Aerospace Corporation Team Helps Improve Weather Forecasting for Yugoslavia Operations

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. (5/16/99) -- An Aerospace team has been instrumental in developing greatly enhanced weather forecasting capabilities to aid military operations in Yugoslavia.

A prototype prediction system that uses "fine mode," or high-resolution, data from Defense Meteorological Satellite Program spacecraft is the product of their effort, undertaken with the Air Force Weather Agency at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska. It is undergoing operational testing in the Adriatic area.

The system is designed to give military planners a much sharper picture of the weather. It represents an advance achieved within three weeks from 50- to100-kilometer (31- to 62-mile) resolution of cloud forecasts to 6-km (3.7-mile) resolution.

This means that instead of a single image of weather over an area such as Kosovo, several images of township-size sectors within the area are available. This gives military planners more flexibility to plan operations.

The advance was achieved by greatly accelerating a program to upgrade cloud analysis capabilities, which are the key to weather forecasting, and to enhance the capabilities of an Air Force weather model which incorporates the cloud analysis. The accelerated effort was initiated at the request of Air Force Brig. Gen. Fred P. Lewis, director of weather, Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Air and Space Operations.

The product developed by the Aerospace team is a prototype component of DMSP's Cloud Depiction and Forecast System II. Michael P. Plonski, Ph.D., senior project engineer in the DMSP Directorate, Weather and Navigation Division, designed the prototype, which processes satellite data and performs automated cloud analysis.

Plonski, who works in The Aerospace Corporation's El Segundo office, and Bruce H. Thomas and Brent L. Shaw, atmospheric scientists in the corporation's lab at the Weather Agency, implemented the design. Its central feature is new software which makes a contractor-developed algorithm significantly more efficient. As a result, it can accept up to 25 times more data from the four DMSP satellites than was previously possible.

This improvement yields much sharper characterizations of the types, numbers and layers of clouds present. The characterizations are incorporated into forecast models that have been modified to run at higher resolution by Air Force weather personnel.

The models incorporate, in addition to the cloud data, meteorological data on other determinants such as wind. Forecasts up to 30 hours are provided every six hours in formats like those seen on television weather programs.

Plonski said that the team has "been requested to stand up the same capabilities for the high-resolution mode of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration TIROS satellite in under 60 days via a combat need statement."