Science and Technology Seminar

A Versatile Nowcast-Prediction System

for Military-Defense-Aviation Applications

Dave Stauffer

Penn State University

A versatile nowcast-prediction system has been developed at Penn State University. It can produce nowcasts from mobile, on-site computing platforms located in the back of HMMWVs. The nowcast-prediction system can provide on-the-battlefield support to local Army field artillery operations or drop down rapidly relocatable domains for forecasts anywhere in the world. This is made possible through a centralized Department of Defense (DoD) / Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) computing facility which is responsible for hazard prediction and consequence assessment. The system includes data pre-processing to drive a full-physics non-hydrostatic mesoscale model with continuous data assimilation and optional on-the-fly bias reduction and diagnostic-variable post-processing. Running on modest single-node or multi-node computers or large massively parallel computing platforms, it is a fully automated system with varying degrees of user control. Descriptions and sample outputs of systems that we have built for the U. S. Army, Marines and DoD/ DTRA are presented as background for discussion of how this type of system may be tailored for aviation and airport use.

Thursday,

May 08, 2008

10:00 - 11:00 a.m., E.T.

SSMC#2, Room 2358

(Contact: Bob Glahn at (301) 713-1768)