CRE at the three TWP sites, while clouds with mid-level bases contribute 8-9% of the SW CRE and 12-14% of the LW CRE, and clouds with high bases contribute 16-19% of the SW CRE and 15-21% of the LW CRE.

Climatology

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Schoenwiese, C.D.

1994-01-01

Climatology is an important field of continuing interest in nearly all fields of science and beyond. In view of this interdisciplinary role, the textbook gives an accurate and intelligible introduction to the fundamentals and modern aspects of general climatology. It covers the basic concepts of climate elements, the physical processes, atmospheric circulation and further components of the ''climate system'' (ocean, ice, continents), as well as an explanation of the observed field characteristics of the climate, problems of climate modelling fundamentals of bioclimatology, and, last but not least, key aspects of climate history and anthropogenic effects on climate. (orig.) [de

Using MODIS Cloud Regimes to Sort Diagnostic Signals of Aerosol-Cloud-Precipitation Interactions.

Science.gov (United States)

Oreopoulos, Lazaros; Cho, Nayeong; Lee, Dongmin

2017-05-27

Coincident multi-year measurements of aerosol, cloud, precipitation and radiation at near-global scales are analyzed to diagnose their apparent relationships as suggestive of interactions previously proposed based on theoretical, observational, and model constructs. Specifically, we examine whether differences in aerosol loading in separate observations go along with consistently different precipitation, cloud properties, and cloud radiative effects. Our analysis uses a cloud regime (CR) framework to dissect and sort the results. The CRs come from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) sensor and are defined as distinct groups of cloud systems with similar co-variations of cloud top pressure and cloud optical thickness. Aerosol optical depth used as proxy for aerosol loading comes from two sources, MODIS observations, and the MERRA-2 re-analysis, and its variability is defined with respect to local seasonal climatologies. The choice of aerosol dataset impacts our results substantially. We also find that the responses of the marine and continental component of a CR are frequently quite disparate. Overall, CRs dominated by warm clouds tend to exhibit less ambiguous signals, but also have more uncertainty with regard to precipitation changes. Finally, we find weak, but occasionally systematic co-variations of select meteorological indicators and aerosol, which serves as a sober reminder that ascribing changes in cloud and cloud-affected variables solely to aerosol variations is precarious.

Cloud Classification in Wide-Swath Passive Sensor Images Aided by Narrow-Swath Active Sensor Data

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hongxia Wang

2018-05-01

Full Text Available It is a challenge to distinguish between different cloud types because of the complexity and diversity of cloud coverage, which is a significant clutter source that impacts on target detection and identification from the images of space-based infrared sensors. In this paper, a novel strategy for cloud classification in wide-swath passive sensor images is developed, which is aided by narrow-swath active sensor data. The strategy consists of three steps, that is, the orbit registration, most matching donor pixel selection, and cloud type assignment for each recipient pixel. A new criterion for orbit registration is proposed so as to improve the matching accuracy. The most matching donor pixel is selected via the Euclidean distance and the square sum of the radiance relative differences between the recipient and the potential donor pixels. Each recipient pixel is then assigned a cloud type that corresponds to the most matching donor. The cloud classification of the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS images is performed with the aid of the data from Cloud Profiling Radar (CPR. The results are compared with the CloudSat product 2B-CLDCLASS, as well as those that are obtained using the method of the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP, which demonstrates the superior classification performance of the proposed strategy.

The application of time series models to cloud field morphology analysis

Science.gov (United States)

Chin, Roland T.; Jau, Jack Y. C.; Weinman, James A.

1987-01-01

A modeling method for the quantitative description of remotely sensed cloud field images is presented. A two-dimensional texture modeling scheme based on one-dimensional time series procedures is adopted for this purpose. The time series procedure used is the seasonal autoregressive, moving average (ARMA) process in Box and Jenkins. Cloud field properties such as directionality, clustering and cloud coverage can be retrieved by this method. It has been demonstrated that a cloud field image can be quantitatively defined by a small set of parameters and synthesized surrogates can be reconstructed from these model parameters. This method enables cloud climatology to be studied quantitatively.

Accounting for the Effects of Surface BRDF on Satellite Cloud and Trace-Gas Retrievals: A New Approach Based on Geometry-Dependent Lambertian-Equivalent Reflectivity Applied to OMI Algorithms

Science.gov (United States)

Vasilkov, Alexander; Qin, Wenhan; Krotkov, Nickolay; Lamsal, Lok; Spurr, Robert; Haffner, David; Joiner, Joanna; Yang, Eun-Su; Marchenko, Sergey

2017-01-01

Most satellite nadir ultraviolet and visible cloud, aerosol, and trace-gas algorithms make use of climatological surface reflectivity databases. For example, cloud and NO2 retrievals for the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) use monthly gridded surface reflectivity climatologies that do not depend upon the observation geometry. In reality, reflection of incoming direct and diffuse solar light from land or ocean surfaces is sensitive to the sun-sensor geometry. This dependence is described by the bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF). To account for the BRDF, we propose to use a new concept of geometry-dependent Lambertian equivalent reflectivity (LER). Implementation within the existing OMI cloud and NO2 retrieval infrastructure requires changes only to the input surface reflectivity database. The geometry-dependent LER is calculated using a vector radiative transfer model with high spatial resolution BRDF information from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) over land and the Cox-Munk slope distribution over ocean with a contribution from water-leaving radiance. We compare the geometry-dependent and climatological LERs for two wavelengths, 354 and 466 nm, that are used in OMI cloud algorithms to derive cloud fractions. A detailed comparison of the cloud fractions and pressures derived with climatological and geometry-dependent LERs is carried out. Geometry-dependent LER and corresponding retrieved cloud products are then used as inputs to our OMI NO2 algorithm. We find that replacing the climatological OMI-based LERs with geometry-dependent LERs can increase NO2 vertical columns by up to 50% in highly polluted areas; the differences include both BRDF effects and biases between the MODIS and OMI-based surface reflectance data sets. Only minor changes to NO2 columns (within 5 %) are found over unpolluted and overcast areas.

Accounting for the effects of surface BRDF on satellite cloud and trace-gas retrievals: a new approach based on geometry-dependent Lambertian equivalent reflectivity applied to OMI algorithms

Science.gov (United States)

Vasilkov, Alexander; Qin, Wenhan; Krotkov, Nickolay; Lamsal, Lok; Spurr, Robert; Haffner, David; Joiner, Joanna; Yang, Eun-Su; Marchenko, Sergey

2017-01-01

Most satellite nadir ultraviolet and visible cloud, aerosol, and trace-gas algorithms make use of climatological surface reflectivity databases. For example, cloud and NO2 retrievals for the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) use monthly gridded surface reflectivity climatologies that do not depend upon the observation geometry. In reality, reflection of incoming direct and diffuse solar light from land or ocean surfaces is sensitive to the sun-sensor geometry. This dependence is described by the bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF). To account for the BRDF, we propose to use a new concept of geometry-dependent Lambertian equivalent reflectivity (LER). Implementation within the existing OMI cloud and NO2 retrieval infrastructure requires changes only to the input surface reflectivity database. The geometry-dependent LER is calculated using a vector radiative transfer model with high spatial resolution BRDF information from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) over land and the Cox-Munk slope distribution over ocean with a contribution from water-leaving radiance. We compare the geometry-dependent and climatological LERs for two wavelengths, 354 and 466 nm, that are used in OMI cloud algorithms to derive cloud fractions. A detailed comparison of the cloud fractions and pressures derived with climatological and geometry-dependent LERs is carried out. Geometry-dependent LER and corresponding retrieved cloud products are then used as inputs to our OMI NO2 algorithm. We find that replacing the climatological OMI-based LERs with geometry-dependent LERs can increase NO2 vertical columns by up to 50 % in highly polluted areas; the differences include both BRDF effects and biases between the MODIS and OMI-based surface reflectance data sets. Only minor changes to NO2 columns (within 5 %) are found over unpolluted and overcast areas.

Double-moment cloud microphysics scheme for the deep convection parameterization in the GFDL AM3

Science.gov (United States)

Belochitski, A.; Donner, L.

2014-12-01

A double-moment cloud microphysical scheme originally developed by Morrision and Gettelman (2008) for the stratiform clouds and later adopted for the deep convection by Song and Zhang (2011) has been implemented in to the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory's atmospheric general circulation model AM3. The scheme treats cloud drop, cloud ice, rain, and snow number concentrations and mixing ratios as diagnostic variables and incorporates processes of autoconversion, self-collection, collection between hydrometeor species, sedimentation, ice nucleation, drop activation, homogeneous and heterogeneous freezing, and the Bergeron-Findeisen process. Such detailed representation of microphysical processes makes the scheme suitable for studying the interactions between aerosols and convection, as well as aerosols' indirect effects on clouds and their roles in climate change. The scheme is first tested in the single column version of the GFDL AM3 using forcing data obtained at the U.S. Department of Energy Atmospheric Radiation Measurment project's Southern Great Planes site. Scheme's impact on SCM simulations is discussed. As the next step, runs of the full atmospheric GCM incorporating the new parameterization are compared to the unmodified version of GFDL AM3. Global climatological fields and their variability are contrasted with those of the original version of the GCM. Impact on cloud radiative forcing and climate sensitivity is investigated.

Evaluating cloudiness in an AGCM with Cloud Vertical Structure classes and their radiative effects

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, D.; Cho, N.; Oreopoulos, L.; Barahona, D.

2017-12-01

Clouds are recognized not only as the main modulator of Earth's Radiation Budget but also as the atmospheric constituent carrying the largest uncertainty in future climate projections. The presentation will showcase a new framework for evaluating clouds and their radiative effects in Atmospheric Global Climate Models (AGCMs) using Cloud Vertical Structure (CVS) classes. We take advantage of a new CVS reference dataset recently created from CloudSat's 2B-CLDCLASS-LIDAR product and which assigns observed cloud vertical configurations to nine simplified CVS classes based on cloud co-occurrence in three standard atmospheric layers. These CVS classes can also be emulated in GEOS-5 using the subcolumn cloud generator currently paired with the RRTMG radiation package as an implementation of the McICA scheme. Comparisons between the observed and modeled climatologies of the frequency of occurrence of the various CVS classes provide a new vantage point for assessing the realism of GEOS-5 clouds. Furthermore, a comparison between observed and modeled cloud radiative effects according to their CVS is also possible thanks to the availability of CloudSat's 2B-FLXHR-LIDAR product and our ability to composite radiative fluxes by CVS class - both in the observed and modeled realm. This latter effort enables an investigation of whether the contribution of the various CVS classes to the Earth's radiation budget is represented realistically in GEOS-5. Making this new pathway of cloud evaluation available to the community is a major step towards the improved representation of clouds in climate models.

El Proyecto School on the Cloud: Lecciones Aprendidas = School on the Cloud Project: Lessons Learned

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

María Luisa de Lázaro y Torres

2017-06-01

Full Text Available School on the Cloud es un Proyecto europeo Acción Clave 3 del programa de Aprendizaje Permanente de la UE. En sus tres años de andadura ha evidenciado la potencialidad del empleo de la nube para el aprendizaje en todos los niveles educativos con la finalidad de llamar la atención a los agentes responsables de la educación en Europa sobre ello. Diversas actividades y resultados de investigación han permitido llegar a esa conclusión, para cuya consecución se proponen algunas medidas concretas, como por ejemplo, una estrategia europea para la educación en la nube.School on the Cloud is a European Erasmus+ project Key Action 3 of the EU Lifelong Learning program. The experience of three years has proven the potential use of the cloud for learning at all educational levels. We aim to draw stakeholders’ attention to the subject of education in Europe. A number of activities and research results have made it possible to reach this conclusion. Concrete measures to improve this type of learning have been proposed, such as a European strategy for education on the cloud.

A Climatology of Midlatitude Continental Clouds from the ARM SGP Site. Part I; Low-Level Cloud Macrophysical, Microphysical, and Radiative Properties

Science.gov (United States)

Dong, Xiquan; Minnis, Patrick; Xi, Baike

2005-01-01

A record of single-layer and overcast low cloud (stratus) properties has been generated using approximately 4000 hours of data collected from January 1997 to December 2002 at the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Southern Great Plains Central Facility (SCF). The cloud properties include liquid-phase and liquid-dominant, mixed-phase, low cloud macrophysical, microphysical, and radiative properties including cloud-base and -top heights and temperatures, and cloud physical thickness derived from a ground-based radar and lidar pair, and rawinsonde sounding; cloud liquid water path (LWP) and content (LWC), and cloud-droplet effective radius (r(sub e)) and number concentration (N) derived from the macrophysical properties and radiometer data; and cloud optical depth (tau), effective solar transmission (gamma), and cloud/top-of-atmosphere albedos (R(sub cldy)/R(sub TOA)) derived from Eppley precision spectral pyranometer measurements. The cloud properties were analyzed in terms of their seasonal, monthly, and hourly variations. In general, more stratus clouds occur during winter and spring than in summer. Cloud-layer altitudes and physical thicknesses were higher and greater in summer than in winter with averaged physical thicknesses of 0.85 km and 0.73 km for day and night, respectively. The seasonal variations of LWP, LWC, N. tau, R(sub cldy), and R(sub TOA) basically follow the same pattern with maxima and minima during winter and summer, respectively. There is no significant variation in mean r(sub e), however, despite a summertime peak in aerosol loading, Although a considerable degree of variability exists, the 6-yr average values of LWP, LWC, r(sub e), N, tau, gamma, R(sub cldy) and R(sub TOA) are 150 gm(exp -2) (138), 0.245 gm(exp -3) (0.268), 8.7 micrometers (8.5), 213 cm(exp -3) (238), 26.8 (24.8), 0.331, 0.672, 0.563 for daytime (nighttime). A new conceptual model of midlatitude continental low clouds at the ARM SGP site has been developed from this study

A satellite and model based flood inundation climatology of Australia

Science.gov (United States)

Schumann, G.; Andreadis, K.; Castillo, C. J.

2013-12-01

To date there is no coherent and consistent database on observed or simulated flood event inundation and magnitude at large scales (continental to global). The only compiled data set showing a consistent history of flood inundation area and extent at a near global scale is provided by the MODIS-based Dartmouth Flood Observatory. However, MODIS satellite imagery is only available from 2000 and is hampered by a number of issues associated with flood mapping using optical images (e.g. classification algorithms, cloud cover, vegetation). Here, we present for the first time a proof-of-concept study in which we employ a computationally efficient 2-D hydrodynamic model (LISFLOOD-FP) complemented with a sub-grid channel formulation to generate a complete flood inundation climatology of the past 40 years (1973-2012) for the entire Australian continent. The model was built completely from freely available SRTM-derived data, including channel widths, bank heights and floodplain topography, which was corrected for vegetation canopy height using a global ICESat canopy dataset. Channel hydraulics were resolved using actual channel data and bathymetry was estimated within the model using hydraulic geometry. On the floodplain, the model simulated the flow paths and inundation variables at a 1 km resolution. The developed model was run over a period of 40 years and a floodplain inundation climatology was generated and compared to satellite flood event observations. Our proof-of-concept study demonstrates that this type of model can reliably simulate past flood events with reasonable accuracies both in time and space. The Australian model was forced with both observed flow climatology and VIC-simulated flows in order to assess the feasibility of a model-based flood inundation climatology at the global scale.

Ranking Of The Performance Of Some Climatological Parameters In The Easement Of Solar Radiation In The Mina Environment Central Nigeria

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Abubakar, S.Y.

2004-01-01

Four models each based on a single climatological factors were proposed to evaluate the strength of the performance of each parameter in estimating solar radiation in Minna. The climatological parameters are percentage of sunshine hours, temperature ratio, humidity and cloud cover. Based on the MAB and RMSE method the sunshine hours duration was found to be the most efficient parameter for predicting the monthly and annual performance of models compared with the model based on the temperature ratio closely follow the model based on sunshine data while model based on the cloud cover was found to have the worst performance. Generally the model based on the sunshine hours performed better than the rest during the rainy season while the model based on the temperature ratio outperformed the rest of the models during the harmattan season. However both models based on the sunshine hours and temperature ratio were equally found to have good performance during the dry season

General Climatology 3

Science.gov (United States)

Hartmann, Dennis L.

General Climatology 3 is volume 3 of the series World Survey of Climatology, which consists of 15 volumes containing review articles on a broad range of topics. General Climatology 3 contains four chapters: ‘Human Bioclimatology,’ ‘Agricultural Climatology,’ ‘City Climate,’ and ‘Technical Climatology.’ Each of these chapters will be briefly described here.‘Human Bioclimatology,’ the first chapter, was authored by E. Flach and provides a survey of the effects on the human organism of the physical conditions at the earth's surface. It contains four main sections. A section entitled ‘Light and Life’ deals with the effects of solar radiation on man and contains much interesting information on the response of the human eye and human skin to radiation at various frequencies. ‘Air and Life’ discusses the composition of air and its effect on human health and performance, including discussions of the effects of altitude, aerosols, and noxious trace gases. ‘Temperature and Life’ discusses how the body responds to temperature and how it maintains its heat budget under the variety of conditions to which it falls subject and considerable discussion is given to objective ways to characterize air conditions that give an accurate measure of their impact on the body. This discussion leads naturally into the final section, ‘Bioclimatological Evaluation Systems,’ which addresses the problem of how to classify a particular site according to its overall suitability to human habitation.

GEWEX cloud assessment: A review

Science.gov (United States)

Stubenrauch, Claudia; Rossow, William B.; Kinne, Stefan; Ackerman, Steve; Cesana, Gregory; Chepfer, Hélène; Di Girolamo, Larry; Getzewich, Brian; Guignard, Anthony; Heidinger, Andy; Maddux, Brent; Menzel, Paul; Minnis, Patrick; Pearl, Cindy; Platnick, Steven; Poulsen, Caroline; Riedi, Jérôme; Sayer, Andrew; Sun-Mack, Sunny; Walther, Andi; Winker, Dave; Zeng, Shen; Zhao, Guangyu

2013-05-01

Clouds cover about 70% of the Earth's surface and play a dominant role in the energy and water cycle of our planet. Only satellite observations provide a continuous survey of the state of the atmosphere over the entire globe and across the wide range of spatial and temporal scales that comprise weather and climate variability. Satellite cloud data records now exceed more than 25 years; however, climatologies compiled from different satellite datasets can exhibit systematic biases. Questions therefore arise as to the accuracy and limitations of the various sensors. The Global Energy and Water cycle Experiment (GEWEX) Cloud Assessment, initiated in 2005 by the GEWEX Radiation Panel, provides the first coordinated intercomparison of publicly available, global cloud products (gridded, monthly statistics) retrieved from measurements of multi-spectral imagers (some with multi-angle view and polarization capabilities), IR sounders and lidar. Cloud properties under study include cloud amount, cloud height (in terms of pressure, temperature or altitude), cloud radiative properties (optical depth or emissivity), cloud thermodynamic phase and bulk microphysical properties (effective particle size and water path). Differences in average cloud properties, especially in the amount of high-level clouds, are mostly explained by the inherent instrument measurement capability for detecting and/or identifying optically thin cirrus, especially when overlying low-level clouds. The study of long-term variations with these datasets requires consideration of many factors. The monthly, gridded database presented here facilitates further assessments, climate studies, and the evaluation of climate models.

Climatology of lightning in the Czech Republic

Science.gov (United States)

Novák, Petr; Kyznarová, Hana

2011-06-01

The Czech Hydrometeorological Institute (CHMI) has utilized lightning data from the Central European Lightning Detection Network (CELDN) since 1999. The CELDN primarily focuses on the detection of cloud-to-ground (CG) lightning but intra-cloud (IC) lightning detection is also available. Lightning detection is used by the CHMI forecasters as an additional source to radar and satellite data for nowcasting of severe storms. Lightning data are also quantitatively used in automatic nowcasting applications. The quality of lightning data can be evaluated using their climatological characteristics. Climatological characteristics are also useful for defining decision thresholds that are valuable for human forecasters as well as for automatic nowcasting applications. The seven-year period from 2002 to 2008, which had relatively even-quality lightning data, was used to calculate the spatial and temporal distributions of lightning. The monthly number of CG strokes varies depending on the season. The highest number of CG strokes occurs during summer, with more than 20 days of at least five detected CG strokes on the Czech Republic territory in June and July. The least number of CG stokes occurs in winter, with less than three days per month having at least five detected CG stokes. The mean diurnal distribution of CG strokes peaks between 1500 and 1600 UTC and reaches a minimum between 0500 and 0800 UTC. The average spatial distribution of CG strokes shows sharp local maxima corresponding with the locations of the TV broadcast towers. The average spatial distribution of CG flash density, calculated on a 20 × 20 km grid, shows the maximum (3.23 flashes km - 2 year - 1 ) in the western part of Czech Republic and the minimum (0.92 flashes km - 2 year - 1 ) in the south-southeast of the Czech Republic. In addition, lightning characteristics related to the identified convective cells, such as distribution of the lightning stroke rates or relation to the radar derived by Vertically

An updated climatology of surface dimethlysulfide concentrations and emission fluxes in the global ocean

Science.gov (United States)

Lana, A.; Bell, T. G.; Simó, R.; Vallina, S. M.; Ballabrera-Poy, J.; Kettle, A. J.; Dachs, J.; Bopp, L.; Saltzman, E. S.; Stefels, J.; Johnson, J. E.; Liss, P. S.

2011-03-01

The potentially significant role of the biogenic trace gas dimethylsulfide (DMS) in determining the Earth's radiation budget makes it necessary to accurately reproduce seawater DMS distribution and quantify its global flux across the sea/air interface. Following a threefold increase of data (from 15,000 to over 47,000) in the global surface ocean DMS database over the last decade, new global monthly climatologies of surface ocean DMS concentration and sea-to-air emission flux are presented as updates of those constructed 10 years ago. Interpolation/extrapolation techniques were applied to project the discrete concentration data onto a first guess field based on Longhurst's biogeographic provinces. Further objective analysis allowed us to obtain the final monthly maps. The new climatology projects DMS concentrations typically in the range of 1-7 nM, with higher levels occurring in the high latitudes, and with a general trend toward increasing concentration in summer. The increased size and distribution of the observations in the DMS database have produced in the new climatology substantially lower DMS concentrations in the polar latitudes and generally higher DMS concentrations in regions that were severely undersampled 10 years ago, such as the southern Indian Ocean. Using the new DMS concentration climatology in conjunction with state-of-the-art parameterizations for the sea/air gas transfer velocity and climatological wind fields, we estimate that 28.1 (17.6-34.4) Tg of sulfur are transferred from the oceans into the atmosphere annually in the form of DMS. This represents a global emission increase of 17% with respect to the equivalent calculation using the previous climatology. This new DMS climatology represents a valuable tool for atmospheric chemistry, climate, and Earth System models.

VIRTUAL REALITY-BASED CLOUD BIM PLATFORM FOR INTEGRATED AEC PROJECTS

OpenAIRE

Goulding, Jack Steven; Pour Rahimian Leilabadi, Farzad; Wang, Xiangyu

2014-01-01

Building Information Modelling (BIM) has demonstrated the need for integrating collaborative design teams’ “project data”, to not only help coordinate the design, engineering, fabrication, construction, and maintenance of various trades, but also facilitate project integration and interchange. Numerous potential benefits have inspired several countries to consider the implications of implementing BIM Level 3 (Cloud) as an innovative way of further enhancing the design, management and delivery...

Creating a Rackspace and NASA Nebula compatible cloud using the OpenStack project (Invited)

Science.gov (United States)

Clark, R.

2010-12-01

NASA and Rackspace have both provided technology to the OpenStack that allows anyone to create a private Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) cloud using open source software and commodity hardware. OpenStack is designed and developed completely in the open and with an open governance process. NASA donated Nova, which powers the compute portion of NASA Nebula Cloud Computing Platform, and Rackspace donated Swift, which powers Rackspace Cloud Files. The project is now in continuous development by NASA, Rackspace, and hundreds of other participants. When you create a private cloud using Openstack, you will have the ability to easily interact with your private cloud, a government cloud, and an ecosystem of public cloud providers, using the same API.

Effects of Surface BRDF on the OMI Cloud and NO2 Retrievals: A New Approach Based on Geometry-Dependent Lambertian Equivalent Reflectivity (GLER) Derived from MODIS

Science.gov (United States)

Vasilkov, Alexander; Qin, Wenhan; Krotkov, Nickolay; Lamsal, Lok; Spurr, Robert; Haffner, David; Joiner, Joanna; Yang, Eun-Su; Marchenko, Sergey

2017-01-01

The Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) cloud and NO2 algorithms use a monthly gridded surface reflectivity climatology that does not depend upon the observation geometry. In reality, reflection of incoming direct and diffuse solar light from land or ocean surfaces is sensitive to the sun sensor geometry. This dependence is described by the bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF). To account for the BRDF, we propose to use a new concept of geometry-dependent Lambertian equivalent reflectivity (GLER). Implementation within the existing OMI cloud and NO2 retrieval infrastructure requires changes only to the input surface reflectivity database. GLER is calculated using a vector radiative transfer model with high spatial resolution BRDF information from MODIS over land and the Cox Munk slope distribution over ocean with a contribution from water-leaving radiance. We compare GLER and climatological LER at 466 nm, which is used in the OMI O2-O2cloud algorithm to derive effective cloud fractions. A detailed comparison of the cloud fractions and pressures derived with climatological and GLERs is carried out. GLER and corresponding retrieved cloud products are then used as input to the OMI NO2 algorithm. We find that replacing the climatological OMI-based LERs with GLERs can increase NO2 vertical columns by up to 50 % in highly polluted areas; the differences include both BRDF effects and biases between the MODIS and OMI-based surface reflectance data sets. Only minor changes to NO2 columns (within 5 %) are found over unpolluted and overcast areas.

Plane-parallel biases computed from inhomogeneous Arctic clouds and sea ice

Science.gov (United States)

Rozwadowska, Anna; Cahalan, Robert F.

2002-10-01

Monte Carlo simulations of the expected influence of nonuniformity in cloud structure and surface albedo on shortwave radiative fluxes in the Arctic atmosphere are presented. In particular, plane-parallel biases in cloud albedo and transmittance are studied for nonabsorbing, low-level, all-liquid stratus clouds over sea ice. The "absolute bias" is defined as the difference between the cloud albedo or transmittance for the uniform or plane-parallel case, and the albedo or transmittance for nonuniform conditions with the same mean cloud optical thickness and the same mean surface albedo, averaged over a given area (i.e., bias > 0 means plane-parallel overestimates). Ranges of means and standard deviations of input parameters typical of Arctic conditions are determined from the First International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) Regional Experiment Artic Cloud Experiment (FIRE/ACE)/Surface Heat Budget of the Arctic Ocean (SHEBA)/Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Program (ARM) experiment, a cooperative effort of the Department of Energy, NASA, NSF, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Office of Naval Research, and the Atmospheric Environment Service. We determine the sensitivity of the bias with respect to the following: domain averaged means and spatial variances of cloud optical thickness and surface albedo, shape of the surface reflectance function, presence of a scattering layer under the clouds, and solar zenith angle. The simulations show that the biases in Arctic conditions are generally lower than in subtropical stratocumulus. The magnitudes of the absolute biases are unlikely to exceed 0.02 for albedo and 0.05 for transmittance. The "relative bias" expresses the absolute bias as a percentage of the actual cloud albedo or transmittance. The magnitude of the relative bias in albedo is typically below 2% over the reflective Arctic surface, while the magnitude of the relative bias in transmittance can exceed 10%.

Development and Testing of the New Surface LER Climatology for OMI UV Aerosol Retrievals

Science.gov (United States)

Gupta, Pawan; Torres, Omar; Jethva, Hiren; Ahn, Changwoo

2014-01-01

Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) onboard Aura satellite retrieved aerosols properties using UV part of solar spectrum. The OMI near UV aerosol algorithm (OMAERUV) is a global inversion scheme which retrieves aerosol properties both over ocean and land. The current version of the algorithm makes use of TOMS derived Lambertian Equivalent Reflectance (LER) climatology. A new monthly climatology of surface LER at 354 and 388 nm have been developed. This will replace TOMS LER (380 nm and 354nm) climatology in OMI near UV aerosol retrieval algorithm. The main objectives of this study is to produce high resolution (quarter degree) surface LER sets as compared to existing one degree TOMS surface LERs, to product instrument and wavelength consistent surface climatology. Nine years of OMI observations have been used to derive monthly climatology of surface LER. MODIS derived aerosol optical depth (AOD) have been used to make aerosol corrections on OMI wavelengths. MODIS derived BRDF adjusted reflectance product has been also used to capture seasonal changes in the surface characteristics. Finally spatial and temporal averaging techniques have been used to fill the gaps around the globes, especially in the regions with consistent cloud cover such as Amazon. After implementation of new surface data in the research version of algorithm, comparisons of AOD and single scattering albedo (SSA) have been performed over global AERONET sites for year 2007. Preliminary results shows improvements in AOD retrievals globally but more significance improvement were observed over desert and bright locations. We will present methodology of deriving surface data sets and will discuss the observed changes in retrieved aerosol properties with respect to reference AERONET measurements.

Processing of Cloud Databases for the Development of an Automated Global Cloud Climatology

Science.gov (United States)

1991-06-30

cloud amounts in each DOE grid box. The actual population values were coded into one- and two- digit codes primarily for printing purposes. For example...IPIALES 72652 43.07 -95.53 0423 PICKSTOWNE S.D. 80110 6.22 -75.60 1498 MEDELLIN 72424 37.90 -85.97 0233 FT. KNOX KY 80069 7.00 -74.72 0610 AMALFI...12 According to Lund, Grantham, and Davis (1980), the quality of the whole sky photographs used in producing the WSP digital data ensemble was

Hydro-climatology

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

The hydro-climatological approach of this volume illustrates the scientific and practical value of considering hydrological phenomena and processes in a climate context to improve understanding of controls, process interaction, and past and future variability/change. Contributions deal with under......The hydro-climatological approach of this volume illustrates the scientific and practical value of considering hydrological phenomena and processes in a climate context to improve understanding of controls, process interaction, and past and future variability/change. Contributions deal...... considered. The interdisciplinary approach reveals information and perspective that go beyond the study of cli ate and hydro gy alone...

Comparisons of cloud ice mass content retrieved from the radar-infrared radiometer method with aircraft data during the second international satellite cloud climatology project regional experiment (FIRE-II)

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Matrosov, S.Y. [Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, CO (United States)]|[National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Environmental Technology Lab., Boulder, CO (United States); Heymsfield, A.J. [National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO (United States); Kropfli, R.A.; Snider, J.B. [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Environmental Technology Lab., Boulder, CO (United States)

1996-04-01

Comparisons of remotely sensed meteorological parameters with in situ direct measurements always present a challenge. Matching sampling volumes is one of the main problems for such comparisons. Aircraft usually collect data when flying along a horizontal leg at a speed of about 100 m/sec (or even greater). The usual sampling time of 5 seconds provides an average horizontal resolution of the order of 500 m. Estimations of vertical profiles of cloud microphysical parameters from aircraft measurements are hampered by sampling a cloud at various altitudes at different times. This paper describes the accuracy of aircraft horizontal and vertical coordinates relative to the location of the ground-based instruments.

Climatology 2011: An MLS and Sonde Derived Ozone Climatology for Satellite Retrieval Algorithms

Science.gov (United States)

McPeters, Richard D.; Labow, Gordon J.

2012-01-01

The ozone climatology used as the a priori for the version 8 Solar Backscatter Ultraviolet (SBUV) retrieval algorithms has been updated. The Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) instrument on Aura has excellent latitude coverage and measures ozone daily from the upper troposphere to the lower mesosphere. The new climatology consists of monthly average ozone profiles for ten degree latitude zones covering pressure altitudes from 0 to 65 km. The climatology was formed by combining data from Aura MLS (2004-2010) with data from balloon sondes (1988-2010). Ozone below 8 km (below 12 km at high latitudes) is based on balloons sondes, while ozone above 16 km (21 km at high latitudes) is based on MLS measurements. Sonde and MLS data are blended in the transition region. Ozone accuracy in the upper troposphere is greatly improved because of the near uniform coverage by Aura MLS, while the addition of a large number of balloon sonde measurements improves the accuracy in the lower troposphere, in the tropics and southern hemisphere in particular. The addition of MLS data also improves the accuracy of climatology in the upper stratosphere and lower mesosphere. The revised climatology has been used for the latest reprocessing of SBUV and TOMS satellite ozone data.

Study of Mechanisms of Aerosol Indirect Effects on Glaciated Clouds: Progress during the Project Final Technical Report

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Phillips, Vaughan T. J.

2013-10-18

This 3-year project has studied how aerosol pollution influences glaciated clouds. The tool applied has been an 'aerosol-cloud model'. It is a type of Cloud-System Resolving Model (CSRM) modified to include 2-moment bulk microphysics and 7 aerosol species, as described by Phillips et al. (2009, 2013). The study has been done by, first, improving the model and then performing sensitivity studies with validated simulations of a couple of observed cases from ARM. These are namely the Tropical Warm Pool International Cloud Experiment (TWP-ICE) over the tropical west Pacific and the Cloud and Land Surface Interaction Campaign (CLASIC) over Oklahoma. During the project, sensitivity tests with the model showed that in continental clouds, extra liquid aerosols (soluble aerosol material) from pollution inhibited warm rain processes for precipitation production. This promoted homogeneous freezing of cloud droplets and aerosols. Mass and number concentrations of cloud-ice particles were boosted. The mean sizes of cloud-ice particles were reduced by the pollution. Hence, the lifetime of glaciated clouds, especially ice-only clouds, was augmented due to inhibition of sedimentation and ice-ice aggregation. Latent heat released from extra homogeneous freezing invigorated convective updrafts, and raised their maximum cloud-tops, when aerosol pollution was included. In the particular cases simulated in the project, the aerosol indirect effect of glaciated clouds was twice than of (warm) water clouds. This was because glaciated clouds are higher in the troposphere than water clouds and have the first interaction with incoming solar radiation. Ice-only clouds caused solar cooling by becoming more extensive as a result of aerosol pollution. This 'lifetime indirect effect' of ice-only clouds was due to higher numbers of homogeneously nucleated ice crystals causing a reduction in their mean size, slowing the ice-crystal process of snow production and slowing

Statistical Analysis of the Polarimetric Cloud Analysis and Seeding Test (POLCAST) Field Projects

Science.gov (United States)

Ekness, Jamie Lynn

The North Dakota farming industry brings in more than $4.1 billion annually in cash receipts. Unfortunately, agriculture sales vary significantly from year to year, which is due in large part to weather events such as hail storms and droughts. One method to mitigate drought is to use hygroscopic seeding to increase the precipitation efficiency of clouds. The North Dakota Atmospheric Research Board (NDARB) sponsored the Polarimetric Cloud Analysis and Seeding Test (POLCAST) research project to determine the effectiveness of hygroscopic seeding in North Dakota. The POLCAST field projects obtained airborne and radar observations, while conducting randomized cloud seeding. The Thunderstorm Identification Tracking and Nowcasting (TITAN) program is used to analyze radar data (33 usable cases) in determining differences in the duration of the storm, rain rate and total rain amount between seeded and non-seeded clouds. The single ratio of seeded to non-seeded cases is 1.56 (0.28 mm/0.18 mm) or 56% increase for the average hourly rainfall during the first 60 minutes after target selection. A seeding effect is indicated with the lifetime of the storms increasing by 41 % between seeded and non-seeded clouds for the first 60 minutes past seeding decision. A double ratio statistic, a comparison of radar derived rain amount of the last 40 minutes of a case (seed/non-seed), compared to the first 20 minutes (seed/non-seed), is used to account for the natural variability of the cloud system and gives a double ratio of 1.85. The Mann-Whitney test on the double ratio of seeded to non-seeded cases (33 cases) gives a significance (p-value) of 0.063. Bootstrapping analysis of the POLCAST set indicates that 50 cases would provide statistically significant results based on the Mann-Whitney test of the double ratio. All the statistical analysis conducted on the POLCAST data set show that hygroscopic seeding in North Dakota does increase precipitation. While an additional POLCAST field

Clouds in the Martian Atmosphere

Science.gov (United States)

Määttänen, Anni; Montmessin, Franck

2018-01-01

Although resembling an extremely dry desert, planet Mars hosts clouds in its atmosphere. Every day somewhere on the planet a part of the tiny amount of water vapor held by the atmosphere can condense as ice crystals to form cirrus-type clouds. The existence of water ice clouds has been known for a long time, and they have been studied for decades, leading to the establishment of a well-known climatology and understanding of their formation and properties. Despite their thinness, they have a clear impact on the atmospheric temperatures, thus affecting the Martian climate. Another, more exotic type of clouds forms as well on Mars. The atmospheric temperatures can plunge to such frigid values that the major gaseous component of the atmosphere, CO2, condenses as ice crystals. These clouds form in the cold polar night where they also contribute to the formation of the CO2 ice polar cap, and also in the mesosphere at very high altitudes, near the edge of space, analogously to the noctilucent clouds on Earth. The mesospheric clouds are a fairly recent discovery and have put our understanding of the Martian atmosphere to a test. On Mars, cloud crystals form on ice nuclei, mostly provided by the omnipresent dust. Thus, the clouds link the three major climatic cycles: those of the two major volatiles, H2O and CO2; and that of dust, which is a major climatic agent itself.

A Climatology of Global Aerosol Mixtures to Support Sentinel-5P and Earthcare Mission Applications

Science.gov (United States)

Taylor, M.; Kazadzis, S.; Amaridis, V.; Kahn, R. A.

2015-11-01

Since constraining aerosol type with satellite remote sensing continues to be a challenge, we present a newly derived global climatology of aerosol mixtures to support atmospheric composition studies that are planned for Sentinel-5P and EarthCARE.The global climatology is obtained via application of iterative cluster analysis to gridded global decadal and seasonal mean values of the aerosol optical depth (AOD) of sulfate, biomass burning, mineral dust and marine aerosol as a proportion of the total AOD at 500nm output from the Goddard Chemistry Aerosol Radiation and Transport (GOCART). For both the decadal and seasonal means, the number of aerosol mixtures (clusters) identified is ≈10. Analysis of the percentage contribution of the component aerosol types to each mixture allowed development of a straightforward naming convention and taxonomy, and assignment of primary colours for the generation of true colour-mixing and easy-to-interpret maps of the spatial distribution of clusters across the global grid. To further help characterize the mixtures, aerosol robotic network (AERONET) Level 2.0 Version 2 inversion products were extracted from each cluster‟s spatial domain and used to estimate climatological values of key optical and microphysical parameters.The aerosol type climatology represents current knowledge that would be enhanced, possibly corrected, and refined by high temporal and spectral resolution, cloud-free observations produced by Sentinel-5P and EarthCARE instruments. The global decadal mean and seasonal gridded partitions comprise a preliminary reference framework and global climatology that can help inform the choice of components and mixtures in aerosol retrieval algorithms used by instruments such as TROPOMI and ATLID, and to test retrieval results.

Climatology and Impact of Convection on the Tropical Tropopause Layer

Science.gov (United States)

Robertson, Franklin; Pittman, Jasna

2007-01-01

Water vapor plays an important role in controlling the radiative balance and the chemical composition of the Tropical Tropopause Layer (TTL). Mechanisms ranging from slow transport and dehydration under thermodynamic equilibrium conditions to fast transport in convection have been proposed as regulators of the amount of water vapor in this layer. However,.details of these mechanisms and their relative importance remain poorly understood, The recently completed Tropical Composition, Cloud, and Climate Coupling (TC4) campaign had the opportunity to sample the.TTL over the Eastern Tropical Pacific using ground-based, airborne, and spaceborne instruments. The main goal of this study is to provide the climatological context for this campaign of deep and overshooting convective activity using various satellite observations collected during the summertime. We use the Microwave Humidity Sensor (MRS) aboard the NOAA-18 satellite to investigate the horizontal extent.and the frequency of convection reaching and penetrating into the TTL. We use the Moderate Resolution I1l1aging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard the Aqua satellite to investigate the frequency distribution of daytime cirrus clouds. We use the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission(TRMM) and CloudSat to investigate the vertical structure and distribution of hydrometeors in the convective cells, In addition to cloud measurements; we investigate the impact that convection has on the concentration of radiatively important gases such as water vapor and ozone in the TTL by examining satellite measurement obtained from the Microwave Limb Sounder(MLS) aboard the Aura satellite.

Direct and semi-direct effects of aerosol climatologies on long-term climate simulations over Europe

Science.gov (United States)

Schultze, Markus; Rockel, Burkhardt

2017-08-01

This study compares the direct and semi-direct aerosol effects of different annual cycles of tropospheric aerosol loads for Europe from 1950 to 2009 using the regional climate model COSMO-CLM, which is laterally forced by reanalysis data and run using prescribed, climatological aerosol optical properties. These properties differ with respect to the analysis strategy and the time window, and are then used for the same multi-decadal period. Five simulations with different aerosol loads and one control simulation without any tropospheric aerosols are integrated and compared. Two common limitations of our simulation strategy, to fully assess direct and semi-direct aerosol effects, are the applied observed sea surface temperatures and sea ice conditions, and the lack of short-term variations in the aerosol load. Nevertheless, the impact of different aerosol climatologies on common regional climate model simulations can be assessed. The results of all aerosol-including simulations show a distinct reduction in solar irradiance at the surface compared with that in the control simulation. This reduction is strongest in the summer season and is balanced primarily by a weakening of turbulent heat fluxes and to a lesser extent by a decrease in longwave emissions. Consequently, the seasonal mean surface cooling is modest. The temperature profile responses are characterized by a shallow near-surface cooling and a dominant warming up to the mid-troposphere caused by aerosol absorption. The resulting stabilization of stratification leads to reduced cloud cover and less precipitation. A decrease in cloud water and ice content over Central Europe in summer possibly reinforce aerosol absorption and thus strengthen the vertical warming. The resulting radiative forcings are positive. The robustness of the results was demonstrated by performing a simulation with very strong aerosol forcing, which lead to qualitatively similar results. A distinct added value over the default aerosol

Low Cloud Feedback to Surface Warming in the World's First Global Climate Model with Explicit Embedded Boundary Layer Turbulence

Science.gov (United States)

Parishani, H.; Pritchard, M. S.; Bretherton, C. S.; Wyant, M. C.; Khairoutdinov, M.; Singh, B.

2017-12-01

Biases and parameterization formulation uncertainties in the representation of boundary layer clouds remain a leading source of possible systematic error in climate projections. Here we show the first results of cloud feedback to +4K SST warming in a new experimental climate model, the ``Ultra-Parameterized (UP)'' Community Atmosphere Model, UPCAM. We have developed UPCAM as an unusually high-resolution implementation of cloud superparameterization (SP) in which a global set of cloud resolving arrays is embedded in a host global climate model. In UP, the cloud-resolving scale includes sufficient internal resolution to explicitly generate the turbulent eddies that form marine stratocumulus and trade cumulus clouds. This is computationally costly but complements other available approaches for studying low clouds and their climate interaction, by avoiding parameterization of the relevant scales. In a recent publication we have shown that UP, while not without its own complexity trade-offs, can produce encouraging improvements in low cloud climatology in multi-month simulations of the present climate and is a promising target for exascale computing (Parishani et al. 2017). Here we show results of its low cloud feedback to warming in multi-year simulations for the first time. References: Parishani, H., M. S. Pritchard, C. S. Bretherton, M. C. Wyant, and M. Khairoutdinov (2017), Toward low-cloud-permitting cloud superparameterization with explicit boundary layer turbulence, J. Adv. Model. Earth Syst., 9, doi:10.1002/2017MS000968.

ATLAS Cloud Computing R&D project

CERN Document Server

Panitkin, S; The ATLAS collaboration; Caballero Bejar, J; Benjamin, D; DiGirolamo, A; Gable, I; Hendrix, V; Hover, J; Kucharczuk, K; Medrano LLamas, R; Ohman, H; Paterson, M; Sobie, R; Taylor, R; Walker, R; Zaytsev, A

2013-01-01

The computing model of the ATLAS experiment was designed around the concept of grid computing and, since the start of data taking, this model has proven very successful. However, new cloud computing technologies bring attractive features to improve the operations and elasticity of scientific distributed computing. ATLAS sees grid and cloud computing as complementary technologies that will coexist at different levels of resource abstraction, and two years ago created an R&D working group to investigate the different integration scenarios. The ATLAS Cloud Computing R&D has been able to demonstrate the feasibility of offloading work from grid to cloud sites and, as of today, is able to integrate transparently various cloud resources into the PanDA workload management system. The ATLAS Cloud Computing R&D is operating various PanDA queues on private and public resources and has provided several hundred thousand CPU days to the experiment. As a result, the ATLAS Cloud Computing R&D group has gained...

The Cc1 Project – System For Private Cloud Computing

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

J Chwastowski

2012-01-01

Full Text Available The main features of the Cloud Computing system developed at IFJ PAN are described. The project is financed from the structural resources provided by the European Commission and the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education (Innovative Economy, National Cohesion Strategy. The system delivers a solution for carrying out computer calculations on a Private Cloud computing infrastructure. It consists of an intuitive Web based user interface, a module for the users and resources administration and the standard EC2 interface implementation. Thanks to the distributed character of the system it allows for the integration of a geographically distant federation of computer clusters within a uniform user environment.

International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project, D-Series (Superseded)

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — ISCCP D-Series has been superseded by a newer version. Users should not use ISCCP D-Series except in rare cases (e.g., when reproducing previous studies that used...

On ISSM and leveraging the Cloud towards faster quantification of the uncertainty in ice-sheet mass balance projections

Science.gov (United States)

Larour, E.; Schlegel, N.

2016-11-01

With the Amazon EC2 Cloud becoming available as a viable platform for parallel computing, Earth System Models are increasingly interested in leveraging its capabilities towards improving climate projections. In particular, faced with long wait periods on high-end clusters, the elasticity of the Cloud presents a unique opportunity of potentially "infinite" availability of small-sized clusters running on high-performance instances. Among specific applications of this new paradigm, we show here how uncertainty quantification in climate projections of polar ice sheets (Antarctica and Greenland) can be significantly accelerated using the Cloud. Indeed, small-sized clusters are very efficient at delivering sensitivity and sampling analysis, core tools of uncertainty quantification. We demonstrate how this approach was used to carry out an extensive analysis of ice-flow projections on one of the largest basins in Greenland, the North-East Greenland Glacier, using the Ice Sheet System Model, the public-domain NASA-funded ice-flow modeling software. We show how errors in the projections were accurately quantified using Monte-Carlo sampling analysis on the EC2 Cloud, and how a judicious mix of high-end parallel computing and Cloud use can best leverage existing infrastructures, and significantly accelerate delivery of potentially ground-breaking climate projections, and in particular, enable uncertainty quantification that were previously impossible to achieve.

The Impact of Climatological Conditions on Low Enriched Uranium Loading Station Operations for the HEU Blend Down Project

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chang, R.C.

2002-01-01

A computer model was developed using COREsim to perform a time motion study for the Low Enriched Uranium (LEU) Loading Station operations. The project is to blend Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) with Natural Uranium (NU) to produce LEU to be shipped to Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) for further processing. To cope with a project cost reduction, the LEU Loading Station concept has changed from an enclosed building with air-conditioning to a partially enclosed building without air conditioning. The LEU Loading Station is within a radiological contaminated area; two pairs of coveralls and negative pressure respirator are required. As a result, inclement weather conditions, especially heat stress, will affect and impact the LEU loading operations. The purposes of the study are to determine the climatological impacts on LEU Loading operations, resources required for committed throughputs, and to find out the optimum process pathways for multi crews working simultaneously in the space-lim ited LEU Loading Station

Spectral Longwave Cloud Radiative Forcing as Observed by AIRS

Science.gov (United States)

Blaisdell, John M.; Susskind, Joel; Lee, Jae N.; Iredell, Lena

2016-01-01

AIRS V6 products contain the spectral contributions to Outgoing Longwave Radiation (OLR), clear-sky OLR (OLR(sub CLR)), and Longwave Cloud Radiative Forcing (LWCRF) in 16 bands from 100 cm(exp -1) to 3260 cm(exp -1). We show climatologies of selected spectrally resolved AIRS V6 products over the period of September 2002 through August 2016. Spectrally resolved LWCRF can better describe the response of the Earth system to cloud and cloud feedback processes. The spectral LWCRF enables us to estimate the fraction of each contributing factor to cloud forcing, i.e.: surface temperature, mid to upper tropospheric water vapor, and tropospheric temperature. This presentation also compares the spatial characteristics of LWCRF from AIRS, CERES_EBAF Edition-2.8, and MERRA-2. AIRS and CERES LWCRF products show good agreement. The OLR bias between AIRS and CERES is very close to that of OLR(sub CLR). This implies that both AIRS and CERES OLR products accurately account for the effect of clouds on OLR.

Projections of UV radiation changes in the 21st century: impact of ozone recovery and cloud effects

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

A. F. Bais

2011-08-01

Full Text Available Monthly averaged surface erythemal solar irradiance (UV-Ery for local noon from 1960 to 2100 has been derived using radiative transfer calculations and projections of ozone, temperature and cloud change from 14 chemistry climate models (CCM, as part of the CCMVal-2 activity of SPARC. Our calculations show the influence of ozone depletion and recovery on erythemal irradiance. In addition, we investigate UV-Ery changes caused by climate change due to increasing greenhouse gas concentrations. The latter include effects of both stratospheric ozone and cloud changes. The derived estimates provide a global picture of the likely changes in erythemal irradiance during the 21st century. Uncertainties arise from the assumed scenarios, different parameterizations – particularly of cloud effects on UV-Ery – and the spread in the CCM projections. The calculations suggest that relative to 1980, annually mean UV-Ery in the 2090s will be on average ~12 % lower at high latitudes in both hemispheres, ~3 % lower at mid latitudes, and marginally higher (~1 % in the tropics. The largest reduction (~16 % is projected for Antarctica in October. Cloud effects are responsible for 2–3 % of the reduction in UV-Ery at high latitudes, but they slightly moderate it at mid-latitudes (~1 %. The year of return of erythemal irradiance to values of certain milestones (1965 and 1980 depends largely on the return of column ozone to the corresponding levels and is associated with large uncertainties mainly due to the spread of the model projections. The inclusion of cloud effects in the calculations has only a small effect of the return years. At mid and high latitudes, changes in clouds and stratospheric ozone transport by global circulation changes due to greenhouse gases will sustain the erythemal irradiance at levels below those in 1965, despite the removal of ozone depleting substances. At northern high latitudes (60°–90°, the projected decreases in cloud

Vertical Cloud Climatology During TC4 Derived from High-Altitude Aircraft Merged Lidar and Radar Profiles

Science.gov (United States)

Hlavka, Dennis; Tian, Lin; Hart, William; Li, Lihua; McGill, Matthew; Heymsfield, Gerald

2009-01-01

Aircraft lidar works by shooting laser pulses toward the earth and recording the return time and intensity of any of the light returning to the aircraft after scattering off atmospheric particles and/or the Earth s surface. The scattered light signatures can be analyzed to tell the exact location of cloud and aerosol layers and, with the aid of a few optical assumptions, can be analyzed to retrieve estimates of optical properties such as atmospheric transparency. Radar works in a similar fashion except it sends pulses toward earth at a much larger wavelength than lidar. Radar records the return time and intensity of cloud or rain reflection returning to the aircraft. Lidar can measure scatter from optically thin cirrus and aerosol layers whose particles are too small for the radar to detect. Radar can provide reflection profiles through thick cloud layers of larger particles that lidar cannot penetrate. Only after merging the two instrument products can accurate measurements of the locations of all layers in the full atmospheric column be achieved. Accurate knowledge of the vertical distribution of clouds is important information for understanding the Earth/atmosphere radiative balance and for improving weather/climate forecast models. This paper describes one such merged data set developed from the Tropical Composition, Cloud and Climate Coupling (TC4) experiment based in Costa Rica in July-August 2007 using the nadir viewing Cloud Physics Lidar (CPL) and the Cloud Radar System (CRS) on board the NASA ER-2 aircraft. Statistics were developed concerning cloud probability through the atmospheric column and frequency of the number of cloud layers. These statistics were calculated for the full study area, four sub-regions, and over land compared to over ocean across all available flights. The results are valid for the TC4 experiment only, as preferred cloud patterns took priority during mission planning. The TC4 Study Area was a very cloudy region, with cloudy

Macrophysical and optical properties of midlatitude cirrus clouds from four ground-based lidars and collocated CALIOP observations

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Dupont, Jean-Charles; Haeffelin, M.; Morille, Y.; Noel, V.; Keckhut, P.; Winker, D.; Comstock, Jennifer M.; Chervet, P.; Roblin, A.

2010-05-27

Ground-based lidar and CALIOP datasets gathered over four mid-latitude sites, two US and two French sites, are used to evaluate the consistency of cloud macrophysical and optical property climatologies that can be derived by such datasets. The consistency in average cloud height (both base and top height) between the CALIOP and ground datasets ranges from -0.4km to +0.5km. The cloud geometrical thickness distributions vary significantly between the different datasets, due in part to the original vertical resolutions of the lidar profiles. Average cloud geometrical thicknesses vary from 1.2 to 1.9km, i.e. by more than 50%. Cloud optical thickness distributions in subvisible, semi-transparent and moderate intervals differ by more than 50% between ground and space-based datasets. The cirrus clouds with 2 optical thickness below 0.1 (not included in historical cloud climatologies) represent 30-50% of the non-opaque cirrus class. The differences in average cloud base altitude between ground and CALIOP datasets of 0.0-0.1 km, 0.0-0.2 km and 0.0-0.2 km can be attributed to irregular sampling of seasonal variations in the ground-based data, to day-night differences in detection capabilities by CALIOP, and to the restriction to situations without low-level clouds in ground-based data, respectively. The cloud geometrical thicknesses are not affected by irregular sampling of seasonal variations in the ground-based data, while up to 0.0-0.2 km and 0.1-0.3 km differences can be attributed to day-night differences in detection capabilities by CALIOP, and to the restriction to situations without lowlevel clouds in ground-based data, respectively.

4 km NODC/RSMAS AVHRR Pathfinder Cloud Screened Version 5.0 Monthly Climatologies (1985-2006) (NODC Accession 0110657)

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — This accession contains a global, 4km monthly sea surface temperature climatology derived from harmonic analysis of the AVHRR Pathfinder Version 5.0 sea surface...

A systematic risk management approach employed on the CloudSat project

Science.gov (United States)

Basilio, R. R.; Plourde, K. S.; Lam, T.

2000-01-01

The CloudSat Project has developed a simplified approach for fault tree analysis and probabilistic risk assessment. A system-level fault tree has been constructed to identify credible fault scenarios and failure modes leading up to a potential failure to meet the nominal mission success criteria.

U.S. Local Climatological Data (LCD)

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — Local Climatological Data (LCD) are summaries of climatological conditions from airport and other prominent weather stations managed by NWS, FAA, and DOD. The...

Advancing cloud lifecycle representation in numerical models using innovative analysis methods that bridge arm observations over a breadth of scales

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Tselioudis, George [Columbia Univ., New York, NY (United States)

2016-03-04

From its location on the subtropics-midlatitude boundary, the Azores is influenced by both the subtropical high pressure and the midlatitude baroclinic storm regimes, and therefore experiences a wide range of cloud structures, from fair-weather scenes to stratocumulus sheets to deep convective systems. This project combined three types of data sets to study cloud variability in the Azores: a satellite analysis of cloud regimes, a reanalysis characterization of storminess, and a 19-month field campaign that occurred on Graciosa Island. Combined analysis of the three data sets provides a detailed picture of cloud variability and the respective dynamic influences, with emphasis on low clouds that constitute a major uncertainty source in climate model simulations. The satellite cloud regime analysis shows that the Azores cloud distribution is similar to the mean global distribution and can therefore be used to evaluate cloud simulation in global models. Regime analysis of low clouds shows that stratocumulus decks occur under the influence of the Azores high-pressure system, while shallow cumulus clouds are sustained by cold-air outbreaks, as revealed by their preference for post-frontal environments and northwesterly flows. An evaluation of CMIP5 climate model cloud regimes over the Azores shows that all models severely underpredict shallow cumulus clouds, while most models also underpredict the occurrence of stratocumulus cloud decks. It is demonstrated that carefully selected case studies can be related through regime analysis to climatological cloud distributions, and a methodology is suggested utilizing process-resolving model simulations of individual cases to better understand cloud-dynamics interactions and attempt to explain and correct climate model cloud deficiencies.

Climatology of salt transitions and implications for stone weathering

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Grossi, C.M.; Brimblecombe, P.; Menendez, B.; Benavente, D.; Harris, I.; Deque, M.

2011-01-01

This work introduces the notion of salt climatology. It shows how climate affects salt thermodynamic and the potential to relate long-term salt damage to climate types. It mainly focuses on specific sites in Western Europe, which include some cities in France and Peninsular Spain. Salt damage was parameterised using the number of dissolution-crystallisation events for unhydrated (sodium chloride) and hydrated (sodium sulphate) systems. These phase transitions have been calculated using daily temperature and relative humidity from observation meteorological data and Climate Change models' output (HadCM3 and ARPEGE). Comparing the number of transitions with meteorological seasonal data allowed us to develop techniques to estimate the frequency of salt transitions based on the local climatology. Results show that it is possible to associate the Koeppen-Geiger climate types with potential salt weathering. Temperate fully humid climates seem to offer the highest potential for salt damage and possible higher number of transitions in summer. Climates with dry summers tend to show a lesser frequency of transitions in summer. The analysis of temperature, precipitation and relative output from Climate Change models suggests changes in the Koeppen-Geiger climate types and changes in the patterns of salt damage. For instance, West Europe areas with a fully humid climate may change to a more Mediterranean like or dry climates, and consequently the seasonality of different salt transitions. The accuracy and reliability of the projections might be improved by simultaneously running multiple climate models (ensembles). - Research highlights: → We introduce the notion of salt climatology for heritage conservation. → Climate affects salt thermodynamics on building materials. → We associate Koeppen-Geiger climate types with potential salt weathering. → We offer future projections of salt damage in Western Europe due to climate change. → Humid climate areas may change to

Climatology of salt transitions and implications for stone weathering

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Grossi, C.M., E-mail: c.grossi-sampedro@uea.ac.uk [School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ (United Kingdom); Brimblecombe, P. [School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ (United Kingdom); Menendez, B. [Geosciences et Environnement Cergy, Universite de Cergy-Pontoise 95031 Cergy-Pontoise cedex (France); Benavente, D. [Lab. Petrologia Aplicada, Unidad Asociada UA-CSIC, Dpto. Ciencias de la Tierra y del Medio Ambiente, Universidad de Alicante, Alicante 03080 (Spain); Harris, I. [Climatic Research Unit, School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ (United Kingdom); Deque, M. [Meteo-France/CNRM, CNRS/GAME, 42 Avenue Coriolis, F-31057 Toulouse, Cedex 01 (France)

2011-06-01

This work introduces the notion of salt climatology. It shows how climate affects salt thermodynamic and the potential to relate long-term salt damage to climate types. It mainly focuses on specific sites in Western Europe, which include some cities in France and Peninsular Spain. Salt damage was parameterised using the number of dissolution-crystallisation events for unhydrated (sodium chloride) and hydrated (sodium sulphate) systems. These phase transitions have been calculated using daily temperature and relative humidity from observation meteorological data and Climate Change models' output (HadCM3 and ARPEGE). Comparing the number of transitions with meteorological seasonal data allowed us to develop techniques to estimate the frequency of salt transitions based on the local climatology. Results show that it is possible to associate the Koeppen-Geiger climate types with potential salt weathering. Temperate fully humid climates seem to offer the highest potential for salt damage and possible higher number of transitions in summer. Climates with dry summers tend to show a lesser frequency of transitions in summer. The analysis of temperature, precipitation and relative output from Climate Change models suggests changes in the Koeppen-Geiger climate types and changes in the patterns of salt damage. For instance, West Europe areas with a fully humid climate may change to a more Mediterranean like or dry climates, and consequently the seasonality of different salt transitions. The accuracy and reliability of the projections might be improved by simultaneously running multiple climate models (ensembles). - Research highlights: {yields} We introduce the notion of salt climatology for heritage conservation. {yields} Climate affects salt thermodynamics on building materials. {yields} We associate Koeppen-Geiger climate types with potential salt weathering. {yields} We offer future projections of salt damage in Western Europe due to climate change. {yields} Humid

Action spectra affect variability of the climatology of biologically effective ultraviolet radiation on cloud-free days.

Science.gov (United States)

Grifoni, D; Zipoli, G; Sabatini, F; Messeri, G; Bacci, L

2013-12-01

Action spectrum (AS) describes the relative effectiveness of ultraviolet (UV) radiation in producing biological effects and allows spectral UV irradiance to be weighted in order to compute biologically effective UV radiation (UVBE). The aim of this research was to study the seasonal and latitudinal distribution over Europe of daily UVBE doses responsible for various biological effects on humans and plants. Clear sky UV radiation spectra were computed at 30-min time intervals for the first day of each month of the year for Rome, Potsdam and Trondheim using a radiative transfer model fed with climatological data. Spectral data were weighted using AS for erythema, vitamin D synthesis, cataract and photokeratitis for humans, while the generalised plant damage and the plant damage AS were used for plants. The daily UVBE doses for the above-mentioned biological processes were computed and are analysed in this study. The patterns of variation due to season (for each location) and latitude (for each date) resulted as being specific for each adopted AS. The biological implications of these results are briefly discussed highlighting the importance of a specific UVBE climatology for each biological process.

Action spectra affect variability of the climatology of biologically effective ultraviolet radiation on cloud-free days

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Grifoni, D.; Zipoli, G.; Sabatini, F.; Messeri, G.; Bacci, L.

2013-01-01

Action spectrum (AS) describes the relative effectiveness of ultraviolet (UV) radiation in producing biological effects and allows spectral UV irradiance to be weighted in order to compute biologically effective UV radiation (UVBE). The aim of this research was to study the seasonal and latitudinal distribution over Europe of daily UVBE doses responsible for various biological effects on humans and plants. Clear sky UV radiation spectra were computed at 30-min time intervals for the first day of each month of the year for Rome, Potsdam and Trondheim using a radiative transfer model fed with climatological data. Spectral data were weighted using AS for erythema, vitamin D synthesis, cataract and photo-keratitis for humans, while the generalised plant damage and the plant damage AS were used for plants. The daily UVBE doses for the above-mentioned biological processes were computed and are analysed in this study. The patterns of variation due to season (for each location) and latitude (for each date) resulted as being specific for each adopted AS. The biological implications of these results are briefly discussed highlighting the importance of a specific UVBE climatology for each biological process. (authors)

A 19-Month Climatology of Marine Aerosol-Cloud-Radiation Properties Derived From DOE ARM AMF Deployment at the Azores: Part I: Cloud Fraction and Single-Layered MBL Cloud Properties

Science.gov (United States)

Dong, Xiquan; Xi, Baike; Kennedy, Aaron; Minnis, Patrick; Wood, Robert

2013-01-01

A 19-month record of total, and single-layered low (0-3 km), middle (3-6 km), and high (> 6 km) cloud fractions (CFs), and the single-layered marine boundary layer (MBL) cloud macrophysical and microphysical properties has been generated from ground-based measurements taken at the ARM Azores site between June 2009 and December 2010. It documents the most comprehensive and longest dataset on marine cloud fraction and MBL cloud properties to date. The annual means of total CF, and single-layered low, middle, and high CFs derived from ARM radar-lidar observations are 0.702, 0.271, 0.01 and 0.106, respectively. More total and single-layered high CFs occurred during winter, while single-layered low CFs were greatest during summer. The diurnal cycles for both total and low CFs are stronger during summer than during winter. The CFs are bimodally distributed in the vertical with a lower peak at approx. 1 km and higher one between 8 and 11 km during all seasons, except summer, when only the low peak occurs. The persistent high pressure and dry conditions produce more single-layered MBL clouds and fewer total clouds during summer, while the low pressure and moist air masses during winter generate more total and multilayered-clouds, and deep frontal clouds associated with midlatitude cyclones.

Training programme for the dissemination of climatological and meteorological applications using GIS technology

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

T. De Filippis

2006-01-01

Full Text Available IBIMET-CNR is involved in making different research projects and in managing operational programmes on national and international level and has acquired a relevant training competence to sustain partner countries and improve their methodological and operational skills by using innovative tools, such as Geographical Information Systems focused on the development of meteorological and climatological applications. Training activities are mainly addressed to National Meteorological and Hydrological Services of Partner-Countries and/or to other Specialized Centers in the frame of Cooperation Programmes promoted by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs mainly in favour of the Less Developing Countries (LDC of World Meteorological Organisation (WMO Regional Association I (Africa. The Institute, as a branch of the WMO-Regional Meteorological Training Centre for Region VI (Europe, organizes also international training courses of high-level in Meteorology, Climatology and Remote Sensing applied to environment and agriculture fields. Moreover, considering the increasing evolution of the GIS functions for meteorological information users, IBIMET has promoted in 2005 the EU COST Action 719 Summer School on "GIS applications in meteorology and climatology''. The paper offers an overview of the main institute training programmes organised to share the results of research activities and operational projects, through the exploitation of innovative technologies and tools like GIS.

A global satellite assisted precipitation climatology

Science.gov (United States)

Funk, Christopher C.; Verdin, Andrew P.; Michaelsen, Joel C.; Pedreros, Diego; Husak, Gregory J.; Peterson, P.

2015-01-01

Accurate representations of mean climate conditions, especially in areas of complex terrain, are an important part of environmental monitoring systems. As high-resolution satellite monitoring information accumulates with the passage of time, it can be increasingly useful in efforts to better characterize the earth's mean climatology. Current state-of-the-science products rely on complex and sometimes unreliable relationships between elevation and station-based precipitation records, which can result in poor performance in food and water insecure regions with sparse observation networks. These vulnerable areas (like Ethiopia, Afghanistan, or Haiti) are often the critical regions for humanitarian drought monitoring. Here, we show that long period of record geo-synchronous and polar-orbiting satellite observations provide a unique new resource for producing high resolution (0.05°) global precipitation climatologies that perform reasonably well in data sparse regions. Traditionally, global climatologies have been produced by combining station observations and physiographic predictors like latitude, longitude, elevation, and slope. While such approaches can work well, especially in areas with reasonably dense observation networks, the fundamental relationship between physiographic variables and the target climate variables can often be indirect and spatially complex. Infrared and microwave satellite observations, on the other hand, directly monitor the earth's energy emissions. These emissions often correspond physically with the location and intensity of precipitation. We show that these relationships provide a good basis for building global climatologies. We also introduce a new geospatial modeling approach based on moving window regressions and inverse distance weighting interpolation. This approach combines satellite fields, gridded physiographic indicators, and in situ climate normals. The resulting global 0.05° monthly precipitation climatology, the Climate

A novel tropopause-related climatology of ozone profiles

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Sofieva, V.F.; Tamminen, J.; Kyrola, E.; Mielonen, T.; Veefkind, J.P.; Hassler, B.; Bodeker, G.E.

2014-01-01

A new ozone climatology, based on ozonesonde and satellite measurements, spanning the altitude region between the earth's surface and ~60 km is presented (TpO3 climatology). This climatology is novel in that the ozone profiles are categorized according to calendar month, latitude and local

Radar-based summer precipitation climatology of the Czech Republic

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Bližňák, Vojtěch; Kašpar, Marek; Müller, Miloslav

2018-01-01

Roč. 38, č. 2 (2018), s. 677-691 ISSN 0899-8418 R&D Projects: GA ČR GA17-23773S; GA MZe QJ1520265 Institutional support: RVO:68378289 Keywords : weather radar * rain gauges * adjustment * precipitation climatology * Czech Republic Subject RIV: DG - Athmosphere Sciences, Meteorology OBOR OECD: Meteorology and atmospheric sciences Impact factor: 3.760, year: 2016 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.5202/full

NORSEWInD satellite wind climatology

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hasager, Charlotte Bay; Badger, Merete; Mouche, Alexis

The EU-NORSEWInD project www.norsewind.eu has taken place from August 2008 to July 2012 (4 years). NORSEWInD is short for Northern Seas Wind Index database. In the project ocean surface wind observations from space have been retrieved, processed and analysed. The overall aim of the work...... is to provide new offshore wind climatology map for the entire area of interest based on satellite remote sensing. This has been based on Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) from Envisat ASAR using 9000 scenes re-processed with ECMWF wind direction and CMOD-IFR. The number of overlapping samples range from 450...... in the Irish Sea to more than 1200 in most of the Baltic Sea. Wind resource statistics include maps at 2 km spatial resolution of mean wind speed, Weibull A and k, and energy density at 10 m above sea level. Uncertainty estimates on the number of available samples for each of the four parameters are presented...

Observations of regional and local variability in the optical properties of maritime clouds

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

White, A.B. [Univ. of Colorado at Boulder/National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Boulder, CO (United States); Fairall, C.W. [Environmental Technology Lab., Boulder, CO (United States)

1996-04-01

White and Fairall (1995) calculated the optical properties of the marine boundary layer (MBL) clouds observed during the Atlantic Stratocumulus Transition Experiment (ASTEX) and compared their results with the results obtained by Fairall et al. for the MBL clouds observed during the First International Satellite Climatology Program (ISSCP) Regional Experiment (FIRE). They found a factor of two difference in the optical depth versus liquid water relationship that applies to the clouds observed in each case. In the present study, we present evidence to support this difference. We also investigate the local variability exhibited in the ASTEX optical properties using measurements of the boundary layer aerosol concentration.

Cloud retrievals from satellite data using optimal estimation: evaluation and application to ATSR

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

C. A. Poulsen

2012-08-01

Full Text Available Clouds play an important role in balancing the Earth's radiation budget. Hence, it is vital that cloud climatologies are produced that quantify cloud macro and micro physical parameters and the associated uncertainty. In this paper, we present an algorithm ORAC (Oxford-RAL retrieval of Aerosol and Cloud which is based on fitting a physically consistent cloud model to satellite observations simultaneously from the visible to the mid-infrared, thereby ensuring that the resulting cloud properties provide both a good representation of the short-wave and long-wave radiative effects of the observed cloud. The advantages of the optimal estimation method are that it enables rigorous error propagation and the inclusion of all measurements and any a priori information and associated errors in a rigorous mathematical framework. The algorithm provides a measure of the consistency between retrieval representation of cloud and satellite radiances. The cloud parameters retrieved are the cloud top pressure, cloud optical depth, cloud effective radius, cloud fraction and cloud phase.

The algorithm can be applied to most visible/infrared satellite instruments. In this paper, we demonstrate the applicability to the Along-Track Scanning Radiometers ATSR-2 and AATSR. Examples of applying the algorithm to ATSR-2 flight data are presented and the sensitivity of the retrievals assessed, in particular the algorithm is evaluated for a number of simulated single-layer and multi-layer conditions. The algorithm was found to perform well for single-layer cloud except when the cloud was very thin; i.e., less than 1 optical depths. For the multi-layer cloud, the algorithm was robust except when the upper ice cloud layer is less than five optical depths. In these cases the retrieved cloud top pressure and cloud effective radius become a weighted average of the 2 layers. The sum of optical depth of multi-layer cloud is retrieved well until the cloud becomes thick

New Satellite Estimates of Mixed-Phase Cloud Properties: A Synergistic Approach for Application to Global Satellite Imager Data

Science.gov (United States)

Smith, W. L., Jr.; Spangenberg, D.; Fleeger, C.; Sun-Mack, S.; Chen, Y.; Minnis, P.

2016-12-01

Determining accurate cloud properties horizontally and vertically over a full range of time and space scales is currently next to impossible using data from either active or passive remote sensors or from modeling systems. Passive satellite imagers provide horizontal and temporal resolution of clouds, but little direct information on vertical structure. Active sensors provide vertical resolution but limited spatial and temporal coverage. Cloud models embedded in NWP can produce realistic clouds but often not at the right time or location. Thus, empirical techniques that integrate information from multiple observing and modeling systems are needed to more accurately characterize clouds and their impacts. Such a strategy is employed here in a new cloud water content profiling technique developed for application to satellite imager cloud retrievals based on VIS, IR and NIR radiances. Parameterizations are developed to relate imager retrievals of cloud top phase, optical depth, effective radius and temperature to ice and liquid water content profiles. The vertical structure information contained in the parameterizations is characterized climatologically from cloud model analyses, aircraft observations, ground-based remote sensing data, and from CloudSat and CALIPSO. Thus, realistic cloud-type dependent vertical structure information (including guidance on cloud phase partitioning) circumvents poor assumptions regarding vertical homogeneity that plague current passive satellite retrievals. This paper addresses mixed phase cloud conditions for clouds with glaciated tops including those associated with convection and mid-latitude storm systems. Novel outcomes of our approach include (1) simultaneous retrievals of ice and liquid water content and path, which are validated with active sensor, microwave and in-situ data, and yield improved global cloud climatologies, and (2) new estimates of super-cooled LWC, which are demonstrated in aviation safety applications and

Cloud/Fog Computing System Architecture and Key Technologies for South-North Water Transfer Project Safety

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yaoling Fan

2018-01-01

Full Text Available In view of the real-time and distributed features of Internet of Things (IoT safety system in water conservancy engineering, this study proposed a new safety system architecture for water conservancy engineering based on cloud/fog computing and put forward a method of data reliability detection for the false alarm caused by false abnormal data from the bottom sensors. Designed for the South-North Water Transfer Project (SNWTP, the architecture integrated project safety, water quality safety, and human safety. Using IoT devices, fog computing layer was constructed between cloud server and safety detection devices in water conservancy projects. Technologies such as real-time sensing, intelligent processing, and information interconnection were developed. Therefore, accurate forecasting, accurate positioning, and efficient management were implemented as required by safety prevention of the SNWTP, and safety protection of water conservancy projects was effectively improved, and intelligential water conservancy engineering was developed.

Preliminary laboratory studies of the optical scattering properties of the crystal clouds

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

C. Saunders

Full Text Available Ice crystal clouds have an influence on the radiative budget of the earth; however, the exact size and nature of this influence has yet to be determined. A laboratory cloud chamber experiment has been set up to provide data on the optical scattering behaviour of ice crystals at a visible wavelength in order to gain information which can be used in climate models concerning the radiative characteristics of cirrus clouds. A PMS grey-scale probe is used to monitor simultaneously the cloud microphysical properties in order to correlate these closely with the observed radiative properties. Preliminary results show that ice crystals scatter considerably more at 90° than do water droplets, and that the halo effects are visible in a laboratory-generated cloud when the ice crystal concentration is sufficiently small to prevent masking from multiple scattering.

Key words. Meteorology and atmosphere dynamics · Climatology · Radiative process · Atmospheric composition and structure · Cloud physics and chemistry

Lidar Cloud Detection with Fully Convolutional Networks

Science.gov (United States)

Cromwell, E.; Flynn, D.

2017-12-01

The vertical distribution of clouds from active remote sensing instrumentation is a widely used data product from global atmospheric measuring sites. The presence of clouds can be expressed as a binary cloud mask and is a primary input for climate modeling efforts and cloud formation studies. Current cloud detection algorithms producing these masks do not accurately identify the cloud boundaries and tend to oversample or over-represent the cloud. This translates as uncertainty for assessing the radiative impact of clouds and tracking changes in cloud climatologies. The Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) program has over 20 years of micro-pulse lidar (MPL) and High Spectral Resolution Lidar (HSRL) instrument data and companion automated cloud mask product at the mid-latitude Southern Great Plains (SGP) and the polar North Slope of Alaska (NSA) atmospheric observatory. Using this data, we train a fully convolutional network (FCN) with semi-supervised learning to segment lidar imagery into geometric time-height cloud locations for the SGP site and MPL instrument. We then use transfer learning to train a FCN for (1) the MPL instrument at the NSA site and (2) for the HSRL. In our semi-supervised approach, we pre-train the classification layers of the FCN with weakly labeled lidar data. Then, we facilitate end-to-end unsupervised pre-training and transition to fully supervised learning with ground truth labeled data. Our goal is to improve the cloud mask accuracy and precision for the MPL instrument to 95% and 80%, respectively, compared to the current cloud mask algorithms of 89% and 50%. For the transfer learning based FCN for the HSRL instrument, our goal is to achieve a cloud mask accuracy of 90% and a precision of 80%.

New dynamic NNORSY ozone profile climatology

Science.gov (United States)

Kaifel, A. K.; Felder, M.; Declercq, C.; Lambert, J.-C.

2012-01-01

Climatological ozone profile data are widely used as a-priori information for total ozone using DOAS type retrievals as well as for ozone profile retrieval using optimal estimation, for data assimilation or evaluation of 3-D chemistry-transport models and a lot of other applications in atmospheric sciences and remote sensing. For most applications it is important that the climatology represents not only long term mean values but also the links between ozone and dynamic input parameters. These dynamic input parameters should be easily accessible from auxiliary datasets or easily measureable, and obviously should have a high correlation with ozone. For ozone profile these parameters are mainly total ozone column and temperature profile data. This was the outcome of a user consultation carried out in the framework of developing a new, dynamic ozone profile climatology. The new ozone profile climatology is based on the Neural Network Ozone Retrieval System (NNORSY) widely used for ozone profile retrieval from UV and IR satellite sounder data. NNORSY allows implicit modelling of any non-linear correspondence between input parameters (predictors) and ozone profile target vector. This paper presents the approach, setup and validation of a new family of ozone profile climatologies with static as well as dynamic input parameters (total ozone and temperature profile). The neural network training relies on ozone profile measurement data of well known quality provided by ground based (ozonesondes) and satellite based (SAGE II, HALOE, and POAM-III) measurements over the years 1995-2007. In total, four different combinations (modes) for input parameters (date, geolocation, total ozone column and temperature profile) are available. The geophysical validation spans from pole to pole using independent ozonesonde, lidar and satellite data (ACE-FTS, AURA-MLS) for individual and time series comparisons as well as for analysing the vertical and meridian structure of different modes of

Critical analysis of documentary sources for Historical Climatology of Northern Portugal (17th-19th centuries)

Science.gov (United States)

Amorim, Inês; Sousa Silva, Luís; Garcia, João Carlos

2017-04-01

Critical analysis of documentary sources for Historical Climatology of Northern Portugal (17th-19th centuries) Inês Amorim CITCEM, Department of History, Political and International Studies, U. of Porto, Portugal. Luís Sousa Silva CITCEM, PhD Fellowship - FCT. João Carlos Garcia CIUHCT, Geography Department, U. of Porto, Portugal. The first major national project on Historical Climatology in Portugal, called "KLIMHIST: Reconstruction and model simulations of past climate in Portugal using documentary and early instrumental sources (17th-19th centuries)", ended in September 2015, coordinated by Maria João Alcoforado. This project began in March 2012 and counted on an interdisciplinary team of researchers from four Portuguese institutions (Centre of Geographical Studies, University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro, University of Porto, and University of Évora), from different fields of knowledge (Geography, History, Biology, Climatology and Meteorology). The team networked and collaborated with other international research groups on Climate Change and Historical Climatology, resulting in several publications. This project aimed to reconstruct thermal and rainfall patterns in Portugal between the 17th and 19th centuries, as well as identify the main hydrometeorological extremes that occurred over that period. The basic methodology consisted in combining information from different types of anthropogenic sources (descriptive and instrumental) and natural sources (tree rings and geothermal holes), so as to develop climate change models of the past. The data collected were stored in a digital database, which can be searched by source, date, location and type of event. This database, which will be made publically available soon, contains about 3500 weather/climate-related records, which have begun to be studied, processed and published. Following this seminal project, other initiatives have taken place in Portugal in the area of Historical Climatology, namely a Ph

Surface radiation budget in the Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) effort and in the Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment (GEWEX)

Science.gov (United States)

Charlock, Thomas P.; Smith, G. L.; Rose, Fred G.

1990-01-01

The surface radiation budget (SRB) and the atmospheric radiative flux divergence (ARD) are vital components of the weather and climate system. The importance of radiation in a complex international scientific endeavor, the GEWEX of the World Climate Research Programme is explained. The radiative transfer techniques and satellite instrumentation that will be used to retrieve the SRB and ARD later in this decade with the CERES are discussed; CERES is a component of the Earth Observing System satellite program. Examples of consistent SRB and ARD retrievals made with Nimbus-7 and International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project data from July 1983 are presented.

The Cloud Feedback Model Intercomparison Project Observational Simulator Package: Version 2

Science.gov (United States)

Swales, Dustin J.; Pincus, Robert; Bodas-Salcedo, Alejandro

2018-01-01

The Cloud Feedback Model Intercomparison Project Observational Simulator Package (COSP) gathers together a collection of observation proxies or satellite simulators that translate model-simulated cloud properties to synthetic observations as would be obtained by a range of satellite observing systems. This paper introduces COSP2, an evolution focusing on more explicit and consistent separation between host model, coupling infrastructure, and individual observing proxies. Revisions also enhance flexibility by allowing for model-specific representation of sub-grid-scale cloudiness, provide greater clarity by clearly separating tasks, support greater use of shared code and data including shared inputs across simulators, and follow more uniform software standards to simplify implementation across a wide range of platforms. The complete package including a testing suite is freely available.

Atmospheric cloud physics laboratory project study

Science.gov (United States)

Schultz, W. E.; Stephen, L. A.; Usher, L. H.

1976-01-01

Engineering studies were performed for the Zero-G Cloud Physics Experiment liquid cooling and air pressure control systems. A total of four concepts for the liquid cooling system was evaluated, two of which were found to closely approach the systems requirements. Thermal insulation requirements, system hardware, and control sensor locations were established. The reservoir sizes and initial temperatures were defined as well as system power requirements. In the study of the pressure control system, fluid analyses by the Atmospheric Cloud Physics Laboratory were performed to determine flow characteristics of various orifice sizes, vacuum pump adequacy, and control systems performance. System parameters predicted in these analyses as a function of time include the following for various orifice sizes: (1) chamber and vacuum pump mass flow rates, (2) the number of valve openings or closures, (3) the maximum cloud chamber pressure deviation from the allowable, and (4) cloud chamber and accumulator pressure.

Cirrus cloud-temperature interactions over a tropical station, Gadanki from lidar and satellite observations

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

S, Motty G; Satyanarayana, M.; Krishnakumar, V.; Dhaman, Reji k.

2014-01-01

The cirrus clouds play an important role in the radiation budget of the earth's atmospheric system and are important to characterize their vertical structure and optical properties. LIDAR measurements are obtained from the tropical station Gadanki (13.5 0 N, 79.2 0 E), India, and meteorological indicators derived from Radiosonde data. Most of the cirrus clouds are observed near to the tropopause, which substantiates the strength of the tropical convective processes. The height and temperature dependencies of cloud height, optical depth, and depolarization ratio were investigated. Cirrus observations made using CALIPSO satellite are compared with lidar data for systematic statistical study of cirrus climatology

Closing the Skill Gap of Cloud CRM Application Services in Cloud Computing for Evaluating Big Data Solutions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

You-Shyang Chen

2016-12-01

Full Text Available Information systems (IS continually motivate various improvements in the state-of-the-art of issues and solutions for advanced geo-information technologies in cloud computing. Reducing IS project risks and improving organizational performance has become an important issue. This study proposes a research framework, constructed from the Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R framework, in order to address the issues comprising the stimulus of project risk, the organism of project management, and the response of organizational performance for cloud service solutions. Cloud customer relationship management (cloud CRM experts, based on cloud computing, with many years of project management experience, were selected for the interview sample in this study. Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory–based analytical network process (DEMATEL based-ANP, DANP is a multiple-criteria decision-making (MCDM analysis tool that does not have prior assumptions and it was used to experience the dynamic relationships among project risk, project management, and organizational performance. The study results include three directions: (a Improving the internal business process performance can improve the efficiency of cloud CRM project processes and activities; (b The emphasis on financial performance management can reduce the cost of a cloud CRM project so that the project can be completed within the approved budget; (c Meeting user needs can improve user risk and reduce negative cloud CRM user experience. The scientific value of this study can be extended in order to study different projects, through research methods and frameworks, in order to explore project risk management and corporate performance improvements.

Characterizing synoptic and cloud variability in the northern atlantic using self-organizing maps

Science.gov (United States)

Fish, Carly

Low-level clouds have a significant influence on the Earth's radiation budget and it is thus imperative to understand their behavior within the marine boundary layer (MBL). The cloud properties in the Northeast Atlantic region are highly variable in space and time and are a research focus for many atmospheric scientists. Characterizing the synoptic patterns in the region through the implementation of self-organizing maps (SOMs) enables a climatological grasp of cloud and atmospheric fields. ERA -- Interim and MODIS provide the platform to explore the variability in the Northeast Atlantic for over 30 years of data. Station data comes from CAP -- MBL on Graciosa Island in the Azores, which lies in a strong gradient of cloud and other atmospheric fields, offer an opportunity to incorporate an observational aspect for the years of 2009 and 2010.

Zen of cloud learning cloud computing by examples on Microsoft Azure

CERN Document Server

Bai, Haishi

2014-01-01

Zen of Cloud: Learning Cloud Computing by Examples on Microsoft Azure provides comprehensive coverage of the essential theories behind cloud computing and the Windows Azure cloud platform. Sharing the author's insights gained while working at Microsoft's headquarters, it presents nearly 70 end-to-end examples with step-by-step guidance on implementing typical cloud-based scenarios.The book is organized into four sections: cloud service fundamentals, cloud solutions, devices and cloud, and system integration and project management. Each chapter contains detailed exercises that provide readers w

Cloud Computing for Geosciences--GeoCloud for standardized geospatial service platforms (Invited)

Science.gov (United States)

Nebert, D. D.; Huang, Q.; Yang, C.

2013-12-01

The 21st century geoscience faces challenges of Big Data, spike computing requirements (e.g., when natural disaster happens), and sharing resources through cyberinfrastructure across different organizations (Yang et al., 2011). With flexibility and cost-efficiency of computing resources a primary concern, cloud computing emerges as a promising solution to provide core capabilities to address these challenges. Many governmental and federal agencies are adopting cloud technologies to cut costs and to make federal IT operations more efficient (Huang et al., 2010). However, it is still difficult for geoscientists to take advantage of the benefits of cloud computing to facilitate the scientific research and discoveries. This presentation reports using GeoCloud to illustrate the process and strategies used in building a common platform for geoscience communities to enable the sharing, integration of geospatial data, information and knowledge across different domains. GeoCloud is an annual incubator project coordinated by the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) in collaboration with the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) and the Department of Health and Human Services. It is designed as a staging environment to test and document the deployment of a common GeoCloud community platform that can be implemented by multiple agencies. With these standardized virtual geospatial servers, a variety of government geospatial applications can be quickly migrated to the cloud. In order to achieve this objective, multiple projects are nominated each year by federal agencies as existing public-facing geospatial data services. From the initial candidate projects, a set of common operating system and software requirements was identified as the baseline for platform as a service (PaaS) packages. Based on these developed common platform packages, each project deploys and monitors its web application, develops best practices, and documents cost and performance information. This

High Performance Networks From Supercomputing to Cloud Computing

CERN Document Server

Abts, Dennis

2011-01-01

Datacenter networks provide the communication substrate for large parallel computer systems that form the ecosystem for high performance computing (HPC) systems and modern Internet applications. The design of new datacenter networks is motivated by an array of applications ranging from communication intensive climatology, complex material simulations and molecular dynamics to such Internet applications as Web search, language translation, collaborative Internet applications, streaming video and voice-over-IP. For both Supercomputing and Cloud Computing the network enables distributed applicati

Model Based Business and IT Cloud Alignment as a Cloud Offering

OpenAIRE

Robert Woitsch; Wilfrid Utz

2015-01-01

Cloud computing proved to offer flexible IT solutions. Although large enterprises may benefit from this technology by educating their IT departments, SMEs are dramatically falling behind in cloud usage and hence lose the ability to efficiently adapt their IT to their business needs. This paper introduces the project idea of the H2020 project CloudSocket, by elaborating the idea of Business Processes as a Service, where concept models and semantics are applied to align business pro...

Analysis of high-resolution simulations for the Black Forest region from a point of view of tourism climatology - a comparison between two regional climate models (REMO and CLM)

Science.gov (United States)

Endler, Christina; Matzarakis, Andreas

2011-03-01

An analysis of climate simulations from a point of view of tourism climatology based on two regional climate models, namely REMO and CLM, was performed for a regional domain in the southwest of Germany, the Black Forest region, for two time frames, 1971-2000 that represents the twentieth century climate and 2021-2050 that represents the future climate. In that context, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) scenarios A1B and B1 are used. The analysis focuses on human-biometeorological and applied climatologic issues, especially for tourism purposes - that means parameters belonging to thermal (physiologically equivalent temperature, PET), physical (precipitation, snow, wind), and aesthetic (fog, cloud cover) facets of climate in tourism. In general, both models reveal similar trends, but differ in their extent. The trend of thermal comfort is contradicting: it tends to decrease in REMO, while it shows a slight increase in CLM. Moreover, REMO reveals a wider range of future climate trends than CLM, especially for sunshine, dry days, and heat stress. Both models are driven by the same global coupled atmosphere-ocean model ECHAM5/MPI-OM. Because both models are not able to resolve meso- and micro-scale processes such as cloud microphysics, differences between model results and discrepancies in the development of even those parameters (e.g., cloud formation and cover) are due to different model parameterization and formulation. Climatic changes expected by 2050 are small compared to 2100, but may have major impacts on tourism as for example, snow cover and its duration are highly vulnerable to a warmer climate directly affecting tourism in winter. Beyond indirect impacts are of high relevance as they influence tourism as well. Thus, changes in climate, natural environment, demography, tourists' demands, among other things affect economy in general. The analysis of the CLM results and its comparison with the REMO results complete the analysis performed

Historical Climatology Series

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — The Historical Climatology Series (HCS) is a set of climate-related publications published by NOAA's National Climatic Data Center beginning in 1978. HCS is...

Atmospheric transport, clouds and the Arctic longwave radiation paradox

Science.gov (United States)

Sedlar, Joseph

2016-04-01

Clouds interact with radiation, causing variations in the amount of electromagnetic energy reaching the Earth's surface, or escaping the climate system to space. While globally clouds lead to an overall cooling radiative effect at the surface, over the Arctic, where annual cloud fractions are high, the surface cloud radiative effect generally results in a warming. The additional energy input from absorption and re-emission of longwave radiation by the clouds to the surface can have a profound effect on the sea ice state. Anomalous atmospheric transport of heat and moisture into the Arctic, promoting cloud formation and enhancing surface longwave radiation anomalies, has been identified as an important mechanism in preconditioning Arctic sea ice for melt. Longwave radiation is emitted equally in all directions, and changes in the atmospheric infrared emission temperature and emissivity associated with advection of heat and moisture over the Arctic should correspondingly lead to an anomalous signal in longwave radiation at the top of the atmosphere (TOA). To examine the role of atmospheric heat and moisture transport into the Arctic on TOA longwave radiation, infrared satellite sounder observations from AIRS during 2003-2014 are analyzed for summer (JJAS). Thermodynamic metrics are developed to identify months characterized by a high frequency of warm and moist advection into the Arctic, and segregate the 2003-14 time period into climatological and anomalously warm, moist summer months. We find that anomalously warm, moist months result in a significant TOA longwave radiative cooling, which is opposite the forcing signal that the surface experiences during these months. At the timescale of the advective events, 3-10 days, the TOA cooling can be as large as the net surface energy budget during summer. When averaged on the monthly time scale, and over the full Arctic basin (poleward of 75°N), summer months experiencing frequent warm, moist advection events are

Reference Climatological Stations

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — The Reference Climatological Stations (RCS) network represents the first effort by NOAA to create and maintain a nationwide network of stations located only in areas...

A cosmic ray-climate link and cloud observations

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dunne Eimear M.

2012-11-01

Full Text Available Despite over 35 years of constant satellite-based measurements of cloud, reliable evidence of a long-hypothesized link between changes in solar activity and Earth’s cloud cover remains elusive. This work examines evidence of a cosmic ray cloud link from a range of sources, including satellite-based cloud measurements and long-term ground-based climatological measurements. The satellite-based studies can be divided into two categories: (1 monthly to decadal timescale analysis and (2 daily timescale epoch-superpositional (composite analysis. The latter analyses frequently focus on sudden high-magnitude reductions in the cosmic ray flux known as Forbush decrease events. At present, two long-term independent global satellite cloud datasets are available (ISCCP and MODIS. Although the differences between them are considerable, neither shows evidence of a solar-cloud link at either long or short timescales. Furthermore, reports of observed correlations between solar activity and cloud over the 1983–1995 period are attributed to the chance agreement between solar changes and artificially induced cloud trends. It is possible that the satellite cloud datasets and analysis methods may simply be too insensitive to detect a small solar signal. Evidence from ground-based studies suggests that some weak but statistically significant cosmic ray-cloud relationships may exist at regional scales, involving mechanisms related to the global electric circuit. However, a poor understanding of these mechanisms and their effects on cloud makes the net impacts of such links uncertain. Regardless of this, it is clear that there is no robust evidence of a widespread link between the cosmic ray flux and clouds.

The Cloud Feedback Model Intercomparison Project Observational Simulator Package: Version 2

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

D. J. Swales

2018-01-01

Full Text Available The Cloud Feedback Model Intercomparison Project Observational Simulator Package (COSP gathers together a collection of observation proxies or satellite simulators that translate model-simulated cloud properties to synthetic observations as would be obtained by a range of satellite observing systems. This paper introduces COSP2, an evolution focusing on more explicit and consistent separation between host model, coupling infrastructure, and individual observing proxies. Revisions also enhance flexibility by allowing for model-specific representation of sub-grid-scale cloudiness, provide greater clarity by clearly separating tasks, support greater use of shared code and data including shared inputs across simulators, and follow more uniform software standards to simplify implementation across a wide range of platforms. The complete package including a testing suite is freely available.

Using Radar, Lidar, and Radiometer measurements to Classify Cloud Type and Study Middle-Level Cloud Properties

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Wang, Zhien

2010-06-29

The project is mainly focused on the characterization of cloud macrophysical and microphysical properties, especially for mixed-phased clouds and middle level ice clouds by combining radar, lidar, and radiometer measurements available from the ACRF sites. First, an advanced mixed-phase cloud retrieval algorithm will be developed to cover all mixed-phase clouds observed at the ACRF NSA site. The algorithm will be applied to the ACRF NSA observations to generate a long-term arctic mixed-phase cloud product for model validations and arctic mixed-phase cloud processes studies. To improve the representation of arctic mixed-phase clouds in GCMs, an advanced understanding of mixed-phase cloud processes is needed. By combining retrieved mixed-phase cloud microphysical properties with in situ data and large-scale meteorological data, the project aim to better understand the generations of ice crystals in supercooled water clouds, the maintenance mechanisms of the arctic mixed-phase clouds, and their connections with large-scale dynamics. The project will try to develop a new retrieval algorithm to study more complex mixed-phase clouds observed at the ACRF SGP site. Compared with optically thin ice clouds, optically thick middle level ice clouds are less studied because of limited available tools. The project will develop a new two wavelength radar technique for optically thick ice cloud study at SGP site by combining the MMCR with the W-band radar measurements. With this new algorithm, the SGP site will have a better capability to study all ice clouds. Another area of the proposal is to generate long-term cloud type classification product for the multiple ACRF sites. The cloud type classification product will not only facilitates the generation of the integrated cloud product by applying different retrieval algorithms to different types of clouds operationally, but will also support other research to better understand cloud properties and to validate model simulations. The

NASA/GEWEX Surface Radiation Budget: Integrated Data Product With Reprocessed Radiance, Cloud, and Meteorology Inputs, and New Surface Albedo Treatment

Science.gov (United States)

Cox, Stephen J.; Stackhouse, Paul W., Jr.; Gupta, Shashi K.; Mikovitz, J. Colleen; Zhang, Taiping

2016-01-01

The NASA/GEWEX Surface Radiation Budget (SRB) project produces shortwave and longwave surface and top of atmosphere radiative fluxes for the 1983-near present time period. Spatial resolution is 1 degree. The current release 3.0 (available at gewex-srb.larc.nasa.gov) uses the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) DX product for pixel level radiance and cloud information. This product is subsampled to 30 km. ISCCP is currently recalibrating and recomputing their entire data series, to be released as the H product, at 10km resolution. The ninefold increase in pixel number will allow SRB a higher resolution gridded product (e.g. 0.5 degree), as well as the production of pixel-level fluxes. In addition to the input data improvements, several important algorithm improvements have been made. Most notable has been the adaptation of Angular Distribution Models (ADMs) from CERES to improve the initial calculation of shortwave TOA fluxes, from which the surface flux calculations follow. Other key input improvements include a detailed aerosol history using the Max Planck Institut Aerosol Climatology (MAC), temperature and moisture profiles from HIRS, and new topography, surface type, and snow/ice. Here we present results for the improved GEWEX Shortwave and Longwave algorithm (GSW and GLW) with new ISCCP data, the various other improved input data sets and the incorporation of many additional internal SRB model improvements. As of the time of abstract submission, results from 2007 have been produced with ISCCP H availability the limiting factor. More SRB data will be produced as ISCCP reprocessing continues. The SRB data produced will be released as part of the Release 4.0 Integrated Product, recognizing the interdependence of the radiative fluxes with other GEWEX products providing estimates of the Earth's global water and energy cycle (I.e., ISCCP, SeaFlux, LandFlux, NVAP, etc.).

OW Levitus Climatology

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — The dataset consists of global temperature and salinity climatologies with a spatial resolution of 1x1 degree, and consists of 19 levels (surface - 5000m). It was...

Cloud computing patterns fundamentals to design, build, and manage cloud applications

CERN Document Server

Fehling, Christoph; Retter, Ralph; Schupeck, Walter; Arbitter, Peter

2014-01-01

The current work provides CIOs, software architects, project managers, developers, and cloud strategy initiatives with a set of architectural patterns that offer nuggets of advice on how to achieve common cloud computing-related goals. The cloud computing patterns capture knowledge and experience in an abstract format that is independent of concrete vendor products. Readers are provided with a toolbox to structure cloud computing strategies and design cloud application architectures. By using this book cloud-native applications can be implemented and best suited cloud vendors and tooling for i

ownCloud project at CNRS

CERN Multimedia

CERN. Geneva

2014-01-01

CNRS will launch next November an ownCloud based service with the intend to serve CNRS research units. The first step is to deploy this service as a beta solution for 2 months and 2 000 end users, and then to generalize this offer to the whole CNRS users (potentialy 100 000 users). Our platform is based on ownCloud 7 community edition, with VMWare for virtualization, a Galera/MariaDB cluster database and Scality for the distributed storage backend. We will try to present during this workshop our service implementation in detail, and discuss about our choices, our concerns, … our troubles :)

Trend Analysis of Evapotranspiration over India- Observed from ...

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

3

Future studies on the effects of ET changes on the hydrological cycle .... VI is useful for long-term monitoring of the land surface and climate related processes. .... were applied spatially using AVHRR Global Inventory Modelling and .... SRB uses cloud properties derived from International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project.

Climatological variability in regional air pollution

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Shannon, J.D.; Trexler, E.C. Jr.

1995-01-01

Although some air pollution modeling studies examine events that have already occurred (e.g., the Chernobyl plume) with relevant meteorological conditions largely known, most pollution modeling studies address expected or potential scenarios for the future. Future meteorological conditions, the major pollutant forcing function other than emissions, are inherently uncertain although much relevant information is contained in past observational data. For convenience in our discussions of regional pollutant variability unrelated to emission changes, we define meteorological variability as short-term (within-season) pollutant variability and climatological variability as year-to-year changes in seasonal averages and accumulations of pollutant variables. In observations and in some of our simulations the effects are confounded because for seasons of two different years both the mean and the within-season character of a pollutant variable may change. Effects of climatological and meteorological variability on means and distributions of air pollution parameters, particularly those related to regional visibility, are illustrated. Over periods of up to a decade climatological variability may mask or overstate improvements resulting from emission controls. The importance of including climatological uncertainties in assessing potential policies, particularly when based partly on calculated source-receptor relationships, is highlighted

Gulf of Mexico Regional Climatology (NCEI Accession 0123320)

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — The Gulf of Mexico Regional Climatology is a set of objectively analyzed climatological fields of temperature, salinity, oxygen, phosphate, silicate, and nitrate at...

Observational and Dynamical Wave Climatologies. VOS vs Satellite Data

Science.gov (United States)

Grigorieva, Victoria; Badulin, Sergei; Chernyshova, Anna

2013-04-01

The understanding physics of wind-driven waves is crucially important for fundamental science and practical applications. This is why experimental efforts are targeted at both getting reliable information on sea state and elaborating effective tools of the sea wave forecasting. The global Visual Wave Observations and satellite data from the GLOBWAVE project of the European Space Agency are analyzed in the context of these two viewpoints. Within the first "observational" aspect we re-analyze conventional climatologies of all basic wave parameters for the last decades [5]. An alternative "dynamical" climatology is introduced as a tool of prediction of dynamical features of sea waves on global scales. The features of wave dynamics are studied in terms of one-parametric dependencies of wave heights on wave periods following the theoretical concept of self-similar wind-driven seas [3, 1, 4] and recently proposed approach to analysis of Voluntary Observing Ship (VOS) data [2]. Traditional "observational" climatologies based on VOS and satellite data collections demonstrate extremely consistent pictures for significant wave heights and dominant periods. On the other hand, collocated satellite and VOS data show significant differences in wave heights, wind speeds and, especially, in wave periods. Uncertainties of visual wave observations can explain these differences only partially. We see the key reason of this inconsistency in the methods of satellite data processing which are based on formal application of data interpolation methods rather than on up-to-date physics of wind-driven waves. The problem is considered within the alternative climatology approach where dynamical criteria of wave height-to-period linkage are used for retrieving wave periods and constructing physically consistent dynamical climatology. The key dynamical parameter - exponent R of one-parametric dependence Hs ~ TR shows dramatically less pronounced latitudinal dependence as compared to observed Hs

Extended-range prediction trials using the global cloud/cloud-system resolving model NICAM and its new ocean-coupled version NICOCO

Science.gov (United States)

Miyakawa, Tomoki

2017-04-01

The global cloud/cloud-system resolving model NICAM and its new fully-coupled version NICOCO is run on one of the worlds top-tier supercomputers, the K computer. NICOCO couples the full-3D ocean component COCO of the general circulation model MIROC using a general-purpose coupler Jcup. We carried out multiple MJO simulations using NICAM and the new ocean-coupled version NICOCO to examine their extended-range MJO prediction skills and the impact of ocean coupling. NICAM performs excellently in terms of MJO prediction, maintaining a valid skill up to 27 days after the model is initialized (Miyakawa et al 2014). As is the case in most global models, ocean coupling frees the model from being anchored by the observed SST and allows the model climate to drift away further from reality compared to the atmospheric version of the model. Thus, it is important to evaluate the model bias, and in an initial value problem such as the seasonal extended-range prediction, it is essential to be able to distinguish the actual signal from the early transition of the model from the observed state to its own climatology. Since NICAM is a highly resource-demanding model, evaluation and tuning of the model climatology (order of years) is challenging. Here we focus on the initial 100 days to estimate the early drift of the model, and subsequently evaluate MJO prediction skills of NICOCO. Results show that in the initial 100 days, NICOCO forms a La-Nina like SST bias compared to observation, with a warmer Maritime Continent warm pool and a cooler equatorial central Pacific. The enhanced convection over the Maritime Continent associated with this bias project on to the real-time multi-variate MJO indices (RMM, Wheeler and Hendon 2004), and contaminates the MJO skill score. However, the bias does not appear to demolish the MJO signal severely. The model maintains a valid MJO prediction skill up to nearly 4 weeks when evaluated after linearly removing the early drift component estimated from

Synoptic-climatological evaluation of the classifications of atmospheric circulation patterns over Europe

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Huth, Radan; Beck, Ch.; Kučerová, Monika

2016-01-01

Roč. 36, č. 7 (2016), s. 2710-2726 ISSN 0899-8418 R&D Projects: GA ČR(CZ) GPP209/12/P811; GA MŠk OC 115 Institutional support: RVO:68378289 Keywords : circulation types * classification * synoptic climatology * COST733 Subject RIV: DG - Athmosphere Sciences, Meteorology Impact factor: 3.760, year: 2016 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.4546/full

The Adaptive Ecosystem Climatology (AEC): Design and Development

Science.gov (United States)

deRada, S.; Penta, B.; McCarthy, S.; Gould, R. W., Jr.

2016-02-01

The concept of ecosystem-based management (EBM), recently introduced to rectify the shortcomings of single-species management policies, has been widely accepted as a basis for the conservation and management of natural resources. In line with NOAA's Integrated Ecosystem Assessment (IEA) Program, EBM is an integrated approach that considers the entire ecosystem and the interactions among species rather than focusing on individual components. This integrative approach relies on heterogeneous data, physical as well as biogeochemical data, among many others. Relative to physical data, however, marine biogeochemical records, also critical in IEA and EBM, are still lacking, both in terms of mature models and in terms of observational data availability. TheAdaptive Ecosystem Climatology (AEC) was conceived as a novel approach to address these limitations, mitigating the shortcomings of the individual components and combining their strengths to enhance decision-making activities. AEC is designed on the concept that a high-frequency climatology can be used as a baseline into which available observational data can be ingested to produce a higher accuracy product. In the absence of observations, the climatology acts as a best estimate. AEC was developed using a long-term simulation of a coupled biophysical numerical model configured for the Gulf of Mexico. Using the model results, we constructed a three-dimensional, dynamically balanced, gridded, static climatology for each calendar day. Using this `static' climatology as a background `first guess', observations from a particular date are ingested via optimal interpolation to `nudge' the climatology toward current conditions, thus providing representative fields for that date (adaptive climatology). With this adaptive approach, AEC can support a variety of EBM objectives, from fisheries, to resource management, to coastal resilience.

Soft Clouding

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Søndergaard, Morten; Markussen, Thomas; Wetton, Barnabas

2012-01-01

Soft Clouding is a blended concept, which describes the aim of a collaborative and transdisciplinary project. The concept is a metaphor implying a blend of cognitive, embodied interaction and semantic web. Furthermore, it is a metaphor describing our attempt of curating a new semantics of sound...... archiving. The Soft Clouding Project is part of LARM - a major infrastructure combining research in and access to sound and radio archives in Denmark. In 2012 the LARM infrastructure will consist of more than 1 million hours of radio, combined with metadata who describes the content. The idea is to analyse...... the concept of ‘infrastructure’ and ‘interface’ on a creative play with the fundamentals of LARM (and any sound archive situation combining many kinds and layers of data and sources). This paper will present and discuss the Soft clouding project from the perspective of the three practices and competencies...

Snow and Ice Climatology of the Western United States and Alaska from MODIS

Science.gov (United States)

Rittger, K. E.; Painter, T. H.; Mattmann, C. A.; Seidel, F. C.; Burgess, A.; Brodzik, M.

2013-12-01

The climate and hydroclimate of the Western US and Alaska are tightly coupled to their snow and ice cover. The Western US depends on mountain snowmelt for the majority of its water supply to agriculture, industrial and urban use, hydroelectric generation, and recreation, all driven by increasing population and demand. Alaskan snow and glacier cover modulate regional climate and, as with the Western US, dominate water supply and hydroelectric generation in much of the state. Projections of climate change in the Western US and Alaska suggest that the most pronounced impacts will include reductions of mountain snow and ice cover, earlier runoff, and a greater fraction of rain instead of snow. We establish a snow and ice climatology of the Western US and Alaska using physically based MODIS Snow Covered Area and Grain size model (MODSCAG) for fractional snow cover, the MODIS Dust Radiative Forcing in Snow model (MODDRFS) for radiative forcing by light absorbing impurities in snow, and the MODIS Permanent Ice model (MODICE) for annual minimum exposed snow. MODSCAG and MODDRFS use EOS MOD09GA historical reflectance data (2000-2012) to provide daily and 8-day composites and near real time products since the beginning of 2013, themselves ultimately composited to 8-day products. The compositing method considers sensor-viewing geometry, solar illumination, clouds, cloud shadows, aerosols and noisy detectors in order to select the best pixel for an 8-day period. The MODICE annual minimum exposed snow and ice product uses the daily time series of fractional snow and ice from MODSCAG to generate annual maps. With this project we have established an ongoing, national-scale, consistent and replicable approach to assessing current and projected climate impacts and climate-related risk in the context of other stressors. We analyze the products in the Northwest, Southwest, and Alaska/Arctic regions of the National Climate Assessment for the last decade, the nation's hottest on record

Intercomparison of aerosol-cloud-precipitation interactions in stratiform orographic mixed-phase clouds

Science.gov (United States)

Muhlbauer, A.; Hashino, T.; Xue, L.; Teller, A.; Lohmann, U.; Rasmussen, R. M.; Geresdi, I.; Pan, Z.

2010-09-01

. Furthermore, it is found that neither a decrease in cloud droplet coalescence nor a decrease in riming necessarily implies a decrease in precipitation due to compensation effects by other microphysical pathways. The simulations suggest that mixed-phase conditions play an important role in buffering the effect of aerosol perturbations on cloud microphysics and reducing the overall susceptibility of clouds and precipitation to changes in the aerosol number concentrations. As a consequence the aerosol effect on precipitation is suggested to be less pronounced or even inverted in regions with high terrain (e.g., the Alps or Rocky Mountains) or in regions where mixed-phase microphysics is important for the climatology of orographic precipitation.

Tropospheric Ozonesonde Profiles at Long-term U.S. Monitoring Sites: 1. A Climatology Based on Self-Organizing Maps

Science.gov (United States)

Stauffer, Ryan M.; Thompson, Anne M.; Young, George S.

2016-01-01

Sonde-based climatologies of tropospheric ozone (O3) are vital for developing satellite retrieval algorithms and evaluating chemical transport model output. Typical O3 climatologies average measurements by latitude or region, and season. A recent analysis using self-organizing maps (SOM) to cluster ozonesondes from two tropical sites found that clusters of O3 mixing ratio profiles are an excellent way to capture O3variability and link meteorological influences to O3 profiles. Clusters correspond to distinct meteorological conditions, e.g., convection, subsidence, cloud cover, and transported pollution. Here the SOM technique is extended to four long-term U.S. sites (Boulder, CO; Huntsville, AL; Trinidad Head, CA; and Wallops Island, VA) with4530 total profiles. Sensitivity tests on k-means algorithm and SOM justify use of 3 3 SOM (nine clusters). Ateach site, SOM clusters together O3 profiles with similar tropopause height, 500 hPa height temperature, and amount of tropospheric and total column O3. Cluster means are compared to monthly O3 climatologies.For all four sites, near-tropopause O3 is double (over +100 parts per billion by volume; ppbv) the monthly climatological O3 mixing ratio in three clusters that contain 1316 of profiles, mostly in winter and spring.Large midtropospheric deviations from monthly means (6 ppbv, +710 ppbv O3 at 6 km) are found in two of the most populated clusters (combined 3639 of profiles). These two clusters contain distinctly polluted(summer) and clean O3 (fall-winter, high tropopause) profiles, respectively. As for tropical profiles previously analyzed with SOM, O3 averages are often poor representations of U.S. O3 profile statistics.

Cloud CCN feedback

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hudson, J.G.

1992-01-01

Cloud microphysics affects cloud albedo precipitation efficiency and the extent of cloud feedback in response to global warming. Compared to other cloud parameters, microphysics is unique in its large range of variability and the fact that much of the variability is anthropogenic. Probably the most important determinant of cloud microphysics is the spectra of cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) which display considerable variability and have a large anthropogenic component. When analyzed in combination three field observation projects display the interrelationship between CCN and cloud microphysics. CCN were measured with the Desert Research Institute (DRI) instantaneous CCN spectrometer. Cloud microphysical measurements were obtained with the National Center for Atmospheric Research Lockheed Electra. Since CCN and cloud microphysics each affect the other a positive feedback mechanism can result

Climatological Data National Summary

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — The CDNS was published from 1950 - 1980. Monthly and annual editions contain summarized climatological information from the following publications: Local...

When STAR meets the Clouds-Virtualization and Cloud Computing Experiences

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lauret, J; Hajdu, L; Walker, M; Balewski, J; Goasguen, S; Stout, L; Fenn, M; Keahey, K

2011-01-01

In recent years, Cloud computing has become a very attractive paradigm and popular model for accessing distributed resources. The Cloud has emerged as the next big trend. The burst of platform and projects providing Cloud resources and interfaces at the very same time that Grid projects are entering a production phase in their life cycle has however raised the question of the best approach to handling distributed resources. Especially, are Cloud resources scaling at the levels shown by Grids? Are they performing at the same level? What is their overhead on the IT teams and infrastructure? Rather than seeing the two as orthogonal, the STAR experiment has viewed them as complimentary and has studied merging the best of the two worlds with Grid middleware providing the aggregation of both Cloud and traditional resources. Since its first use of Cloud resources on Amazon EC2 in 2008/2009 using a Nimbus/EC2 interface, the STAR software team has tested and experimented with many novel approaches: from a traditional, native EC2 approach to the Virtual Organization Cluster (VOC) at Clemson University and Condor/VM on the GLOW resources at the University of Wisconsin. The STAR team is also planning to run as part of the DOE/Magellan project. In this paper, we will present an overview of our findings from using truly opportunistic resources and scaling-out two orders of magnitude in both tests and practical usage.

Climatological determinants of woody cover in Africa.

Science.gov (United States)

Good, Stephen P; Caylor, Kelly K

2011-03-22

Determining the factors that influence the distribution of woody vegetation cover and resolving the sensitivity of woody vegetation cover to shifts in environmental forcing are critical steps necessary to predict continental-scale responses of dryland ecosystems to climate change. We use a 6-year satellite data record of fractional woody vegetation cover and an 11-year daily precipitation record to investigate the climatological controls on woody vegetation cover across the African continent. We find that-as opposed to a relationship with only mean annual rainfall-the upper limit of fractional woody vegetation cover is strongly influenced by both the quantity and intensity of rainfall events. Using a set of statistics derived from the seasonal distribution of rainfall, we show that areas with similar seasonal rainfall totals have higher fractional woody cover if the local rainfall climatology consists of frequent, less intense precipitation events. Based on these observations, we develop a generalized response surface between rainfall climatology and maximum woody vegetation cover across the African continent. The normalized local gradient of this response surface is used as an estimator of ecosystem vegetation sensitivity to climatological variation. A comparison between predicted climate sensitivity patterns and observed shifts in both rainfall and vegetation during 2009 reveals both the importance of rainfall climatology in governing how ecosystems respond to interannual fluctuations in climate and the utility of our framework as a means to forecast continental-scale patterns of vegetation shifts in response to future climate change.

Business Process as a Service Model Based Business and IT Cloud Alignment as a Cloud Offering

OpenAIRE

Robert Woitsch; Wilfrid Utz

2015-01-01

Cloud computing proved to offer flexible IT solutions. Although large enterprises may benefit from this technology, SMEs are falling behind in cloud usage due to missing ITcompetence and hence lose the ability to efficiently adapt their IT to their business needs. This paper introduces the project idea of the H2020 project CloudSocket, by elaborating the idea of Business Processes as a Service (BPaaS), where concept models and semantics are applied to align business processes with Cloud deplo...

Sensitivity study of cloud/radiation interaction using a second order turbulence radiative-convective model

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kao, C.Y.J.; Smith, W.S.

1993-01-01

A high resolution one-dimensional version of a second order turbulence convective/radiative model, developed at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, was used to conduct a sensitivity study of a stratocumulus cloud deck, based on data taken at San Nicolas Island during the intensive field observation marine stratocumulus phase of the First International Satellite Cloud Climatology Program (ISCCP) Regional Experiment (FIRE IFO), conducted during July, 1987. Initial profiles for liquid water potential temperature, and total water mixing ratio were abstracted from the FIRE data. The dependence of the diurnal behavior in liquid water content, cloud top height, and cloud base height were examined for variations in subsidence rate, sea surface temperature, and initial inversion strength. The modelled diurnal variation in the column integrated liquid water agrees quite well with the observed data, for the case of low subsidence. The modelled diurnal behavior for the height of the cloud top and base show qualitative agreement with the FIRE data, although the overall height of the cloud layer is about 200 meters too high

An Updated TRMM Composite Climatology of Tropical Rainfall and Its Validation

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Jian-Jian; Adler, Robert F.; Huffman, George; Bolvin, David

2013-01-01

An updated 15-yr Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) composite climatology (TCC) is presented and evaluated. This climatology is based on a combination of individual rainfall estimates made with data from the primaryTRMMinstruments: theTRMM Microwave Imager (TMI) and the precipitation radar (PR). This combination climatology of passive microwave retrievals, radar-based retrievals, and an algorithm using both instruments simultaneously provides a consensus TRMM-based estimate of mean precipitation. The dispersion of the three estimates, as indicated by the standard deviation sigma among the estimates, is presented as a measure of confidence in the final estimate and as an estimate of the uncertainty thereof. The procedures utilized by the compositing technique, including adjustments and quality-control measures, are described. The results give a mean value of the TCC of 4.3mm day(exp -1) for the deep tropical ocean beltbetween 10 deg N and 10 deg S, with lower values outside that band. In general, the TCC values confirm ocean estimates from the Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) analysis, which is based on passive microwave results adjusted for sampling by infrared-based estimates. The pattern of uncertainty estimates shown by sigma is seen to be useful to indicate variations in confidence. Examples include differences between the eastern and western portions of the Pacific Ocean and high values in coastal and mountainous areas. Comparison of the TCC values (and the input products) to gauge analyses over land indicates the value of the radar-based estimates (small biases) and the limitations of the passive microwave algorithm (relatively large biases). Comparison with surface gauge information from western Pacific Ocean atolls shows a negative bias (16%) for all the TRMM products, although the representativeness of the atoll gauges of open-ocean rainfall is still in question.

Cloud vertical profiles derived from CALIPSO and CloudSat and a comparison with MODIS derived clouds

Science.gov (United States)

Kato, S.; Sun-Mack, S.; Miller, W. F.; Rose, F. G.; Minnis, P.; Wielicki, B. A.; Winker, D. M.; Stephens, G. L.; Charlock, T. P.; Collins, W. D.; Loeb, N. G.; Stackhouse, P. W.; Xu, K.

2008-05-01

CALIPSO and CloudSat from the a-train provide detailed information of vertical distribution of clouds and aerosols. The vertical distribution of cloud occurrence is derived from one month of CALIPSO and CloudSat data as a part of the effort of merging CALIPSO, CloudSat and MODIS with CERES data. This newly derived cloud profile is compared with the distribution of cloud top height derived from MODIS on Aqua from cloud algorithms used in the CERES project. The cloud base from MODIS is also estimated using an empirical formula based on the cloud top height and optical thickness, which is used in CERES processes. While MODIS detects mid and low level clouds over the Arctic in April fairly well when they are the topmost cloud layer, it underestimates high- level clouds. In addition, because the CERES-MODIS cloud algorithm is not able to detect multi-layer clouds and the empirical formula significantly underestimates the depth of high clouds, the occurrence of mid and low-level clouds is underestimated. This comparison does not consider sensitivity difference to thin clouds but we will impose an optical thickness threshold to CALIPSO derived clouds for a further comparison. The effect of such differences in the cloud profile to flux computations will also be discussed. In addition, the effect of cloud cover to the top-of-atmosphere flux over the Arctic using CERES SSF and FLASHFLUX products will be discussed.

Preliminary Monthly Climatological Summaries

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — Preliminary Local Climatological Data, recorded since 1970 on Weather Burean Form 1030 and then National Weather Service Form F-6. The preliminary climate data pages...

A FIRE-ACE/SHEBA Case Study of Mixed-Phase Arctic Boundary Layer Clouds: Entrainment Rate Limitations on Rapid Primary Ice Nucleation Processes

Science.gov (United States)

Fridlin, Ann; vanDiedenhoven, Bastiaan; Ackerman, Andrew S.; Avramov, Alexander; Mrowiec, Agnieszka; Morrison, Hugh; Zuidema, Paquita; Shupe, Matthew D.

2012-01-01

Observations of long-lived mixed-phase Arctic boundary layer clouds on 7 May 1998 during the First International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) Regional Experiment (FIRE)Arctic Cloud Experiment (ACE)Surface Heat Budget of the Arctic Ocean (SHEBA) campaign provide a unique opportunity to test understanding of cloud ice formation. Under the microphysically simple conditions observed (apparently negligible ice aggregation, sublimation, and multiplication), the only expected source of new ice crystals is activation of heterogeneous ice nuclei (IN) and the only sink is sedimentation. Large-eddy simulations with size-resolved microphysics are initialized with IN number concentration N(sub IN) measured above cloud top, but details of IN activation behavior are unknown. If activated rapidly (in deposition, condensation, or immersion modes), as commonly assumed, IN are depleted from the well-mixed boundary layer within minutes. Quasi-equilibrium ice number concentration N(sub i) is then limited to a small fraction of overlying N(sub IN) that is determined by the cloud-top entrainment rate w(sub e) divided by the number-weighted ice fall speed at the surface v(sub f). Because w(sub c) 10 cm/s, N(sub i)/N(sub IN)<< 1. Such conditions may be common for this cloud type, which has implications for modeling IN diagnostically, interpreting measurements, and quantifying sensitivity to increasing N(sub IN) (when w(sub e)/v(sub f)< 1, entrainment rate limitations serve to buffer cloud system response). To reproduce observed ice crystal size distributions and cloud radar reflectivities with rapidly consumed IN in this case, the measured above-cloud N(sub IN) must be multiplied by approximately 30. However, results are sensitive to assumed ice crystal properties not constrained by measurements. In addition, simulations do not reproduce the pronounced mesoscale heterogeneity in radar reflectivity that is observed.

Final Technical Report for Project 'Improving the Simulation of Arctic Clouds in CCSM3 (SGER Award)'

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Vavrus, Stephen J.

2008-01-01

This project has focused on the simulation of Arctic clouds in CCSM3 and how the modeled cloud amount (and climate) can be improved substantially by altering the parameterized low cloud fraction. The new formula, dubbed 'freeezedry', alleviates the bias of excessive low clouds during polar winter by reducing the cloud amount under very dry conditions. During winter, freezedry decreases the low cloud amount over the coldest regions in high latitudes by over 50% locally and more than 30% averaged across the Arctic (Fig. 1). The cloud reduction causes an Arctic-wide drop of 15 W m -2 in surface cloud radiative forcing (CRF) during winter and about a 50% decrease in mean annual Arctic CRF. Consequently, wintertime surface temperatures fall by up to 4 K on land and 2-8 K over the Arctic Ocean, thus significantly reducing the model's pronounced warm bias (Fig. 1). While improving the polar climate simulation in CCSM3, freezedry has virtually no influence outside of very cold regions (Fig. 2) or during summer (Fig. 3), which are space and time domains that were not targeted. Furthermore, the simplicity of this parameterization allows it to be readily incorporated into other GCMs, many of which also suffer from excessive wintertime polar cloudiness, based on the results from the CMIP3 archive (Vavrus et al., 2008). Freezedry also affects CCSM3's sensitivity to greenhouse forcing. In a transient-CO 2 experiment, the model version with freezedry warms up to 20% less in the North Polar and South Polar regions (1.5 K and 0.5 K smaller warming, respectively) (Fig. 4). Paradoxically, the muted high-latitude response occurs despite a much larger increase in cloud amount with freezedry during non-summer months (when clouds warm the surface), apparently because of the colder modern reference climate. These results of the freezedry parameterization have recently been published (Vavrus and D. Waliser, 2008: An improved parameterization for simulating Arctic cloud amount in the CCSM3

Cloud computing strategies

CERN Document Server

Chorafas, Dimitris N

2011-01-01

A guide to managing cloud projects, Cloud Computing Strategies provides the understanding required to evaluate the technology and determine how it can be best applied to improve business and enhance your overall corporate strategy. Based on extensive research, it examines the opportunities and challenges that loom in the cloud. It explains exactly what cloud computing is, what it has to offer, and calls attention to the important issues management needs to consider before passing the point of no return regarding financial commitments.

The DACCIWA project: Dynamics-aerosol-chemistry-cloud interactions in West Africa

Science.gov (United States)

Knippertz, Peter

2017-04-01

This contribution provides an overview of the EU-funded DACCIWA (Dynamics-Aerosol-Chemistry-Cloud Interactions in West Africa) project. DACCIWA consists of 16 European and African research organisations and has strong links to universities, weather services and government organisations across West Africa. The project runs from 2010 to 2018 and is built around a major international field campaign in 2016. A key motivation for DACCIWA is the expected tripling of anthropogenic emissions in southern West Africa (SWA) between 2000 and 2030, whose impacts on human health, ecosystems, food security and the regional climate are largely unknown. An integrated assessment of this problem, which is mostly due to massive economic and population growth and urbanization, is challenging due to (a) a superposition of regional effects with global climate change, (b) a strong dependence on the variable West African monsoon, (c) incomplete scientific understanding of interactions between emissions, clouds, radiation, precipitation and regional circulations, and (d) a lack of observations. DACCIWA combines measurements in the field in SWA with extensive modelling activities and work on satellite data. In particular during the main DACCIWA field campaign in June-July 2016 high-quality observations of emissions, atmospheric composition and meteorological parameters were sampled. The campaign involved three research aircraft, three ground-based supersites, enhanced radiosonde launches, and intensive measurements at urban sites in Abidjan and Cotonou. These data have already been quality-controlled and will be freely available to the research community through a database at http://baobab.sedoo.fr/DACCIWA/ after the end of the project. The resulting benchmark dataset is currently combined with a wide range of modelling and satellite-based research activities that will ultimately allow (a) an assessment of the roles of relevant physical, chemical and biological processes, (b) an improvement

High energy physics and cloud computing

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cheng Yaodong; Liu Baoxu; Sun Gongxing; Chen Gang

2011-01-01

High Energy Physics (HEP) has been a strong promoter of computing technology, for example WWW (World Wide Web) and the grid computing. In the new era of cloud computing, HEP has still a strong demand, and major international high energy physics laboratories have launched a number of projects to research on cloud computing technologies and applications. It describes the current developments in cloud computing and its applications in high energy physics. Some ongoing projects in the institutes of high energy physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, including cloud storage, virtual computing clusters, and BESⅢ elastic cloud, are also described briefly in the paper. (authors)

Evolution in Cloud Population Statistics of the MJO: From AMIE Field Observations to Global Cloud-Permiting Models

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Zhang, Chidong [Univ. of Miami, Coral Gables, FL (United States)

2016-08-14

Motivated by the success of the AMIE/DYNAMO field campaign, which collected unprecedented observations of cloud and precipitation from the tropical Indian Ocean in Octber 2011 – March 2012, this project explored how such observations can be applied to assist the development of global cloud-permitting models through evaluating and correcting model biases in cloud statistics. The main accomplishment of this project were made in four categories: generating observational products for model evaluation, using AMIE/DYNAMO observations to validate global model simulations, using AMIE/DYNAMO observations in numerical studies of cloud-permitting models, and providing leadership in the field. Results from this project provide valuable information for building a seamless bridge between DOE ASR program’s component on process level understanding of cloud processes in the tropics and RGCM focus on global variability and regional extremes. In particular, experience gained from this project would be directly applicable to evaluation and improvements of ACME, especially as it transitions to a non-hydrostatic variable resolution model.

The AIST Managed Cloud Environment

Science.gov (United States)

Cook, S.

2016-12-01

ESTO is currently in the process of developing and implementing the AIST Managed Cloud Environment (AMCE) to offer cloud computing services to ESTO-funded PIs to conduct their project research. AIST will provide projects access to a cloud computing framework that incorporates NASA security, technical, and financial standards, on which project can freely store, run, and process data. Currently, many projects led by research groups outside of NASA do not have the awareness of requirements or the resources to implement NASA standards into their research, which limits the likelihood of infusing the work into NASA applications. Offering this environment to PIs will allow them to conduct their project research using the many benefits of cloud computing. In addition to the well-known cost and time savings that it allows, it also provides scalability and flexibility. The AMCE will facilitate infusion and end user access by ensuring standardization and security. This approach will ultimately benefit ESTO, the science community, and the research, allowing the technology developments to have quicker and broader applications.

Seven years of global retrieval of cloud properties using space-borne data of GOME

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

L. Lelli

2012-07-01

Full Text Available We present a global and regional multi-annual (June 1996–May 2003 analysis of cloud properties (spherical cloud albedo – CA, cloud optical thickness – COT and cloud top height – CTH of optically thick (COT > 5 clouds, derived using measurements from the GOME instrument on board the ESA ERS-2 space platform. We focus on cloud top height, which is obtained from top-of-atmosphere backscattered solar light measurements in the O₂ A-band using the Semi-Analytical CloUd Retrieval Algorithm SACURA. The physical framework relies on the asymptotic equations of radiative transfer. The dataset has been validated against independent ground- and satellite-based retrievals and is aimed to support trace-gases retrievals as well as to create a robust long-term climatology together with SCIAMACHY and GOME-2 ensuing retrievals. We observed the El Niño-Southern Oscillation anomaly in the 1997–1998 record through CTH values over the Pacific Ocean. The global average CTH as derived from GOME is 5.6 ± 3.2 km, for a corresponding average COT of 19.1 ± 13.9.

Using long-term ARM observations to evaluate Arctic mixed-phased cloud representation in the GISS ModelE GCM

Science.gov (United States)

Lamer, K.; Fridlind, A. M.; Luke, E. P.; Tselioudis, G.; Ackerman, A. S.; Kollias, P.; Clothiaux, E. E.

2016-12-01

The presence of supercooled liquid in clouds affects surface radiative and hydrological budgets, especially at high latitudes. Capturing these effects is crucial to properly quantifying climate sensitivity. Currently, a number of CGMs disagree on the distribution of cloud phase. Adding to the challenge is a general lack of observations on the continuum of clouds, from high to low-level and from warm to cold. In the current study, continuous observations from 2011 to 2014 are used to evaluate all clouds produced by the GISS ModelE GCM over the ARM North Slope of Alaska site. The International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) Global Weather State (GWS) approach reveals that fair-weather (GWS 7, 32% occurrence rate), as well as mid-level storm related (GWS 5, 28%) and polar (GWS 4, 14%) clouds, dominate the large-scale cloud patterns at this high latitude site. At higher spatial and temporal resolutions, ground-based cloud radar observations reveal a majority of single layer cloud vertical structures (CVS). While clear sky and low-level clouds dominate (each with 30% occurrence rate) a fair amount of shallow ( 10%) to deep ( 5%) convection are observed. Cloud radar Doppler spectra are used along with depolarization lidar observations in a neural network approach to detect the presence, layering and inhomogeneity of supercooled liquid layers. Preliminary analyses indicate that most of the low-level clouds sampled contain one or more supercooled liquid layers. Furthermore, the relationship between CVS and the presence of supercooled liquid is established, as is the relationship between the presence of supercool liquid and precipitation susceptibility. Two approaches are explored to bridge the gap between large footprint GCM simulations and high-resolution ground-based observations. The first approach consists of comparing model output and ground-based observations that exhibit the same column CVS type (i.e. same cloud depth, height and layering

76 FR 12096 - McCloud-Pit Project; Notice of Availability of the Final Environmental Impact Statement for the...

Science.gov (United States)

2011-03-04

... Project; Notice of Availability of the Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Mccloud-Pit... Pit Rivers in Shasta County, California and has prepared a final environmental impact statement (EIS... and the alternatives for relicensing the McCloud-Pit Project. The final EIS documents the views of...

Situational Lightning Climatologies

Science.gov (United States)

Bauman, William; Crawford, Winifred

2010-01-01

Research has revealed distinct spatial and temporal distributions of lightning occurrence that are strongly influenced by large-scale atmospheric flow regimes. It was believed there were two flow systems, but it has been discovered that actually there are seven distinct flow regimes. The Applied Meteorology Unit (AMU) has recalculated the lightning climatologies for the Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF), and the eight airfields in the National Weather Service in Melbourne (NWS MLB) County Warning Area (CWA) using individual lightning strike data to improve the accuracy of the climatologies. The software determines the location of each CG lightning strike with 5-, 10-, 20-, and 30-nmi (.9.3-, 18.5-, 37-, 55.6-km) radii from each airfield. Each CG lightning strike is binned at 1-, 3-, and 6-hour intervals at each specified radius. The software merges the CG lightning strike time intervals and distance with each wind flow regime and creates probability statistics for each time interval, radii, and flow regime, and stratifies them by month and warm season. The AMU also updated the graphical user interface (GUI) with the new data.

Comparative Climatology of Terrestrial Planets

Science.gov (United States)

Mackwell, Stephen J.; Simon-Miller, Amy A.; Harder, Jerald W.; Bullock, Mark A.

stimulate further research on this critical subject. The study of climate involves much more than understanding atmospheric processes. This subtlety is particularly appreciated for Earth, where chemical cycles, geology, ocean influences, and biology are considered in most climate models. In Part IV, Surface and Interior, we look at the role that geochemical cycles, volcanism, and interior mantle processes play in the stability and evolution of terrestrial planetary climates. There is one vital commonality between the climates of all the planets of the solar system: Regardless of the different processes that dominate each of the climates of Earth, Mars, Venus, and Titan, they are all ultimately forced by radiation from the same star, albeit at variable distances. In Part V, Solar Influences, we discuss how the Sun's early evolution affected the climates of the terrestrial planets, and how it continues to control the temperatures and compositions of planetary atmospheres. This will be of particular interest as models of exoplanets, and the influences of much different stellar types and distances, are advanced by further observations. Comparisons of atmospheric and climate processes between the planets in our solar system has been a focus of numerous conferences over the past decade, including the Exoclimes conference series. In particular, this book project was closely tied to a conference on Comparative Climatology of Terrestrial Planets that was held in Boulder, Colorado, on June 25-28, 2012. This book benefited from the opportunity for the author teams to interact and obtain feedback from the broader community, but the chapters do not in general tie directly to presentations at the conference. The conference, which was organized by a diverse group of atmospheric and climate scientists led by Mark Bullock and Lori Glaze, sought to build connections between the various communities, focusing on synergies and complementary capabilities. Discussion panels at the end of most

The AMCE (AIST Managed Cloud Environment)

Science.gov (United States)

Cook, S.

2017-12-01

ESTO has developed and implemented the AIST Managed Cloud Environment (AMCE) to offer cloud computing services to SMD-funded PIs to conduct their project research. AIST will provide projects access to a cloud computing framework that incorporates NASA security, technical, and financial standards, on which project can freely store, run, and process data. Currently, many projects led by research groups outside of NASA do not have the awareness of requirements or the resources to implement NASA standards into their research, which limits the likelihood of infusing the work into NASA applications. Offering this environment to PIs allows them to conduct their project research using the many benefits of cloud computing. In addition to the well-known cost and time savings that it allows, it also provides scalability and flexibility. The AMCE facilitates infusion and end user access by ensuring standardization and security. This approach will ultimately benefit ESTO, the science community, and the research, allowing the technology developments to have quicker and broader applications.

Hanford Site Climatological Data Summary 1999 with Historical Data

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hoitink, Dana J; Burk, Kenneth W; Ramsdell, Jim V

2000-01-01

This document presents the climatological data measured at the Hanford Site for calendar year 1999. The information contained includes updated historical climatologies for temperature, precipitation, normal and extreme values of temperature and precipitation and other meteorological parameters

Influence of Kuroshio SST front in the East China Sea on the climatological evolution of Meiyu rainband

Science.gov (United States)

Xu, Mimi; Xu, Haiming; Ren, Huijun

2018-02-01

The influence of Kuroshio sea surface temperature (SST) front in the East China Sea (ECS) on the temporal evolution of climatological Meiyu rainband was investigated using a suite of high-resolution satellite observations and a reanalysis dataset from 2000 to 2011. During the northward seasonal march of Meiyu rainband from the warmer flank of the SST front to the colder flank, the climatological rainband strength weakened substantially despite large-scale environment became more conducive to intensify precipitation. A sharp reduction in occurrence frequency of precipitation with relatively shallower depth and smaller intensity was responsible for the weakening of Meiyu rainband. During the northward migration of Meiyu rainband, individual precipitation events became deeper and more intensive, and the contribution of convective precipitation to the rainband was enhanced, associated with the seasonal northward extension of high convective instability region over the ECS. The characteristics of Meiyu rainband evolution were generally supported by cloud observations. When Meiyu rainband was located on the warmer flank of the SST front, local enhanced mean surface wind convergence and variance of convergence at synoptic timescale by the warm SST of the Kuroshio favored strong surface convergence that may trigger precipitation. A detailed moisture budget analysis revealed that the major part of moisture for Meiyu precipitation was supplied by low-level wind convergence, with much smaller contribution from moisture advection. The variation of climatological precipitation associated with Meiyu northward migration depended on SST modulation of both surface evaporation and low-level moisture convergence over the ECS.

Ticosonde CFH at Costa Rica: A Seasonal Climatology of Tropical UT-LS Water Vapor and Inter-Comparisons with MLS and CALIPSO

Science.gov (United States)

Selkirk, Henry B.; Voemel, Holger; Avery, Melody; Rosenlof, Karen; Davis, Sean; Hurst, Dale; Schoeberl, Mark; Diaz, Jorge Andres; Morris, Gary

2014-01-01

Balloon sonde measurements of tropical water vapor using the Cryogenic Frostpoint Hygrometer were initiated in Costa Rica in July 2005 and have continued to the present day. Over the nine years through July 2014, the Ticosonde program has launched 174 CFH payloads, representing the longest-running and most extensive single-site balloon dataset for tropical water vapor. In this presentation we present a seasonal climatology for water vapor and ozone at Costa Rica and examine the frequency of upper tropospheric supersaturation with comparisons to cloud fraction and cloud ice water content observations from the Cloud Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP) on the CALIPSO mission. We then make a critical comparison of these data to water vapor measurements from the MLS instrument on board Aura in light of recently published work for other sites. Finally, we examine time series of 2-km altitude averages in the upper troposphere-lower stratosphere at Costa Rica in light of anomalies and trends seen in various large-scale indices of tropical water vapor.

Hybrid Cloud Computing Environment for EarthCube and Geoscience Community

Science.gov (United States)

Yang, C. P.; Qin, H.

2016-12-01

The NSF EarthCube Integration and Test Environment (ECITE) has built a hybrid cloud computing environment to provides cloud resources from private cloud environments by using cloud system software - OpenStack and Eucalyptus, and also manages public cloud - Amazon Web Service that allow resource synchronizing and bursting between private and public cloud. On ECITE hybrid cloud platform, EarthCube and geoscience community can deploy and manage the applications by using base virtual machine images or customized virtual machines, analyze big datasets by using virtual clusters, and real-time monitor the virtual resource usage on the cloud. Currently, a number of EarthCube projects have deployed or started migrating their projects to this platform, such as CHORDS, BCube, CINERGI, OntoSoft, and some other EarthCube building blocks. To accomplish the deployment or migration, administrator of ECITE hybrid cloud platform prepares the specific needs (e.g. images, port numbers, usable cloud capacity, etc.) of each project in advance base on the communications between ECITE and participant projects, and then the scientists or IT technicians in those projects launch one or multiple virtual machines, access the virtual machine(s) to set up computing environment if need be, and migrate their codes, documents or data without caring about the heterogeneity in structure and operations among different cloud platforms.

Local Climatological Data (LCD) Publication

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — Local Climatological Data (LCD) contains summaries from major airport weather stations that include a daily account of temperature extremes, degree days,...

Peer-tutoring educational experiences about meteorological and climatological issues in Friuli Venezia Giulia (Italy)

Science.gov (United States)

Nordio, Sergio; Flapp, Federica

2017-04-01

The aim of this work is to present some experiences of intergenerational education about meteorology and climatology issues carried out with school pupils from 6 to 19 years old, through peer-tutoring methodology. These experiences started in 2003 and each year the project involves about 500 students in Friuli Venezia Giulia region (about 8.000 km2) in northeastern Italy. A group of volunteers (older students from upper secondary school, 17-19 years old) play the role of "tutor": they receive supplementary training on meteorology and climatology, and then, during students' meetings and/or public events, they teach younger pupils how to use meteorological instruments (thermometer, hygrometer, barometer, anemometer, rain gages, etc.) and they carry out interactive experiences such as "game-experiments", to better understand some meteorological concepts, like density of fluids, and some climatological notions, like the effects of climate change with an exhibit that simulates the greenhouse effect. They also do some meteorological forecasting exercises, using meteorological maps, as if they were actual forecasters. All these activities are addressed to pupils from primary (age 6-11) and lower secondary schools (age 11-14), and both tutors and their younger "apprentices" are not only cognitively, but also emotionally involved in such learning experiences. As a second step of this educational process, after consolidating the above mentioned peer-tutoring activities, high school students hare being actively involved in developing visual tools - e.g. video-clips, interviews and cartoons - in order to communicate climate change issues in the most effective way to younger pupils. Keywords: meteorology, climatology, climate change, schools, education, communication.

Mobile measurement techniques for local and micro-scale studies in urban and topo-climatology

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Seidel, Jochen

2016-03-01

Full Text Available Technical development during the last two decades has brought new potential and new applications for ­mobile measurements. In this paper, we present six case studies where mobile measurement devices were used to acquire data for meteorological and climatological research. Three case studies deal with ground-based mobile measurements – on buses for urban climate measurements and on a vessel on a lake – and three with airborne platforms – on a cable car and on an unmanned aerial vehicle for vertical soundings and on a tethered balloon sonde for cloud physics. For each study, we describe the measurement set-up and address the potential and drawbacks of these applications. At the end, we discuss general aspects related to mobile observations especially concerning the time and space dimension of measurements.

Development and evaluation of climatologically-downscaled AFWA AGRMET precipitation products over the continental U.S.

Science.gov (United States)

Garcia, M.; Peters-Lidard, C. D.; Eylander, J. B.; Daly, C.; Gibson, W.; Tian, Y.; Zeng, J.; Kato, H.

2008-05-01

Collaborations between the Air Force Weather Agency (AFWA), the Hydrological Sciences Branch at NASA-GSFC, and the PRISM Group at Oregon State University have led to improvements in the processing of meteorological forcing inputs for the NASA-GSFC Land Information System (LIS; Kumar et al. 2006), a sophisticated framework for LSM operation and model coupling experiments. Efforts at AFWA toward the production of surface hydrometeorological products are currently in transition from the legacy Agricultural Meteorology modeling system (AGRMET) to use of the LIS framework and procedures. Recent enhancements to meteorological input processing for application to land surface models in LIS include the assimilation of climate-based information for the spatial interpolation and downscaling of precipitation fields. Climatological information included in the LIS- based downscaling procedure for North America is provided by a monthly high-resolution PRISM (Daly et al. 1994, 2002; Daly 2006) dataset based on a 30-year analysis period. The combination of these sources and methods attempts to address the strengths and weaknesses of available legacy products, objective interpolation methods, and the PRISM knowledge-based methodology. All of these efforts are oriented on an operational need for timely estimation of spatial precipitation fields at adequate spatial resolution for customer dissemination and near-real-time simulations in regions of interest. This work focuses on value added to the AGRMET precipitation product by the inclusion of high-quality climatological information on a monthly time scale. The AGRMET method uses microwave-based satellite precipitation estimates from various polar-orbiting platforms (NOAA POES and DMSP), infrared-based estimates from geostationary platforms (GOES, METEOSAT, etc.), related cloud analysis products, and surface gauge observations in a complex and hierarchical blending process. Results from processing of the legacy AGRMET precipitation

U.S. Annual Climatological Summaries

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — Annual Climatological Summary contains historical monthly and annual summaries for over 8000 U.S. locations. Observing stations are located in the United States of...

Rate of non-linearity in DMS aerosol-cloud-climate interactions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

M. A. Thomas

2011-11-01

Full Text Available The degree of non-linearity in DMS-cloud-climate interactions is assessed using the ECHAM5-HAMMOZ model by taking into account end-to-end aerosol chemistry-cloud microphysics link. The evaluation is made over the Southern oceans in austral summer, a region of minimal anthropogenic influence. In this study, we compare the DMS-derived changes in the aerosol and cloud microphysical properties between a baseline simulation with the ocean DMS emissions from a prescribed climatology, and a scenario where the DMS emissions are doubled. Our results show that doubling the DMS emissions in the current climate results in a non-linear response in atmospheric DMS burden and subsequently, in SO₂ and H₂SO₄ burdens due to inadequate OH oxidation. The aerosol optical depth increases by only ~20 % in the 30° S–75° S belt in the SH summer months. This increases the vertically integrated cloud droplet number concentrations (CDNC by 25 %. Since the vertically integrated liquid water vapor is constant in our model simulations, an increase in CDNC leads to a reduction in cloud droplet radius of 3.4 % over the Southern oceans in summer. The equivalent increase in cloud liquid water path is 10.7 %. The above changes in cloud microphysical properties result in a change in global annual mean radiative forcing at the TOA of −1.4 W m⁻². The results suggest that the DMS-cloud microphysics link is highly non-linear. This has implications for future studies investigating the DMS-cloud climate feedbacks in a warming world and for studies evaluating geoengineering options to counteract warming by modulating low level marine clouds.

Teaching Climatology and Meterology

OpenAIRE

Waddington, Shelagh B.

1997-01-01

Climatology and meteorology are often regarded as very difficult to teach by teachers and very hard to learn by students. This paper presents simple practical exercises which will enable teachers to make the topic of greater interest and easier for students to understand some of the basic ideas.

Climatology and interannual variability of dynamic variables in multiple reanalyses evaluated by the SPARC Reanalysis Intercomparison Project (S-RIP)

Science.gov (United States)

Long, Craig S.; Fujiwara, Masatomo; Davis, Sean; Mitchell, Daniel M.; Wright, Corwin J.

2017-12-01

Two of the most basic parameters generated from a reanalysis are temperature and winds. Temperatures in the reanalyses are derived from conventional (surface and balloon), aircraft, and satellite observations. Winds are observed by conventional systems, cloud tracked, and derived from height fields, which are in turn derived from the vertical temperature structure. In this paper we evaluate as part of the SPARC Reanalysis Intercomparison Project (S-RIP) the temperature and wind structure of all the recent and past reanalyses. This evaluation is mainly among the reanalyses themselves, but comparisons against independent observations, such as HIRDLS and COSMIC temperatures, are also presented. This evaluation uses monthly mean and 2.5° zonal mean data sets and spans the satellite era from 1979-2014. There is very good agreement in temperature seasonally and latitudinally among the more recent reanalyses (CFSR, MERRA, ERA-Interim, JRA-55, and MERRA-2) between the surface and 10 hPa. At lower pressures there is increased variance among these reanalyses that changes with season and latitude. This variance also changes during the time span of these reanalyses with greater variance during the TOVS period (1979-1998) and less variance afterward in the ATOVS period (1999-2014). There is a distinct change in the temperature structure in the middle and upper stratosphere during this transition from TOVS to ATOVS systems. Zonal winds are in greater agreement than temperatures and this agreement extends to lower pressures than the temperatures. Older reanalyses (NCEP/NCAR, NCEP/DOE, ERA-40, JRA-25) have larger temperature and zonal wind disagreement from the more recent reanalyses. All reanalyses to date have issues analysing the quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO) winds. Comparisons with Singapore QBO winds show disagreement in the amplitude of the westerly and easterly anomalies. The disagreement with Singapore winds improves with the transition from TOVS to ATOVS observations

THE CLOUD TECHNOLOGIES IN PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION OF THE FUTURE ECONOMISTS

OpenAIRE

Yu. Dyulicheva

2014-01-01

The usage of the cloud services in the professional education of the future economists are investigated. The following cloud services are analyzed in the paper: 1) the cloud service gantter for project management, its resources management, risks evaluation with example of the capabilities for Ganter diagram creation, project critical path determination based on gantter cloud service are considered; 2) the cloud service SageMath Cloud with capabilities of programming languages R, Python, Cytho...

Global Synoptic Climatology Network (GSCN)

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — Dataset DSI-9290 is the result of a joint effort to create a Global Synoptic Climatology Network among the Meteorological Service of Canada (Downsview, Ontario and...

Projected Regime Shift in Arctic Cloud and Water Vapor Feedbacks

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Yonghua; Miller, James R.; Francis, Jennifer; Russel, Gary L.

2011-01-01

The Arctic climate is changing faster than any other large-scale region on Earth. A variety of positive feedback mechanisms are responsible for the amplification, most of which are linked with changes in snow and ice cover, surface temperature (T(sub s)), atmospheric water vapor (WV), and cloud properties. As greenhouse gases continue to accumulate in the atmosphere, air temperature and water vapor content also increase, leading to a warmer surface and ice loss, which further enhance evaporation and WV. Many details of these interrelated feedbacks are poorly understood, yet are essential for understanding the pace and regional variations in future Arctic change. We use a global climate model (Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Atmosphere-Ocean Model) to examine several components of these feedbacks, how they vary by season, and how they are projected to change through the 21st century. One positive feedback begins with an increase in T(sub s) that produces an increase in WV, which in turn increases the downward longwave flux (DLF) and T(sub s), leading to further evaporation. Another associates the expected increases in cloud cover and optical thickness with increasing DLF and T(sub s). We examine the sensitivities between DLF and other climate variables in these feedbacks and find that they are strongest in the non-summer seasons, leading to the largest amplification in Ts during these months. Later in the 21st century, however, DLF becomes less sensitive to changes in WV and cloud optical thickness, as they cause the atmosphere to emit longwave radiation more nearly as a black body. This regime shift in sensitivity implies that the amplified pace of Arctic change relative to the northern hemisphere could relax in the future.

Cloud Computing Law

CERN Document Server

Millard, Christopher

2013-01-01

This book is about the legal implications of cloud computing. In essence, ‘the cloud’ is a way of delivering computing resources as a utility service via the internet. It is evolving very rapidly with substantial investments being made in infrastructure, platforms and applications, all delivered ‘as a service’. The demand for cloud resources is enormous, driven by such developments as the deployment on a vast scale of mobile apps and the rapid emergence of ‘Big Data’. Part I of this book explains what cloud computing is and how it works. Part II analyses contractual relationships between cloud service providers and their customers, as well as the complex roles of intermediaries. Drawing on primary research conducted by the Cloud Legal Project at Queen Mary University of London, cloud contracts are analysed in detail, including the appropriateness and enforceability of ‘take it or leave it’ terms of service, as well as the scope for negotiating cloud deals. Specific arrangements for public sect...

Tropical and Subtropical Cloud Transitions in Weather and Climate Prediction Models: The GCSS/WGNE Pacific Cross-Section Intercomparison (GPCI)

Science.gov (United States)

Teixeira, J.; Cardoso, S.; Bonazzola, M.; Cole, J.; DeGenio, A.; DeMott, C.; Franklin, C.; Hannay, C.; Jakob, C.; Jiao, Y.;

Comparison of TRMM and Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) Precipitation Analyses

Science.gov (United States)

Adler, Robert F.; Huffman, George J.; Bolvin, David; Nelkin, Eric; Curtis, Scott

1999-01-01

This paper describes recent results of using Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) (launched in November 1997) information as the key calibration tool in a merged analysis on a 1 x 1' latitude/longitude monthly scale based on multiple satellite sources and raingauge analyses. The TRMM-based product is compared with the community-based Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) results. The long-term GPCP analysis is compared to the new TRMM-based analysis which uses the most accurate TRMM information to calibrate the estimates from the Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I) and geosynchronous IR observations and merges those estimates together with the TRMM and gauge information to produce accurate rainfall estimates with the increased sampling provided by the combined satellite information. The comparison with TRMM results on a month-to-month basis should clarify the strengths and weaknesses of the long-term GPCP product in the tropics and point to how to improve the monitoring analysis. Preliminary results from the TRMM merged satellite analysis indicates fairly close agreement with the GPCP estimates. The GPCP analysis is done at 2.5 degree latitude/longitude resolution and interpolated to a 1 degree grid for comparison with the TRMM analysis. As expected the same features are evident in both panels, but there are subtle differences in the magnitudes. Focusing on the Pacific Ocean Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) one can see the TRMM-based estimates having higher peak values and lower values in the ITCZ periphery. These attributes also show up in the statistics, where GPCP>TRMM at low values (below 10 mm/d) and TRMM>GPCP at high values (greater than 15 mm/d). The area in the Indian Ocean which shows consistently higher values of TRMM over GPCP needs to be examined carefully to determine if the lack of geosynchronous data has led to a difference in the two analyses. By the time of the meeting over a year of TRMM products will be available for

Exploiting Virtualization and Cloud Computing in ATLAS

CERN Multimedia

CERN. Geneva

2012-01-01

This work will present the current status of the Virtualization and Cloud Computing R&D project in ATLAS Distributed Computing. First, strategies for deploying PanDA queues on cloud sites will be discussed, including the introduction of a "cloud factory" for managing cloud VM instances. Ne...

Cloud Computing Security

OpenAIRE

Ngongang, Guy

2011-01-01

This project aimed to show how possible it is to use a network intrusion detection system in the cloud. The security in the cloud is a concern nowadays and security professionals are still finding means to make cloud computing more secure. First of all the installation of the ESX4.0, vCenter Server and vCenter lab manager in server hardware was successful in building the platform. This allowed the creation and deployment of many virtual servers. Those servers have operating systems and a...

Trusted cloud computing

CERN Document Server

Krcmar, Helmut; Rumpe, Bernhard

2014-01-01

This book documents the scientific results of the projects related to the Trusted Cloud Program, covering fundamental aspects of trust, security, and quality of service for cloud-based services and applications. These results aim to allow trustworthy IT applications in the cloud by providing a reliable and secure technical and legal framework. In this domain, business models, legislative circumstances, technical possibilities, and realizable security are closely interwoven and thus are addressed jointly. The book is organized in four parts on "Security and Privacy", "Software Engineering and

Reusability Framework for Cloud Computing

OpenAIRE

Singh, Sukhpal; Singh, Rishideep

2012-01-01

Cloud based development is a challenging task for several software engineering projects, especially for those which needs development with reusability. Present time of cloud computing is allowing new professional models for using the software development. The expected upcoming trend of computing is assumed to be this cloud computing because of speed of application deployment, shorter time to market, and lower cost of operation. Until Cloud Co mputing Reusability Model is considered a fundamen...

Achieve a Better Understanding of Cloud and Precipitation Processes for the Promotion of Water Security in Arid and Semi-Arid Regions

Science.gov (United States)

Farrah, S.; Al Yazidi, O.

2016-12-01

The UAE Research Program for Rain Enhancement Science (UAEREP) is an international research initiative designed to advance the science and technology of rain enhancement. It comes from an understanding of the needs of countries suffering from scarcity of fresh water, and its will to support innovation globally. The Program focuses on the following topics: Climate change, Climate modelling, Climatology, Atmospheric physics, Atmospheric dynamics, Weather modification, Cloud physics, Cloud dynamics, Cloud seeding, Weather radars, Dust modelling, Aerosol physics , Aerosol chemistry, Aerosol/cloud interactions, Water resources, Physics, Numerical modelling, Material science, Nanotechnology, Meteorology, Hydrology, Hydrogeology, Rocket technology, Laser technology, Water sustainability, Remote sensing, Environmental sciences... In 2015, three research teams from Japan, Germany and the UAE led by Prof. Masataka Murakami, Volker Wulfmeyer and Linda Zou have been respectively awarded. Together, they are addressing the issue of water security through innovative ideas: algorithms and sensors, land cover modification, and nanotechnologies to accelerate condensation. These three projects are undergoing now with extensive research and progresses. This session will be an opportunity to present their latest results as well as to detail the evolution of research in rain enhancement. In 2016 indeed, the Program saw a remarkable increase in participation, with 91 pre-proposals from 398 scientists, researchers and technologists affiliated to 180 institutes from 45 countries. The projects submitted are now focusing on modelling to predict weather, autonomous vehicles, rocket technology, lasers or new seeding materials… The science of rain enhancement offers considerable potential in terms of research, development and innovation. Though cloud seeding has been pursued since the late 1940s, it has been viewed as a relatively marginal field of interest for scientists. This benign neglect

Climatological study of Saclay site from 1958 to 1966. General climatology

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Levrard, Andre

1969-03-01

This document complements the CEA-N--0463 note with additional climatological measurements performed between 1963 and 1966 at the CEA Saclay centre, extending this survey over the 1958 to 1966 period. The duration, height, number of days and intensity of precipitations, the temperatures and vertical thermal gradient, the fog/mist and the wind direction and speed are reported monthly, seasonally and annually and presented in tables and diagrams

Abstracting application deployment on Cloud infrastructures

Science.gov (United States)

Aiftimiei, D. C.; Fattibene, E.; Gargana, R.; Panella, M.; Salomoni, D.

2017-10-01

Deploying a complex application on a Cloud-based infrastructure can be a challenging task. In this contribution we present an approach for Cloud-based deployment of applications and its present or future implementation in the framework of several projects, such as “!CHAOS: a cloud of controls” [1], a project funded by MIUR (Italian Ministry of Research and Education) to create a Cloud-based deployment of a control system and data acquisition framework, “INDIGO-DataCloud” [2], an EC H2020 project targeting among other things high-level deployment of applications on hybrid Clouds, and “Open City Platform”[3], an Italian project aiming to provide open Cloud solutions for Italian Public Administrations. We considered to use an orchestration service to hide the complex deployment of the application components, and to build an abstraction layer on top of the orchestration one. Through Heat [4] orchestration service, we prototyped a dynamic, on-demand, scalable platform of software components, based on OpenStack infrastructures. On top of the orchestration service we developed a prototype of a web interface exploiting the Heat APIs. The user can start an instance of the application without having knowledge about the underlying Cloud infrastructure and services. Moreover, the platform instance can be customized by choosing parameters related to the application such as the size of a File System or the number of instances of a NoSQL DB cluster. As soon as the desired platform is running, the web interface offers the possibility to scale some infrastructure components. In this contribution we describe the solution design and implementation, based on the application requirements, the details of the development of both the Heat templates and of the web interface, together with possible exploitation strategies of this work in Cloud data centers.

Land surface skin temperature climatology: benefitting from the strengths of satellite observations

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jin Menglin; Dickinson, Robert E

2010-01-01

Surface skin temperature observations (T skin ), as obtained by satellite remote sensing, provide useful climatological information of high spatial resolution and global coverage that enhances the traditional ground observations of surface air temperature (T air ) and so, reveal new information about land surface characteristics. This letter analyzes nine years of moderate-resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) skin temperature observations to present monthly skin temperature diurnal, seasonal, and inter-annual variations at a 0.05 deg. latitude/longitude grid over the global land surface and combines these measurements with other MODIS-based variables in an effort to understand the physical mechanisms responsible for T skin variations. In particular, skin temperature variations are found to be closely related to vegetation cover, clouds, and water vapor, but to differ from 2 m surface T air in terms of both physical meaning and magnitude. Therefore, the two temperatures (T skin and T air ) are complementary in their contribution of valuable information to the study of climate change.

The geological and climatological case for a warmer and wetter early Mars

Science.gov (United States)

Ramirez, Ramses M.; Craddock, Robert A.

2018-04-01

The climate of early Mars remains a topic of intense debate. Ancient terrains preserve landscapes consistent with stream channels, lake basins and possibly even oceans, and thus the presence of liquid water flowing on the Martian surface 4 billion years ago. However, despite the geological evidence, determining how long climatic conditions supporting liquid water lasted remains uncertain. Climate models have struggled to generate sufficiently warm surface conditions given the faint young Sun—even assuming a denser early atmosphere. A warm climate could have potentially been sustained by supplementing atmospheric CO2 and H2O warming with either secondary greenhouse gases or clouds. Alternatively, the Martian climate could have been predominantly cold and icy, with transient warming episodes triggered by meteoritic impacts, volcanic eruptions, methane bursts or limit cycles. Here, we argue that a warm and semi-arid climate capable of producing rain is most consistent with the geological and climatological evidence.

Spectral Dependence of MODIS Cloud Droplet Effective Radius Retrievals for Marine Boundary Layer Clouds

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Zhibo; Platnick, Steven E.; Ackerman, Andrew S.; Cho, Hyoun-Myoung

2014-01-01

Low-level warm marine boundary layer (MBL) clouds cover large regions of Earth's surface. They have a significant role in Earth's radiative energy balance and hydrological cycle. Despite the fundamental role of low-level warm water clouds in climate, our understanding of these clouds is still limited. In particular, connections between their properties (e.g. cloud fraction, cloud water path, and cloud droplet size) and environmental factors such as aerosol loading and meteorological conditions continue to be uncertain or unknown. Modeling these clouds in climate models remains a challenging problem. As a result, the influence of aerosols on these clouds in the past and future, and the potential impacts of these clouds on global warming remain open questions leading to substantial uncertainty in climate projections. To improve our understanding of these clouds, we need continuous observations of cloud properties on both a global scale and over a long enough timescale for climate studies. At present, satellite-based remote sensing is the only means of providing such observations.

Security in cloud computing

OpenAIRE

Moreno Martín, Oriol

2016-01-01

Security in Cloud Computing is becoming a challenge for next generation Data Centers. This project will focus on investigating new security strategies for Cloud Computing systems. Cloud Computingisarecent paradigmto deliver services over Internet. Businesses grow drastically because of it. Researchers focus their work on it. The rapid access to exible and low cost IT resources on an on-demand fashion, allows the users to avoid planning ahead for provisioning, and enterprises to save money ...

Fast cloud parameter retrievals of MIPAS/Envisat

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

R. Spang

2012-08-01

and tropospheric clouds similar to that of space- and ground-based lidars, with a tendency for higher cloud top heights and consequently higher sensitivity for some of the MIPAS detection methods. For the high cloud amount (HCA, pressure levels below 440 hPa on global scales the sensitivity of MIPAS is significantly greater than that of passive nadir viewers. This means that the high cloud fraction will be underestimated in the ISCCP dataset compared to the amount of high clouds deduced by MIPAS. Good correspondence in seasonal variability and geographical distribution of cloud occurrence and zonal means of cloud top height is found in a detailed comparison with a climatology for subvisible cirrus clouds from the Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment II (SAGE II limb sounder. Overall, validation with various sensors shows the need to consider differences in sensitivity, and especially the viewing geometries and field-of-view size, to make the datasets comparable (e.g. applying integration along the limb path through nadir cloud fields. The simulation of the limb path integration will be an important issue for comparisons with cloud-resolving global circulation or chemical transport models.

Cloud4Psi: cloud computing for 3D protein structure similarity searching.

Science.gov (United States)

Mrozek, Dariusz; Małysiak-Mrozek, Bożena; Kłapciński, Artur

2014-10-01

Popular methods for 3D protein structure similarity searching, especially those that generate high-quality alignments such as Combinatorial Extension (CE) and Flexible structure Alignment by Chaining Aligned fragment pairs allowing Twists (FATCAT) are still time consuming. As a consequence, performing similarity searching against large repositories of structural data requires increased computational resources that are not always available. Cloud computing provides huge amounts of computational power that can be provisioned on a pay-as-you-go basis. We have developed the cloud-based system that allows scaling of the similarity searching process vertically and horizontally. Cloud4Psi (Cloud for Protein Similarity) was tested in the Microsoft Azure cloud environment and provided good, almost linearly proportional acceleration when scaled out onto many computational units. Cloud4Psi is available as Software as a Service for testing purposes at: http://cloud4psi.cloudapp.net/. For source code and software availability, please visit the Cloud4Psi project home page at http://zti.polsl.pl/dmrozek/science/cloud4psi.htm. © The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press.

Active Learning in Introductory Climatology.

Science.gov (United States)

Dewey, Kenneth F.; Meyer, Steven J.

2000-01-01

Introduces a software package available for the climatology curriculum that determines possible climatic events according to a long-term climate history. Describes the integration of the software into the curriculum and presents examples of active learning. (Contains 19 references.) (YDS)

The Cloud Feedback Model Intercomparison Project (CFMIP) contribution to CMIP6.

Science.gov (United States)

Webb, Mark J.; Andrews, Timothy; Bodas-Salcedo, Alejandro; Bony, Sandrine; Bretherton, Christopher S.; Chadwick, Robin; Chepfer, Helene; Douville, Herve; Good, Peter; Kay, Jennifer E.;

Ten Years of Cloud Properties from MODIS: Global Statistics and Use in Climate Model Evaluation

Science.gov (United States)

Platnick, Steven E.

2011-01-01

The NASA Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), launched onboard the Terra and Aqua spacecrafts, began Earth observations on February 24, 2000 and June 24,2002, respectively. Among the algorithms developed and applied to this sensor, a suite of cloud products includes cloud masking/detection, cloud-top properties (temperature, pressure), and optical properties (optical thickness, effective particle radius, water path, and thermodynamic phase). All cloud algorithms underwent numerous changes and enhancements between for the latest Collection 5 production version; this process continues with the current Collection 6 development. We will show example MODIS Collection 5 cloud climatologies derived from global spatial . and temporal aggregations provided in the archived gridded Level-3 MODIS atmosphere team product (product names MOD08 and MYD08 for MODIS Terra and Aqua, respectively). Data sets in this Level-3 product include scalar statistics as well as 1- and 2-D histograms of many cloud properties, allowing for higher order information and correlation studies. In addition to these statistics, we will show trends and statistical significance in annual and seasonal means for a variety of the MODIS cloud properties, as well as the time required for detection given assumed trends. To assist in climate model evaluation, we have developed a MODIS cloud simulator with an accompanying netCDF file containing subsetted monthly Level-3 statistical data sets that correspond to the simulator output. Correlations of cloud properties with ENSO offer the potential to evaluate model cloud sensitivity; initial results will be discussed.

A Radar Climatology for Germany - a 16-year high resolution precipitation data and its possibilities

Science.gov (United States)

Walawender, Ewelina; Winterrath, Tanja; Brendel, Christoph; Hafer, Mario; Junghänel, Thomas; Klameth, Anna; Weigl, Elmar; Becker, Andreas

2017-04-01

One of the main features of heavy precipitation events is their small-scale distribution. Despite a local occurrence, these intensive rainfalls may, however, cause most serious damage and have significant impact on the whole river basin area resulting in e.g. flash floods or urban flooding. Thus, it is of great importance not only to detect the life-cycle of extreme precipitation during its occurrence but also to collect precise climatological information on such events. The German weather service (Deutscher Wetterdienst) operates a very dense network of more than 2000 weather stations collecting data on precipitation. It is however not sufficient for detecting spatially limited phenomena. Thanks to radar data, current monitoring of such events is possible. A quality control process is applied to real-time radar products, however only automatic rain gauges data can be used in the adjustment procedure. To merge both radar data and all available rain gauges data, the radar climatology dataset was established. Within the framework of a project financed by the federal agencies' strategic alliance 'Adaptation to Climate Change', 16 years (2001-2016) of radar data have been reanalyzed in order to gain a homogenous, quality-controlled, high-resolution precipitation data set suitable for analyzing extreme events in a climatological approach. Additional corrections methods (e.g. clutter, spokes and beam height correction) were defined and used for the reprocessing procedure to enhance the data quality. Although the time series is still rather short for a climatology, for the first time the data set allows an insight into e.g. the distribution, size, life cycle, and duration of extreme events that cannot be measured by point measurements alone. All radar climatology products share the same spatial and temporal coverage. The whole dataset has been produced for the area of Germany. With the relatively high spatial resolution of 1km, the data can be used as a component of wide

A 10-Year Climatology of Cloud Cover and Vertical Distribution Derived from Both Surface and GOES Observations Over the DOE ARM SGP Site

Science.gov (United States)

Xi, Baike; Dong, Xiquan; Minnis, P.; Khaiyer, M.

2010-01-01

Analysis of a decade of ARM radar-lidar and GOES observations at the SGP site reveal that 0.5 and 4-hr averages of the surface cloud fraction correspond closely to 0.5deg and 2.5deg averages of GOES cloudiness, respectively. The long-term averaged surface and GOES cloud fractions agree to within 0.5%. Cloud frequency increases and cloud amount decreases as the temporal and spatial averaging scales increase. Clouds occurred most often during winter and spring. Single-layered clouds account for 61.5% of the total cloud frequency. There are distinct bimodal vertical distributions of clouds with a lower peak around 1 km and an upper one that varies from 7.5 to 10.8 km between winter and summer, respectively. The frequency of occurrence for nighttime GOES high-cloud tops agree well with the surface observations, but are underestimated during the day.

Energy Utilization Evaluation of Carbon Performance in Public Projects by FAHP and Cloud Model

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lin Li

2016-07-01

Full Text Available With the low-carbon economy advocated all over the world, how to use energy reasonably and efficiently in public projects has become a major issue. It has brought many open questions, including which method is more reasonable in evaluating the energy utilization of carbon performance in public projects when the evaluation information is fuzzy; whether an indicator system can be constructed; and which indicators have more impact on carbon performance. This article aims to solve these problems. We propose a new carbon performance evaluation system for energy utilization based on project processes (design, construction, and operation. Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP is used to accumulate the indicator weights and cloud model is incorporated when the indicator value is fuzzy. Finally, we apply our indicator system to a case study of the Xiangjiang River project in China, which demonstrates the applicability and efficiency of our method.

On the regional climatic impact of contrails: microphysical and radiative properties of contrails and natural cirrus clouds

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

B. Strauss

Full Text Available The impact of contrail-induced cirrus clouds on regional climate is estimated for mean atmospheric conditions of southern Germany in the months of July and October. This is done by use of a regionalized one-dimensional radiative convective model (RCM. The influence of an increased ice cloud cover is studied by comparing RCM results representing climatological values with a modified case. In order to study the sensitivity of this effect on the radiative characteristics of the ice cloud, two types of additional ice clouds were modelled: cirrus and contrails, the latter cloud type containing a higher number of smaller and less of the larger cloud particles. Ice cloud parameters are calculated on the basis of a particle size distribution which covers the range from 2 to 2000 µm, taking into consideration recent measurements which show a remarkable amount of particles smaller than 20 µm. It turns out that a 10% increase in ice cloud cover leads to a surface temperature increase in the order of 1K, ranging from 1.1 to 1.2K in July and from 0.8 to 0.9K in October depending on the radiative characteristics of the air-traffic-induced ice clouds. Modelling the current contrail cloud cover which is near 0.5% over Europe yields a surface temperature increase in the order of 0.05K.

On the regional climatic impact of contrails: microphysical and radiative properties of contrails and natural cirrus clouds

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

B. Strauss

1997-11-01

Full Text Available The impact of contrail-induced cirrus clouds on regional climate is estimated for mean atmospheric conditions of southern Germany in the months of July and October. This is done by use of a regionalized one-dimensional radiative convective model (RCM. The influence of an increased ice cloud cover is studied by comparing RCM results representing climatological values with a modified case. In order to study the sensitivity of this effect on the radiative characteristics of the ice cloud, two types of additional ice clouds were modelled: cirrus and contrails, the latter cloud type containing a higher number of smaller and less of the larger cloud particles. Ice cloud parameters are calculated on the basis of a particle size distribution which covers the range from 2 to 2000 µm, taking into consideration recent measurements which show a remarkable amount of particles smaller than 20 µm. It turns out that a 10% increase in ice cloud cover leads to a surface temperature increase in the order of 1K, ranging from 1.1 to 1.2K in July and from 0.8 to 0.9K in October depending on the radiative characteristics of the air-traffic-induced ice clouds. Modelling the current contrail cloud cover which is near 0.5% over Europe yields a surface temperature increase in the order of 0.05K.

The SHADOZ Data Base: History, Archive Web Guide, and Sample Climatologies

Science.gov (United States)

White, J. C.; Thompson, A. M.; Einaudi, Franco (Technical Monitor)

2000-01-01

SHADOZ (Southern Hemisphere Additional Ozonesonde) is a project to augment and archive ozonesonde data from ten tropical and subtropical ozone stations. Started in 1998 by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and other US and international co-investigators, SHADOZ is an important tool for tropospheric ozone research in the equatorial region. The rationale for SHADOZ is to: (1) validate and improve remote sensing techniques (e.g., the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) satellite) for estimating tropical ozone, (2) contribute to climatology and trend analyses of tropical ozone and (3) provide research topics to scientists and educate students, especially in participating countries. SHADOZ is envisioned as a data service to the global scientific community by providing a central public archive location via the internet: http://code9l6.gsfc.nasa.gov/Data_services/shadoz. While the SHADOZ website maintains a standard data format for the archive, it also informs the data users on the differing stations' preparation techniques and data treatment. The presentation navigates through the SHADOZ website to access each station's sounding data and summarize each station's characteristics. Since the start of the project in 1998, the SHADOZ archive has accumulated over 600 ozonesonde profiles and received over 30,000 outside data requests. Data also includes launches from various SHADOZ supported field campaigns, such as, the Indian Ocean Experiment (INDOEX), Sounding of Ozone and Water in the Equatorial Region (SOWER) and Aerosols99 Atlantic Cruise. Using data from the archive, sample climatologies and profiles from selected stations and campaigns will be shown.

Climatology and interannual variability of dynamic variables in multiple reanalyses evaluated by the SPARC Reanalysis Intercomparison Project (S-RIP

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

C. S. Long

2017-12-01

Full Text Available Two of the most basic parameters generated from a reanalysis are temperature and winds. Temperatures in the reanalyses are derived from conventional (surface and balloon, aircraft, and satellite observations. Winds are observed by conventional systems, cloud tracked, and derived from height fields, which are in turn derived from the vertical temperature structure. In this paper we evaluate as part of the SPARC Reanalysis Intercomparison Project (S-RIP the temperature and wind structure of all the recent and past reanalyses. This evaluation is mainly among the reanalyses themselves, but comparisons against independent observations, such as HIRDLS and COSMIC temperatures, are also presented. This evaluation uses monthly mean and 2.5° zonal mean data sets and spans the satellite era from 1979–2014. There is very good agreement in temperature seasonally and latitudinally among the more recent reanalyses (CFSR, MERRA, ERA-Interim, JRA-55, and MERRA-2 between the surface and 10 hPa. At lower pressures there is increased variance among these reanalyses that changes with season and latitude. This variance also changes during the time span of these reanalyses with greater variance during the TOVS period (1979–1998 and less variance afterward in the ATOVS period (1999–2014. There is a distinct change in the temperature structure in the middle and upper stratosphere during this transition from TOVS to ATOVS systems. Zonal winds are in greater agreement than temperatures and this agreement extends to lower pressures than the temperatures. Older reanalyses (NCEP/NCAR, NCEP/DOE, ERA-40, JRA-25 have larger temperature and zonal wind disagreement from the more recent reanalyses. All reanalyses to date have issues analysing the quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO winds. Comparisons with Singapore QBO winds show disagreement in the amplitude of the westerly and easterly anomalies. The disagreement with Singapore winds improves with the transition from

Climatological Downscaling and Evaluation of AGRMET Precipitation Analyses Over the Continental U.S.

Science.gov (United States)

Garcia, M.; Peters-Lidard, C. D.; Eylander, J. B.; Daly, C.; Tian, Y.; Zeng, J.

2007-05-01

near-real-time simulations in regions of interest. This work focuses on value added to the AGRMET precipitation product by the inclusion of high-quality climatological information on a monthly time scale. The AGRMET method uses microwave-based satellite precipitation estimates from various polar-orbiting platforms (NOAA POES and DMSP), infrared-based estimates from geostationary platforms (GOES, METEOSAT, etc.), related cloud analysis products, and surface gauge observations in a complex and hierarchical blending process. Results from processing of the legacy AGRMET precipitation products over the U.S. using LIS-based methods for downscaling, both with and without climatological factors, are evaluated against high-resolution monthly analyses using the PRISM knowledge- based method (Daly et al. 2002). It is demonstrated that the incorporation of climatological information in a downscaling procedure can significantly enhance the accuracy, and potential utility, of AFWA precipitation products for military and civilian customer applications.

Validation of Satellite Derived Cloud Properties Over the Southeastern Pacific

Science.gov (United States)

Ayers, J.; Minnis, P.; Zuidema, P.; Sun-Mack, S.; Palikonda, R.; Nguyen, L.; Fairall, C.

2005-12-01

Satellite measurements of cloud properties and the radiation budget are essential for understanding meso- and large-scale processes that determine the variability in climate over the southeastern Pacific. Of particular interest in this region is the prevalent stratocumulus cloud deck. The stratocumulus albedos are directly related to cloud microphysical properties that need to be accurately characterized in Global Climate Models (GCMs) to properly estimate the Earth's radiation budget. Meteorological observations in this region are sparse causing large uncertainties in initialized model fields. Remote sensing from satellites can provide a wealth of information about the clouds in this region, but it is vital to validate the remotely sensed parameters and to understand their relationship to other parameters that are not directly observed by the satellites. The variety of measurements from the R/V Roger Revelle during the 2003 STRATUS cruise and from the R/V Ron Brown during EPIC 2001 and the 2004 STRATUS cruises are suitable for validating and improving the interpretation of the satellite derived cloud properties. In this study, satellite-derived cloud properties including coverage, height, optical depth, and liquid water path are compared with in situ measurements taken during the EPIC and STRATUS cruises. The remotely sensed values are derived from Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) imager data, Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data from the Terra and Aqua satellites, and from the Visible and Infrared Scanner (VIRS) aboard the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite. The products from this study will include regional monthly cloud climatologies derived from the GOES data for the 2003 and 2004 cruises as well as micro and macro physical cloud property retrievals centered over the ship tracks from MODIS and VIRS.

PATMOS-x Cloud Climate Record Trend Sensitivity to Reanalysis Products

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Michael J. Foster

2016-05-01

Full Text Available Continuous satellite-derived cloud records now extend over three decades, and are increasingly used for climate applications. Certain applications, such as trend detection, require a clear understanding of uncertainty as it relates to establishing statistical significance. The use of reanalysis products as sources of ancillary data could be construed as one such source of uncertainty, as there has been discussion regarding the suitability of reanalysis products for trend detection. Here we use three reanalysis products: Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR, Modern Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA and European Center for Medium range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF ERA-Interim (ERA-I as sources of ancillary data for the Pathfinder Atmospheres Extended/Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (PATMOS-x/AVHRR Satellite Cloud Climate Data Record (CDR, and perform inter-comparisons to determine how sensitive the climatology is to choice of ancillary data source. We find differences among reanalysis fields required for PATMOS-x processing, which translate to small but not insignificant differences in retrievals of cloud fraction, cloud top height and cloud optical depth. The retrieval variability due to choice of reanalysis product is on the order of one third the size of the retrieval uncertainty, making it a potentially significant factor in trend detection. Cloud fraction trends were impacted the most by choice of reanalysis while cloud optical depth trends were impacted the least. Metrics used to determine the skill of the reanalysis products for use as ancillary data found no clear best choice for use in PATMOS-x. We conclude use of reanalysis products as ancillary data in the PATMOS-x/AVHRR Cloud CDR do not preclude its use for trend detection, but for that application uncertainty in reanalysis fields should be better represented in the PATMOS-x retrieval uncertainty.

Instantaneous Linkages between Clouds and Large-Scale Meteorology over the Southern Ocean in Observations and a Climate Model

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Wall, Casey J. [Department of Atmospheric Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington; Hartmann, Dennis L. [Department of Atmospheric Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington; Ma, Po-Lun [Atmospheric Sciences and Global Change Division, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, Washington

2017-12-01

Instantaneous, coincident, footprint-level satellite observations of cloud properties and radiation taken during austral summer over the Southern Ocean are used to study relationships between clouds and large-scale meteorology. Cloud properties are very sensitive to the strength of vertical motion in the middle-troposphere, and low-cloud properties are sensitive to estimated inversion strength, low-level temperature advection, and sea surface temperature. These relationships are quantified. An index for the meteorological anomalies associated with midlatitude cyclones is presented, and it is used to reveal the sensitivity of clouds to the meteorology within the warm- and cold-sector of cyclones. The observed relationships between clouds and meteorology are compared to those in the Community Atmosphere Model version 5 (CAM5) using satellite simulators. Low-clouds simulated by CAM5 are too few, too bright, and contain too much ice, and low-clouds located in the cold-sector of cyclones are too sensitive to variations in the meteorology. The latter two biases are dramatically reduced when CAM5 is coupled with an updated boundary layer parameterization know as Cloud Layers Unified by Binormals (CLUBB). More generally, this study demonstrates that examining the instantaneous timescale is a powerful approach to understanding the physical processes that control clouds and how they are represented in climate models. Such an evaluation goes beyond the cloud climatology and exposes model bias under various meteorological conditions.

Large-Scale, Parallel, Multi-Sensor Data Fusion in the Cloud

Science.gov (United States)

Wilson, B. D.; Manipon, G.; Hua, H.

2012-12-01

Reduce a versatile set of python operators for data lookup, access, subsetting, co-registration, mining, fusion, and statistical analysis. All operators take in sets of geo-located arrays and generate more arrays. Large, multi-year satellite and model datasets are automatically "sharded" by time and space across a cluster of nodes so that years of data (millions of granules) can be compared or fused in a massively parallel way. Input variables (arrays) are pulled on-demand into the Cloud using OPeNDAP or webification URLs, thereby minimizing the size of the stored input and intermediate datasets. A typical map function might assemble and quality control AIRS Level-2 water vapor profiles for a year of data in parallel, then a reduce function would average the profiles in lat/lon bins (again, in parallel), and a final reduce would aggregate the climatology and write it to output files. We are using SciReduce to automate the production of multiple versions of a multi-year water vapor climatology (AIRS & MODIS), stratified by Cloudsat cloud classification, and compare it to models (ECMWF & MERRA reanalysis). We will present the architecture of SciReduce, describe the achieved "clock time" speedups in fusing huge datasets on our own nodes and in the Amazon Cloud, and discuss the Cloud cost tradeoffs for storage, compute, and data transfer.

Collaborative Research: Cloudiness transitions within shallow marine clouds near the Azores

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Mechem, David B. [Univ. of Kansas, Lawrence, KS (United States). Atmospheric Science Program. Dept. of Geography and Atmospheric Science; de Szoeke, Simon P. [Oregon State Univ., Corvallis, OR (United States). College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences; Yuter, Sandra E. [North Carolina State Univ., Raleigh, NC (United States). Dept. of Marine, Earth, and Atmospheric Sciences

2017-01-15

Marine stratocumulus clouds are low, persistent, liquid phase clouds that cover large areas and play a significant role in moderating the climate by reflecting large quantities of incoming solar radiation. The deficiencies in simulating these clouds in global climate models are widely recognized. Much of the uncertainty arises from sub-grid scale variability in the cloud albedo that is not accurately parameterized in climate models. The Clouds, Aerosol and Precipitation in the Marine Boundary Layer (CAP–MBL) observational campaign and the ongoing ARM site measurements on Graciosa Island in the Azores aim to sample the Northeast Atlantic low cloud regime. These data represent, the longest continuous research quality cloud radar/lidar/radiometer/aerosol data set of open-ocean shallow marine clouds in existence. Data coverage from CAP–MBL and the series of cruises to the southeast Pacific culminating in VOCALS will both be of sufficient length to contrast the two low cloud regimes and explore the joint variability of clouds in response to several environmental factors implicated in cloudiness transitions. Our research seeks to better understand cloud system processes in an underexplored but climatologically important maritime region. Our primary goal is an improved physical understanding of low marine clouds on temporal scales of hours to days. It is well understood that aerosols, synoptic-scale forcing, surface fluxes, mesoscale dynamics, and cloud microphysics all play a role in cloudiness transitions. However, the relative importance of each mechanism as a function of different environmental conditions is unknown. To better understand cloud forcing and response, we are documenting the joint variability of observed environmental factors and associated cloud characteristics. In order to narrow the realm of likely parameter ranges, we assess the relative importance of parameter conditions based primarily on two criteria: how often the condition occurs (frequency

Cloud data centers and cost modeling a complete guide to planning, designing and building a cloud data center

CERN Document Server

Wu, Caesar

2015-01-01

Cloud Data Centers and Cost Modeling establishes a framework for strategic decision-makers to facilitate the development of cloud data centers. Just as building a house requires a clear understanding of the blueprints, architecture, and costs of the project; building a cloud-based data center requires similar knowledge. The authors take a theoretical and practical approach, starting with the key questions to help uncover needs and clarify project scope. They then demonstrate probability tools to test and support decisions, and provide processes that resolve key issues. After laying a foundati

Global Daily Climatology Network: Kazakhstan subset

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — This dataset is a compilation of in situ daily meteorological observations for Kazakhstan within the framework of joint efforts to create Global Daily Climatology...

Developing Cloud Chambers with High School Students

Science.gov (United States)

Ishizuka, Ryo; Tan, Nobuaki; Sato, Shoma; Zeze, Syoji

The result and outcome of the cloud chamber project, which aims to develop a cloud chamber useful for science education is reported in detail. A project includes both three high school students and a teacher as a part of Super Science High School (SSH) program in our school. We develop a dry-ice-free cloud chamber using salt and ice (or snow). Technical details of the chamber are described. We also argue how the project have affected student's cognition, motivation, academic skills and behavior. The research project has taken steps of professional researchers, i.e., in planning research, applying fund, writing a paper and giving a talk in conferences. From interviews with students, we have learnt that such style of scientific activity is very effective in promoting student's motivation for learning science.

Trends, visions and reality. Cloud computing in the energy industry; Trends, Visionen und Wirklichkeit. Cloud Computing in der Energiewirtschaft

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Reuther, Achim [Energy Solution Center (Ensoc) e.V., Karlsruhe (Germany); Maurer, Marion; Pohling, Matthias [Bridging IT GmbH, Mannheim (Germany)

2011-08-22

The topic of cloud computing is not only just a temporary hype in the market of information technology, but also a true paradigm shift in the supply and use of information technology services. A sustainable change in the information technology in the energy sector is expected. The authors of the contribution under consideration present current cloud research projects with energy-economic relevance. Some important criteria are presented that should be considered in the selection and use of cloud services. The selective use of cloud services up to the outsourcing of entire business processes of an electric utility in the cloud may provide an added value. Both, current approaches as well as research projects are suitable for the optimization of processes and resources. The numerous possibilities have to be adjusted to the own general conditions.

Improved Cloud resource allocation: how INDIGO-DataCloud is overcoming the current limitations in Cloud schedulers

Science.gov (United States)

Lopez Garcia, Alvaro; Zangrando, Lisa; Sgaravatto, Massimo; Llorens, Vincent; Vallero, Sara; Zaccolo, Valentina; Bagnasco, Stefano; Taneja, Sonia; Dal Pra, Stefano; Salomoni, Davide; Donvito, Giacinto

2017-10-01

Performing efficient resource provisioning is a fundamental aspect for any resource provider. Local Resource Management Systems (LRMS) have been used in data centers for decades in order to obtain the best usage of the resources, providing their fair usage and partitioning for the users. In contrast, current cloud schedulers are normally based on the immediate allocation of resources on a first-come, first-served basis, meaning that a request will fail if there are no resources (e.g. OpenStack) or it will be trivially queued ordered by entry time (e.g. OpenNebula). Moreover, these scheduling strategies are based on a static partitioning of the resources, meaning that existing quotas cannot be exceeded, even if there are idle resources allocated to other projects. This is a consequence of the fact that cloud instances are not associated with a maximum execution time and leads to a situation where the resources are under-utilized. These facts have been identified by the INDIGO-DataCloud project as being too simplistic for accommodating scientific workloads in an efficient way, leading to an underutilization of the resources, a non desirable situation in scientific data centers. In this work, we will present the work done in the scheduling area during the first year of the INDIGO project and the foreseen evolutions.

Simultaneous retrieval of water vapour, temperature and cirrus clouds properties from measurements of far infrared spectral radiance over the Antarctic Plateau

Science.gov (United States)

Di Natale, Gianluca; Palchetti, Luca; Bianchini, Giovanni; Del Guasta, Massimo

2017-03-01

The possibility separating the contributions of the atmospheric state and ice clouds by using spectral infrared measurements is a fundamental step to quantifying the cloud effect in climate models. A simultaneous retrieval of cloud and atmospheric parameters from infrared wideband spectra will allow the disentanglement of the spectral interference between these variables. In this paper, we describe the development of a code for the simultaneous retrieval of atmospheric state and ice cloud parameters, and its application to the analysis of the spectral measurements acquired by the Radiation Explorer in the Far Infrared - Prototype for Applications and Development (REFIR-PAD) spectroradiometer, which has been in operation at Concordia Station on the Antarctic Plateau since 2012. The code performs the retrieval with a computational time that is comparable with the instrument acquisition time. Water vapour and temperature profiles and the cloud optical and microphysical properties, such as the generalised effective diameter and the ice water path, are retrieved by exploiting the 230-980 cm-1 spectral band. To simulate atmospheric radiative transfer, the Line-By-Line Radiative Transfer Model (LBLRTM) has been integrated with a specifically developed subroutine based on the δ-Eddington two-stream approximation, whereas the single-scattering properties of cirrus clouds have been derived from a database for hexagonal column habits. In order to detect ice clouds, a backscattering and depolarisation lidar, co-located with REFIR-PAD has been used, allowing us to infer the position and the cloud thickness to be used in the retrieval. A climatology of the vertical profiles of water vapour and temperature has been performed by using the daily radiosounding available at the station at 12:00 UTC. The climatology has been used to build an a priori profile correlation to constrain the fitting procedure. An optimal estimation method with the Levenberg-Marquardt approach has been

Scaling the CERN OpenStack cloud

Science.gov (United States)

Bell, T.; Bompastor, B.; Bukowiec, S.; Castro Leon, J.; Denis, M. K.; van Eldik, J.; Fermin Lobo, M.; Fernandez Alvarez, L.; Fernandez Rodriguez, D.; Marino, A.; Moreira, B.; Noel, B.; Oulevey, T.; Takase, W.; Wiebalck, A.; Zilli, S.

2015-12-01

CERN has been running a production OpenStack cloud since July 2013 to support physics computing and infrastructure services for the site. In the past year, CERN Cloud Infrastructure has seen a constant increase in nodes, virtual machines, users and projects. This paper will present what has been done in order to make the CERN cloud infrastructure scale out.

Situational Lightning Climatologies for Central Florida: Phase IV: Central Florida Flow Regime Based Climatologies of Lightning Probabilities

Science.gov (United States)

Bauman, William H., III

2009-01-01

The threat of lightning is a daily concern during the warm season in Florida. Research has revealed distinct spatial and temporal distributions of lightning occurrence that are strongly influenced by large-scale atmospheric flow regimes. Previously, the Applied Meteorology Unit (AMU) calculated the gridded lightning climatologies based on seven flow regimes over Florida for 1-, 3- and 6-hr intervals in 5-, 10-, 20-, and 30-NM diameter range rings around the Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF) and eight other airfields in the National Weather Service in Melbourne (NWS MLB) county warning area (CWA). In this update to the work, the AMU recalculated the lightning climatologies for using individual lightning strike data to improve the accuracy of the climatologies. The AMU included all data regardless of flow regime as one of the stratifications, added monthly stratifications, added three years of data to the period of record and used modified flow regimes based work from the AMU's Objective Lightning Probability Forecast Tool, Phase II. The AMU made changes so the 5- and 10-NM radius range rings are consistent with the aviation forecast requirements at NWS MLB, while the 20- and 30-NM radius range rings at the SLF assist the Spaceflight Meteorology Group in making forecasts for weather Flight Rule violations during Shuttle landings. The AMU also updated the graphical user interface with the new data.

Cloud fraction and cloud base measurements from scanning Doppler lidar during WFIP-2

Science.gov (United States)

Bonin, T.; Long, C.; Lantz, K. O.; Choukulkar, A.; Pichugina, Y. L.; McCarty, B.; Banta, R. M.; Brewer, A.; Marquis, M.

2017-12-01

The second Wind Forecast Improvement Project (WFIP-2) consisted of an 18-month field deployment of a variety of instrumentation with the principle objective of validating and improving NWP forecasts for wind energy applications in complex terrain. As a part of the set of instrumentation, several scanning Doppler lidars were installed across the study domain to primarily measure profiles of the mean wind and turbulence at high-resolution within the planetary boundary layer. In addition to these measurements, Doppler lidar observations can be used to directly quantify the cloud fraction and cloud base, since clouds appear as a high backscatter return. These supplementary measurements of clouds can then be used to validate cloud cover and other properties in NWP output. Herein, statistics of the cloud fraction and cloud base height from the duration of WFIP-2 are presented. Additionally, these cloud fraction estimates from Doppler lidar are compared with similar measurements from a Total Sky Imager and Radiative Flux Analysis (RadFlux) retrievals at the Wasco site. During mostly cloudy to overcast conditions, estimates of the cloud radiating temperature from the RadFlux methodology are also compared with Doppler lidar measured cloud base height.

Polar cloud observatory at Ny-Ålesund in GRENE Arctic Climate Change Research Project

Science.gov (United States)

Yamanouchi, Takashi; Takano, Toshiaki; Shiobara, Masataka; Okamoto, Hajime; Koike, Makoto; Ukita, Jinro

2016-04-01

Cloud is one of the main processes in the climate system and especially a large feed back agent for Arctic warming amplification (Yoshimori et al., 2014). From this reason, observation of polar cloud has been emphasized and 95 GHz cloud profiling radar in high precision was established at Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard in 2013 as one of the basic infrastructure in the GRENE (Green Network of Excellence Program) Arctic Climate Change Research Project. The radar, "FALCON-A", is a FM-CW (frequency modulated continuous wave) Doppler radar, developed for Arctic use by Chiba University (PI: T. Takano) in 2012, following its prototype, "FALCON-1" which was developed in 2006 (Takano et al., 2010). The specifications of the radar are, central frequency: 94.84 GHz; antenna power: 1 W; observation height: up to 15 km; range resolution: 48 m; beam width: 0.2 degree (15 m at 5 km); Doppler width: 3.2 m/s; time interval: 10 sec, and capable of archiving high sensitivity and high spatial and time resolution. An FM-CW type radar realizes similar sensitivity with much smaller parabolic antennas separated 1.4 m from each other used for transmitting and receiving the wave. Polarized Micro-Pulse Lidar (PMPL, Sigma Space MPL-4B-IDS), which is capable to measure the backscatter and depolarization ratio, has also been deployed to Ny-Ålesund in March 2012, and now operated to perform collocated measurements with FALCON-A. Simultaneous measurement data from collocated PMPL and FALCON-A are available for synergetic analyses of cloud microphysics. Cloud mycrophysics, such as effective radius of ice particles and ice water content, are obtained from the analysis based on algorithm, which is modified for ground-based measurements from Okamoto's retrieval algorithm for satellite based cloud profiling radar and lidar (CloudSat and CALIPSO; Okamoto et al., 2010). Results of two years will be shown in the presentation. Calibration is a point to derive radar reflectivity (dBZ) from original intensity data

Notification: Fieldwork for CIGIE Cloud Computing Initiative – Status of Cloud-Computing Within the Federal Government

Science.gov (United States)

Project #OA-FY14-0126, January 15, 2014. The EPA OIG is starting fieldwork on the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE) Cloud Computing Initiative – Status of Cloud-Computing Environments Within the Federal Government.

TRMM-Based Lightning Climatology

Science.gov (United States)

Cecil, Daniel J.; Buechler, Dennis E.; Blakeslee, Richard J.

2011-01-01

Gridded climatologies of total lightning flash rates seen by the spaceborne Optical Transient Detector (OTD) and Lightning Imaging Sensor (LIS) have been updated. OTD collected data from May 1995 to March 2000. LIS data (equatorward of about 38 deg) has been added for 1998-2010. Flash counts from each instrument are scaled by the best available estimates of detection efficiency. The long LIS record makes the merged climatology most robust in the tropics and subtropics, while the high latitude data is entirely from OTD. The mean global flash rate from the merged climatology is 46 flashes per second. The peak annual flash rate at 0.5 deg scale is 160 fl/square km/yr in eastern Congo. The peak monthly average flash rate at 2.5 scale is 18 fl/square km/mo, from early April to early May in the Brahmaputra Valley of far eastern India. Lightning decreases in this region during the monsoon season, but increases further north and west. A monthly average peak from early August to early September in northern Pakistan also exceeds any monthly averages from Africa, despite central Africa having the greatest yearly average. Most continental regions away from the equator have an annual cycle with lightning flash rates peaking in late spring or summer. The main exceptions are India and southeast Asia, with springtime peaks in April and May. For landmasses near the equator, flash rates peak near the equinoxes. For many oceanic regions, the peak flash rates occur in autumn. This is particularly noticeable for the Mediterranean and North Atlantic. Landmasses have a strong diurnal cycle of lightning, with flash rates generally peaking between 3-5 pm local solar time. The central United States flash rates peak later, in late evening or early night. Flash rates peak after midnight in northern Argentina. These regions are known for large, intense, long-lived mesoscale convective systems.

An Uncertainty Data Set for Passive Microwave Satellite Observations of Warm Cloud Liquid Water Path

Science.gov (United States)

Greenwald, Thomas J.; Bennartz, Ralf; Lebsock, Matthew; Teixeira, João.

2018-04-01

The first extended comprehensive data set of the retrieval uncertainties in passive microwave observations of cloud liquid water path (CLWP) for warm oceanic clouds has been created for practical use in climate applications. Four major sources of systematic errors were considered over the 9-year record of the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer-EOS (AMSR-E): clear-sky bias, cloud-rain partition (CRP) bias, cloud-fraction-dependent bias, and cloud temperature bias. Errors were estimated using a unique merged AMSR-E/Moderate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer Level 2 data set as well as observations from the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization and the CloudSat Cloud Profiling Radar. To quantify the CRP bias more accurately, a new parameterization was developed to improve the inference of CLWP in warm rain. The cloud-fraction-dependent bias was found to be a combination of the CRP bias, an in-cloud bias, and an adjacent precipitation bias. Globally, the mean net bias was 0.012 kg/m2, dominated by the CRP and in-cloud biases, but with considerable regional and seasonal variation. Good qualitative agreement between a bias-corrected AMSR-E CLWP climatology and ship observations in the Northeast Pacific suggests that the bias estimates are reasonable. However, a possible underestimation of the net bias in certain conditions may be due in part to the crude method used in classifying precipitation, underscoring the need for an independent method of detecting rain in warm clouds. This study demonstrates the importance of combining visible-infrared imager data and passive microwave CLWP observations for estimating uncertainties and improving the accuracy of these observations.

The SILCC (SImulating the LifeCycle of molecular Clouds) project - I. Chemical evolution of the supernova-driven ISM

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Walch, S.; Girichidis, P.; Naab, T.; Gatto, A.; Glover, S.C.O.; Wünsch, Richard; Klessen, R.S.; Clark, P.C.; Peters, T.; Derigs, D.; Baczynski, C.

2015-01-01

Roč. 454, č. 1 (2015), s. 238-268 ISSN 0035-8711 R&D Projects: GA ČR GAP209/12/1795 Institutional support: RVO:67985815 Keywords : magnetodydrodynamics * ISM clouds * ISM evolution Subject RIV: BN - Astronomy , Celestial Mechanics, Astrophysics Impact factor: 4.952, year: 2015

X.509 Authentication/Authorization in FermiCloud

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kim, Hyunwoo [Fermilab; Timm, Steven [Fermilab

2014-11-11

We present a summary of how X.509 authentication and authorization are used with OpenNebula in FermiCloud. We also describe a history of why the X.509 authentication was needed in FermiCloud, and review X.509 authorization options, both internal and external to OpenNebula. We show how these options can be and have been used to successfully run scientific workflows on federated clouds, which include OpenNebula on FermiCloud and Amazon Web Services as well as other community clouds. We also outline federation options being used by other commercial and open-source clouds and cloud research projects.

A Ten-Year Global Record of Absorbing Aerosols Above Clouds from OMI's Near-UV Observations

Science.gov (United States)

Jethva, Hiren; Torres, Omar; Ahn, Changwoo

2016-01-01

Aerosol-cloud interaction continues to be one of the leading uncertain components of climate models, primarily due to the lack of an adequate knowledge of the complex microphysical and radiative processes associated with the aerosol-cloud system. The situations when aerosols and clouds are found in the same atmospheric column, for instance, when light-absorbing aerosols such as biomass burning generated carbonaceous particles or wind-blown dust overlay low-level cloud decks, are commonly found over several regional of the world. Contrary to the cloud-free scenario over dark surface, for which aerosols are known to produce a net cooling effect (negative radiative forcing) on climate, the overlapping situation of absorbing aerosols over cloud can potentially exert a significant level of atmospheric absorption and produces a positive radiative forcing at top-of-atmosphere. The magnitude of direct radiative effects of aerosols above cloud depends directly on the aerosol loading, microphysical-optical properties of the aerosol layer and the underlying cloud deck, and geometric cloud fraction. We help in addressing this problem by introducing a novel product of optical depth of absorbing aerosols above clouds retrieved from near-UV observations made by the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) on board NASA's Aura platform. The presence of absorbing aerosols above cloud reduces the upwelling radiation reflected by cloud and produces a strong 'color ratio' effect in the near-UV region, which can be unambiguously detected in the OMI measurements. Physically based on this effect, the OMACA algorithm retrieves the optical depths of aerosols and clouds simultaneously under a prescribed state of atmosphere. The algorithm architecture and results from a ten-year global record including global climatology of frequency of occurrence and above-cloud aerosol optical depth, and a discussion on related future field campaigns are presented.

Mapping the Distribution of Cloud Forests Using MODIS Imagery

Science.gov (United States)

Douglas, M. W.; Mejia, J.; Murillo, J.; Orozco, R.

2007-05-01

Tropical cloud forests - those forests that are frequently immersed in clouds or otherwise very humid, are extremely difficult to map from the ground, and are not easily distinguished in satellite imagery from other forest types, but they have a very different flora and fauna than lowland rainforest. Cloud forests, although found in many parts of the tropics, have a very restricted vertical extent and thus are also restricted horizontally. As a result, they are subject to both human disturbance (coffee growing for example) and the effects of possible climate change. Motivated by a desire to seek meteorological explanations for the distribution of cloud forests, we have begun to map cloudiness using MODIS Terra and Aqua visible imagery. This imagery, at ~1030 LT and 1330 LT, is an approximation for mid-day cloudiness. In tropical regions the amount of mid-day cloudiness strongly controls the shortwave radiation and thus the potential for evaporation (and aridity). We have mapped cloudiness using a simple algorithm that distinguishes between the cloud-free background brightness and the generally more reflective clouds to separate clouds from the underlying background. A major advantage of MODIS imagery over many other sources of satellite imagery is its high spatial resolution (~250m). This, coupled with precisely navigated images, means that detailed maps of cloudiness can be produced. The cloudiness maps can then be related to the underlying topography to further refine the location of the cloud forests. An advantage of this technique is that we are mapping the potential cloud forest, based on cloudiness, rather than the actual cloud forest, which are commonly based on forest estimates from satellite and digital elevation data. We do not derive precipitation, only estimates of daytime cloudiness. Although only a few years of MODIS imagery has been used in our studies, we will show that this is sufficient to describe the climatology of cloudiness with acceptable

Atlas2 Cloud: a framework for personal genome analysis in the cloud.

Science.gov (United States)

Evani, Uday S; Challis, Danny; Yu, Jin; Jackson, Andrew R; Paithankar, Sameer; Bainbridge, Matthew N; Jakkamsetti, Adinarayana; Pham, Peter; Coarfa, Cristian; Milosavljevic, Aleksandar; Yu, Fuli

2012-01-01

Until recently, sequencing has primarily been carried out in large genome centers which have invested heavily in developing the computational infrastructure that enables genomic sequence analysis. The recent advancements in next generation sequencing (NGS) have led to a wide dissemination of sequencing technologies and data, to highly diverse research groups. It is expected that clinical sequencing will become part of diagnostic routines shortly. However, limited accessibility to computational infrastructure and high quality bioinformatic tools, and the demand for personnel skilled in data analysis and interpretation remains a serious bottleneck. To this end, the cloud computing and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) technologies can help address these issues. We successfully enabled the Atlas2 Cloud pipeline for personal genome analysis on two different cloud service platforms: a community cloud via the Genboree Workbench, and a commercial cloud via the Amazon Web Services using Software-as-a-Service model. We report a case study of personal genome analysis using our Atlas2 Genboree pipeline. We also outline a detailed cost structure for running Atlas2 Amazon on whole exome capture data, providing cost projections in terms of storage, compute and I/O when running Atlas2 Amazon on a large data set. We find that providing a web interface and an optimized pipeline clearly facilitates usage of cloud computing for personal genome analysis, but for it to be routinely used for large scale projects there needs to be a paradigm shift in the way we develop tools, in standard operating procedures, and in funding mechanisms.

Ozone climatology over western Mediterranean Sea

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pibiri, G.; Randaccio, P.; Serra, A.; Sollai, A.

1984-01-01

A preliminary climatology of atmospheric ozone over Western Mediterranean Sea is given by analysis of the upper observations of O 3 carried out at Cagliari-Elmas station from 1968 to 1976. Some peculiarities are here illustrated and discussed

Cloud Chamber

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Gfader, Verina

Cloud Chamber takes its roots in a performance project, titled The Guests 做东, devised by Verina Gfader for the 11th Shanghai Biennale, ‘Why Not Ask Again: Arguments, Counter-arguments, and Stories’. Departing from the inclusion of the biennale audience to write a future folk tale, Cloud Chamber......: fiction and translation and translation through time; post literacy; world picturing-world typing; and cartographic entanglements and expressions of subjectivity; through the lens a social imaginary of worlding or cosmological quest. Art at its core? Contributions by Nikos Papastergiadis, Rebecca Carson...

The Magellan Final Report on Cloud Computing

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

,; Coghlan, Susan; Yelick, Katherine

2011-12-21

The goal of Magellan, a project funded through the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR), was to investigate the potential role of cloud computing in addressing the computing needs for the DOE Office of Science (SC), particularly related to serving the needs of mid- range computing and future data-intensive computing workloads. A set of research questions was formed to probe various aspects of cloud computing from performance, usability, and cost. To address these questions, a distributed testbed infrastructure was deployed at the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility (ALCF) and the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC). The testbed was designed to be flexible and capable enough to explore a variety of computing models and hardware design points in order to understand the impact for various scientific applications. During the project, the testbed also served as a valuable resource to application scientists. Applications from a diverse set of projects such as MG-RAST (a metagenomics analysis server), the Joint Genome Institute, the STAR experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, and the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO), were used by the Magellan project for benchmarking within the cloud, but the project teams were also able to accomplish important production science utilizing the Magellan cloud resources.

Plume trajectory validation study: Brown cloud support project overview

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Brown-Strattan, M.A.; Smith, M.L.

1991-01-01

The brown cloud is an air pollution phenomenon of great concern to the Denver metropolitan area. Regulatory agencies, academia, and research organizations are involved in characterizing the development and transport of the brown cloud and identifying mitigation approaches. In support of this effort, NOAA conducted releases of small (one cubic meter) constant density balloons from sites in Denver and along the South Platte Valley. These balloons, called ''tetroons'' because of their tetrahedral shape, carried five-ounce transponders and were tracked by radar as they rose to predetermined altitudes and followed airflow patterns at those altitudes. The data gathered from these releases included the geographic position and altitude of each tetroon over time. These data will aid efforts to understand brown cloud development, structure, and transport

ASTER cloud coverage reassessment using MODIS cloud mask products

Science.gov (United States)

Tonooka, Hideyuki; Omagari, Kunjuro; Yamamoto, Hirokazu; Tachikawa, Tetsushi; Fujita, Masaru; Paitaer, Zaoreguli

2010-10-01

In the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection radiometer (ASTER) Project, two kinds of algorithms are used for cloud assessment in Level-1 processing. The first algorithm based on the LANDSAT-5 TM Automatic Cloud Cover Assessment (ACCA) algorithm is used for a part of daytime scenes observed with only VNIR bands and all nighttime scenes, and the second algorithm based on the LANDSAT-7 ETM+ ACCA algorithm is used for most of daytime scenes observed with all spectral bands. However, the first algorithm does not work well for lack of some spectral bands sensitive to cloud detection, and the two algorithms have been less accurate over snow/ice covered areas since April 2008 when the SWIR subsystem developed troubles. In addition, they perform less well for some combinations of surface type and sun elevation angle. We, therefore, have developed the ASTER cloud coverage reassessment system using MODIS cloud mask (MOD35) products, and have reassessed cloud coverage for all ASTER archived scenes (>1.7 million scenes). All of the new cloud coverage data are included in Image Management System (IMS) databases of the ASTER Ground Data System (GDS) and NASA's Land Process Data Active Archive Center (LP DAAC) and used for ASTER product search by users, and cloud mask images are distributed to users through Internet. Daily upcoming scenes (about 400 scenes per day) are reassessed and inserted into the IMS databases in 5 to 7 days after each scene observation date. Some validation studies for the new cloud coverage data and some mission-related analyses using those data are also demonstrated in the present paper.

CHPS IN CLOUD COMPUTING ENVIRONMENT

OpenAIRE

K.L.Giridas; A.Shajin Nargunam

2012-01-01

Workflow have been utilized to characterize a various form of applications concerning high processing and storage space demands. So, to make the cloud computing environment more eco-friendly,our research project was aiming in reducing E-waste accumulated by computers. In a hybrid cloud, the user has flexibility offered by public cloud resources that can be combined to the private resources pool as required. Our previous work described the process of combining the low range and mid range proce...

Wind Climate Analyses for SRTC's Central Climatology Site

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Weber, A.H.

2003-01-01

This report was written to present climatological summaries of the wind data at the Central Climatology (CC) tower in a convenient format and to point out some features of the wind speed and direction that have not been widely appreciated in the past. Short-term (two-week) wind roses provide a means to demonstrate the temporal and spatial relationships that wind speed and direction undergo using a ten-year database from the CC tower. These relationships are best demonstrated by examining the figures provided in this report or looking at loops of computer-generated images provided by the authors

Trends and variability of cloud fraction cover in the Arctic, 1982-2009

Science.gov (United States)

Boccolari, Mauro; Parmiggiani, Flavio

2018-05-01

Climatology, trends and variability of cloud fraction cover (CFC) data over the Arctic (north of 70°N), were analysed over the 1982-2009 period. Data, available from the Climate Monitoring Satellite Application Facility (CM SAF), are derived from satellite measurements by AVHRR. Climatological means confirm permanent high CFC values over the Atlantic sector during all the year and during summer over the eastern Arctic Ocean. Lower values are found in the rest of the analysed area especially over Greenland and the Canadian Archipelago, nearly continuously during all the months. These results are confirmed by CFC trends and variability. Statistically significant trends were found during all the months over the Greenland Sea, particularly during the winter season (negative, less than -5 % dec -1) and over the Beaufort Sea in spring (positive, more than +5 % dec -1). CFC variability, investigated by the Empirical Orthogonal Functions, shows a substantial "non-variability" in the Northern Atlantic Ocean. Statistically significant correlations between CFC principal components elements and both the Pacific Decadal Oscillation index and Pacific North America patterns are found.

Cloud Scavenging Effects on Aerosol Radiative and Cloud-nucleating Properties - Final Technical Report

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ogren, John A.; Sheridan, Patrick S.; Andrews, Elisabeth

2009-03-05

The optical properties of aerosol particles are the controlling factors in determining direct aerosol radiative forcing. These optical properties depend on the chemical composition and size distribution of the aerosol particles, which can change due to various processes during the particles’ lifetime in the atmosphere. Over the course of this project we have studied how cloud processing of atmospheric aerosol changes the aerosol optical properties. A counterflow virtual impactor was used to separate cloud drops from interstitial aerosol and parallel aerosol systems were used to measure the optical properties of the interstitial and cloud-scavenged aerosol. Specifically, aerosol light scattering, back-scattering and absorption were measured and used to derive radiatively significant parameters such as aerosol single scattering albedo and backscatter fraction for cloud-scavenged and interstitial aerosol. This data allows us to demonstrate that the radiative properties of cloud-processed aerosol can be quite different than pre-cloud aerosol. These differences can be used to improve the parameterization of aerosol forcing in climate models.

THE CLOUD TECHNOLOGIES IN PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION OF THE FUTURE ECONOMISTS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yu. Dyulicheva

2014-04-01

Full Text Available The usage of the cloud services in the professional education of the future economists are investigated. The following cloud services are analyzed in the paper: 1 the cloud service gantter for project management, its resources management, risks evaluation with example of the capabilities for Ganter diagram creation, project critical path determination based on gantter cloud service are considered; 2 the cloud service SageMath Cloud with capabilities of programming languages R, Python, Cython GAP usage for data analysis with example of the linear regression model construction on data sample based on the language R usage are considered; 3 Google’s cloud service based on the spreadsheets for the linear programming problems solving based on the tool Solver for the linear optimization problem is investigated; 4 the educational project Big Data University the main goal of which is learning of the students to handle big data based on the cloud technologies with the capabilities to learn request language SQL, language R for data analyses and the methods for data warehouse preprocessing are considered; 5 the cloud services from «1С» and «BuhSoft» studying of the accounting information systems with the reports creation and payroll capabilities are analyzed.

Future changes in the climatology of the Great Plains low-level jet derived from fine resolution multi-model simulations.

Science.gov (United States)

Tang, Ying; Winkler, Julie; Zhong, Shiyuan; Bian, Xindi; Doubler, Dana; Yu, Lejiang; Walters, Claudia

2017-07-10

The southerly Great Plains low-level jet (GPLLJ) is one of the most significant circulation features of the central U.S. linking large-scale atmospheric circulation with the regional climate. GPLLJs transport heat and moisture, contribute to thunderstorm and severe weather formation, provide a corridor for the springtime migration of birds and insects, enhance wind energy availability, and disperse air pollution. We assess future changes in GPLLJ frequency using an eight member ensemble of dynamically-downscaled climate simulations for the mid-21st century. Nocturnal GPLLJ frequency is projected to increase in the southern plains in spring and in the central plains in summer, whereas current climatological patterns persist into the future for daytime and cool season GPLLJs. The relationship between future GPLLJ frequency and the extent and strength of anticyclonic airflow over eastern North America varies with season. Most simulations project a westward shift of anticyclonic airflow in summer, but uncertainty is larger for spring with only half of the simulations suggesting a westward expansion. The choice of regional climate model and the driving lateral boundary conditions have a large influence on the projected future changes in GPLLJ frequency and highlight the importance of multi-model ensembles to estimate the uncertainty surrounding the future GPLLJ climatology.

Northwest Atlantic Regional Climatology (NCEI Accession 0155889)

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — To provide an improved oceanographic foundation and reference for multi-disciplinary studies of the Northwest Atlantic Ocean, NCEI Regional Climatology Team...

Quality Controlled Local Climatological Data (QCLCD) Publication

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — Quality Controlled Local Climatological Data (QCLCD) contains summaries from major airport weather stations that include a daily account of temperature extremes,...

Climatology of the Savannah River Plant site

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hoel, D.D.

1984-06-01

This document contains information on the climatological characteristics of the SRP site, as well as information on relative concentrations and deposition for specific radionuclides. 42 references, 42 figures, 45 tables

Importance of including ammonium sulfate ((NH42SO4 aerosols for ice cloud parameterization in GCMs

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

P. S. Bhattacharjee

2010-02-01

Full Text Available A common deficiency of many cloud-physics parameterizations including the NASA's microphysics of clouds with aerosol-cloud interactions (hereafter called McRAS-AC is that they simulate lesser (larger than the observed ice cloud particle number (size. A single column model (SCM of McRAS-AC physics of the GEOS4 Global Circulation Model (GCM together with an adiabatic parcel model (APM for ice-cloud nucleation (IN of aerosols were used to systematically examine the influence of introducing ammonium sulfate (NH42SO4 aerosols in McRAS-AC and its influence on the optical properties of both liquid and ice clouds. First an (NH42SO4 parameterization was included in the APM to assess its effect on clouds vis-à-vis that of the other aerosols. Subsequently, several evaluation tests were conducted over the ARM Southern Great Plain (SGP and thirteen other locations (sorted into pristine and polluted conditions distributed over marine and continental sites with the SCM. The statistics of the simulated cloud climatology were evaluated against the available ground and satellite data. The results showed that inclusion of (NH42SO4 into McRAS-AC of the SCM made a remarkable improvement in the simulated effective radius of ice cloud particulates. However, the corresponding ice-cloud optical thickness increased even more than the observed. This can be caused by lack of horizontal cloud advection not performed in the SCM. Adjusting the other tunable parameters such as precipitation efficiency can mitigate this deficiency. Inclusion of ice cloud particle splintering invoked empirically further reduced simulation biases. Overall, these changes make a substantial improvement in simulated cloud optical properties and cloud distribution particularly over the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ in the GCM.

Cloud Computing Organizational Benefits : A Managerial concern

OpenAIRE

Mandala, Venkata Bhaskar Reddy; Chandra, Marepalli Sharat

2012-01-01

Context: Software industry is looking for new methods and opportunities to reduce the project management problems and operational costs. Cloud Computing concept is providing answers to these problems. Cloud Computing is made possible with the availability of high internet bandwidth. Cloud Computing is providing wide range of various services to varied customer base. Cloud Computing has some key elements such as on-demand services, large pool of configurable computing resources and minimal man...

[Treatment of cloud radiative effects in general circulation models

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wang, W.C.

1993-01-01

This is a renewal proposal for an on-going project of the Department of Energy (DOE)/Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program. The objective of the ARM Program is to improve the treatment of radiation-cloud in GCMs so that reliable predictions of the timing and magnitude of greenhouse gas-induced global warming and regional responses can be made. The ARM Program supports two research areas: (I) The modeling and analysis of data related to the parameterization of clouds and radiation in general circulation models (GCMs); and (II) the development of advanced instrumentation for both mapping the three-dimensional structure of the atmosphere and high accuracy/precision radiometric observations. The present project conducts research in area (I) and focuses on GCM treatment of cloud life cycle, optical properties, and vertical overlapping. The project has two tasks: (1) Development and Refinement of GCM Radiation-Cloud Treatment Using ARM Data; and (2) Validation of GCM Radiation-Cloud Treatment

Correlation and multifractality in climatological time series

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pedron, I T

2010-01-01

Climate can be described by statistical analysis of mean values of atmospheric variables over a period. It is possible to detect correlations in climatological time series and to classify its behavior. In this work the Hurst exponent, which can characterize correlation and persistence in time series, is obtained by using the Detrended Fluctuation Analysis (DFA) method. Data series of temperature, precipitation, humidity, solar radiation, wind speed, maximum squall, atmospheric pressure and randomic series are studied. Furthermore, the multifractality of such series is analyzed applying the Multifractal Detrended Fluctuation Analysis (MF-DFA) method. The results indicate presence of correlation (persistent character) in all climatological series and multifractality as well. A larger set of data, and longer, could provide better results indicating the universality of the exponents.

Risk Evaluation of a UHV Power Transmission Construction Project Based on a Cloud Model and FCE Method for Sustainability

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Huiru Zhao

2015-03-01

Full Text Available In order to achieve the sustainable development of energy, Ultra High Voltage (UHV power transmission construction projects are being established in China currently. Their high-tech nature, the massive amount of money involved, and the need for multi-agent collaboration as well as complex construction environments bring many challenges and risks. Risk management, therefore, is critical to reduce the risks and realize sustainable development of projects. Unfortunately, many traditional risk assessment methods may not perform well due to the great uncertainty and randomness inherent in UHV power construction projects. This paper, therefore, proposes a risk evaluation index system and a hybrid risk evaluation model to evaluate the risk of UHV projects and find out the key risk factors. This model based on a cloud model and fuzzy comprehensive evaluation (FCE method combines the superiority of the cloud model for reflecting randomness and discreteness with the advantages of the fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method in handling uncertain and vague issues. For the sake of proving our framework, an empirical study of “Zhejiang-Fuzhou” UHV power transmission construction project is presented. As key contributions, we find the risk of this project lies at a “middle” to “high” level and closer to a “middle” level; the “management risk” and “social risk” are identified as the most important risk factors requiring more attention; and some risk control recommendations are proposed. This article demonstrates the value of our approach in risk identification, which seeks to improve the risk control level and the sustainable development of UHV power transmission construction projects.

Long Term Cloud Property Datasets From MODIS and AVHRR Using the CERES Cloud Algorithm

Science.gov (United States)

Minnis, Patrick; Bedka, Kristopher M.; Doelling, David R.; Sun-Mack, Sunny; Yost, Christopher R.; Trepte, Qing Z.; Bedka, Sarah T.; Palikonda, Rabindra; Scarino, Benjamin R.; Chen, Yan;

HNSciCloud - Overview and technical Challenges

Science.gov (United States)

Gasthuber, Martin; Meinhard, Helge; Jones, Robert

2017-10-01

HEP is only one of many sciences with sharply increasing compute requirements that cannot be met by profiting from Moore’s law alone. Commercial clouds potentially allow for realising larger economies of scale. While some small-scale experience requiring dedicated effort has been collected, public cloud resources have not been integrated yet with the standard workflows of science organisations in their private data centres; in addition, European science has not ramped up to significant scale yet. The HELIX NEBULA Science Cloud project - HNSciCloud, partly funded by the European Commission, addresses these points. Ten organisations under CERN’s leadership, covering particle physics, bioinformatics, photon science and other sciences, have joined to procure public cloud resources as well as dedicated development efforts towards this integration. The HNSciCloud project faces the challenge to accelerate developments performed by the selected commercial providers. In order to guarantee cost efficient usage of IaaS resources across a wide range of scientific communities, the technical requirements had to be carefully constructed. With respect to current IaaS offerings, dataintensive science is the biggest challenge; other points that need to be addressed concern identity federations, network connectivity and how to match business practices of large IaaS providers with those of public research organisations. In the first section, this paper will give an overview of the project and explain the findings so far. The last section will explain the key points of the technical requirements and present first results of the experience of the procurers with the services in comparison to their’on-premise’ infrastructure.

A comprehensive overview of the climatological composition of the Asian summer monsoon anticyclone based on 10 years of Aura Microwave Limb Sounder measurements

Science.gov (United States)

Santee, M. L.; Manney, G. L.; Livesey, N. J.; Schwartz, M. J.; Neu, J. L.; Read, W. G.

2017-05-01

Intense deep convection associated with the Asian summer monsoon (ASM) lofts surface pollutants to the upper troposphere/lower stratosphere (UTLS), where strong winds and long chemical lifetimes allow intercontinental transport, affecting atmospheric composition around the globe. The Aura Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS), launched in 2004, makes simultaneous colocated measurements of trace gases and cloud ice water content (a proxy for deep convection) in the UTLS on a daily basis. Here we exploit the dense spatial and temporal coverage, long-term data record, extensive measurement suite, and insensitivity to aerosol and most clouds of Aura MLS to characterize the climatological (2005-2014) composition of the ASM anticyclone throughout its annual life cycle. We use version 4 MLS data to quantify spatial and temporal variations in both tropospheric (H2O, CO, CH3Cl, CH3CN, CH3OH) and stratospheric (O3, HNO3, HCl) tracers on four potential temperature surfaces (350-410 K). Inside the mature anticyclone, all species exhibit substantial changes, not only from their premonsoon distributions in the ASM region but also from their summertime distributions in the rest of the hemisphere. Different tracers exhibit dissimilar seasonal evolution, and the exact location and timing of their extreme values vary. Although individual aspects of the anticyclone have been described previously, we present a uniquely comprehensive overview of the climatological seasonal evolution of the ASM and its impact on UTLS composition. This work provides valuable context for planned in situ measurements as well as a benchmark for model evaluation and future investigations of interannual variability and long-term changes in monsoon processes.

Dynamics of Clouds and Mesoscale Circulations over the Maritime Continent

Science.gov (United States)

Jin, Y.; Wang, S.; Xian, P.; Reid, J. S.; Nachamkin, J.

2010-12-01

In recent decades Southeast Asia (SEA) has seen rapid economic growth as well as increased biomass burning, resulting in high air pollution levels and reduced air qual-ity. At the same time clouds often prevent accurate air-quality monitoring and analysis using satellite observations. The Seven SouthEast Asian Studies (7SEAS) field campaign currently underway over SEA provides an unprecedented opportunity to study the com-plex interplay between aerosol and clouds. 7SEAS is a comprehensive interdisciplinary atmospheric sciences program through international partnership of NASA, NRL, ONR and seven local institutions including those from Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. While the original goal of 7SEAS is to iso-late the impacts of aerosol particles on weather and the environment, it is recognized that better understanding of SEA meteorological conditions, especially those associated with cloud formation and evolution, is critical to the success of the campaign. In this study we attempt to gain more insight into the dynamic and physical processes associated with low level clouds and atmospheric circulation at the regional scale over SEA, using the Navy’s Coupled Ocean/Atmosphere Mesoscale Prediction System (COAMPS® ), a regional forecast model in operation at FNMOC since 1998. This effort comprises two main components. First, multiple-years of COAMPS operational forecasts over SEA are analyzed for basic climatology of atmospheric fea-tures. Second, mesoscale circulation and cloud properties are simulated at relatively higher resolution (15-km) for selected periods in the Gulf of Tonkin and adjacent coastal areas. Simulation results are compared to MODIS cloud observations and local sound-ings obtained during 7SEAS for model verifications. Atmospheric boundary layer proc-esses are examined in relation to spatial and temporal variations of cloud fields. The cur-rent work serves as an important step toward improving our

Global two-channel AVHRR aerosol climatology: effects of stratospheric aerosols and preliminary comparisons with MODIS and MISR retrievals

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Geogdzhayev, Igor V.; Mishchenko, Michael I.; Liu Li; Remer, Lorraine

2004-01-01

We present an update on the status of the global climatology of the aerosol column optical thickness and Angstrom exponent derived from channel-1 and -2 radiances of the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) in the framework of the Global Aerosol Climatology Project (GACP). The latest version of the climatology covers the period from July 1983 to September 2001 and is based on an adjusted value of the diffuse component of the ocean reflectance as derived from extensive comparisons with ship sun-photometer data. We use the updated GACP climatology and Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment (SAGE) data to analyze how stratospheric aerosols from major volcanic eruptions can affect the GACP aerosol product. One possible retrieval strategy based on the AVHRR channel-1 and -2 data alone is to infer both the stratospheric and the tropospheric aerosol optical thickness while assuming fixed microphysical models for both aerosol components. The second approach is to use the SAGE stratospheric aerosol data in order to constrain the AVHRR retrieval algorithm. We demonstrate that the second approach yields a consistent long-term record of the tropospheric aerosol optical thickness and Angstrom exponent. Preliminary comparisons of the GACP aerosol product with MODerate resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS) and Multiangle Imaging Spectro-Radiometer aerosol retrievals show reasonable agreement, the GACP global monthly optical thickness being lower than the MODIS one by approximately 0.03. Larger differences are observed on a regional scale. Comparisons of the GACP and MODIS Angstrom exponent records are less conclusive and require further analysis

Climatology of salt transitions and implications for stone weathering.

Science.gov (United States)

Grossi, C M; Brimblecombe, P; Menéndez, B; Benavente, D; Harris, I; Déqué, M

2011-06-01

This work introduces the notion of salt climatology. It shows how climate affects salt thermodynamic and the potential to relate long-term salt damage to climate types. It mainly focuses on specific sites in Western Europe, which include some cities in France and Peninsular Spain. Salt damage was parameterised using the number of dissolution-crystallisation events for unhydrated (sodium chloride) and hydrated (sodium sulphate) systems. These phase transitions have been calculated using daily temperature and relative humidity from observation meteorological data and Climate Change models' output (HadCM3 and ARPEGE). Comparing the number of transitions with meteorological seasonal data allowed us to develop techniques to estimate the frequency of salt transitions based on the local climatology. Results show that it is possible to associate the Köppen-Geiger climate types with potential salt weathering. Temperate fully humid climates seem to offer the highest potential for salt damage and possible higher number of transitions in summer. Climates with dry summers tend to show a lesser frequency of transitions in summer. The analysis of temperature, precipitation and relative output from Climate Change models suggests changes in the Köppen-Geiger climate types and changes in the patterns of salt damage. For instance, West Europe areas with a fully humid climate may change to a more Mediterranean like or dry climates, and consequently the seasonality of different salt transitions. The accuracy and reliability of the projections might be improved by simultaneously running multiple climate models (ensembles). Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Large-Scale, Multi-Sensor Atmospheric Data Fusion Using Hybrid Cloud Computing

Science.gov (United States)

Wilson, B. D.; Manipon, G.; Hua, H.; Fetzer, E. J.

2015-12-01

NASA's Earth Observing System (EOS) is an ambitious facility for studying global climate change. The mandate now is to combine measurements from the instruments on the "A-Train" platforms (AIRS, MODIS, MLS, and CloudSat) and other Earth probes to enable large-scale studies of climate change over decades. Moving to multi-sensor, long-duration presents serious challenges for large-scale data mining and fusion. For example, one might want to compare temperature and water vapor retrievals from one instrument (AIRS) to another (MODIS), and to a model (ECMWF), stratify the comparisons using a classification of the "cloud scenes" from CloudSat, and repeat the entire analysis over 10 years of data. HySDS is a Hybrid-Cloud Science Data System that has been developed and applied under NASA AIST, MEaSUREs, and ACCESS grants. HySDS uses the SciFlow workflow engine to partition analysis workflows into parallel tasks (e.g. segmenting by time or space) that are pushed into a durable job queue. The tasks are "pulled" from the queue by worker Virtual Machines (VM's) and executed in an on-premise Cloud (Eucalyptus or OpenStack) or at Amazon in the public Cloud or govCloud. In this way, years of data (millions of files) can be processed in a massively parallel way. Input variables (arrays) are pulled on-demand into the Cloud using OPeNDAP URLs or other subsetting services, thereby minimizing the size of the transferred data. We are using HySDS to automate the production of multiple versions of a ten-year A-Train water vapor climatology under a MEASURES grant. We will present the architecture of HySDS, describe the achieved "clock time" speedups in fusing datasets on our own nodes and in the Amazon Cloud, and discuss the Cloud cost tradeoffs for storage, compute, and data transfer. Our system demonstrates how one can pull A-Train variables (Levels 2 & 3) on-demand into the Amazon Cloud, and cache only those variables that are heavily used, so that any number of compute jobs can be

Counting the clouds

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Randall, David A

2005-01-01

Cloud processes are very important for the global circulation of the atmosphere. It is now possible, though very expensive, to simulate the global circulation of the atmosphere using a model with resolution fine enough to explicitly represent the larger individual clouds. An impressive preliminary calculation of this type has already been performed by Japanese scientists, using the Earth Simulator. Within the next few years, such global cloud-resolving models (GCRMs) will be applied to weather prediction, and later they will be used in climatechange simulations. The tremendous advantage of GCRMs, relative to conventional lowerresolution global models, is that GCRMs can avoid many of the questionable 'parameterizations' used to represent cloud effects in lower-resolution global models. Although cloud microphysics, turbulence, and radiation must still be parameterized in GCRMs, the high resolution of a GCRM simplifies these problems considerably, relative to conventional models. The United States currently has no project to develop a GCRM, although we have both the computer power and the expertise to do it. A research program aimed at development and applications of GCRMs is outlined

THE MAGELLANIC INTER-CLOUD PROJECT (MAGIC). I. EVIDENCE FOR INTERMEDIATE-AGE STELLAR POPULATIONS IN BETWEEN THE MAGELLANIC CLOUDS

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Noeel, N. E. D.; Read, J. I. [ETH Zuerich, Institute for Astronomy, Wolfgang-Pauli-Strasse 27, CH-8093 Zuerich (Switzerland); Conn, B. C.; Rix, H.-W. [Max Planck Institut fuer Astronomie, Koenigstuhl 17, D-69117, Heidelberg (Germany); Carrera, R. [Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias, C/Via Lactea s/n, E-38200, La Laguna, Tenerife (Spain); Dolphin, A., E-mail: noelia@phys.ethz.ch [Raytheon Company, P.O. Box 11337, Tucson, AZ 85734-1337 (United States)

2013-05-10

The origin of the gas in between the Magellanic Clouds (MCs)-known as the ''Magellanic Bridge'' (MB)-is puzzling. Numerical simulations suggest that the MB formed from tidally stripped gas and stars in a recent interaction between the MCs. However, the apparent lack of stripped intermediate- or old-age stars associated with the MB is at odds with this picture. In this paper, we present the first results from the MAGellanic Inter-Cloud program (MAGIC) aimed at probing the stellar populations in the inter-Cloud region. We present observations of the stellar populations in two large fields located in between the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds (LMC/SMC), secured using the WFI camera on the 2.2 m telescope in La Silla. Using a synthetic color-magnitude diagram technique, we present the first quantitative evidence for the presence of intermediate-age and old stars in the inter-Cloud region. The intermediate-age stars-which make up {approx}28% of all stars in the region-are not present in fields at a similar distance from the SMC in a direction pointing away from the LMC. This provides potential evidence that these intermediate-age stars could have been tidally stripped from the SMC. However, spectroscopic studies will be needed to confirm or rule out the tidal origin for the inter-Cloud gas and stars.

Evidence of impact of aviation on cirrus cloud formation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

C. S. Zerefos

2003-01-01

Full Text Available This work examines changes in cirrus cloud cover (CCC in possible association with aviation activities at congested air corridors. The analysis is based on the latest version of the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project D2 data set and covers the period 1984-1998. Over the studied areas, the effect of large-scale modes of natural climate variability such as ENSO, QBO and NAO as well as the possible influence of the tropopause variability, were first removed from the cloud data set in order to calculate long-term changes of observed cirrus cloudiness. The results show increasing trends in (CCC between 1984 and 1998 over the high air traffic corridors of North America, North Atlantic and Europe. Of these upward trends, only in the summertime over the North Atlantic and only in the wintertime over North America are statistically significant (exceeding +2.0% per decade. Over adjacent locations with low air traffic, the calculated trends are statistically insignificant and in most cases negative both during winter and summer in the regions studied. These negative trends, over low air traffic regions, are consistent with the observed large scale negative trends seen in (CCC over most of the northern middle latitudes and over the tropics. Moreover, further investigation of vertical velocities over high and low air traffic regions provide evidence that the trends of opposite signs in (CCC over these regions, do not seem to be caused by different trends in dynamics. It is also shown that the longitudinal distribution of decadal changes in (CCC along the latitude belt centered at the North Atlantic air corridor, parallels the spatial distribution of fuel consumption from highflying air traffic, providing an independent test of possible impact of aviation on contrail cirrus formation. The correlation between the fuel consumption and the longitudinal variability of (CCC is significant (+0.7 over the middle latitudes but not over the tropics

The modification of the typhoon rainfall climatology model in Taiwan

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

C.-S. Lee

2013-01-01

Full Text Available This study is focused on the modification of a typhoon rainfall climatological model, by using the dataset up to 2006 and including data collected from rain gauge stations established after the 921 earthquake (1999. Subsequently, the climatology rainfall models for westward- and northward-moving typhoons are established by using the typhoon track classification from the Central Weather Bureau. These models are also evaluated and examined using dependent cases collected between 1989 and 2006 and independent cases collected from 2007 to 2011. For the dependent cases, the average total rainfall at all rain gauge stations forecasted using the climatology rainfall models for westward- (W-TRCM12 and northward-moving (N-TRCM12 typhoons is superior to that obtained using the original climatological model (TRCM06. Model W-TRCM12 significantly improves the precipitation underestimation of model TRCM06. The independent cases show that model W-TRCM12 provides better accumulated rainfall forecasts and distributions than model TRCM06. A climatological model for accompanied northeastern monsoons (A-TRCM12 for special typhoon types has also been established. The current A-TRCM12 model only contains five historical cases and various typhoon combinations can cause precipitation in different regions. Therefore, precipitation is likely to be significantly overestimated and high false alarm ratios are likely to occur in specific regions. For example, model A-TRCM12 significantly overestimates the rainfall forecast for Typhoon Mitag, an independent case from 2007. However, it has a higher probability of detection than model TRCM06. From a disaster prevention perspective, a high probability of detection is much more important than a high false alarm ratio. The modified models can contribute significantly to operational forecast.

Helix Nebula Science Cloud pilot phase open session

CERN Multimedia

CERN. Geneva

2018-01-01

This Helix Nebula Science Cloud (HNSciCloud) public session is open to everyone and will be webcast. The session will provide the audience with an overview of the HNSciCloud pre-commercial procurement project and the innovative cloud platforms that have been developed. A number of practical use-cases from the physics community will be presented as well as the next steps to be undertaken.

Multimodel evaluation of cloud phase transition using satellite and reanalysis data

Science.gov (United States)

Cesana, G.; Waliser, D. E.; Jiang, X.; Li, J.-L. F.

2015-08-01

We take advantage of climate simulations from two multimodel experiments to characterize and evaluate the cloud phase partitioning in 16 general circulation models (GCMs), specifically the vertical structure of the transition between liquid and ice in clouds. We base our analysis on the ratio of ice condensates to the total condensates (phase ratio, PR). Its transition at 90% (PR90) and its links with other relevant variables are evaluated using the GCM-Oriented Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation Cloud Product climatology, reanalysis data, and other satellite observations. In 13 of 16 models, the PR90 transition height occurs too low (6 km to 8.4 km) and at temperatures too warm (-13.9°C to -32.5°C) compared to observations (8.6 km, -33.7°C); features consistent with a lack of supercooled liquid with respect to ice above 6.5 km. However, this bias would be slightly reduced by using the lidar simulator. In convective regimes (more humid air and precipitation), the observed cloud phase transition occurs at a warmer temperature than for subsidence regimes (less humid air and precipitation). Only few models manage to roughly replicate the observed correlations with humidity (5/16), vertical velocity (5/16), and precipitation (4/16); 3/16 perform well for all these parameters (MPI-ESM, NCAR-CAM5, and NCHU). Using an observation-based Clausius-Clapeyron phase diagram, we illustrate that the Bergeron-Findeisen process is a necessary condition for models to represent the observed features. Finally, the best models are those that include more complex microphysics.

Meteorological observations in support of a hill cap cloud experiment

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Nielsen, Morten

1998-06-01

Humid air flows form a hill cap cloud over the Agana mountain ridge in the north-east of Tenerife. The HILLCLOUD project utilised this cloud formation to investigate the chemical and physical properties of cloud aerosols by land based observations. The project was part of the second Aerosol characterisation Experiment (ACE-2) of the International Global Atmospheric chemistry project (IGAC). The present report describes meteorological observations in support of the hill cap cloud experiment. Time-series of wind speed, wind direction, temperature and humidity were collected at ground-based meteorological stations during a period starting one year in advance of the main campaign. A series of radiosonde detecting the upstream stability and wind profile were launched during the main campaign. (au) 5 tabs., 32 ills., 6 refs.

AFSC/ABL: Auke Bay Climatology 1959-2013

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — Data set includes available climatological and related physical environmental records for Auke Bay, Auke Creek and Auke Lake beginning in 1959. Daily high and low...

INTERNATIONAL EXPERIENCE OF CLOUD ORIENTED LEARNING ENVIRONMENT DESIGN IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Svitlana G. Lytvynova

2014-06-01

Full Text Available The article highlights the foreign experience of designing of cloud oriented learning environments (COLE in general secondary education. The projects in Russia, Germany, Czech Republic, Australia, China, Israel, Africa, Singapore, Brazil, Egypt, Colombia and the United States are analyzed. The analysis of completed projects found out the common problems of implementing of cloud oriented learning environments (security of personal data, technical problems of integration of cloud environments with existing systems, and productivity of cloud services and their advantages for secondary education (mobility of participants, volumetric cloud data storage, universally accessibility, regular software updating, ease of use, etc..

Northeast Pacific Regional Climatology (NCEI Accession 0163799)

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — The Northeast Pacific (NEP) new regional climatology is derived from the NCEI World Ocean Database archive of temperature and salinity and covers a time period from...

User-Defined Meteorological (MET) Profiles from Climatological and Extreme Condition Data

Science.gov (United States)

2018-04-01

ARL-TN-0876 ● MAR 2018 US Army Research Laboratory User-Defined Meteorological (MET) Profiles from Climatological and Extreme...needed. Do not return it to the originator. ARL-TN-0876 ● MAR 2018 US Army Research Laboratory User-Defined Meteorological (MET...User-Defined Meteorological (MET) Profiles from Climatological and Extreme Condition Data 5a. CONTRACT NUMBER 5b. GRANT NUMBER 5c. PROGRAM

SiCloud

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jiang, Cathy Y.; Devore, Peter T.S.; Lonappan, Cejo Konuparamban

2017-01-01

The silicon photonics industry is projected to be a multibillion dollar industry driven by the growth of data centers. In this work, we present an interactive online tool for silicon photonics. Silicon Photonics Cloud (SiCCloud.org) is an easy to use instructional tool for optical properties...

The Impact of Time Difference between Satellite Overpass and Ground Observation on Cloud Cover Performance Statistics

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jędrzej S. Bojanowski

2014-12-01

Full Text Available Cloud property data sets derived from passive sensors onboard the polar orbiting satellites (such as the NOAA’s Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer have global coverage and now span a climatological time period. Synoptic surface observations (SYNOP are often used to characterize the accuracy of satellite-based cloud cover. Infrequent overpasses of polar orbiting satellites combined with the 3- or 6-h SYNOP frequency lead to collocation time differences of up to 3 h. The associated collocation error degrades the cloud cover performance statistics such as the Hanssen-Kuiper’s discriminant (HK by up to 45%. Limiting the time difference to 10 min, on the other hand, introduces a sampling error due to a lower number of corresponding satellite and SYNOP observations. This error depends on both the length of the validated time series and the SYNOP frequency. The trade-off between collocation and sampling error call for an optimum collocation time difference. It however depends on cloud cover characteristics and SYNOP frequency, and cannot be generalized. Instead, a method is presented to reconstruct the unbiased (true HK from HK affected by the collocation differences, which significantly (t-test p < 0.01 improves the validation results.

Security Risks of Cloud Computing and Its Emergence as 5th Utility Service

Science.gov (United States)

Ahmad, Mushtaq

Cloud Computing is being projected by the major cloud services provider IT companies such as IBM, Google, Yahoo, Amazon and others as fifth utility where clients will have access for processing those applications and or software projects which need very high processing speed for compute intensive and huge data capacity for scientific, engineering research problems and also e- business and data content network applications. These services for different types of clients are provided under DASM-Direct Access Service Management based on virtualization of hardware, software and very high bandwidth Internet (Web 2.0) communication. The paper reviews these developments for Cloud Computing and Hardware/Software configuration of the cloud paradigm. The paper also examines the vital aspects of security risks projected by IT Industry experts, cloud clients. The paper also highlights the cloud provider's response to cloud security risks.

Metrological challenges for measurements of key climatological observables: oceanic salinity and pH, and atmospheric humidity. Part 1: overview

Science.gov (United States)

Feistel, R.; Wielgosz, R.; Bell, S. A.; Camões, M. F.; Cooper, J. R.; Dexter, P.; Dickson, A. G.; Fisicaro, P.; Harvey, A. H.; Heinonen, M.; Hellmuth, O.; Kretzschmar, H.-J.; Lovell-Smith, J. W.; McDougall, T. J.; Pawlowicz, R.; Ridout, P.; Seitz, S.; Spitzer, P.; Stoica, D.; Wolf, H.

2016-02-01

Water in its three ambient phases plays the central thermodynamic role in the terrestrial climate system. Clouds control Earth’s radiation balance, atmospheric water vapour is the strongest ‘greenhouse’ gas, and non-equilibrium relative humidity at the air-sea interface drives evaporation and latent heat export from the ocean. On climatic time scales, melting ice caps and regional deviations of the hydrological cycle result in changes of seawater salinity, which in turn may modify the global circulation of the oceans and their ability to store heat and to buffer anthropogenically produced carbon dioxide. In this paper, together with three companion articles, we examine the climatologically relevant quantities ocean salinity, seawater pH and atmospheric relative humidity, noting fundamental deficiencies in the definitions of those key observables, and their lack of secure foundation on the International System of Units, the SI. The metrological histories of those three quantities are reviewed, problems with their current definitions and measurement practices are analysed, and options for future improvements are discussed in conjunction with the recent seawater standard TEOS-10. It is concluded that the International Bureau of Weights and Measures, BIPM, in cooperation with the International Association for the Properties of Water and Steam, IAPWS, along with other international organizations and institutions, can make significant contributions by developing and recommending state-of-the-art solutions for these long standing metrological problems in climatology.

The Research of Dr. Joanne Simpson: Fifty Years Investigating Hurricanes, Tropical Clouds and Cloud Systems

Science.gov (United States)

Tao, W. -K.; Halverson, J.; Adler, R.; Garstang, M.; Houze, R., Jr.; LeMone, M.; Pielke, R., Sr.; Woodley, W.; O'C.Starr, David (Technical Monitor)

2001-01-01

This AMS Meteorological Monographs is dedicated to Dr. Joanne Simpson for her many pioneering research efforts in tropical meteorology during her fifty-year career. Dr. Simpson's major areas of scientific research involved the "hot tower" hypothesis and its role in hurricanes, structure and maintenance of trade winds, air-sea interaction, and observations and the mechanism for hurricanes and waterspouts. She was also a pioneer in cloud modeling with the first one-dimensional model and had the first cumulus model on a computer. She also played a major role in planning and leading observational experiments on convective cloud systems. The launch of the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite, a joint U.S.-Japan project, in November of 1997 made it possible for quantitative measurements of tropical rainfall to be obtained on a continuous basis over the entire global tropics. Dr. Simpson was the TRAM Project Scientist from 1986 until its launch in 1997. Her efforts during this crucial period ensured that the mission was both well planned scientifically and well engineered as well as within budget. In this paper, Dr. J. Simpson's nine specific accomplishments during her fifty-year career: (1) hot tower hypothesis, (2) hurricanes, (3) airflow and clouds over heated islands, (4) cloud models, (5) trade winds and their role in cumulus development, (6) air-sea interaction, (7) cloud-cloud interactions and mergers, (8) waterspouts, and (9) TRMM science, will be described and discussed.

Spherical Projection Based Straight Line Segment Extraction for Single Station Terrestrial Laser Point Cloud

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

ZHANG Fan

2015-06-01

Full Text Available Due to the discrete distribution computing errors and lack of adaptability are ubiquitous in the current straight line extraction for TLS data methods. A 3D straight line segment extraction method is proposed based on spherical projection for single station terrestrial laser point clouds. Firstly, horizontal and vertical angles of each laser point are calculated by means of spherical coordinates, intensity panoramic image according to the two angles is generated. Secondly, edges which include straight line features are detected from intensity panoramic image by using of edge detection algorithm. Thirdly, great circles are detected from edges of panoramic image using spherical Hough transform. According to the axiom that a straight line segment in 3D space is a spherical great circle after spherical projection, detecting great circles from spherical projected data sets is essentially detecting straight line segments from 3D data sets without spherical projection. Finally, a robust 3D straight line fitting method is employed to fitting the straight lines and calculating parameters of the straight line segments. Experiments using different data sets and comparison with other methods show the accuracy and applicability of the proposed method.

Spatio-temporal precipitation climatology over complex terrain using a censored additive regression model.

Science.gov (United States)

Stauffer, Reto; Mayr, Georg J; Messner, Jakob W; Umlauf, Nikolaus; Zeileis, Achim

2017-06-15

Flexible spatio-temporal models are widely used to create reliable and accurate estimates for precipitation climatologies. Most models are based on square root transformed monthly or annual means, where a normal distribution seems to be appropriate. This assumption becomes invalid on a daily time scale as the observations involve large fractions of zero observations and are limited to non-negative values. We develop a novel spatio-temporal model to estimate the full climatological distribution of precipitation on a daily time scale over complex terrain using a left-censored normal distribution. The results demonstrate that the new method is able to account for the non-normal distribution and the large fraction of zero observations. The new climatology provides the full climatological distribution on a very high spatial and temporal resolution, and is competitive with, or even outperforms existing methods, even for arbitrary locations.

Cloud's Center of Gravity – a compact approach to analyze convective cloud development

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

I. Koren

2009-01-01

Full Text Available As cloud resolving models become more detailed, with higher resolution outputs, it is often complicated to isolate the physical processes that control the cloud attributes. Moreover, due to the high dimensionality and complexity of the model output, the analysis and interpretation of the results can be very complicated. Here we suggest a novel approach to convective cloud analysis that yields more insight into the physical and temporal evolution of clouds, and is compact and efficient. The different (3-D cloud attributes are weighted and projected onto a single point in space and in time, that has properties of, or similar to, the Center Of Gravity (COG. The location, magnitude and spread of this variable are followed in time. The implications of the COG approach are demonstrated for a study of aerosol effects on a warm convective cloud. We show that in addition to reducing dramatically the dimensionality of the output, such an approach often enhances the signal, adds more information, and makes the physical description of cloud evolution clearer, allowing unambiguous comparison of clouds evolving in different environmental conditions. This approach may also be useful for analysis of cloud data retrieved from surface or space-based cloud radars.

Observations of high droplet number concentrations in Southern Ocean boundary layer clouds

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

T. Chubb

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Cloud physics data collected during the NSF/NCAR High-performance Instrumented Airborne Platform for Environmental Research (HIAPER Pole-to-Pole Observations (HIPPO campaigns provide a snapshot of unusual wintertime microphysical conditions in the boundary layer over the Southern Ocean. On 29 June 2011, the HIAPER sampled the boundary layer in a region of pre-frontal warm air advection between 58 and 48° S to the south of Tasmania. Cloud droplet number concentrations were consistent with climatological values in the northernmost profiles but were exceptionally high for wintertime in the Southern Ocean at 100–200 cm−3 in the southernmost profiles. Sub-micron (0.06  < D <  1 µm aerosol concentrations for the southern profiles were up to 400 cm−3. Analysis of back trajectories and atmospheric chemistry observations revealed that while conditions in the troposphere were more typical of a clean remote ocean airmass, there was some evidence of continental or anthropogenic influence. However, the hypothesis of long-range transport of continental aerosol fails to explain the magnitude of the aerosol and cloud droplet concentration in the boundary layer. Instead, the gale force surface winds in this case (wind speed at 167 m above sea level was  > 25 m s−1 were most likely responsible for production of sea spray aerosol which influenced the microphysical properties of the boundary layer clouds. The smaller size and higher number concentration of cloud droplets is inferred to increase the albedo of these clouds, and these conditions occur regularly, and are expected to increase in frequency, over windy parts of the Southern Ocean.

Methodology for cloud-based design of robots

Science.gov (United States)

Ogorodnikova, O. M.; Vaganov, K. A.; Putimtsev, I. D.

2017-09-01

This paper presents some important results for cloud-based designing a robot arm by a group of students. Methodology for the cloud-based design was developed and used to initiate interdisciplinary project about research and development of a specific manipulator. The whole project data files were hosted by Ural Federal University data center. The 3D (three-dimensional) model of the robot arm was created using Siemens PLM software (Product Lifecycle Management) and structured as a complex mechatronics product by means of Siemens Teamcenter thin client; all processes were performed in the clouds. The robot arm was designed in purpose to load blanks up to 1 kg into the work space of the milling machine for performing student's researches.

Performance of the operational high-resolution numerical weather predictions of the Daphne project

Science.gov (United States)

Tegoulias, Ioannis; Pytharoulis, Ioannis; Karacostas, Theodore; Kartsios, Stergios; Kotsopoulos, Stelios; Bampzelis, Dimitrios

2015-04-01

In the framework of the DAPHNE project, the Department of Meteorology and Climatology (http://meteo.geo.auth.gr) of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, utilizes the nonhydrostatic Weather Research and Forecasting model with the Advanced Research dynamic solver (WRF-ARW) in order to produce high-resolution weather forecasts over Thessaly in central Greece. The aim of the DAPHNE project is to tackle the problem of drought in this area by means of Weather Modification. Cloud seeding assists the convective clouds to produce rain more efficiently or reduce hailstone size in favour of raindrops. The most favourable conditions for such a weather modification program in Thessaly occur in the period from March to October when convective clouds are triggered more frequently. Three model domains, using 2-way telescoping nesting, cover: i) Europe, the Mediterranean sea and northern Africa (D01), ii) Greece (D02) and iii) the wider region of Thessaly (D03; at selected periods) at horizontal grid-spacings of 15km, 5km and 1km, respectively. This research work intents to describe the atmospheric model setup and analyse its performance during a selected period of the operational phase of the project. The statistical evaluation of the high-resolution operational forecasts is performed using surface observations, gridded fields and radar data. Well established point verification methods combined with novel object based upon these methods, provide in depth analysis of the model skill. Spatial characteristics are adequately captured but a variable time lag between forecast and observation is noted. Acknowledgments: This research work has been co-financed by the European Union (European Regional Development Fund) and Greek national funds, through the action "COOPERATION 2011: Partnerships of Production and Research Institutions in Focused Research and Technology Sectors" (contract number 11SYN_8_1088 - DAPHNE) in the framework of the operational programme "Competitiveness

Open Cloud eXchange (OCX): A Pivot for Intercloud Services Federation in Multi-provider Cloud Market Environment

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Demchenko, Y.; Dumitru, C.; Koining, R.; de Laat, C.; Matselyukh, T.; Filiposka, S.; de Vos, M.; Arbel, D.; Regvart, D.; Karaliotas, T.; Baumann, K.

2015-01-01

This paper presents results of the ongoing development of the Open Cloud eXchange (OCX) that has been proposed in the framework of the GN3plus project. Its aim is to provide cloud aware network infrastructure to power and support modern data intensive research at European universities and research

Towards a generalization procedure for WRF mesoscale wind climatologies

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hahmann, Andrea N.; Casso, P.; Campmany, E.

We present a method for generalizing wind climatologies generated from mesoscale model output (e.g. the Weather, Research and Forecasting (WRF) model.) The generalization procedure is based on Wind Atlas framework of WAsP and KAMM/WAsP, and been extensively in wind resources assessment in DTU Wind...... generalized wind climatologies estimated by the microscale model WAsP and the methodology presented here. For the Danish wind measurements the mean absolute error in the ‘raw’ wind speeds is 9.2%, while the mean absolute error in the generalized wind speeds is 4.1%. The generalization procedure has been...

CloudSat Education Network: Partnerships for Outreach

Science.gov (United States)

TeBockhorst, D.

2014-12-01

CloudSat Education Network (CEN): Partnerships to improve the understanding of clouds in formal and informal settings. Since The CloudSat satellite launched in 2006 the Formal and Informal education programs for the mission have been focused on bringing an understanding about the mission science and the importance of clouds, climate & weather science. This has been done by creating and strengthening partnership and collaboration within scientific and educational communities around the country and the world. Because CloudSat was formally recognized as a Earth System Science Pathfinder campaign with the GLOBE program, the CEN developed a set of field protocols for student observations that augmented the GLOBE atmosphere protocols when there was a satellite overpass. This shared process between GLOBE & CloudSat resulted in the training & creation of CEN schools that are both GLOBE schools and CloudSat schools, and also produced three GLOBE partnerships that specialize in cloud science education and outreach. In addition, the CEN has developed productive relationships with other NASA missions and EPO teams. Specifically, in collaboration with the NASA CERES mission projects S'Cool and MyNASAData, we have co-presented at NSTA conferences and with schools participating in a NASA EPOESS-funded formal education project. This collaborative work has been a very real benefit to a wide variety of audiences needing to strengthen their understanding of clouds and their roles in the earth system, and we hope will serve as a model to future missions looking to involve the public in mission science.

The effect of Arctic sea-ice extent on the absorbed (net solar flux at the surface, based on ISCCP-D2 cloud data for 1983–2007

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

C. Matsoukas

2010-01-01

Full Text Available We estimate the effect of the Arctic sea ice on the absorbed (net solar flux using a radiative transfer model. Ice and cloud input data to the model come from satellite observations, processed by the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP and span the period July 1983–June 2007. The sea-ice effect on the solar radiation fluctuates seasonally with the solar flux and decreases interannually in synchronisation with the decreasing sea-ice extent. A disappearance of the Arctic ice cap during the sunlit period of the year would radically reduce the local albedo and cause an annually averaged 19.7 W m⁻² increase in absorbed solar flux at the Arctic Ocean surface, or equivalently an annually averaged 0.55 W m⁻² increase on the planetary scale. In the clear-sky scenario these numbers increase to 34.9 and 0.97 W m⁻², respectively. A meltdown only in September, with all other months unaffected, increases the Arctic annually averaged solar absorption by 0.32 W m⁻². We examined the net solar flux trends for the Arctic Ocean and found that the areas absorbing the solar flux more rapidly are the North Chukchi and Kara Seas, Baffin and Hudson Bays, and Davis Strait. The sensitivity of the Arctic absorbed solar flux on sea-ice extent and cloud amount was assessed. Although sea ice and cloud affect jointly the solar flux, we found little evidence of strong non-linearities.

The surface climatology of the Ross Ice Shelf Antarctica.

Science.gov (United States)

Costanza, Carol A; Lazzara, Matthew A; Keller, Linda M; Cassano, John J

2016-12-01

The University of Wisconsin-Madison Antarctic Automatic Weather Station (AWS) project has been making meteorological surface observations on the Ross Ice Shelf (RIS) for approximately 30 years. This network offers the most continuous set of routine measurements of surface meteorological variables in this region. The Ross Island area is excluded from this study. The surface climate of the RIS is described using the AWS measurements. Temperature, pressure, and wind data are analysed on daily, monthly, seasonal, and annual time periods for 13 AWS across the RIS. The AWS are separated into three representative regions - central, coastal, and the area along the Transantarctic Mountains - in order to describe specific characteristics of sections of the RIS. The climatology describes general characteristics of the region and significant changes over time. The central AWS experiences the coldest mean temperature, and the lowest resultant wind speed. These AWSs also experience the coldest potential temperatures with a minimum of 209.3 K at Gill AWS. The AWS along the Transantarctic Mountains experiences the warmest mean temperature, the highest mean sea-level pressure, and the highest mean resultant wind speed. Finally, the coastal AWS experiences the lowest mean pressure. Climate indices (MEI, SAM, and SAO) are compared to temperature and pressure data of four of the AWS with the longest observation periods, and significant correlation is found for most AWS in sea-level pressure and temperature. This climatology study highlights characteristics that influence the climate of the RIS, and the challenges of maintaining a long-term Antarctic AWS network. Results from this effort are essential for the broader Antarctic meteorology community for future research.

Contributions of changes in climatology and perturbation and the resulting nonlinearity to regional climate change.

Science.gov (United States)

Adachi, Sachiho A; Nishizawa, Seiya; Yoshida, Ryuji; Yamaura, Tsuyoshi; Ando, Kazuto; Yashiro, Hisashi; Kajikawa, Yoshiyuki; Tomita, Hirofumi

2017-12-20

Future changes in large-scale climatology and perturbation may have different impacts on regional climate change. It is important to understand the impacts of climatology and perturbation in terms of both thermodynamic and dynamic changes. Although many studies have investigated the influence of climatology changes on regional climate, the significance of perturbation changes is still debated. The nonlinear effect of these two changes is also unknown. We propose a systematic procedure that extracts the influences of three factors: changes in climatology, changes in perturbation and the resulting nonlinear effect. We then demonstrate the usefulness of the procedure, applying it to future changes in precipitation. All three factors have the same degree of influence, especially for extreme rainfall events. Thus, regional climate assessments should consider not only the climatology change but also the perturbation change and their nonlinearity. This procedure can advance interpretations of future regional climates.

Microphysical Analysis using Airborne 2-D Cloud and Precipitation Imaging Probe Data

Science.gov (United States)

Guy, N.; Jorgensen, D.; Witte, M.; Chuang, P. Y.; Black, R. A.

2013-12-01

The NOAA P-3 instrumented aircraft provided in-situ cloud and precipitation microphysical observations during the DYNAMO (Dynamics of the Madden-Julian Oscillation) field experiment. The Particle Measuring System 2D cloud (2D-C) and precipitation (2D-P) probes collected data for particles between 12.5 μm - 1.55 mm (25 μm resolution) and 100 μm - 6.2 mm (100 μm resolution), respectively. Spectra from each instrument were combined to provide a broad distribution of precipitation particle sizes. The 'method of moments' technique was used to analyze drop size distribution (DSD) spectra, which were modeled by fitting a three-parameter (slope, shape, and intercept) gamma distribution to the spectra. The characteristic shape of the mean spectrum compares to previous maritime measurements. DSD variability will be presented with respect to the temporal evolution of cloud populations during a Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) event, as well as in-situ aircraft vertical wind velocity measurements. Using the third and sixth moments, rainfall rate (R) and equivalent radar reflectivity factor (Z), respectively, were computed for each DSD. Linear regression was applied to establish a Z-R relationship for the data for the estimation of precipitation. The study indicated unique characteristics of microphysical processes for this region. These results are important to continue to define the cloud population characteristics in the climatological MJO region. Improved representation of the cloud characteristics on the microphysical scale will serve as a check to model parameterizations, helping to improve numerical simulations.

A stratiform cloud parameterization for general circulation models

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ghan, S.J.; Leung, L.R.; Chuang, C.C.; Penner, J.E.; McCaa, J.

1994-01-01

The crude treatment of clouds in general circulation models (GCMs) is widely recognized as a major limitation in applying these models to predictions of global climate change. The purpose of this project is to develop in GCMs a stratiform cloud parameterization that expresses clouds in terms of bulk microphysical properties and their subgrid variability. Various clouds variables and their interactions are summarized. Precipitating cloud species are distinguished from non-precipitating species, and the liquid phase is distinguished from the ice phase. The size of the non-precipitating cloud particles (which influences both the cloud radiative properties and the conversion of non-precipitating cloud species to precipitating species) is determined by predicting both the mass and number concentrations of each species

Clouds enhance Greenland ice sheet mass loss

Science.gov (United States)

Van Tricht, Kristof; Gorodetskaya, Irina V.; L'Ecuyer, Tristan; Lenaerts, Jan T. M.; Lhermitte, Stef; Noel, Brice; Turner, David D.; van den Broeke, Michiel R.; van Lipzig, Nicole P. M.

2015-04-01

Clouds have a profound influence on both the Arctic and global climate, while they still represent one of the key uncertainties in climate models, limiting the fidelity of future climate projections. The potentially important role of thin liquid-containing clouds over Greenland in enhancing ice sheet melt has recently gained interest, yet current research is spatially and temporally limited, focusing on particular events, and their large scale impact on the surface mass balance remains unknown. We used a combination of satellite remote sensing (CloudSat - CALIPSO), ground-based observations and climate model (RACMO) data to show that liquid-containing clouds warm the Greenland ice sheet 94% of the time. High surface reflectivity (albedo) for shortwave radiation reduces the cloud shortwave cooling effect on the absorbed fluxes, while not influencing the absorption of longwave radiation. Cloud warming over the ice sheet therefore dominates year-round. Only when albedo values drop below ~0.6 in the coastal areas during summer, the cooling effect starts to overcome the warming effect. The year-round excess of energy due to the presence of liquid-containing clouds has an extensive influence on the mass balance of the ice sheet. Simulations using the SNOWPACK snow model showed not only a strong influence of these liquid-containing clouds on melt increase, but also on the increased sublimation mass loss. Simulations with the Community Earth System Climate Model for the end of the 21st century (2080-2099) show that Greenland clouds contain more liquid water path and less ice water path. This implies that cloud radiative forcing will be further enhanced in the future. Our results therefore urge the need for improving cloud microphysics in climate models, to improve future projections of ice sheet mass balance and global sea level rise.

Cloud County Community College Wind Energy Technology Project and Renewable Energy Center of Excellence

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Graham, Bruce [Cloud County Community College, Concordia, KS (United States)

2016-02-26

Cloud County Community College's (CCCC) Wind Energy Technology (WET) program is a leader in the renewable energy movement across Kansas and the USA. The field of renewable energy is a growing industry which continues to experience high demand for career opportunities. This CCCC/DOE project entailed two phases: 1) the installation of two Northwind 100 wind turbines, and 2) the continued development of the WET program curriculum, including enhancement of the CCCC Blade Repair Certificate program. This report provides a technical account of the total work performed, and is a comprehensive description of the results achieved.

A stratiform cloud parameterization for General Circulation Models

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ghan, S.J.; Leung, L.R.; Chuang, C.C.; Penner, J.E.; McCaa, J.

1994-01-01

The crude treatment of clouds in General Circulation Models (GCMs) is widely recognized as a major limitation in the application of these models to predictions of global climate change. The purpose of this project is to develop a paxameterization for stratiform clouds in GCMs that expresses stratiform clouds in terms of bulk microphysical properties and their subgrid variability. In this parameterization, precipitating cloud species are distinguished from non-precipitating species, and the liquid phase is distinguished from the ice phase. The size of the non-precipitating cloud particles (which influences both the cloud radiative properties and the conversion of non-precipitating cloud species to precipitating species) is determined by predicting both the mass and number concentrations of each species

Influence of aerosol particles, clouds, and condensation trails on the climate in Bavaria

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wiegner, M.

1994-01-01

Human interventions in the climate system occur mainly through the emission of trace gases and aerosol particles. Emissions of aerosol particles can also change the properties of clouds. Climate model calculations have shown that an increase in trace gas concentrations causes the lower atmosphere to warm. According to numerical studies performed during the past few years, anthropogenic aerosol sources can have a cooling effect which is of the same order as the warming caused by greenhouse gases. However, due to their differing time constants and spatial characteristics the two effects are unlikely to neutralise each other over extended regions for any length of time. The currently available models with their very coarse spatial resolution are not suitable for making climatological predictions for Bavaria on the basis of cloud or aerosol properties. What can be done at present is to formulate warnings and propose measures for reducing environmental hazards and conserving our natural surroundings as far as possible. (orig.) [de

User requirements Massive Point Clouds for eSciences (WP1)

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Suijker, P.M.; Alkemade, I.; Kodde, M.P.; Nonhebel, A.E.

2014-01-01

This report is a milestone in work package 1 (WP1) of the project Massive point clouds for eSciences. In WP1 the basic functionalities needed for a new Point Cloud Spatial Database Management System are identified. This is achieved by (1) literature research, (2) discussions with the project

A Global Ozone Climatology from Ozone Soundings via Trajectory Mapping: A Stratospheric Perspective

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, J. J.; Tarasick, D. W.; Fioletov, V. E.; McLinden, C.; Zhao, T.; Gong, S.; Sioris, G.; Jin, J. J.; Liu, G.; Moeini, O.

2013-01-01

This study explores a domain-filling trajectory approach to generate a global ozone climatology from sparse ozonesonde data. Global ozone soundings of 51,898 profiles at 116 stations over 44 years (1965-2008) are used, from which forward and backward trajectories are performed for 4 days, driven by a set of meteorological reanalysis data. Ozone mixing ratios of each sounding from the surface to 26 km altitude are assigned to the entire path along the trajectory. The resulting global ozone climatology is archived monthly for five decades from the 1960s to the 2000s with grids of 5 degree 5 degree 1 km (latitude, longitude, and altitude). It is also archived yearly from 1965 to 2008. This climatology is validated at 20 ozonesonde stations by comparing the actual ozone sounding profile with that found through the trajectories, using the ozone soundings at all the stations except one being tested. The two sets of profiles are in good agreement, both individually with correlation coefficients between 0.975 and 0.998 and root mean square (RMS) differences of 87 to 482 ppbv, and overall with a correlation coefficient of 0.991 and an RMS of 224 ppbv. The ozone climatology is also compared with two sets of satellite data, from the Satellite Aerosol and Gas Experiment (SAGE) and the Optical Spectrography and InfraRed Imager System (OSIRIS). Overall, the ozone climatology compares well with SAGE and OSIRIS data by both seasonal and zonal means. The mean difference is generally under 20 above 15 km. The comparison is better in the northern hemisphere, where there are more ozonesonde stations, than in the southern hemisphere; it is also better in the middle and high latitudes than in the tropics, where assimilated winds are imperfect in some regions. This ozone climatology can capture known features in the stratosphere, as well as seasonal and decadal variations of these features. Furthermore, it provides a wealth of detail about longitudinal variations in the stratosphere such

On the Clouds: A New Way of Computing

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yan Han

2010-06-01

Full Text Available This article introduces cloud computing and discusses the author’s experience “on the clouds.” The author reviews cloud computing services and providers, then presents his experience of running multiple systems (e.g., integrated library systems, content management systems, and repository software. He evaluates costs, discusses advantages, and addresses some issues about cloud computing. Cloud computing fundamentally changes the ways institutions and companies manage their computing needs. Libraries can take advantage of cloud computing to start an IT project with low cost, to manage computing resources cost-effectively, and to explore new computing possibilities.

Climatology of the northern hemisphere stratosphere derived from Berlin analyses. Pt. 1. Monthly means

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pawson, S.; Labitzke, K.; Lenschow, R.; Naujokat, B.; Rajewski, B.; Wiesner, M.; Wohlfart, R.C.

1993-01-01

This work presents a climatology of the northern hemisphere lower and middle stratosphere derived from daily radiosonde observations subjectively analysed in the Stratospheric Research Group of the 'Meteorologisches Institut der Freien Universitaet Berlin'. Previous climatologies from these data were presented by Labitzke (1972), van Loon et al. (1972), and by Labitzke and Goretzki (1982). Although some more recent climatological fields have been presented in several works by members of the group, no complete atlas has been compiled for some time. The work is intended to serve as a reference for people interested in the stratosphere and, particularly, the climate analysis and modelling communities, which require contemporary analyses of the available data in order to interpret their products. In this first part of the climatological atlas, monthly mean data are presented. (orig./KW)

Climatology of the northern hemisphere stratosphere derived from Berlin analyses. Pt. 1. Monthly means

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Pawson, S; Labitzke, K; Lenschow, R; Naujokat, B; Rajewski, B; Wiesner, M; Wohlfart, R C

1933-01-01

This work presents a climatology of the northern hemisphere lower and middle stratosphere derived from daily radiosonde observations subjectively analysed in the Stratospheric Research Group of the 'Meteorologisches Institut der Freien Universitaet Berlin'. Previous climatologies from these data were presented by Labitzke (1972), van Loon et al. (1972), and by Labitzke and Goretzki (1982). Although some more recent climatological fields have been presented in several works by members of the group, no complete atlas has been compiled for some time. The work is intended to serve as a reference for people interested in the stratosphere and, particularly, the climate analysis and modelling communities, which require contemporary analyses of the available data in order to interpret their products. In this first part of the climatological atlas, monthly mean data are presented. (orig./KW)

Climatology of local flow patterns around Basel

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Weber, R.O. [Paul Scherrer Inst. (PSI), Villigen (Switzerland)

1997-06-01

Recently a method has been developed to classify local-scale flow patterns from the wind measurements at a dense network of stations. It was found that in the MISTRAL area around Basel a dozen characteristic flow patterns occur. However, as the dense network of stations ran only during one year, no reliable climatology can be inferred from these data, especially the annual cycle of the flow patterns is not well determined from a single year of observations. As there exist several routinely operated stations in and near the MISTRAL area, a method was searched to identify the local flow patterns from the observations at the few routine stations. A linear discriminant analysis turned out to be the best method. Based of data from 11 stations which were simultaneously operated during 1990-1995 a six-year climatology of the flow patterns could be obtained. (author) 1 fig., 1 tab., 3 refs.

The variability of tropical ice cloud properties as a function of the large-scale context from ground-based radar-lidar observations over Darwin, Australia

Science.gov (United States)

Protat, A.; Delanoë, J.; May, P. T.; Haynes, J.; Jakob, C.; O'Connor, E.; Pope, M.; Wheeler, M. C.

2011-08-01

The high complexity of cloud parameterizations now held in models puts more pressure on observational studies to provide useful means to evaluate them. One approach to the problem put forth in the modelling community is to evaluate under what atmospheric conditions the parameterizations fail to simulate the cloud properties and under what conditions they do a good job. It is the ambition of this paper to characterize the variability of the statistical properties of tropical ice clouds in different tropical "regimes" recently identified in the literature to aid the development of better process-oriented parameterizations in models. For this purpose, the statistical properties of non-precipitating tropical ice clouds over Darwin, Australia are characterized using ground-based radar-lidar observations from the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program. The ice cloud properties analysed are the frequency of ice cloud occurrence, the morphological properties (cloud top height and thickness), and the microphysical and radiative properties (ice water content, visible extinction, effective radius, and total concentration). The variability of these tropical ice cloud properties is then studied as a function of the large-scale cloud regimes derived from the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP), the amplitude and phase of the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO), and the large-scale atmospheric regime as derived from a long-term record of radiosonde observations over Darwin. The vertical variability of ice cloud occurrence and microphysical properties is largest in all regimes (1.5 order of magnitude for ice water content and extinction, a factor 3 in effective radius, and three orders of magnitude in concentration, typically). 98 % of ice clouds in our dataset are characterized by either a small cloud fraction (smaller than 0.3) or a very large cloud fraction (larger than 0.9). In the ice part of the troposphere three distinct layers characterized by

[Porting Radiotherapy Software of Varian to Cloud Platform].

Science.gov (United States)

Zou, Lian; Zhang, Weisha; Liu, Xiangxiang; Xie, Zhao; Xie, Yaoqin

2017-09-30

To develop a low-cost private cloud platform of radiotherapy software. First, a private cloud platform which was based on OpenStack and the virtual GPU hardware was builded. Then on the private cloud platform, all the Varian radiotherapy software modules were installed to the virtual machine, and the corresponding function configuration was completed. Finally the software on the cloud was able to be accessed by virtual desktop client. The function test results of the cloud workstation show that a cloud workstation is equivalent to an isolated physical workstation, and any clients on the LAN can use the cloud workstation smoothly. The cloud platform transplantation in this study is economical and practical. The project not only improves the utilization rates of radiotherapy software, but also makes it possible that the cloud computing technology can expand its applications to the field of radiation oncology.

Retrieval of Boundary Layer 3D Cloud Properties Using Scanning Cloud Radar and 3D Radiative Transfer

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Marchand, Roger [Univ. of Washington, Seattle, WA (United States)

2017-01-24

Retrievals of cloud optical and microphysical properties for boundary layer clouds, including those widely used by ASR investigators, frequently assume that clouds are sufficiently horizontally homogeneous that scattering and absorption (at all wavelengths) can be treated using one dimensional (1D) radiative transfer, and that differences in the field-of-view of different sensors are unimportant. Unfortunately, most boundary layer clouds are far from horizontally homogeneous, and numerous theoretical and observational studies show that the assumption of horizontal homogeneity leads to significant errors. The introduction of scanning cloud and precipitation radars at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) program sites presents opportunities to move beyond the horizontally homogeneous assumption. The primary objective of this project was to develop a 3D retrieval for warm-phase (liquid only) boundary layer cloud microphysical properties, and to assess errors in current 1D (non-scanning) approaches. Specific research activities also involved examination of the diurnal cycle of hydrometeors as viewed by ARM cloud radar, and continued assessment of precipitation impacts on retrievals of cloud liquid water path using passive microwaves.

Situational Lightning Climatologies for Central Florida: Phase IV

Science.gov (United States)

Bauman, William H., III

2009-01-01

The threat of lightning is a daily concern during the warm season in Florida. Research has revealed distinct spatial and temporal distributions of lightning occurrence that are strongly influenced by large-scale atmospheric flow regimes. Previously, the Applied Meteorology Unit (AMU) calculated the gridded lightning climatologies based on seven flow regimes over Florida for 1-, 3- and 6-hr intervals in 5-, 10-,20-, and 30-NM diameter range rings around the Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF) and eight other airfields in the National Weather Service in Melbourne (NWS MLB) county warning area (CWA). In this update to the work, the AMU recalculated the lightning climatologies for using individual lightning strike data to improve the accuracy of the climatologies. The AMU included all data regardless of flow regime as one of the stratifications, added monthly stratifications, added three years of data to the period of record and used modified flow regimes based work from the AMU's Objective Lightning Probability Forecast Tool, Phase II. The AMU made changes so the 5- and 10-NM radius range rings are consistent with the aviation forecast requirements at NWS MLB, while the 20- and 30-NM radius range rings at the SLF assist the Spaceflight Meteorology Group in making forecasts for weather Flight Rule violations during Shuttle landings. The AMU also updated the graphical user interface with the new data.

Cloud properties derived from two lidars over the ARM SGP site

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Dupont, Jean-Charles; Haeffelin, Martial; Morille, Y.; Comstock, Jennifer M.; Flynn, Connor J.; Long, Charles N.; Sivaraman, Chitra; Newsom, Rob K.

2011-02-16

[1] Active remote sensors such as lidars or radars can be used with other data to quantify the cloud properties at regional scale and at global scale (Dupont et al., 2009). Relative to radar, lidar remote sensing is sensitive to very thin and high clouds but has a significant limitation due to signal attenuation in the ability to precisely quantify the properties of clouds with a 20 cloud optical thickness larger than 3. In this study, 10-years of backscatter lidar signal data are analysed by a unique algorithm called STRucture of ATmosphere (STRAT, Morille et al., 2007). We apply the STRAT algorithm to data from both the collocated Micropulse lidar (MPL) and a Raman lidar (RL) at the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Southern Great Plains (SGP) site between 1998 and 2009. Raw backscatter lidar signal is processed and 25 corrections for detector deadtime, afterpulse, and overlap are applied. (Campbell et al.) The cloud properties for all levels of clouds are derived and distributions of cloud base height (CBH), top height (CTH), physical cloud thickness (CT), and optical thickness (COT) from local statistics are compared. The goal of this study is (1) to establish a climatology of macrophysical and optical properties for all levels of clouds observed over the ARM SGP site 30 and (2) to estimate the discrepancies induced by the two remote sensing systems (pulse energy, sampling, resolution, etc.). Our first results tend to show that the MPLs, which are the primary ARM lidars, have a distinctly limited range where all of these cloud properties are detectable, especially cloud top and cloud thickness, but even actual cloud base especially during summer daytime period. According to the comparisons between RL and MPL, almost 50% of situations show a signal to noise ratio too low (smaller than 3) for the MPL in order to detect clouds higher than 7km during daytime period in summer. Consequently, the MPLderived annual cycle of cirrus cloud base (top) altitude is

Workshop on Learning Technology for Education in Cloud

CERN Document Server

Rodríguez, Emilio; Santana, Juan; Prieta, Fernando

2012-01-01

Learning Technology for Education in Cloud investigates how cloud computing can be used to design applications to support real time on demand learning using technologies. The workshop proceedings provide opportunities for delegates to discuss the latest research in TEL (Technology Enhanced Learning) and its impacts for learners and institutions, using cloud.   The Workshop on Learning Technology for Education in Cloud (LTEC '12) is a forum where researchers, educators and practitioners came together to discuss ideas, projects and lessons learned related to the use of learning technology in cloud, on the 11th-13th July at Salamanca in Spain.

The Role of Standards in Cloud-Computing Interoperability

Science.gov (United States)

2012-10-01

services are not shared outside the organization. CloudStack, Eucalyptus, HP, Microsoft, OpenStack , Ubuntu, and VMWare provide tools for building...center requirements • Developing usage models for cloud ven- dors • Independent IT consortium OpenStack http://www.openstack.org • Open-source...software for running private clouds • Currently consists of three core software projects: OpenStack Compute (Nova), OpenStack Object Storage (Swift

!CHAOS: A cloud of controls

Science.gov (United States)

Angius, S.; Bisegni, C.; Ciuffetti, P.; Di Pirro, G.; Foggetta, L. G.; Galletti, F.; Gargana, R.; Gioscio, E.; Maselli, D.; Mazzitelli, G.; Michelotti, A.; Orrù, R.; Pistoni, M.; Spagnoli, F.; Spigone, D.; Stecchi, A.; Tonto, T.; Tota, M. A.; Catani, L.; Di Giulio, C.; Salina, G.; Buzzi, P.; Checcucci, B.; Lubrano, P.; Piccini, M.; Fattibene, E.; Michelotto, M.; Cavallaro, S. R.; Diana, B. F.; Enrico, F.; Pulvirenti, S.

2016-01-01

The paper is aimed to present the !CHAOS open source project aimed to develop a prototype of a national private Cloud Computing infrastructure, devoted to accelerator control systems and large experiments of High Energy Physics (HEP). The !CHAOS project has been financed by MIUR (Italian Ministry of Research and Education) and aims to develop a new concept of control system and data acquisition framework by providing, with a high level of aaabstraction, all the services needed for controlling and managing a large scientific, or non-scientific, infrastructure. A beta version of the !CHAOS infrastructure will be released at the end of December 2015 and will run on private Cloud infrastructures based on OpenStack.

!CHAOS: A cloud of controls

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Angius, S.; Bisegni, C.; Ciuffetti, P.

2016-01-01

The paper is aimed to present the !CHAOS open source project aimed to develop a prototype of a national private Cloud Computing infrastructure, devoted to accelerator control systems and large experiments of High Energy Physics (HEP). The !CHAOS project has been financed by MIUR (Italian Ministry of Research and Education) and aims to develop a new concept of control system and data acquisition framework by providing, with a high level of abstraction, all the services needed for controlling and managing a large scientific, or non-scientific, infrastructure. A beta version of the !CHAOS infrastructure will be released at the end of December 2015 and will run on private Cloud infrastructures based on OpenStack.

Meteorology and climatology as parameters on low level waste disposal monitoring

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Culkowski, W.M.

1982-01-01

Once a site has been chosen for the burial of low level wastes, meteorological input is required in two forms, as climatology and as an estimator of airborne concentrations. The climatological data are fundamental to assessing hydrologic flow which may transport waste material from the original site. Airborne nuclear activity may occur by accidental release of material during the active burial phase or may result from gas formation in the trenches over a period of years

Treatment of cloud radiative effects in general circulation models

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Wang, W.C.; Dudek, M.P.; Liang, X.Z.; Ding, M. [State Univ. of New York, Albany, NY (United States)] [and others

1996-04-01

We participate in the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) program with two objectives: (1) to improve the general circulation model (GCM) cloud/radiation treatment with a focus on cloud verticle overlapping and layer cloud optical properties, and (2) to study the effects of cloud/radiation-climate interaction on GCM climate simulations. This report summarizes the project progress since the Fourth ARM Science Team meeting February 28-March 4, 1994, in Charleston, South Carolina.

Auditing cloud computing a security and privacy guide

CERN Document Server

Halpert, Ben

2011-01-01

The auditor's guide to ensuring correct security and privacy practices in a cloud computing environment Many organizations are reporting or projecting a significant cost savings through the use of cloud computing-utilizing shared computing resources to provide ubiquitous access for organizations and end users. Just as many organizations, however, are expressing concern with security and privacy issues for their organization's data in the "cloud." Auditing Cloud Computing provides necessary guidance to build a proper audit to ensure operational integrity and customer data protection, among othe

Hanford Site Climatological Summary 2004 with Historical Data

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hoitink, Dana J.; Ramsdell, James V.; Burk, Kenneth W.; Shaw, William J.

2005-01-01

This document presents the climatological data measured on the DOE Hanford Site for calendar year 2004. This report contains updated historical information for temperature, precipitation, wind, and normal and extreme values of temperature, and precipitation

Uncover the Cloud for Geospatial Sciences and Applications to Adopt Cloud Computing

Science.gov (United States)

Yang, C.; Huang, Q.; Xia, J.; Liu, K.; Li, J.; Xu, C.; Sun, M.; Bambacus, M.; Xu, Y.; Fay, D.

2012-12-01

Cloud computing is emerging as the future infrastructure for providing computing resources to support and enable scientific research, engineering development, and application construction, as well as work force education. On the other hand, there is a lot of doubt about the readiness of cloud computing to support a variety of scientific research, development and educations. This research is a project funded by NASA SMD to investigate through holistic studies how ready is the cloud computing to support geosciences. Four applications with different computing characteristics including data, computing, concurrent, and spatiotemporal intensities are taken to test the readiness of cloud computing to support geosciences. Three popular and representative cloud platforms including Amazon EC2, Microsoft Azure, and NASA Nebula as well as a traditional cluster are utilized in the study. Results illustrates that cloud is ready to some degree but more research needs to be done to fully implemented the cloud benefit as advertised by many vendors and defined by NIST. Specifically, 1) most cloud platform could help stand up new computing instances, a new computer, in a few minutes as envisioned, therefore, is ready to support most computing needs in an on demand fashion; 2) the load balance and elasticity, a defining characteristic, is ready in some cloud platforms, such as Amazon EC2, to support bigger jobs, e.g., needs response in minutes, while some are not ready to support the elasticity and load balance well. All cloud platform needs further research and development to support real time application at subminute level; 3) the user interface and functionality of cloud platforms vary a lot and some of them are very professional and well supported/documented, such as Amazon EC2, some of them needs significant improvement for the general public to adopt cloud computing without professional training or knowledge about computing infrastructure; 4) the security is a big concern in

Cloud Environment Automation: from infrastructure deployment to application monitoring

Science.gov (United States)

Aiftimiei, C.; Costantini, A.; Bucchi, R.; Italiano, A.; Michelotto, D.; Panella, M.; Pergolesi, M.; Saletta, M.; Traldi, S.; Vistoli, C.; Zizzi, G.; Salomoni, D.

2017-10-01

The potential offered by the cloud paradigm is often limited by technical issues, rules and regulations. In particular, the activities related to the design and deployment of the Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) cloud layer can be difficult to apply and time-consuming for the infrastructure maintainers. In this paper the research activity, carried out during the Open City Platform (OCP) research project [1], aimed at designing and developing an automatic tool for cloud-based IaaS deployment is presented. Open City Platform is an industrial research project funded by the Italian Ministry of University and Research (MIUR), started in 2014. It intends to research, develop and test new technological solutions open, interoperable and usable on-demand in the field of Cloud Computing, along with new sustainable organizational models that can be deployed for and adopted by the Public Administrations (PA). The presented work and the related outcomes are aimed at simplifying the deployment and maintenance of a complete IaaS cloud-based infrastructure.

A global climatology for equatorial plasma bubbles in the topside ionosphere

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

L. C. Gentile

2006-03-01

Full Text Available We have developed a global climatology of equatorial plasma bubble (EPB occurrence based on evening sector plasma density measurements from polar-orbiting Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP spacecraft during 1989-2004. EPBs are irregular plasma density depletions in the post-sunset ionosphere that degrade communication and navigation signals. More than 14400 EPBs were identified in ~134000 DMSP orbits. DMSP observations basically agree with Tsunoda's (1985 hypothesis that EPB rates peak when the terminator is aligned with the Earth's magnetic field, but there are also unpredicted offsets in many longitude sectors. We present an updated climatology for the full database from 1989-2004 along with new plots for specific phases of the solar cycle: maximum 1989-1992 and 1999-2002, minimum 1994-1997, and transition years 1993, 1998, and 2003. As expected, there are significant differences between the climatologies for solar maximum and minimum and between the two solar maximum phases as well. We also compare DMSP F12, F14, F15, and F16 observations at slightly different local times during 2000-2004 to examine local time effects on EPB rates. The global climatologies developed using the DMSP EPB database provide an environmental context for the long-range prediction tools under development for the Communication/Navigation Outage Forecasting System (C/NOFS mission.

Crushing data silos with ownCloud

CERN Multimedia

CERN. Geneva

2013-01-01

More and more people store their personal files and documents in cloud services like Dropbox, Google Drive, Skydrive or iCloud. The reason is that they provide convenient features to sync your files between devices and share them with others. We are heading full speed into a future where a huge piece of the personal information of the world is stored in very few centralized services. Questions emerge what the impact on user privacy, surveillance, lawfulness of content and storage cost will be in in the long run. I don't think that a world where most of the personal data of the world is stored on servers of a hand full companies is a good one. This talk will discuss the problems of a future with centralized cloud file sync and share services and will present ownCloud as a possible solution. ownCloud is a free software project that offers a decentralized alternative to proprietary cloud services where everybody can run an own cloud service comparable with Dropbox but on own hardware and with full ...

Supporting the scientific lifecycle through cloud services

Science.gov (United States)

Gensch, S.; Klump, J. F.; Bertelmann, R.; Braune, C.

2014-12-01

Cloud computing has made resources and applications available for numerous use cases ranging from business processes in the private sector to scientific applications. Developers have created tools for data management, collaborative writing, social networking, data access and visualization, project management and many more; either for free or as paid premium services with additional or extended features. Scientists have begun to incorporate tools that fit their needs into their daily work. To satisfy specialized needs, some cloud applications specifically address the needs of scientists for sharing research data, literature search, laboratory documentation, or data visualization. Cloud services may vary in extent, user coverage, and inter-service integration and are also at risk of being abandonend or changed by the service providers making changes to their business model, or leaving the field entirely.Within the project Academic Enterprise Cloud we examine cloud based services that support the research lifecycle, using feature models to describe key properties in the areas of infrastructure and service provision, compliance to legal regulations, and data curation. Emphasis is put on the term Enterprise as to establish an academic cloud service provider infrastructure that satisfies demands of the research community through continious provision across the whole cloud stack. This could enable the research community to be independent from service providers regarding changes to terms of service and ensuring full control of its extent and usage. This shift towards a self-empowered scientific cloud provider infrastructure and its community raises implications about feasability of provision and overall costs. Legal aspects and licensing issues have to be considered, when moving data into cloud services, especially when personal data is involved.Educating researchers about cloud based tools is important to help in the transition towards effective and safe use. Scientists

Mash-up of techniques between data crawling/transfer, data preservation/stewardship and data processing/visualization technologies on a science cloud system designed for Earth and space science: a report of successful operation and science projects of the NICT Science Cloud

Science.gov (United States)

Murata, K. T.

2014-12-01

Data-intensive or data-centric science is 4th paradigm after observational and/or experimental science (1st paradigm), theoretical science (2nd paradigm) and numerical science (3rd paradigm). Science cloud is an infrastructure for 4th science methodology. The NICT science cloud is designed for big data sciences of Earth, space and other sciences based on modern informatics and information technologies [1]. Data flow on the cloud is through the following three techniques; (1) data crawling and transfer, (2) data preservation and stewardship, and (3) data processing and visualization. Original tools and applications of these techniques have been designed and implemented. We mash up these tools and applications on the NICT Science Cloud to build up customized systems for each project. In this paper, we discuss science data processing through these three steps. For big data science, data file deployment on a distributed storage system should be well designed in order to save storage cost and transfer time. We developed a high-bandwidth virtual remote storage system (HbVRS) and data crawling tool, NICTY/DLA and Wide-area Observation Network Monitoring (WONM) system, respectively. Data files are saved on the cloud storage system according to both data preservation policy and data processing plan. The storage system is developed via distributed file system middle-ware (Gfarm: GRID datafarm). It is effective since disaster recovery (DR) and parallel data processing are carried out simultaneously without moving these big data from storage to storage. Data files are managed on our Web application, WSDBank (World Science Data Bank). The big-data on the cloud are processed via Pwrake, which is a workflow tool with high-bandwidth of I/O. There are several visualization tools on the cloud; VirtualAurora for magnetosphere and ionosphere, VDVGE for google Earth, STICKER for urban environment data and STARStouch for multi-disciplinary data. There are 30 projects running on the NICT

Delivering Unidata Technology via the Cloud

Science.gov (United States)

Fisher, Ward; Oxelson Ganter, Jennifer

2016-04-01

Over the last two years, Docker has emerged as the clear leader in open-source containerization. Containerization technology provides a means by which software can be pre-configured and packaged into a single unit, i.e. a container. This container can then be easily deployed either on local or remote systems. Containerization is particularly advantageous when moving software into the cloud, as it simplifies the process. Unidata is adopting containerization as part of our commitment to migrate our technologies to the cloud. We are using a two-pronged approach in this endeavor. In addition to migrating our data-portal services to a cloud environment, we are also exploring new and novel ways to use cloud-specific technology to serve our community. This effort has resulted in several new cloud/Docker-specific projects at Unidata: "CloudStream," "CloudIDV," and "CloudControl." CloudStream is a docker-based technology stack for bringing legacy desktop software to new computing environments, without the need to invest significant engineering/development resources. CloudStream helps make it easier to run existing software in a cloud environment via a technology called "Application Streaming." CloudIDV is a CloudStream-based implementation of the Unidata Integrated Data Viewer (IDV). CloudIDV serves as a practical example of application streaming, and demonstrates how traditional software can be easily accessed and controlled via a web browser. Finally, CloudControl is a web-based dashboard which provides administrative controls for running docker-based technologies in the cloud, as well as providing user management. In this work we will give an overview of these three open-source technologies and the value they offer to our community.

Effects of undetected data quality issues on climatological analyses

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

S. Hunziker

2018-01-01

Full Text Available Systematic data quality issues may occur at various stages of the data generation process. They may affect large fractions of observational datasets and remain largely undetected with standard data quality control. This study investigates the effects of such undetected data quality issues on the results of climatological analyses. For this purpose, we quality controlled daily observations of manned weather stations from the Central Andean area with a standard and an enhanced approach. The climate variables analysed are minimum and maximum temperature and precipitation. About 40 % of the observations are inappropriate for the calculation of monthly temperature means and precipitation sums due to data quality issues. These quality problems undetected with the standard quality control approach strongly affect climatological analyses, since they reduce the correlation coefficients of station pairs, deteriorate the performance of data homogenization methods, increase the spread of individual station trends, and significantly bias regional temperature trends. Our findings indicate that undetected data quality issues are included in important and frequently used observational datasets and hence may affect a high number of climatological studies. It is of utmost importance to apply comprehensive and adequate data quality control approaches on manned weather station records in order to avoid biased results and large uncertainties.

The Application of the Technology of 3D Satellite Cloud Imaging in Virtual Reality Simulation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xiao-fang Xie

2007-05-01

Full Text Available Using satellite cloud images to simulate clouds is one of the new visual simulation technologies in Virtual Reality (VR. Taking the original data of satellite cloud images as the source, this paper depicts specifically the technology of 3D satellite cloud imaging through the transforming of coordinates and projection, creating a DEM (Digital Elevation Model of cloud imaging and 3D simulation. A Mercator projection was introduced to create a cloud image DEM, while solutions for geodetic problems were introduced to calculate distances, and the outer-trajectory science of rockets was introduced to obtain the elevation of clouds. For demonstration, we report on a computer program to simulate the 3D satellite cloud images.

Final Technical Report for "High-resolution global modeling of the effects of subgrid-scale clouds and turbulence on precipitating cloud systems"

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Larson, Vincent [Univ. of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI (United States)

2016-11-25

The Multiscale Modeling Framework (MMF) embeds a cloud-resolving model in each grid column of a General Circulation Model (GCM). A MMF model does not need to use a deep convective parameterization, and thereby dispenses with the uncertainties in such parameterizations. However, MMF models grossly under-resolve shallow boundary-layer clouds, and hence those clouds may still benefit from parameterization. In this grant, we successfully created a climate model that embeds a cloud parameterization (“CLUBB”) within a MMF model. This involved interfacing CLUBB’s clouds with microphysics and reducing computational cost. We have evaluated the resulting simulated clouds and precipitation with satellite observations. The chief benefit of the project is to provide a MMF model that has an improved representation of clouds and that provides improved simulations of precipitation.

Evaluation of global climate models for Indian monsoon climatology

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kodra, Evan; Ganguly, Auroop R; Ghosh, Subimal

2012-01-01

The viability of global climate models for forecasting the Indian monsoon is explored. Evaluation and intercomparison of model skills are employed to assess the reliability of individual models and to guide model selection strategies. Two dominant and unique patterns of Indian monsoon climatology are trends in maximum temperature and periodicity in total rainfall observed after 30 yr averaging over India. An examination of seven models and their ensembles reveals that no single model or model selection strategy outperforms the rest. The single-best model for the periodicity of Indian monsoon rainfall is the only model that captures a low-frequency natural climate oscillator thought to dictate the periodicity. The trend in maximum temperature, which most models are thought to handle relatively better, is best captured through a multimodel average compared to individual models. The results suggest a need to carefully evaluate individual models and model combinations, in addition to physical drivers where possible, for regional projections from global climate models. (letter)

NASA GLDAS Evapotranspiration Data and Climatology

Science.gov (United States)

Rui, Hualan; Beaudoing, Hiroko Kato; Teng, William L.; Vollmer, Bruce; Rodell, Matthew

2012-01-01

Evapotranspiration (ET) is the water lost to the atmosphere by evaporation and transpiration. ET is a shared component in the energy and water budget, therefore, a critical variable for global energy and water cycle and climate change studies. However, direct ET measurements and data acquisition are difficult and expensive, especially at the global level. Therefore, modeling is one common alternative for estimating ET. With the goal to generate optimal fields of land surface states and fluxes, the Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS) has been generating quality-controlled, spatially and temporally consistent, terrestrial hydrologic data, including ET and other variables that affect evaporation and transpiration, such as temperature, precipitation, humidity, wind, soil moisture, heat flux, and solar radiation. This poster presents the long-term ET climatology (mean and monthly), derived from the 61-year GLDAS-2 monthly 1.0 deg x 1.0 deg. NOAH model Experiment-1 data, and describes the basic characteristics of spatial and seasonal variations of the climatology. The time series of GLDAS-2 precipitation and radiation, and ET are also discussed to show the improvement of GLDAS-2 forcing data and model output over those from GLDAS-1.

Precipitation Climatology on Titan-like Exomoons.

Science.gov (United States)

Tokano, Tetsuya

2015-06-01

The availability of liquid water on the surface on Earth's continents in part relies on the precipitation of water. This implies that the habitability of exomoons has to consider not only the surface temperature and atmospheric pressure for the presence of liquid water, but also the global precipitation climatology. This study explores the sensitivity of the precipitation climatology of Titan-like exomoons to these moons' orbital configuration using a global climate model. The precipitation rate primarily depends on latitude and is sensitive to the planet's obliquity and the moon's rotation rate. On slowly rotating moons the precipitation shifts to higher latitudes as obliquity is increased, whereas on quickly rotating moons the latitudinal distribution does not strongly depend on obliquity. Stellar eclipse can cause a longitudinal variation in the mean surface temperature and surface pressure between the subplanetary and antiplanetary side if the planet's obliquity and the moon's orbital distance are small. In this particular condition the antiplanetary side generally receives more precipitation than the subplanetary side. However, precipitation on exomoons with dense atmospheres generally occurs at any longitude in contrast to tidally locked exoplanets.

Cloud classification using whole-sky imager data

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Buch, K.A. Jr.; Sun, C.H.; Thorne, L.R. [Sandia National Labs., Livermore, CA (United States)

1996-04-01

Clouds are one of the most important moderators of the earth radiation budget and one of the least understood. The effect that clouds have on the reflection and absorption of solar and terrestrial radiation is strongly influenced by their shape, size, and composition. Physically accurate parameterization of clouds is necessary for any general circulation model (GCM) to yield meaningful results. The work presented here is part of a larger project that is aimed at producing realistic three-dimensional (3D) volume renderings of cloud scenes based on measured data from real cloud scenes. These renderings will provide the important shape information for parameterizing GCMs. The specific goal of the current study is to develop an algorithm that automatically classifies (by cloud type) the clouds observed in the scene. This information will assist the volume rendering program in determining the shape of the cloud. Much work has been done on cloud classification using multispectral satellite images. Most of these references use some kind of texture measure to distinguish the different cloud types and some also use topological features (such as cloud/sky connectivity or total number of clouds). A wide variety of classification methods has been used, including neural networks, various types of clustering, and thresholding. The work presented here uses binary decision trees to distinguish the different cloud types based on cloud features vectors.

pCloud: A Cloud-based Power Market Simulation Environment

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Rudkevich, Aleksandr; Goldis, Evgeniy

2012-12-02

This research conducted by the Newton Energy Group, LLC (NEG) is dedicated to the development of pCloud: a Cloud-based Power Market Simulation Environment. pCloud is offering power industry stakeholders the capability to model electricity markets and is organized around the Software as a Service (SaaS) concept -- a software application delivery model in which software is centrally hosted and provided to many users via the internet. During the Phase I of this project NEG developed a prototype design for pCloud as a SaaS-based commercial service offering, system architecture supporting that design, ensured feasibility of key architecture's elements, formed technological partnerships and negotiated commercial agreements with partners, conducted market research and other related activities and secured funding for continue development of pCloud between the end of Phase I and beginning of Phase II, if awarded. Based on the results of Phase I activities, NEG has established that the development of a cloud-based power market simulation environment within the Windows Azure platform is technologically feasible, can be accomplished within the budget and timeframe available through the Phase II SBIR award with additional external funding. NEG believes that pCloud has the potential to become a game-changing technology for the modeling and analysis of electricity markets. This potential is due to the following critical advantages of pCloud over its competition: - Standardized access to advanced and proven power market simulators offered by third parties. - Automated parallelization of simulations and dynamic provisioning of computing resources on the cloud. This combination of automation and scalability dramatically reduces turn-around time while offering the capability to increase the number of analyzed scenarios by a factor of 10, 100 or even 1000. - Access to ready-to-use data and to cloud-based resources leading to a reduction in software, hardware, and IT costs

Global Historical Climatology Network - Monthly (GHCN-M), Version 3

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — Please note, GHCN-Monthly provides climatological observations for four elements; monthly mean maximum temperature, minimum temperature, mean temperature, and...

Cloud Manufacturing Service Paradigm for Group Manufacturing Companies

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jingtao Zhou

2014-07-01

Full Text Available The continuous refinement of specialization requires that the group manufacturing company must be constantly focused on how to concentrate its core resources in special sphere to form its core competitive advantage. However, the resources in enterprise group are usually distributed in different subsidiary companies, which means they cannot be fully used, constraining the competition and development of the enterprise. Conducted as a response to a need for cloud manufacturing studies, systematic and detailed studies on cloud manufacturing schema for group companies are carried out in this paper. A new hybrid private clouds paradigm is proposed to meet the requirements of aggregation and centralized use of heterogeneous resources and business units distributed in different subsidiary companies. After the introduction of the cloud manufacturing paradigm for enterprise group and its architecture, this paper presents a derivation from the abstraction of paradigm and framework to the application of a practical evaluative working mechanism. In short, the paradigm establishes an effective working mechanism to translate collaborative business process composed by the activities into cloud manufacturing process composed by services so as to create a foundation resulting in mature traditional project monitoring and scheduling technologies being able to be used in cloud manufacturing project management.

The StratusLab cloud distribution: Use-cases and support for scientific applications

Science.gov (United States)

Floros, E.

2012-04-01

The StratusLab project is integrating an open cloud software distribution that enables organizations to setup and provide their own private or public IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) computing clouds. StratusLab distribution capitalizes on popular infrastructure virtualization solutions like KVM, the OpenNebula virtual machine manager, Claudia service manager and SlipStream deployment platform, which are further enhanced and expanded with additional components developed within the project. The StratusLab distribution covers the core aspects of a cloud IaaS architecture, namely Computing (life-cycle management of virtual machines), Storage, Appliance management and Networking. The resulting software stack provides a packaged turn-key solution for deploying cloud computing services. The cloud computing infrastructures deployed using StratusLab can support a wide range of scientific and business use cases. Grid computing has been the primary use case pursued by the project and for this reason the initial priority has been the support for the deployment and operation of fully virtualized production-level grid sites; a goal that has already been achieved by operating such a site as part of EGI's (European Grid Initiative) pan-european grid infrastructure. In this area the project is currently working to provide non-trivial capabilities like elastic and autonomic management of grid site resources. Although grid computing has been the motivating paradigm, StratusLab's cloud distribution can support a wider range of use cases. Towards this direction, we have developed and currently provide support for setting up general purpose computing solutions like Hadoop, MPI and Torque clusters. For what concerns scientific applications the project is collaborating closely with the Bioinformatics community in order to prepare VM appliances and deploy optimized services for bioinformatics applications. In a similar manner additional scientific disciplines like Earth Science can take

General overview: European Integrated project on Aerosol Cloud Climate and Air Quality interactions (EUCAARI) – integrating aerosol research from nano to global scales

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kulmala, M.; Asmi, A.; Lappalainen, H. K.

2011-01-01

In this paper we describe and summarize the main achievements of the European Aerosol Cloud Climate and Air Quality Interactions project (EUCAARI). EUCAARI started on 1 January 2007 and ended on 31 December 2010 leaving a rich legacy including: (a) a comprehensive database with a year...... of observations of the physical, chemical and optical properties of aerosol particles over Europe, (b) comprehensive aerosol measurements in four developing countries, (c) a database of airborne measurements of aerosols and clouds over Europe during May 2008, (d) comprehensive modeling tools to study aerosol...

Practical cloud evaluation from a Nordic eScience user perspective

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Edlund, Åke; Koopmans, Maarten; Shah, Zeeshan Ali

2011-01-01

In this paper, we describe the findings of the NEON project - a cross-Nordic - Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland and Iceland - project evaluating the usefulness of private versus public cloud services for HPC users. Our findings are briefly that private cloud technology is not mature enough yet...... to provide a transparent user experience. It is expected that this will be the case mid 2012. The cost efficiency of both public and private cloud should be continuously monitored as there is a strong downward trend. This conclusion is supported by NEON experimenting as well as larger initiatives e.......g. StratusLab reports. Public cloud technology is mature enough but lacks certain features that will be necessary to include cloud resources in a transparent manner in a national infrastructure like the Norwegian NOTUR (www.notur.no) case, e.g. with respect to quota management. These features are expected...

Water mass census in the Nordic seas using climatological and observational data sets

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Piacsek, S.; Allard, R.; McClean, J.

2008-01-01

We have compared and evaluated the water mass census in the Greenland-Iceland-Norwegian (Gin) Sea area from climatologies, observational data sets and model output. The four climatologies evaluated were: the 1998 and 2001 versions of the World Ocean Atlas (WOA98, WOA01), and the United States Navy's GDEM90 (Generalized Digital Environmental Model) and MODAS01 (Modular Ocean Data Assimilation System) climatologies. Three observational data sets were examined: the multidecadal (1965-1995) set contained on the National Oceano- graphic Data Centre's (NODC) WOD98 (World Ocean Data) Cd-Rom, and two seasonal data sets extracted from observations taken on six cruises by the SACLANT Research Center (SACLANTCEN) of NATO/Italy between 1986-1989. The model data is extracted from a global model run at 1/3 degree resolution for the years 1983-1997, using the Pop (Parallel Ocean Program) model of the Los Alamos National Laboratory. The census computations focused on the Norwegian Sea, in the southern part of the Gin Sea, between 10 0 W-10 0 E and 60 0 N-70 0 N, especially for comparisons with the hydro casts and the model. Cases of such evaluation computations included: (a) short term comparisons with quasi-synoptic CTD surveys carried out over a 4-year period in the southeastern Gin Sea; (b) climatological comparisons utilizing all available casts from the WOD98 Cd-Rom, with four climatologies; and (c) a comparison between the WOA01 climatology and the Pop model output ending in 1997. In this region in the spring, the fraction of ocean water that has salinity above 34.85 is ∼94%, and that has temperatures above 0 0 C is ∼33%. Three principal water masses dominated the census: the Atlantic water A W, the deep water D W and an intermediate water mass defined as Lower Arctic Intermediate Water (LAIW). Besides these classes, both the climatologies and the observations exhibited the significant presence of deep water masses with T-S characteristics that do not fall into the named

Commercial trading of IaaS cloud resources

CERN Multimedia

CERN. Geneva; Dr. Watzl, Johannes

2014-01-01

Dr. Johannes Watzl is responsible for the Product Management at Deutsche Börse Cloud Exchange. His work is focused on the specification and introduction of new tradable products and and product features. Prior to his role at Deutsche Börse Cloud Exchange, Johannes was a researcher at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München where he worked at European Commission funded projects in the field of distributed computing and standardisation in grid and cloud computing and obtained his PhD. He started research on the...

Connecting KOSs and the LOD Cloud

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Szostak, Rick; Scharnhorst, Andrea; Beek, Wouter; Smiraglia, Richard P.

2018-01-01

This paper describes a specific project, the current situation leading to it, its project design and first results. In particular, we will examine the terminology employed in the Linked Open Data cloud and compare this to the terminology employed in both the Universal Decimal Classification and the

Volunteered Cloud Computing for Disaster Management

Science.gov (United States)

Evans, J. D.; Hao, W.; Chettri, S. R.

2014-12-01

Disaster management relies increasingly on interpreting earth observations and running numerical models; which require significant computing capacity - usually on short notice and at irregular intervals. Peak computing demand during event detection, hazard assessment, or incident response may exceed agency budgets; however some of it can be met through volunteered computing, which distributes subtasks to participating computers via the Internet. This approach has enabled large projects in mathematics, basic science, and climate research to harness the slack computing capacity of thousands of desktop computers. This capacity is likely to diminish as desktops give way to battery-powered mobile devices (laptops, smartphones, tablets) in the consumer market; but as cloud computing becomes commonplace, it may offer significant slack capacity -- if its users are given an easy, trustworthy mechanism for participating. Such a "volunteered cloud computing" mechanism would also offer several advantages over traditional volunteered computing: tasks distributed within a cloud have fewer bandwidth limitations; granular billing mechanisms allow small slices of "interstitial" computing at no marginal cost; and virtual storage volumes allow in-depth, reversible machine reconfiguration. Volunteered cloud computing is especially suitable for "embarrassingly parallel" tasks, including ones requiring large data volumes: examples in disaster management include near-real-time image interpretation, pattern / trend detection, or large model ensembles. In the context of a major disaster, we estimate that cloud users (if suitably informed) might volunteer hundreds to thousands of CPU cores across a large provider such as Amazon Web Services. To explore this potential, we are building a volunteered cloud computing platform and targeting it to a disaster management context. Using a lightweight, fault-tolerant network protocol, this platform helps cloud users join parallel computing projects

Electron-cloud simulation studies for the CERN-PS in the framework of the LHC Injectors Upgrade project

CERN Document Server

Rioja Fuentelsaz, Sergio

The present study aims to provide a consistent picture of the electron cloud effect in the CERN Proton Synchrotron (PS) and to investigate possible future limitations due to the requirements foreseen by the LHC Injectors Upgrade (LIU) project. It consists of a complete simulation survey of the electron cloud build-up in the different beam pipe sections of the ring depending on several controllable beam parameters and vacuum chamber surface properties, covering present and future operation parameters. As the combined function magnets of the accelerator constitute almost the $80\\%$ in length of the ring, the implementation of a new feature for the simulation of any external magnetic field on the PyECLOUD code, made it possible to perform this study. All the results of the simulations are given as a function of the vacuum chamber surface properties in order to deduce them, both locally and globally, when compared with experimental data. In a first step, we characterize locally the maximum possible number of ...

Global Historical Climatology Network - Daily (GHCN-Daily), Version 3

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — The Global Historical Climatology Network - Daily (GHCN-Daily) dataset integrates daily climate observations from approximately 30 different data sources. Version 3...

Application of microarray analysis on computer cluster and cloud platforms.

Science.gov (United States)

Bernau, C; Boulesteix, A-L; Knaus, J

2013-01-01

Analysis of recent high-dimensional biological data tends to be computationally intensive as many common approaches such as resampling or permutation tests require the basic statistical analysis to be repeated many times. A crucial advantage of these methods is that they can be easily parallelized due to the computational independence of the resampling or permutation iterations, which has induced many statistics departments to establish their own computer clusters. An alternative is to rent computing resources in the cloud, e.g. at Amazon Web Services. In this article we analyze whether a selection of statistical projects, recently implemented at our department, can be efficiently realized on these cloud resources. Moreover, we illustrate an opportunity to combine computer cluster and cloud resources. In order to compare the efficiency of computer cluster and cloud implementations and their respective parallelizations we use microarray analysis procedures and compare their runtimes on the different platforms. Amazon Web Services provide various instance types which meet the particular needs of the different statistical projects we analyzed in this paper. Moreover, the network capacity is sufficient and the parallelization is comparable in efficiency to standard computer cluster implementations. Our results suggest that many statistical projects can be efficiently realized on cloud resources. It is important to mention, however, that workflows can change substantially as a result of a shift from computer cluster to cloud computing.

Hydrodynamics and Water Quality forecasting over a Cloud Computing environment: INDIGO-DataCloud

Science.gov (United States)

Aguilar Gómez, Fernando; de Lucas, Jesús Marco; García, Daniel; Monteoliva, Agustín

2017-04-01

Algae Bloom due to eutrophication is an extended problem for water reservoirs and lakes that impacts directly in water quality. It can create a dead zone that lacks enough oxygen to support life and it can also be human harmful, so it must be controlled in water masses for supplying, bathing or other uses. Hydrodynamic and Water Quality modelling can contribute to forecast the status of the water system in order to alert authorities before an algae bloom event occurs. It can be used to predict scenarios and find solutions to reduce the harmful impact of the blooms. High resolution models need to process a big amount of data using a robust enough computing infrastructure. INDIGO-DataCloud (https://www.indigo-datacloud.eu/) is an European Commission funded project that aims at developing a data and computing platform targeting scientific communities, deployable on multiple hardware and provisioned over hybrid (private or public) e-infrastructures. The project addresses the development of solutions for different Case Studies using different Cloud-based alternatives. In the first INDIGO software release, a set of components are ready to manage the deployment of services to perform N number of Delft3D simulations (for calibrating or scenario definition) over a Cloud Computing environment, using the Docker technology: TOSCA requirement description, Docker repository, Orchestrator, AAI (Authorization, Authentication) and OneData (Distributed Storage System). Moreover, the Future Gateway portal based on Liferay, provides an user-friendly interface where the user can configure the simulations. Due to the data approach of INDIGO, the developed solutions can contribute to manage the full data life cycle of a project, thanks to different tools to manage datasets or even metadata. Furthermore, the cloud environment contributes to provide a dynamic, scalable and easy-to-use framework for non-IT experts users. This framework is potentially capable to automatize the processing of

Estonian total ozone climatology

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

K. Eerme

Full Text Available The climatological characteristics of total ozone over Estonia based on the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS data are discussed. The mean annual cycle during 1979–2000 for the site at 58.3° N and 26.5° E is compiled. The available ground-level data interpolated before TOMS, have been used for trend detection. During the last two decades, the quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO corrected systematic decrease of total ozone from February–April was 3 ± 2.6% per decade. Before 1980, a spring decrease was not detectable. No decreasing trend was found in either the late autumn ozone minimum or in the summer total ozone. The QBO related signal in the spring total ozone has an amplitude of ± 20 DU and phase lag of 20 months. Between 1987–1992, the lagged covariance between the Singapore wind and the studied total ozone was weak. The spring (April–May and summer (June–August total ozone have the best correlation (coefficient 0.7 in the yearly cycle. The correlation between the May and August total ozone is higher than the one between the other summer months. Seasonal power spectra of the total ozone variance show preferred periods with an over 95% significance level. Since 1986, during the winter/spring, the contribution period of 32 days prevails instead of the earlier dominating 26 days. The spectral densities of the periods from 4 days to 2 weeks exhibit high interannual variability.

Key words. Atmospheric composition and structure (middle atmosphere – composition and chemistry; volcanic effects – Meteorology and atmospheric dynamics (climatology

Parameterizing Size Distribution in Ice Clouds

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

DeSlover, Daniel; Mitchell, David L.

2009-09-25

PARAMETERIZING SIZE DISTRIBUTIONS IN ICE CLOUDS David L. Mitchell and Daniel H. DeSlover ABSTRACT An outstanding problem that contributes considerable uncertainty to Global Climate Model (GCM) predictions of future climate is the characterization of ice particle sizes in cirrus clouds. Recent parameterizations of ice cloud effective diameter differ by a factor of three, which, for overcast conditions, often translate to changes in outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) of 55 W m-2 or more. Much of this uncertainty in cirrus particle sizes is related to the problem of ice particle shattering during in situ sampling of the ice particle size distribution (PSD). Ice particles often shatter into many smaller ice fragments upon collision with the rim of the probe inlet tube. These small ice artifacts are counted as real ice crystals, resulting in anomalously high concentrations of small ice crystals (D < 100 µm) and underestimates of the mean and effective size of the PSD. Half of the cirrus cloud optical depth calculated from these in situ measurements can be due to this shattering phenomenon. Another challenge is the determination of ice and liquid water amounts in mixed phase clouds. Mixed phase clouds in the Arctic contain mostly liquid water, and the presence of ice is important for determining their lifecycle. Colder high clouds between -20 and -36 oC may also be mixed phase but in this case their condensate is mostly ice with low levels of liquid water. Rather than affecting their lifecycle, the presence of liquid dramatically affects the cloud optical properties, which affects cloud-climate feedback processes in GCMs. This project has made advancements in solving both of these problems. Regarding the first problem, PSD in ice clouds are uncertain due to the inability to reliably measure the concentrations of the smallest crystals (D < 100 µm), known as the “small mode”. Rather than using in situ probe measurements aboard aircraft, we employed a treatment of ice

A climatology of visible surface reflectance spectra

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zoogman, Peter; Liu, Xiong; Chance, Kelly; Sun, Qingsong; Schaaf, Crystal; Mahr, Tobias; Wagner, Thomas

2016-01-01

We present a high spectral resolution climatology of visible surface reflectance as a function of wavelength for use in satellite measurements of ozone and other atmospheric species. The Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO) instrument is planned to measure backscattered solar radiation in the 290–740 nm range, including the ultraviolet and visible Chappuis ozone bands. Observation in the weak Chappuis band takes advantage of the relative transparency of the atmosphere in the visible to achieve sensitivity to near-surface ozone. However, due to the weakness of the ozone absorption features this measurement is more sensitive to errors in visible surface reflectance, which is highly variable. We utilize reflectance measurements of individual plant, man-made, and other surface types to calculate the primary modes of variability of visible surface reflectance at a high spectral resolution, comparable to that of TEMPO (0.6 nm). Using the Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Bidirection Reflectance Distribution Function (BRDF)/albedo product and our derived primary modes we construct a high spatial resolution climatology of wavelength-dependent surface reflectance over all viewing scenes and geometries. The Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment–2 (GOME-2) Lambertian Equivalent Reflectance (LER) product provides complementary information over water and snow scenes. Preliminary results using this approach in multispectral ultraviolet+visible ozone retrievals from the GOME-2 instrument show significant improvement to the fitting residuals over vegetated scenes. - Highlights: • Our goals was visible surface reflectance for satellite trace gas measurements. • Captured the range of surface reflectance spectra through EOF analysis. • Used satellite surface reflectance products for each given scene to anchor EOFs. • Generated a climatology of time/geometry dependent surface reflectance spectra. • Demonstrated potential to

General overview: European Integrated project on Aerosol Cloud Climate and Air Quality interactions (EUCAARI)-integrating aerosol research from nano to global scales

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Kulmala, M.; Asmi, A.; Lappalainen, H.K.; Baltensperger, U.; Brenguier, J.-L.; Facchini, M.C.; Hansson, H.-C.; Hov, Ø.; O'Dowd, C.D.; Pöschl, U.; Wiedensohler, A.; Boers, R.; Boucher, O.; Leeuw, G. de; Denier van der Gon, H.A.C.; Feichter, J.; Krejci, R.; Laj, P.; Lihavainen, H.; Lohmann, U.; McFiggans, G.; Mentel, T.; Pilinis, C.; Riipinen, I.; Schulz, M.; Stohl, A.; Swietlicki, E.; Vignati, E.; Alves, C.; Amann, M.; Ammann, M.; Arabas, S.; Artaxo, P.; Baars, H.; Beddows, D.C.S.; Bergström, R.; Beukes, J.P.; Bilde, M.; Burkhart, J.F.; Canonaco, F.; Clegg, S.L.; Coe, H.; Crumeyrolle, S.; D'Anna, B.; Decesari, S.; Gilardoni, S.; Fischer, M.; Fjaeraa, A.M.; Fountoukis, C.; George, C.; Gomes, L.; Halloran, P.; Hamburger, T.; Harrison, R.M.; Herrmann, H.; Hoffmann, T.; Hoose, C.; Hu, M.; Hyvärinen, A.; Hõrrak, U.; Iinuma, Y.; Iversen, T.; Josipovic, M.; Kanakidou, M.; Kiendler-Scharr, A.; Kirkevåg, A.; Kiss, G.; Klimont, Z.; Kolmonen, P.; Komppula, M.; Kristjánsson, J.-E.; Laakso, L.; Laaksonen, A.; Labonnote, L.; Lanz, V.A.; Lehtinen, K.E.J.; Rizzo, L.V.; Makkonen, R.; Manninen, H.E.; McMeeking, G.; Merikanto, J.; Minikin, A.; Mirme, S.; Morgan, W.T.; Nemitz, E.; O'Donnell, D.; Panwar, T.S.; Pawlowska, H.; Petzold, A.; Pienaar, J.J.; Pio, C.; Plass-Duelmer, C.; Prévôt, A.S.H.; Pryor, S.; Reddington, C.L.; Roberts, G.; Rosenfeld, D.; Schwarz, J.; Seland, O.; Sellegri, K.; Shen, X.J.; Shiraiwa, M.; Siebert, H.; Sierau, B.; Simpson, D.; Sun, J.Y.; Topping, D.; Tunved, P.; Vaattovaara, P.; Vakkari, V.; Veefkind, J.P.; Visschedijk, A.; Vuollekoski, H.; Vuolo, R.; Wehner, B.; Wildt, J.; Woodward, S.; Worsnop, D.R.; Zadelhoff, G.J. van; Zardini, A.A.; Zhang, K.; Zyl, P.G. van; Kerminen, V.-M.; Carslaw, K.S.; Pandis, S.N.

2011-01-01

In this paper we describe and summarize the main achievements of the European Aerosol Cloud Climate and Air Quality Interactions project (EUCAARI). EUCAARI started on 1 January 2007 and ended on 31 December 2010 leaving a rich legacy including: (a) a comprehensive database with a year of

Simulated CONUS Flash Flood Climatologies from Distributed Hydrologic Models

Science.gov (United States)

Flamig, Z.; Gourley, J. J.; Vergara, H. J.; Kirstetter, P. E.; Hong, Y.

2016-12-01

This study will describe a CONUS flash flood climatology created over the period from 2002 through 2011. The MRMS reanalysis precipitation dataset was used as forcing into the Ensemble Framework For Flash Flood Forecasting (EF5). This high resolution 1-sq km 5-minute dataset is ideal for simulating flash floods with a distributed hydrologic model. EF5 features multiple water balance components including SAC-SMA, CREST, and a hydrophobic model all coupled with kinematic wave routing. The EF5/SAC-SMA and EF5/CREST water balance schemes were used for the creation of dual flash flood climatologies based on the differing water balance principles. For the period from 2002 through 2011 the daily maximum streamflow, unit streamflow, and time of peak streamflow was stored along with the minimum soil moisture. These variables are used to describe the states of the soils right before a flash flood event and the peak streamflow that was simulated during the flash flood event. The results will be shown, compared and contrasted. The resulting model simulations will be verified on basins less than 1,000-sq km with USGS gauges to ensure the distributed hydrologic models are reliable. The results will also be compared spatially to Storm Data flash flood event observations to judge the degree of agreement between the simulated climatologies and observations.

Exploiting Virtualization and Cloud Computing in ATLAS

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Harald Barreiro Megino, Fernando; Van der Ster, Daniel; Benjamin, Doug; De, Kaushik; Gable, Ian; Paterson, Michael; Taylor, Ryan; Hendrix, Val; Vitillo, Roberto A; Panitkin, Sergey; De Silva, Asoka; Walker, Rod

2012-01-01

The ATLAS Computing Model was designed around the concept of grid computing; since the start of data-taking, this model has proven very successful in the federated operation of more than one hundred Worldwide LHC Computing Grid (WLCG) sites for offline data distribution, storage, processing and analysis. However, new paradigms in computing, namely virtualization and cloud computing, present improved strategies for managing and provisioning IT resources that could allow ATLAS to more flexibly adapt and scale its storage and processing workloads on varied underlying resources. In particular, ATLAS is developing a “grid-of-clouds” infrastructure in order to utilize WLCG sites that make resources available via a cloud API. This work will present the current status of the Virtualization and Cloud Computing R and D project in ATLAS Distributed Computing. First, strategies for deploying PanDA queues on cloud sites will be discussed, including the introduction of a “cloud factory” for managing cloud VM instances. Next, performance results when running on virtualized/cloud resources at CERN LxCloud, StratusLab, and elsewhere will be presented. Finally, we will present the ATLAS strategies for exploiting cloud-based storage, including remote XROOTD access to input data, management of EC2-based files, and the deployment of cloud-resident LCG storage elements.

The climatology of the Red Sea - part 1: the wind

KAUST Repository

Langodan, Sabique

2017-05-12

The wind climatology of the Red Sea is described based on a 30-year high-resolution regional reanalysis generated using the Advanced Weather Research Forecasting model. The model was reinitialized on a daily basis with ERA-Interim global data and regional observations were assimilated using a cyclic three-dimensional variational approach. The reanalysis products were validated against buoy and scatterometers data. We describe the wind climatology and identify four major systems that determine the wind patterns in the Red Sea. Each system has a well-defined origin, and consequently different characteristics along the year. After analysing the relevant features of the basin in terms of their climatology, we investigate possible long-term trends in each system. It is found that there is a definite tendency towards lowering the strength of the wind speed, but at a different rate for different systems and periods of the year.

The climatology of the Red Sea - part 1: the wind

KAUST Repository

Langodan, Sabique; Cavaleri, Luigi; Vishwanadhapalli, Yesubabu; Pomaro, Angela; Bertotti, Luciana; Hoteit, Ibrahim

2017-01-01

The wind climatology of the Red Sea is described based on a 30-year high-resolution regional reanalysis generated using the Advanced Weather Research Forecasting model. The model was reinitialized on a daily basis with ERA-Interim global data and regional observations were assimilated using a cyclic three-dimensional variational approach. The reanalysis products were validated against buoy and scatterometers data. We describe the wind climatology and identify four major systems that determine the wind patterns in the Red Sea. Each system has a well-defined origin, and consequently different characteristics along the year. After analysing the relevant features of the basin in terms of their climatology, we investigate possible long-term trends in each system. It is found that there is a definite tendency towards lowering the strength of the wind speed, but at a different rate for different systems and periods of the year.

Using Long-Term Satellite Observations to Identify Sensitive Regimes and Active Regions of Aerosol Indirect Effects for Liquid Clouds Over Global Oceans

Science.gov (United States)

Zhao, Xuepeng; Liu, Yangang; Yu, Fangquan; Heidinger, Andrew K.

2018-01-01

Long-term (1981-2011) satellite climate data records of clouds and aerosols are used to investigate the aerosol-cloud interaction of marine water cloud from a climatology perspective. Our focus is on identifying the regimes and regions where the aerosol indirect effects (AIEs) are evident in long-term averages over the global oceans through analyzing the correlation features between aerosol loading and the key cloud variables including cloud droplet effective radius (CDER), cloud optical depth (COD), cloud water path (CWP), cloud top height (CTH), and cloud top temperature (CTT). An aerosol optical thickness (AOT) range of 0.13 change of long-term averaged CDER appears only in limited oceanic regions. The signature of aerosol invigoration of water clouds as revealed by the increase of cloud cover fraction (CCF) and CTH with increasing AOT at the middle/high latitudes of both hemispheres is identified for a pristine atmosphere (AOT polluted marine atmosphere (AOT > 0.3) in the tropical convergence zones. The regions where the second AIE is likely to manifest in the CCF change are limited to several oceanic areas with high CCF of the warm water clouds near the western coasts of continents. The second AIE signature as represented by the reduction of the precipitation efficiency with increasing AOT is more likely to be observed in the AOT regime of 0.08 < AOT < 0.4. The corresponding AIE active regions manifested themselves as the decline of the precipitation efficiency are mainly limited to the oceanic areas downwind of continental aerosols. The sensitive regime of the conventional AIE identified in this observational study is likely associated with the transitional regime from the aerosol-limited regime to the updraft-limited regime identified for aerosol-cloud interaction in cloud model simulations.

CloudSat Safety Operations at Vandenberg AFB

Science.gov (United States)

Greenberg, Steve

2006-01-01

CloudSat safety operations at Vendenberg AFB is given. The topics include: 1) CloudSat Project Overview; 2) Vandenberg Ground Operations; 3) Delta II Launch Vehicle; 4) The A-Train; 5) System Safety Management; 6) CALIPSO Hazards Assessment; 7) CALIPSO Supplemental Safeguards; 8) Joint System Safety Operations; 9) Extended Stand-down; 10) Launch Delay Safety Concerns; and 11) Lessons Learned.

Coupled fvGCM-GCE Modeling System, 3D Cloud-Resolving Model and Cloud Library

Science.gov (United States)

Tao, Wei-Kuo

2005-01-01

Recent GEWEX Cloud System Study (GCSS) model comparison projects have indicated that cloud- resolving models (CRMs) agree with observations better than traditional single-column models in simulating various types of clouds and cloud systems from different geographic locations. Current and future NASA satellite programs can provide cloud, precipitation, aerosol and other data at very fine spatial and temporal scales. It requires a coupled global circulation model (GCM) and cloud-scale model (termed a super-parameterization or multi-scale modeling framework, MMF) to use these satellite data to improve the understanding of the physical processes that are responsible for the variation in global and regional climate and hydrological systems. The use of a GCM will enable global coverage, and the use of a CRM will allow for better and more sophisticated physical parameterization. NASA satellite and field campaign cloud related datasets can provide initial conditions as well as validation for both the MMF and CRMs. A seed fund is available at NASA Goddard to build a MMF based on the 2D Goddard Cumulus Ensemble (GCE) model and the Goddard finite volume general circulation model (fvGCM). A prototype MMF in being developed and production runs will be conducted at the beginning of 2005. In this talk, I will present: (1) A brief review on GCE model and its applications on precipitation processes, ( 2 ) The Goddard MMF and the major difference between two existing MMFs (CSU MMF and Goddard MMF), (3) A cloud library generated by Goddard MMF, and 3D GCE model, and (4) A brief discussion on the GCE model on developing a global cloud simulator.

Comparison of Cloud Detection Using the CERES-MODIS Ed4 and LaRC AVHRR Cloud Masks and CALIPSO Vertical Feature Mask

Science.gov (United States)

Trepte, Q. Z.; Minnis, P.; Palikonda, R.; Bedka, K. M.; Sun-Mack, S.

2011-12-01

Accurate detection of cloud amount and distribution using satellite observations is crucial in determining cloud radiative forcing and earth energy budget. The CERES-MODIS (CM) Edition 4 cloud mask is a global cloud detection algorithm for application to Terra and Aqua MODIS data with the aid of other ancillary data sets. It is used operationally for the NASA's Cloud and Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) project. The LaRC AVHRR cloud mask, which uses only five spectral channels, is based on a subset of the CM cloud mask which employs twelve MODIS channels. The LaRC mask is applied to AVHRR data for the NOAA Climate Data Record Program. Comparisons among the CM Ed4, and LaRC AVHRR cloud masks and the CALIPSO Vertical Feature Mask (VFM) constitute a powerful means for validating and improving cloud detection globally. They also help us understand the strengths and limitations of the various cloud retrievals which use either active and passive satellite sensors. In this paper, individual comparisons will be presented for different types of clouds over various surfaces, including daytime and nighttime, and polar and non-polar regions. Additionally, the statistics of the global, regional, and zonal cloud occurrence and amount from the CERES Ed4, AVHRR cloud masks and CALIPSO VFM will be discussed.

Evaluating the Efficacy of the Cloud for Cluster Computation

Science.gov (United States)

Knight, David; Shams, Khawaja; Chang, George; Soderstrom, Tom

2012-01-01

Computing requirements vary by industry, and it follows that NASA and other research organizations have computing demands that fall outside the mainstream. While cloud computing made rapid inroads for tasks such as powering web applications, performance issues on highly distributed tasks hindered early adoption for scientific computation. One venture to address this problem is Nebula, NASA's homegrown cloud project tasked with delivering science-quality cloud computing resources. However, another industry development is Amazon's high-performance computing (HPC) instances on Elastic Cloud Compute (EC2) that promises improved performance for cluster computation. This paper presents results from a series of benchmarks run on Amazon EC2 and discusses the efficacy of current commercial cloud technology for running scientific applications across a cluster. In particular, a 240-core cluster of cloud instances achieved 2 TFLOPS on High-Performance Linpack (HPL) at 70% of theoretical computational performance. The cluster's local network also demonstrated sub-100 ?s inter-process latency with sustained inter-node throughput in excess of 8 Gbps. Beyond HPL, a real-world Hadoop image processing task from NASA's Lunar Mapping and Modeling Project (LMMP) was run on a 29 instance cluster to process lunar and Martian surface images with sizes on the order of tens of gigapixels. These results demonstrate that while not a rival of dedicated supercomputing clusters, commercial cloud technology is now a feasible option for moderately demanding scientific workloads.

Sensitive study of the climatological SST by using ATSR global SST data sets

Science.gov (United States)

Xue, Yong; Lawrence, Sean P.; Llewellyn-Jones, David T.

1995-12-01

Climatological sea surface temperature (SST) is an initial step for global climate processing monitoring. A comparison has been made by using Oberhuber's SST data set and two years monthly averaged SST from ATSR thermal band data to force the OGCM. In the eastern Pacific Ocean, these make only a small difference to model SST. In the western Pacific Ocean, the use of Oberhuber's data set gives higher climatological SST than that using ATSR data. The SSTs were also simulated for 1992 using climatological SSTs from two years monthly averaged ATSR data and Oberhuber data. The forcing with SST from ATSR data was found to give better SST simulation than that from Oberhuber's data. Our study has confirmed that ATSR can provide accurate monthly averaged global SST for global climate processing monitoring.

The global historical climatology network: Long-term monthly temperature, precipitation, and pressure data

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Vose, R.S.; Schmoyer, R.L.; Peterson, T.C.; Steurer, P.M.; Heim, R.R. Jr.; Karl, T.R.; Eischeid, J.K.

1992-01-01

Interest in global climate change has risen dramatically during the past several decades. In a similar fashion, the number of data sets available to study global change has also increased. Unfortunately, many different organizations and researchers have compiled these data sets, making it confusing and time consuming for individuals to acquire the most comprehensive data. In response to this rapid growth in the number of global data sets, DOE's Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC) and NOAA's National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) established the Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN) project. The purpose of this project is to compile an improved data set of long-term monthly mean temperature, precipitation, sea level pressure, and station pressure for as dense a network of global stations as possible. Specifically, the GHCN project seeks to consolidate the numerous preexisting national-, regional-, and global-scale data sets into a single global data base; to subject the data to rigorous quality control; and to update, enhance, and distribute the data set at regular intervals. The purpose of this paper is to describe the compilation and contents of the GHCN data base (i.e., GHCN Version 1.0)

Los Alamos Climatology 2016 Update

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bruggeman, David Alan [Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)

2017-02-10

The Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL or the Laboratory) operates a meteorology monitoring network to support LANL emergency response, engineering designs, environmental compliance, environmental assessments, safety evaluations, weather forecasting, environmental monitoring, research programs, and environmental restoration. Weather data has been collected in Los Alamos since 1910. Bowen (1990) provided climate statistics (temperature and precipitation) for the 1961– 1990 averaging period, and included other analyses (e.g., wind and relative humidity) based on the available station locations and time periods. This report provides an update to the 1990 publication Los Alamos Climatology (Bowen 1990).

Cloud Computing Security in Openstack Architecture: General Overview

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gleb Igorevich Shakulo

2015-10-01

Full Text Available The subject of article is cloud computing security. Article begins with author analyzing cloud computing advantages and disadvantages, factors of growth, both positive and negative. Among latter, security is deemed one of the most prominent. Furthermore, author takes architecture of OpenStack project as an example for study: describes its essential components and their interconnection. As conclusion, author raises series of questions as possible areas of further research to resolve security concerns, thus making cloud computing more secure technology.

A global space-based stratospheric aerosol climatology: 1979-2016

Science.gov (United States)

Thomason, Larry W.; Ernest, Nicholas; Millán, Luis; Rieger, Landon; Bourassa, Adam; Vernier, Jean-Paul; Manney, Gloria; Luo, Beiping; Arfeuille, Florian; Peter, Thomas

2018-03-01

We describe the construction of a continuous 38-year record of stratospheric aerosol optical properties. The Global Space-based Stratospheric Aerosol Climatology, or GloSSAC, provided the input data to the construction of the Climate Model Intercomparison Project stratospheric aerosol forcing data set (1979-2014) and we have extended it through 2016 following an identical process. GloSSAC focuses on the Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment (SAGE) series of instruments through mid-2005, and on the Optical Spectrograph and InfraRed Imager System (OSIRIS) and the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation (CALIPSO) data thereafter. We also use data from other space instruments and from ground-based, air, and balloon borne instruments to fill in key gaps in the data set. The end result is a global and gap-free data set focused on aerosol extinction coefficient at 525 and 1020 nm and other parameters on an "as available" basis. For the primary data sets, we developed a new method for filling the post-Pinatubo eruption data gap for 1991-1993 based on data from the Cryogenic Limb Array Etalon Spectrometer. In addition, we developed a new method for populating wintertime high latitudes during the SAGE period employing a latitude-equivalent latitude conversion process that greatly improves the depiction of aerosol at high latitudes compared to earlier similar efforts. We report data in the troposphere only when and where it is available. This is primarily during the SAGE II period except for the most enhanced part of the Pinatubo period. It is likely that the upper troposphere during Pinatubo was greatly enhanced over non-volcanic periods and that domain remains substantially under-characterized. We note that aerosol levels during the OSIRIS/CALIPSO period in the lower stratosphere at mid- and high latitudes is routinely higher than what we observed during the SAGE II period. While this period had nearly continuous low-level volcanic activity, it

Legal issues in clouds: towards a risk inventory.

Science.gov (United States)

Djemame, Karim; Barnitzke, Benno; Corrales, Marcelo; Kiran, Mariam; Jiang, Ming; Armstrong, Django; Forgó, Nikolaus; Nwankwo, Iheanyi

2013-01-28

Cloud computing technologies have reached a high level of development, yet a number of obstacles still exist that must be overcome before widespread commercial adoption can become a reality. In a cloud environment, end users requesting services and cloud providers negotiate service-level agreements (SLAs) that provide explicit statements of all expectations and obligations of the participants. If cloud computing is to experience widespread commercial adoption, then incorporating risk assessment techniques is essential during SLA negotiation and service operation. This article focuses on the legal issues surrounding risk assessment in cloud computing. Specifically, it analyses risk regarding data protection and security, and presents the requirements of an inherent risk inventory. The usefulness of such a risk inventory is described in the context of the OPTIMIS project.

Formation of Massive Molecular Cloud Cores by Cloud-cloud Collision

OpenAIRE

Inoue, Tsuyoshi; Fukui, Yasuo

2013-01-01

Recent observations of molecular clouds around rich massive star clusters including NGC3603, Westerlund 2, and M20 revealed that the formation of massive stars could be triggered by a cloud-cloud collision. By using three-dimensional, isothermal, magnetohydrodynamics simulations with the effect of self-gravity, we demonstrate that massive, gravitationally unstable, molecular cloud cores are formed behind the strong shock waves induced by the cloud-cloud collision. We find that the massive mol...

Climatological background for the utilization of energy from the sun

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Alterio, S.; Barabaro, S.; Coppolino, S.

1983-01-01

Information on the main climatological factors characterizing a given place or area is fundamental for the utilization of energy from the Sun and for other applications. This paper collects and analyses the daily, monthly and yearly average climatic data (insolation, sunshine, state of the sky, air temperature and relative humidity) provided by sixty thermopluviometric stations variously distributed in the territory of Sicily. The analysis is here performed both with a purely applicative view and in order to point out the connection between climate and physical environment. It leads to a better knowledge of solar climate and constitutes the basis for equally interesting further developments in the various fields of applied climatology: geomorfology, agriculture, biology, ecology, bioclimatology, etc

Electron cloud effects in SIS-18 and SIS-100

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Petrov, Fedor; Boine-Frankenheim, Oliver [Technische Universitaet Darmstadt, Institut fuer Theorie Elektromagnetischer Felder (TEMF) (Germany); Gesellschaft fuer Schwerionenforschung (GSI) GmbH, Darmstadt (Germany); Weiland, Thomas [Technische Universitaet Darmstadt, Institut fuer Theorie Elektromagnetischer Felder (TEMF) (Germany)

2011-07-01

Electron cloud build-up and associated instabilities are studied in simulations under conditions relevant to SIS-18 and to the projected SIS-100 heavy ion synchrotrons. In both rings coasting beams are foreseen during slow extraction of the beam. Trapped electrons could lead to a reduction of the extraction efficiency. We present the results of electron cloud studies for bunched and for coasting beams. In these two regimes the main production mechanisms are significantly different. For coasting beams the most important mechanism is residual gas ionization, for bunched beam the main source of electrons is secondary emission. In the case of coasting beams electrons are generated in the vicinity of the beam center and a two-stream instability may occur for the projected intensities.Electron clouds due to bunched beams are of concern in SIS-100 because no special coating of the stainless steel beam pipe is presently foreseen. Finally we also discuss experimental studies of electron cloud generation in SIS-18.

Utilizing HDF4 File Content Maps for the Cloud

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, Hyokyung Joe

2016-01-01

We demonstrate a prototype study that HDF4 file content map can be used for efficiently organizing data in cloud object storage system to facilitate cloud computing. This approach can be extended to any binary data formats and to any existing big data analytics solution powered by cloud computing because HDF4 file content map project started as long term preservation of NASA data that doesn't require HDF4 APIs to access data.

"Intelligent Ensemble" Projections of Precipitation and Surface Radiation in Support of Agricultural Climate Change Adaptation

Science.gov (United States)

Taylor, Patrick C.; Baker, Noel C.

2015-01-01

Earth's climate is changing and will continue to change into the foreseeable future. Expected changes in the climatological distribution of precipitation, surface temperature, and surface solar radiation will significantly impact agriculture. Adaptation strategies are, therefore, required to reduce the agricultural impacts of climate change. Climate change projections of precipitation, surface temperature, and surface solar radiation distributions are necessary input for adaption planning studies. These projections are conventionally constructed from an ensemble of climate model simulations (e.g., the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 5 (CMIP5)) as an equal weighted average, one model one vote. Each climate model, however, represents the array of climate-relevant physical processes with varying degrees of fidelity influencing the projection of individual climate variables differently. Presented here is a new approach, termed the "Intelligent Ensemble, that constructs climate variable projections by weighting each model according to its ability to represent key physical processes, e.g., precipitation probability distribution. This approach provides added value over the equal weighted average method. Physical process metrics applied in the "Intelligent Ensemble" method are created using a combination of NASA and NOAA satellite and surface-based cloud, radiation, temperature, and precipitation data sets. The "Intelligent Ensemble" method is applied to the RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 anthropogenic climate forcing simulations within the CMIP5 archive to develop a set of climate change scenarios for precipitation, temperature, and surface solar radiation in each USDA Farm Resource Region for use in climate change adaptation studies.

APhoRISM FP7 project: the Multi-platform volcanic Ash Cloud Estimation (MACE) infrastructure

Science.gov (United States)

Merucci, Luca; Corradini, Stefano; Bignami, Christian; Stramondo, Salvatore

2014-05-01

APHORISM is an FP7 project that aims to develop innovative products to support the management and mitigation of the volcanic and the seismic crisis. Satellite and ground measurements will be managed in a novel manner to provide new and improved products in terms of accuracy and quality of information. The Multi-platform volcanic Ash Cloud Estimation (MACE) infrastructure will exploit the complementarity between geostationary, and polar satellite sensors and ground measurements to improve the ash detection and retrieval and to fully characterize the volcanic ash clouds from source to the atmosphere. The basic idea behind the proposed method consists to manage in a novel manner, the volcanic ash retrievals at the space-time scale of typical geostationary observations using both the polar satellite estimations and in-situ measurements. The typical ash thermal infrared (TIR) retrieval will be integrated by using a wider spectral range from visible (VIS) to microwave (MW) and the ash detection will be extended also in case of cloudy atmosphere or steam plumes. All the MACE ash products will be tested on three recent eruptions representative of different eruption styles in different clear or cloudy atmospheric conditions: Eyjafjallajokull (Iceland) 2010, Grimsvotn (Iceland) 2011 and Etna (Italy) 2011-2012. The MACE infrastructure will be suitable to be implemented in the next generation of ESA Sentinels satellite missions.

Climatology of extratropical transition for North Atlantic tropical cyclones in the high-resolution GFDL climate model

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, M.; Vecchi, G. A.; Smith, J. A.

2015-12-01

The extratropical transition (ET) process of tropical cyclones can lead to fundamental changes in hurricane structure and storms that continue to pose large threats to life and properties. Given the importance of ET, it is necessary to understand how ET changes under a warming climate. Towards this goal, the GFDL climate model (FLOR) is first used to understand the current-day ET climatology. The standard model and a flux-adjusted version of FLOR are both used to examine ET climatology. The operational cyclone phase space method is used to define the onset and completion times of ET. The ET climatology from the climate model is compared with those from two reanalysis data sets ranging from 1979 to 2012. Both models exhibit good skills at simulating the frequency map of phase space diagram. The flux-adjusted version shows much better skill in capturing the ET climatology in terms of ET track patterns, ET locations and monthly ET variations. The model is able to simulate the frequency ratio of reintensified tropical cyclones from all ET cases. Future work involves examining changes in the ET climatology under a changing climate.

Multi-satellite climatologies of fundamental atmospheric variables from Radio Occulation and their validation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pirscher, B.

2010-01-01

Monitoring of global climate change requires high quality observations not only on the Earths surface but also in the free atmosphere. Global Positioning System (GPS) Radio Occultation (RO) observations are known to have the potential to deliver very accurate, precise, and long-term stable measurements between about 8 km and 30 km altitude.This thesis investigates the suitability of RO observations to serve as climate benchmark record by validating the consistency of RO data provided by different satellites. The main focus lies on systematic differences of RO climatologies, originating from different data processing, data quality, spatio-temporal sampling, and particular orbit characteristics. Data of six RO satellite missions (including one multi-satellite constellation) are analyzed. Largest disagreements of RO climatologies are observed when comparing data provided by different processing centers. Mean absolute temperature differences between 8 km and 30 km altitude amount to 0.5 K, while climate time series of temperature changes agree much closer.Utilizing RO data from the same data center and considering space-temporal sampling yields remarkable consistency of temperature climatologies with mean differences being smaller than 0.1 K. Disagreements are found to be largest at 35 km, where they exceed 0.2 K. This results from different data quality and its utilization within the processing scheme. Climatologies, which are derived from data with the same quality agree to within 0.02 K also at high altitudes. The measurements local time, which depends on the satellites orbit, has a minor but clearly understandable influence on differences in RO climatologies. The results underline the utility of RO data for long-term monitoring of the global climate. (author) [de

Cloud Computing Application for Romanian SMEs

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Pistol, Luminiţa

2017-09-01

Full Text Available The article studies the current economical state of Romanian SMEs and the utility of cloud computing technologies in the process of sustainable open innovation. The study is based on a supply chain adapted for SMEs, on a model of innovation within a network business environment and on a decision tree dedicated for SMEs when starting a new project. Taking into account the statements of the article, a new framework of cloud computing economics can be developed.

Modeling the Cloud to Enhance Capabilities for Crises and Catastrophe Management

Science.gov (United States)

2016-11-16

through support by a prior DOD grant, and in this project, we focused on how to effectively adapt this for the cloud catastrophe environment. The...the effects of varying cloud resources and the cloud architecture on L, o, and g values, we will be able to formulate realistic analytical models of...variation in computing and communication costs of test problems due to varying loads in the cloud environment. We used the parallel matrix multiplication

Validation of Long-Term Global Aerosol Climatology Project Optical Thickness Retrievals Using AERONET and MODIS Data

Science.gov (United States)

Geogdzhayev, Igor V.; Mishchenko, Michael I.

2015-01-01

A comprehensive set of monthly mean aerosol optical thickness (AOT) data from coastal and island AErosol RObotic NETwork (AERONET) stations is used to evaluate Global Aerosol Climatology Project (GACP) retrievals for the period 1995-2009 during which contemporaneous GACP and AERONET data were available. To put the GACP performance in broader perspective, we also compare AERONET and MODerate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Aqua level-2 data for 2003-2009 using the same methodology. We find that a large mismatch in geographic coverage exists between the satellite and ground-based datasets, with very limited AERONET coverage of open-ocean areas. This is especially true of GACP because of the smaller number of AERONET stations at the early stages of the network development. Monthly mean AOTs from the two over-the-ocean satellite datasets are well-correlated with the ground-based values, the correlation coefficients being 0.81-0.85 for GACP and 0.74-0.79 for MODIS. Regression analyses demonstrate that the GACP mean AOTs are approximately 17%-27% lower than the AERONET values on average, while the MODIS mean AOTs are 5%-25% higher. The regression coefficients are highly dependent on the weighting assumptions (e.g., on the measure of aerosol variability) as well as on the set of AERONET stations used for comparison. Comparison of over-the-land and over-the-ocean MODIS monthly mean AOTs in the vicinity of coastal AERONET stations reveals a significant bias. This may indicate that aerosol amounts in coastal locations can differ significantly from those in adjacent open-ocean areas. Furthermore, the color of coastal waters and peculiarities of coastline meteorological conditions may introduce biases in the GACP AOT retrievals. We conclude that the GACP and MODIS over-the-ocean retrieval algorithms show similar ranges of discrepancy when compared to available coastal and island AERONET stations. The factors mentioned above may limit the performance of the

Tower Mesonetwork Climatology and Interactive Display Tool

Science.gov (United States)

Case, Jonathan L.; Bauman, William H., III

2004-01-01

Forecasters at the 45th Weather Squadron and Spaceflight Meteorology Group use data from the tower network over the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) to evaluate Launch Commit Criteria, and issue and verify forecasts for ground operations. Systematic biases in these parameters could adversely affect an analysis, forecast, or verification. Also, substantial geographical variations in temperature and wind speed can occur under specific wind directions. To address these concerns, the Applied Meteorology Unit (AMU) developed a climatology of temperatures and winds from the tower network, and identified the geographical variation and significant tower biases. The mesoclimate is largely driven by the complex land-water interfaces across KSC/CCAFS. Towers with close proximity to water typically had much warmer nocturnal temperatures and higher wind speeds throughout the year. The strongest nocturnal wind speeds occurred from October to March whereas the strongest mean daytime wind speeds occurred from February to May. These results of this project can be viewed by forecasters through an interactive graphical user interface developed by the AMU. The web-based interface includes graphical and map displays of mean, standard deviation, bias, and data availability for any combination of towers, variables, months, hours, and wind directions.

Mobile cloud networking: mobile network, compute, and storage as one service on-demand

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Jamakovic, Almerima; Bohnert, Thomas Michael; Karagiannis, Georgios; Galis, A.; Gavras, A.

2013-01-01

The Future Communication Architecture for Mobile Cloud Services: Mobile Cloud Networking (MCN)1 is a EU FP7 Large scale Integrating Project (IP) funded by the European Commission. MCN project was launched in November 2012 for the period of 36 month. In total top-tier 19 partners from industry and

Relationship between cloud radiative forcing, cloud fraction and cloud albedo, and new surface-based approach for determining cloud albedo

OpenAIRE

Y. Liu; W. Wu; M. P. Jensen; T. Toto

2011-01-01

This paper focuses on three interconnected topics: (1) quantitative relationship between surface shortwave cloud radiative forcing, cloud fraction, and cloud albedo; (2) surfaced-based approach for measuring cloud albedo; (3) multiscale (diurnal, annual and inter-annual) variations and covariations of surface shortwave cloud radiative forcing, cloud fraction, and cloud albedo. An analytical expression is first derived to quantify the relationship between cloud radiative forcing, cloud fractio...

Guidelines for Building a Private Cloud Infrastructure

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Ali Babar, Muhammad; Pantić, Zoran

on open source software. One of the key objectives of this project was to create relevant material for providing a reference guide on the use of open source software for designing and implementing a private cloud. The primary focus on this document is to provide a brief background on different theoretical......, and a view on the different aspects of cloud computing in this document. Defining the cloud computing; analysis of the economical, security, legality, privacy, confidentiality aspects. There is also a short discussion about the potential impact on the employee’s future roles, and the challenges of migrating...... to a private cloud. The management of the instances and the related subjects are out of the scope of this document. This document is accompanied by three supplemental books that contain material from our experiences of scaling out in the virtual environment and cloud implementation in a physical environment...

Large-Scale, Parallel, Multi-Sensor Atmospheric Data Fusion Using Cloud Computing

Science.gov (United States)

Wilson, B. D.; Manipon, G.; Hua, H.; Fetzer, E. J.

2013-12-01

NASA's Earth Observing System (EOS) is an ambitious facility for studying global climate change. The mandate now is to combine measurements from the instruments on the 'A-Train' platforms (AIRS, AMSR-E, MODIS, MISR, MLS, and CloudSat) and other Earth probes to enable large-scale studies of climate change over decades. Moving to multi-sensor, long-duration analyses of important climate variables presents serious challenges for large-scale data mining and fusion. For example, one might want to compare temperature and water vapor retrievals from one instrument (AIRS) to another (MODIS), and to a model (MERRA), stratify the comparisons using a classification of the 'cloud scenes' from CloudSat, and repeat the entire analysis over 10 years of data. To efficiently assemble such datasets, we are utilizing Elastic Computing in the Cloud and parallel map/reduce-based algorithms. However, these problems are Data Intensive computing so the data transfer times and storage costs (for caching) are key issues. SciReduce is a Hadoop-like parallel analysis system, programmed in parallel python, that is designed from the ground up for Earth science. SciReduce executes inside VMWare images and scales to any number of nodes in the Cloud. Unlike Hadoop, SciReduce operates on bundles of named numeric arrays, which can be passed in memory or serialized to disk in netCDF4 or HDF5. Figure 1 shows the architecture of the full computational system, with SciReduce at the core. Multi-year datasets are automatically 'sharded' by time and space across a cluster of nodes so that years of data (millions of files) can be processed in a massively parallel way. Input variables (arrays) are pulled on-demand into the Cloud using OPeNDAP URLs or other subsetting services, thereby minimizing the size of the cached input and intermediate datasets. We are using SciReduce to automate the production of multiple versions of a ten-year A-Train water vapor climatology under a NASA MEASURES grant. We will

Strong Constraints on Aerosol-Cloud Interactions from Volcanic Eruptions

Science.gov (United States)

Malavelle, Florent F.; Haywood, Jim M.; Jones, Andy; Gettelman, Andrew; Clarisse, Lieven; Bauduin, Sophie; Allan, Richard P.; Karset, Inger Helene H.; Kristjansson, Jon Egill; Oreopoulos, Lazaros;

Tourism climatology past and present: A review of the role of the ISB Commission on Climate, Tourism and Recreation.

Science.gov (United States)

de Freitas, C R

2017-09-01

The Executive Board of the International Society of Biometeorology (ISB) founded the Commission on Climate, Tourism and Recreation (CCTR) at the 15th International Congress of Biometeorology in Sydney, Australia in 1999. The aims of the CCTR are to bring together researchers from around the world to critically review the current state of knowledge in tourism and recreation climatology and explore possibilities for future research. Almost two decades on, research in tourism climatology has developed and expanded due in large part to the initiatives and activities of the CCTR and several collaborative research projects run under the auspices of the CCTR. This work is reviewed here. Recent CCTR meeting highlighted the fact that, although climate is an essential part of the resource base for tourism, which is one of the world's biggest and fastest growing industries, relatively little is known about the effects of climate on tourist choices and broad demand patterns or the influence climate has on the commercial prospects and sustainability of tourism operators and destinations. The work here reviews what has been done, its conceptual underpinnings and current research frontiers.

Lidar Point Cloud - USGS National Map 3DEP Downloadable Data Collection

Data.gov (United States)

U.S. Geological Survey, Department of the Interior — This data collection consists of Lidar Point Cloud (LPC) projects as provided to the USGS. These point cloud files contain all the original lidar points collected,...

Some Spatial Aspects of Southeastern United States Climatology.

Science.gov (United States)

Soule, Peter T.

1998-01-01

Focuses on the climatology of an eight-state region in the southern and southeastern United States. Discusses general controls of climate and spatial patterns of various climatic averages. Examines mapped extremes as a means of fostering increased awareness of the variability that exists for climatic conditions in the region. (CMK)

Low cloud investigations for project FIRE: Island studies of cloud properties, surface radiation, and boundary layer dynamics. A simulation of the reflectivity over a stratocumulus cloud deck by the Monte Carlo method. M.S. Thesis Final Report

Science.gov (United States)

Ackerman, Thomas P.; Lin, Ruei-Fong

1993-01-01

The radiation field over a broken stratocumulus cloud deck is simulated by the Monte Carlo method. We conducted four experiments to investigate the main factor for the observed shortwave reflectively over the FIRE flight 2 leg 5, in which reflectivity decreases almost linearly from the cloud center to cloud edge while the cloud top height and the brightness temperature remain almost constant through out the clouds. From our results, the geometry effect, however, did not contribute significantly to what has been observed. We found that the variation of the volume extinction coefficient as a function of its relative position in the cloud affects the reflectivity efficiently. Additional check of the brightness temperature of each experiment also confirms this conclusion. The cloud microphysical data showed some interesting features. We found that the cloud droplet spectrum is nearly log-normal distributed when the clouds were solid. However, whether the shift of cloud droplet spectrum toward the larger end is not certain. The decrease of number density from cloud center to cloud edges seems to have more significant effects on the optical properties.

From enzymes and viruses to clouds, snow, sea-glaciers, and green icebergs: How a protein crystallographer got into glaciology and atmospheric radiation

Science.gov (United States)

Warren, S. G.

2016-12-01

Through a series of lucky breaks beginning five years after my Ph.D., I was able to change careers from molecular biology to earth science, via a postdoc at NCAR in 1978, leading to a job at the University of Washington (UW) in 1982. Steve Schneider, Warren Wiscombe, Julius London, Gary Thomas, and Ed LaChapelle helped me make the transition. At UW, a collaboration with Tom Grenfell got me started in Antarctic fieldwork. Long-term dedicated coworkers Carole Hahn (cloud climatology) and Rich Brandt (radiative and thermal properties of snow and sea ice) kept our funded projects going. Conversations with UW colleagues Bob Charlson on dimethyl sulfide (DMS) and Qiang Fu on the microwave sounding unit (MSU) enticed me into unfunded projects (biological influence on cloud albedo; satellite-derived tropospheric temperatures). Several other key collaborators I first met when they were students at UW: Tony Clarke and Sarah Doherty (black carbon in snow), Bonnie Light (laboratory experiments for Snowball Earth), and Von Walden (longwave radiation spectra). Ian Allison of the Australian Antarctic Division sponsored my first sabbatical, to learn about sea ice. Most of our work, of course, is on projects that are proposed, then funded, then completed (or not completed). But at least as much fun are projects that were completed but not proposed. Some of these were inspired by listening to seminars (particularly by Charlson), or were developed from student term-papers in my snow-and-ice class (Jon Rhodes's report on suncups, and Steve Hudson's on Antarctic bacteria). There is not much cross-cultural connection between my former life and my current life, but there is some, now institutionalized in UW's Astrobiology Program. My enthusiasm for the CLAW project was partly motivated by my background in biology and the knowledge that DMS originates from the amino acid methionine. I was happy to accept oceanic biota as the explanation for the color of green icebergs. And my motivation

Formation of the young compact cluster GM 24 triggered by a cloud-cloud collision

Science.gov (United States)

Fukui, Yasuo; Kohno, Mikito; Yokoyama, Keiko; Nishimura, Atsushi; Torii, Kazufumi; Hattori, Yusuke; Sano, Hidetoshi; Ohama, Akio; Yamamoto, Hiroaki; Tachihara, Kengo

2018-05-01

High-mass star formation is an important step which controls galactic evolution. GM 24 is a heavily obscured star cluster including a single O9 star with more than ˜100 lower-mass stars within a 0.3 pc radius toward (l, b) ˜ (350.5°, 0.96°), close to the Galactic mini-starburst NGC 6334. We found two velocity components associated with the cluster by new observations of 12CO J =2-1 emission, whereas the cloud was previously considered to be single. We found that the distribution of the two components of 5 {km}s-1 separation shows complementary distribution; the two fit well with each other if a relative displacement of 3 pc is applied along the Galactic plane. A position-velocity diagram of the GM 24 cloud is explained by a model based on numerical simulations of two colliding clouds, where an intermediate velocity component created by the collision is taken into account. We estimate the collision time scale to be ˜Myr in projection of a relative motion tilted to the line of sight by 45°. The results lend further support for cloud-cloud collision as an important mechanism of high-mass star formation in the Carina-Sagittarius Arm.

Unidata Cyberinfrastructure in the Cloud

Science.gov (United States)

Ramamurthy, M. K.; Young, J. W.

2016-12-01

, Python scientific libraries, scripts, and workflows; * Exploring end-to-end modeling and prediction capabilities in the cloud; * Partnering with NOAA and public cloud vendors (e.g., Amazon and OCC) on the NOAA Big Data Project to harness their capabilities and resources for the benefit of the academic community.

Tool-based Risk Assessment of Cloud Infrastructures as Socio-Technical Systems

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nidd, Michael; Ivanova, Marieta Georgieva; Probst, Christian W.

2015-01-01

Assessing risk in cloud infrastructures is difficult. Typical cloud infrastructures contain potentially thousands of nodes that are highly interconnected and dynamic. Another important component is the set of human actors who get access to data and computing infrastructure. The cloud infrastructure...... exercise for cloud infrastructures using the socio-technical model developed in the TRESPASS project; after showing how to model typical components of a cloud infrastructure, we show how attacks are identified on this model and discuss their connection to risk assessment. The technical part of the model...... is extracted automatically from the configuration of the cloud infrastructure, which is especially important for systems so dynamic and complex....

Cloud Study Investigators: Using NASA's CERES S'COOL in Problem-Based Learning

Science.gov (United States)

Moore, Susan; Popiolkowski, Gary

2011-01-01

1This article describes how, by incorporating NASA's Students' Cloud Observations On-Line (S'COOL) project into a problem-based learning (PBL) activity, middle school students are engaged in authentic scientific research where they observe and record information about clouds and contribute ground truth data to NASA's Clouds and the Earth's…

Three-dimensional dust aerosol distribution and extinction climatology over northern Africa simulated with the ALADIN numerical prediction model from 2006 to 2010

Science.gov (United States)

Mokhtari, M.; Tulet, P.; Fischer, C.; Bouteloup, Y.; Bouyssel, F.; Brachemi, O.

2015-08-01

The seasonal cycle and optical properties of mineral dust aerosols in northern Africa were simulated for the period from 2006 to 2010 using the numerical atmospheric model ALADIN (Aire Limitée Adaptation dynamique Développement InterNational) coupled to the surface scheme SURFEX (SURFace EXternalisée). The particularity of the simulations is that the major physical processes responsible for dust emission and transport, as well as radiative effects, are taken into account on short timescales and at mesoscale resolution. The aim of these simulations is to quantify the dust emission and deposition, locate the major areas of dust emission and establish a climatology of aerosol optical properties in northern Africa. The mean monthly aerosol optical thickness (AOT) simulated by ALADIN is compared with the AOTs derived from the standard Dark Target (DT) and Deep Blue (DB) algorithms of the Aqua-MODIS (MODerate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) products over northern Africa and with a set of sun photometer measurements located at Banizoumbou, Cinzana, Soroa, Mbour and Cape Verde. The vertical distribution of dust aerosol represented by extinction profiles is also analysed using CALIOP (Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization) observations. The annual dust emission simulated by ALADIN over northern Africa is 878 Tg year-1. The Bodélé Depression appears to be the main area of dust emission in northern Africa, with an average estimate of about 21.6 Tg year-1. The simulated AOTs are in good agreement with satellite and sun photometer observations. The positions of the maxima of the modelled AOTs over northern Africa match the observed positions, and the ALADIN simulations satisfactorily reproduce the various dust events over the 2006-2010 period. The AOT climatology proposed in this paper provides a solid database of optical properties and consolidates the existing climatology over this region derived from satellites, the AERONET network and regional climate

Aerosol retrieval experiments in the ESA Aerosol_cci project

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

T. Holzer-Popp

2013-08-01

Full Text Available Within the ESA Climate Change Initiative (CCI project Aerosol_cci (2010–2013, algorithms for the production of long-term total column aerosol optical depth (AOD datasets from European Earth Observation sensors are developed. Starting with eight existing pre-cursor algorithms three analysis steps are conducted to improve and qualify the algorithms: (1 a series of experiments applied to one month of global data to understand several major sensitivities to assumptions needed due to the ill-posed nature of the underlying inversion problem, (2 a round robin exercise of "best" versions of each of these algorithms (defined using the step 1 outcome applied to four months of global data to identify mature algorithms, and (3 a comprehensive validation exercise applied to one complete year of global data produced by the algorithms selected as mature based on the round robin exercise. The algorithms tested included four using AATSR, three using MERIS and one using PARASOL. This paper summarizes the first step. Three experiments were conducted to assess the potential impact of major assumptions in the various aerosol retrieval algorithms. In the first experiment a common set of four aerosol components was used to provide all algorithms with the same assumptions. The second experiment introduced an aerosol property climatology, derived from a combination of model and sun photometer observations, as a priori information in the retrievals on the occurrence of the common aerosol components. The third experiment assessed the impact of using a common nadir cloud mask for AATSR and MERIS algorithms in order to characterize the sensitivity to remaining cloud contamination in the retrievals against the baseline dataset versions. The impact of the algorithm changes was assessed for one month (September 2008 of data: qualitatively by inspection of monthly mean AOD maps and quantitatively by comparing daily gridded satellite data against daily averaged AERONET sun

Services for domain specific developments in the Cloud

Science.gov (United States)

Schwichtenberg, Horst; Gemuend, André

2015-04-01

We will discuss and demonstrate the possibilities of new Cloud Services where the complete development of code is in the Cloud. We will discuss the possibilities of such services where the complete development cycle from programing to testing is in the cloud. This can be also combined with dedicated research domain specific services and hide the burden of accessing available infrastructures. As an example, we will show a service that is intended to complement the services of the VERCE projects infrastructure, a service that utilizes Cloud resources to offer simplified execution of data pre- and post-processing scripts. It offers users access to the ObsPy seismological toolbox for processing data with the Python programming language, executed on virtual Cloud resources in a secured sandbox. The solution encompasses a frontend with a modern graphical user interface, a messaging infrastructure as well as Python worker nodes for background processing. All components are deployable in the Cloud and have been tested on different environments based on OpenStack and OpenNebula. Deployments on commercial, public Clouds will be tested in the future.

Testing S3 API for OBS, and Federated AAI for HNSciCloud

CERN Document Server

Pintjuk, Daniil

2016-01-01

During my time at CERN join the HNSciCloud PCP project. A Pre-commercial Procurmet tender to develop a cloud platform to support high performance computing and big data capabilities for scientific research.