Agenda

Marriott Greenbelt
6400 Ivy Lane
Greenbelt, MD 20770
September 28-30, 2005
 

Development of Improved Observations Workshop

Organizers: Siegfried Schubert, John Bates, Dick Dee, Sakari Uppala, Jack Woolen, Steven

                    Worley

Sponsors: NASA, NOAA, NSF

The overall goal of the workshop is to develop a strategy for minimizing the impact of observing system changes in future reanalyses.  Specific issues to be addressed in the workshop include the identification and correction of observational bias, improved quality control, the merging of various data sets, data mining, as well as developing and testing adaptive bias-correction techniques that adjust to an ever-changing observing system.  The anticipated key outcomes of the workshop are 1) a report detailing the current world-wide inventory of data suitable for reanalysis, and 2) prioritized lists of observational needs, research priorities, and collaborative projects that will accelerate progress on improving observational data sets for future climate reanalyses.

Wednesday, September 28
 
8:20 am:  Siegfried Schubert - Introduction and Overview
(File Name: Introduction_Schubert 9-28)
 
8:30 am:  Kevin Trenberth - "WCRP perspective on reanalysis and reporcessing"
(File Name: Kevin_Trenberth 9-28)
 
8:50 am:  Sakari Uppala - "ECMWF experience and the role of observations in future reanalyses"
(File Name: Sakari_Uppala 9-28)
 
9:10 am:  Kazutoshi Onogi - "JRA-25: progress and observations overview"
(File Name: Kazutoshi_Onogi 9-28)
 
9:30 am:  Jack Woollen "NCEP experience and data holdings for reanalysis"
(File Name: jack_woollen)
 
9:50 am:  break
 
10:20 am:  Joey Comeaux - "Reanalysis Efforts at NCAR - Past, Present and Future"
(File Name: Joey_Comeaux 9-28)
 
10:40 am:  John Bates - "The status of historical satellite radiance archive" (including VTPR, TOVS, SSMI, ATOVS, SSU, AMSU, Geostationary) and methods for satellite to satellite calibration"
(File Name: John_Bates 9-28)
11:00 am:  Fuzhong Weng "Community radiative transfer model developed for satellite data assimilation"
(File Name: Fuzhong_Weng_part1 9-28)
(File Name: Fuzhong_Weng_part2 9-28)
 
11:20 am:  Russ Vose - "The status of historical upper air data and conventional land surface observations"
(File Name: Russ_Vose 9-28)
 
11:40 am:  Tom Smith - "Prospects for improving SST/ ICE analyses"
(File Name: Tom_Smith_part1 9-28)
(File Name: Tom_Smith_part2 9-28)
 
12:00 pm:  Dick Dee "Adaptive bias correction techniques"
(File Name: Dick_Dee 9-28)
 
12:20 pm:  lunch
 
1:20 pm:  Siegfried Schubert - Charge to working groups, review/revise agenda if needed Begin breakout sessions (divide into three working groups - see below)
 
Thursday, September 29 (8:30-5:30pm), break 10:00am, lunch noon, break 3:00pm)
 
8:30 am:  begin meeting in plenary session
-talk by Tsengdar Lee (NASA hdqtrs)
-discussion of any cross-cutting issues
    e.g., creating merged super collections for reanalysis input
      a.  A/QC, bias adjustment considerations
      b.  Duplicate elimination choosing the best observation?
      c.  Creating a process in which data collection improvements can be easily be made available for the next reanalysis
-coordinate/synchronize/reshape groups as needed
- continue breakout sessions
 
Thursday, September 30 (8:30-noon), break 10:00am
 
Working group chairs present reports in plenary session, propose collaborative projects
 
Working Groups
1) Group 1 (Past, present, and future observed data resources)
    Sakari Uppala and Steve Worley (co-chairs)
 
    -Recap of data used in NN, NDOE, ERA40, and JRA
    -Inventories
        -What exists now
        -Data refresh cycle (collections, merge, reanalysis preparation,
         feedback based improvements, collection improvement)
        -Recommendations to gain advantage from data refresh cycle
    -Current status by data type (SST, ice, snow, surface stations, marine surface and
     subsurface, upper air, satellite, land surface, precipitation, others).
     Consider both input data and validation data. For each data type need to consider:
        -Data gaps
        -Data needs
        -Metadata (station libraries, tracking records, etc)
        -Untapped data resources (new, and improved collections)
        -Recommendations for prioritizing data for preparation
        -Agreements on collaborations focused on data preparation
 
2) Group 2 (Data quality)
    John Bates and Dick Dee (co-chairs)
 
        -Metadata, station libraries
        -What is known?
        -How can we correct problems (bias correction techniques)?
        -Sat to sat consistency/calibration, internal tuning in system
        -How do we learn from one reanalysis to the next?
        -Feedback metadata as a tool to improve observations
        -Traceable identification on records (e.g. data and library version, source ID's)
        -Update on NOAA historical satellite archive (CLASS) John
 
3) Group 3 (Archiving, formatting, and merging historical sources)
    Jack Woollen and Russ Vose (co-chairs)
 
        -Issues surrounding the compilation and distribution of consolidated archives.
        -What are the options for archiving observations, especially in perpetuity?
        -FGGE year level 2-b data was stored in ASCII characters---Is BUFR better?
        -Can/should a standard format for historical observation sets be adopted?
        -How can format conversions be minimized within/across research projects?
        -What feedback information, and other meta-data can/should be archived?
        -How do research results (i.e. bias corrections) feed back into archives?
        -To what degree can/should overlapping observations be merged for reanalysis.?
 
Possible collaborative Projects
 
        -assess relative biases among different components of the observing system
         (e.g., using sequential bias estimation techniques)
        -assess inter-satellite biases: instantanteous and transitional
        -investigate effect of adaptive radiance bias correction on representation of known
         climate signals in assimilation
        -satellite data recalibration projects
        -studies to remove breaks from conventional data types, esp. surface data
         (e.g., Haimberger 2005)
        -develop various subsets of homogenized observations for reanalysis
          experimentation with reanalysis systems
 
Deliverables
 
        1) Inventory of current data holdings
        2) Recommendations on observational needs for reanalysis
            a. Atmosphere, land, ocean
            b. QC, calibration, bias correction techniques, etc
            c. Prioritize observations including non-traditional data types
        3) Recommendations for creating merged super collections for reanalysis input
            a. how to leverage QC/QA systems pre-reanalysis. Iterative process between
                data merge/analysis groups and data source providers?
            b. Recommendations for recording tracking; handling duplicates. Lessons learned and   
                 strategies.
            c. Should it be centralized?
        4) Recommendations for collaborative projects
            a. Work with DAS and data centers to improve climate reanalyses