NOAA’s Modeling, Analysis, Predictions, and Projections (MAPP) program has competitively chosen nine new one-year projects involving $545,427 in grants and $82,000 in other awards (for a total of $627,427) to evaluate and develop new applications for the North American Multi-Model Ensemble System (NMME), a state-of-the-art multi-model seasonal prediction system currently in the process of transitioning to National Weather Service operations. As partners with MAPP, the Navy Office of Naval Research funded two additional projects and DOE funded one addition project from this competition (not included in the award totals above).
New research projects to improve predictive capabilities for climate extremes and other high impact climate variability using multi-model ensembles were selected by a grant competition. Research indicates that multi-model systems in general exhibit superior prediction skill to that of any single-model system. The NMME system research effort has been led by the MAPP Program as part of NOAA’s Climate Test Bed activities and is supported by a partnership of USGCRP agencies, including DOE, NSF, and NASA.
The new NMME projects will make use of more than three years of real-time predictions and thirty years of hindcasts available from the NMME Phase 1 system, as well as data from an upgraded NMME Phase 2 system. Aside from including an upgraded set of models, the NMME Phase 2 system includes data at higher temporal resolution (daily and 6 hourly for selected variables) compared to the monthly NMME Phase 1 system data.
The new research projects aim to exploit the full potential of the NMME Phase 2 system and to understand ways to further develop our nation’s seasonal prediction capabilities. The selected MAPP research projects, complemented by three additional awards by DOE and ONR, will lead to better understanding of the capabilities of the NMME system and how to make full use of the system for decision makers and other end users. These competitively funded projects will complement internal investments towards NMME efforts at NOAA’s labs and centers of excellence across the U.S.
The nine new competitively selected projects to be funded by the MAPP Program starting 2015 are:
“Evaluating Sudden Stratospheric Warmings and NAM Predictability in the NMME Phase-2 System,” PI: Jason Furtado (Atmospheric and Environmental Research); co-PI: Dan Collins (NOAA CPC)
“Prediction of Atmospheric Rivers in NMME,” PI: Hyemi Kim (Stony Brook University)
“Forecasting risk of seasonal temperature extremes with the North American Multi-Model Ensemble,” PI: Nir Krakauer (City University of New York, City College)
“Sub-Seasonal to Seasonal Predictability of Weather Statistics Using NMME,” PI: Simon Mason (IRI, Columbia University)
“Identifying and Assessing Gaps in Subseasonal to Seasonal Prediction Skill,” PI: Kathy Pegion (COLA/George Mason University)
“Application of the NMME for the Intraseasonal Prediction of Tropical Cyclones over the Atlantic and North Pacific Basins,” PI: Jae-Kyung Schemm (NOAA CPC)
“NMME Precipitation and Temperature Forecasts for the Continental United States and Europe: Diagnostic Evaluation and Development of Multi Model Applications,” PI: Gabriele Villarini (University of Iowa)
“Towards Week-2 to Week-4 Excessive Heat Outlooks: Evaluation of the Forecast Skill of the North American Multi-Model Ensemble System,” PI: Augustin Vintzileos (University of Maryland, ESSIC); co-PI: Jon Gottschalck (NOAA CPC)
“Assessing Phase 2 NMME (NMME-2) Forecasts for Improved Seasonal Predictions of Drought and Water Management,” PI: Eric Wood (Princeton University)
The projects selected for funding by the Navy Office of Naval Research are:
“Evaluation of Intra-seasonal Variability of Indian Monsoon in NMME,” PI: Jim Kinter (George Mason University, Center for Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Studies)
“Assessment of Relative Model Skill at Regional Scales in the NMME,” PI: Benjamin Cash (George Mason University, Center for Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Studies)
The project chosen for funding by the DOE is:
“Subseasonal to Seasonal Prediction of Extratropical Storm Track Activity over the U.S. using NMME Data,” PI: Edmund Chang (Stony Brook University)
MAPP is a program in the Climate Program Office, within NOAA’s Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, that supports research to advance climate modeling technologies to improve simulation and understanding of climate variability, and predictions and projections of the climate system. To learn more about MAPP’s funding opportunities, visit: http://cpo.noaa.gov/ClimatePrograms/ModelingAnalysisPredictionsandProjections/FundingOpportunitiesFundedProjects.aspx.
For a full list of CPO’s grants and awards for 2015, visit: http://cpo.noaa.gov/AboutCPO/AllNews/TabId/315/artmid/668/articleid/363879/CPO-Announces-FY15-Awards.aspx
NOAA’s Climate Program Office helps improve understanding of climate variability and change in order to enhance society’s ability to plan and respond. NOAA provides science, data, and information that Americans want and need to understand how climate conditions are changing. Without NOAA’s long-term climate observing, monitoring, research, and modeling capabilities we couldn’t quantify where and how climate conditions have changed, nor could we predict where and how they’re likely to change.