The United States Cooperative Climate-Observing Systems: Reflections and Recommendations

One of the most significant impediments to progress in forecasting weather over North America is the relative paucity of routine observations over data-sparse regions adjacent to the United States. Prospectus Development Team Seven was convened to consider ways to promote research that seeks to determine implementations of observing systems that are optimal for weather prediction in the United States. An “optimal” measurement system is considered to be one that maximizes the ratio of societal benefit to overall cost. The thrust of the conclusions is that existing means of estimating the value of current observing systems and the potential benefits of new or proposed observing systems are underutilized. At the same time, no rational way exists for comparing the cost of observations across the spectrum of federal agencies responsible for measuring the atmosphere and ocean. The authors suggest that a rational procedure for configuring an observation system that is optimal for weather prediction would consist of the following steps.Identify specific forecast problems arising from insufficient data. Examples might include hurricane landfall and intensity forecasts, 24-h forecasts of intense extratropical cyclones affecting the West Coast and Alaska, and medium-range forecasts of severe weather for all of North America.Use contemporary modeling techniques, such as observing system simulation experiments, ensemble forecasting, and model adjoint-derived sensitivities, to delineate measurement requirements for each specific forecasting problem and identify candidate observing systems and data assimilation techniques that could be brought to bear on each problem.Estimate the incremental forecast improvements that could plausibly result from the added or reconfigured data and the societal benefits that would accrue from such improvements.Estimate the overall cost (to the nation, not to specific federal agencies) of obtaining the data by the various candidate techniques and the benefits that are projected to result.Use standard cost–benefit analysis as a basis for deciding the optimal deployment of measuring systems. The authors believe that a rational approach to atmospheric measurement is critical to further improvements in weather prediction and that such improvements might very well be made within the current budget of routine observations, integrated across all of the responsible federal agencies. This document outlines a proposed strategy for rationalizing atmosphere observations in aid of weather prediction in the United States. The paper begins with a summary of recommendations.

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The Impacts of Automation on Present Weather–Type Observing Capabilities across the Conterminous United States

Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology ◽

10.1175/jamc-d-19-0170.1 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 58 (12) ◽

pp. 2699-2715 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Scott D. Landolt ◽

Joshua S. Lave ◽

Darcy Jacobson ◽

Andrew Gaydos ◽

Stephanie DiVito ◽

...

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Federal Aviation Administration ◽

The United States ◽

Weather Type ◽

High Quality ◽

Weather Observations ◽

Negative Impacts ◽

The Impact ◽

Erroneous Data ◽

Observing Systems

AbstractIn the 1990s, the National Weather Service and the Federal Aviation Administration began deploying the Automated Surface Observing Systems (ASOS). These systems provided the capability to report real-time weather observations, including some types of present weather, as frequently as once every minute. Over 900 of these ASOS stations were installed across the United States, replacing most of the human observers. Despite the benefits offered, many issues were noted, including the inability to discern and report certain precipitation types, particularly drizzle, freezing drizzle, and ice pellets. These and other issues resulted in human observers being retained at roughly 130 ASOS airport locations around the country where high-quality weather observations are essential because of air traffic volume or other factors. The human observers at these locations work in conjunction with the ASOS, manually augmenting the automated weather observations when the ASOS provides erroneous data or when an ASOS observation is missing. To assess the impact of automation on present weather observations, the differences in present weather reports for two decades will be highlighted: 1979–88 (when only human observers reported the present weather observations) and 2005–14 (after the full ASOS network became operational). Comparisons between the decades will be further analyzed to determine the differences at the ASOS locations at which human observers were retained in the later decade, as well as the ASOS locations at which no humans were retained. Both the positive and negative impacts of automation, with an emphasis on aviation impacts, are presented.

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Changes in Cloud-Ceiling Heights and Frequencies over the United States since the Early 1950s

Journal of Climate ◽

10.1175/jcli4213.1 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 20 (15) ◽

pp. 3956-3970 ◽

Cited By ~ 14

Author(s):

Bomin Sun ◽

Thomas R. Karl ◽

Dian J. Seidel

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

The United States ◽

Precipitation Frequency ◽

Surface Warming ◽

Reporting Practices ◽

The Past ◽

Ceiling Height ◽

Weather Stations ◽

The Military ◽

Observing Systems

Abstract U.S. weather stations operated by NOAA’s National Weather Service (NWS) have undergone significant changes in reporting and measuring cloud ceilings. Stations operated by the Department of Defense have maintained more consistent reporting practices. By comparing cloud-ceiling data from 223 NWS first-order stations with those from 117 military stations, and by further comparison with changes in physically related parameters, inhomogeneous records, including all NWS records based only on automated observing systems and the military records prior to the early 1960s, were identified and discarded. Data from the two networks were then used to determine changes in daytime ceiling height (the above-ground height of the lowest sky-cover layer that is more than half opaque) and ceiling occurrence frequency (percentage of total observations that have ceilings) over the contiguous United States since the 1950s. Cloud-ceiling height in the surface–3.6-km layer generally increased during 1951–2003, with more significant changes in the period after the early 1970s and in the surface–2-km layer. These increases were mostly over the western United States and in the coastal regions. No significant change was found in surface–3.6-km ceiling occurrence during 1951–2003, but during the period since the early 1970s, there is a tendency for a decrease in frequency of ceilings with height below 3.6 km. Cloud-ceiling heights above 3.6 km have shown no significant changes in the past 30 yr, but there has been an increase in frequency, consistent with the increase in ceiling height below 3.6 km. For the surface–3.6-km layer, physically consistent changes were identified as related to changes in ceiling height and frequency of occurrence. This included reductions in precipitation frequency related to low ceiling frequency, and surface warming and decreasing relative humidity accompanying increasing ceiling heights during the past 30 yr.

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Party Strength in the United States: Some Corrections

The Journal of Politics ◽

10.1017/s0022381600041591 ◽

1975 ◽

Vol 37 (2) ◽

pp. 641-642 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Paul T. David

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

The United States ◽

Party Strength

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Correlative microscopy in distrubuted (client/server) computing environments: tools for catalyzing the rapid dissemination of information about the cell biology of the human prostate

Proceedings, annual meeting, Electron Microscopy Society of America ◽

10.1017/s0424820100139780 ◽

1995 ◽

Vol 53 ◽

pp. 682-683

Author(s):

A. Hakam ◽

J.T. Gau ◽

M.L. Grove ◽

B.A. Evans ◽

M. Shuman ◽

...

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Cell Biology ◽

Tissue Bank ◽

The United States ◽

Prostate Adenocarcinoma ◽

Correlative Microscopy ◽

Client Server ◽

Critical Elements ◽

Transplant Organ

Prostate adenocarcinoma is the most common malignant tumor of men in the United States and is the third leading cause of death in men. Despite attempts at early detection, there will be 244,000 new cases and 44,000 deaths from the disease in the United States in 1995. Therapeutic progress against this disease is hindered by an incomplete understanding of prostate epithelial cell biology, the availability of human tissues for in vitro experimentation, slow dissemination of information between prostate cancer research teams and the increasing pressure to “ stretch” research dollars at the same time staff reductions are occurring.To meet these challenges, we have used the correlative microscopy (CM) and client/server (C/S) computing to increase productivity while decreasing costs. Critical elements of our program are as follows:1) Establishing the Western Pennsylvania Genitourinary (GU) Tissue Bank which includes >100 prostates from patients with prostate adenocarcinoma as well as >20 normal prostates from transplant organ donors.

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Digital image acquisition, processing, and analysis in a polymer microscopy laboratory

Proceedings, annual meeting, Electron Microscopy Society of America ◽

10.1017/s0424820100170001 ◽

1994 ◽

Vol 52 ◽

pp. 454-455

Author(s):

Vinod K. Berry ◽

Xiao Zhang

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Image Analysis ◽

Digital Image ◽

Image Acquisition ◽

Image Transmission ◽

The United States ◽

Quantitative Image Analysis ◽

Quantitative Image

In recent years it became apparent that we needed to improve productivity and efficiency in the Microscopy Laboratories in GE Plastics. It was realized that digital image acquisition, archiving, processing, analysis, and transmission over a network would be the best way to achieve this goal. Also, the capabilities of quantitative image analysis, image transmission etc. available with this approach would help us to increase our efficiency. Although the advantages of digital image acquisition, processing, archiving, etc. have been described and are being practiced in many SEM, laboratories, they have not been generally applied in microscopy laboratories (TEM, Optical, SEM and others) and impact on increased productivity has not been yet exploited as well.In order to attain our objective we have acquired a SEMICAPS imaging workstation for each of the GE Plastic sites in the United States. We have integrated the workstation with the microscopes and their peripherals as shown in Figure 1.

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Silence of the Land: On the Historical Irrelevance of Territory to Congressional Districting and Political Representation in the United States

Studies in American Political Development ◽

10.1017/s0898588x01010045 ◽

2001 ◽

Vol 15 (01) ◽

pp. 53-87 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Andrew Rehfeld

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

House Of Representatives ◽

Political Representation ◽

The United States ◽

Representative Government ◽

Congressional District ◽

Congressional Districts ◽

Communities Of Interest

Every ten years, the United States “constructs” itself politically. On a decennial basis, U.S. Congressional districts are quite literally drawn, physically constructing political representation in the House of Representatives on the basis of where one lives. Why does the United States do it this way? What justifies domicile as the sole criteria of constituency construction? These are the questions raised in this article. Contrary to many contemporary understandings of representation at the founding, I argue that there were no principled reasons for using domicile as the method of organizing for political representation. Even in 1787, the Congressional district was expected to be far too large to map onto existing communities of interest. Instead, territory should be understood as forming a habit of mind for the founders, even while it was necessary to achieve other democratic aims of representative government.

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