scholarly journals The EUMETSAT Polar System - 13+ Successful Years of Global Observations for Operational Weather Prediction and Climate Monitoring

Author(s):  
K. Dieter Klaes ◽  
Jörg Ackermann ◽  
Craig Anderson ◽  
Yago Andres ◽  
Thomas August ◽  
...  

AbstractAfter successful launch in November 2018 and successful commissioning of Metop-C, all three satellites of the EUMETSAT Polar System (EPS) are in orbit together and operational. EPS is part of the Initial Joint Polar System (IJPS) with the US (NOAA) and provides the service in the mid-morning orbit. The Metop satellites carry a mission payload of sounding and imaging instruments, which allow provision of support to operational meteorology and climate monitoring which are the main mission objectives for EPS. Applications include Numerical Weather Prediction, atmospheric composition monitoring, and marine meteorology. Climate monitoring is supported through the generation of long time series through the program duration of 20+ years. The payload was developed and contributed by partners, including NOAA, CNES, and ESA. EUMETSAT and ESA developed the space segment in cooperation. The system has proven its value since the first satellite Metop-A, with enhanced products at high reliability for atmospheric sounding, delivered a very strong positive impact on NWP and results beyond expectations for atmospheric composition and chemistry applications. Having multiple satellites in orbit - now three, has enabled enhanced and additional products with increased impact, like atmospheric motion vector products at latitudes not accessible to geostationary observations or increased probability of radio-occultations and hence atmospheric soundings with the GRAS instruments. The paper gives an overview on the system, the embarked payload and discusses the benefits of generated products for applications and services. The conclusions point to the follow-on system, currently under development and assuring continuity for another 20+ years.

2015 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 717-723 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathaniel Hupert ◽  
Karen Biala ◽  
Tara Holland ◽  
Avi Baehr ◽  
Aisha Hasan ◽  
...  

AbstractThe US health care system has maintained an objective of preparedness for natural or manmade catastrophic events as part of its larger charge to deliver health services for the American population. In 2002, support for hospital-based preparedness activities was bolstered by the creation of the National Bioterrorism Hospital Preparedness Program, now called the Hospital Preparedness Program, in the US Department of Health and Human Services. Since 2012, this program has promoted linking health care facilities into health care coalitions that build key preparedness and emergency response capabilities. Recognizing that well-functioning health care coalitions can have a positive impact on the health outcomes of the populations they serve, this article informs efforts to optimize health care coalition activity. We first review the landscape of health care coalitions in the United States. Then, using principles from supply chain management and high-reliability organization theory, we present 2 frameworks extending beyond the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response’s current guidance in a way that may help health care coalition leaders gain conceptual insight into how different enterprises achieve similar ends relevant to emergency response. We conclude with a proposed research agenda to advance understanding of how coalitions can contribute to the day-to-day functioning of health care systems and disaster preparedness. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness.2015;9:717–723)


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (10) ◽  
pp. 101
Author(s):  
Emad Wakaa Ajil

Iraq is one of the most Arab countries where the system of government has undergone major political transformations and violent events since the emergence of the modern Iraqi state in 1921 and up to the present. It began with the monarchy and the transformation of the regime into the republican system in 1958. In the republican system, Continued until 2003, and after the US occupation of Iraq in 2003, the regime changed from presidential to parliamentary system, and the parliamentary experience is a modern experience for Iraq, as he lived for a long time without parliamentary experience, what existed before 2003, can not be a parliamentary experience , The experience righteousness The study of the parliamentary system in particular and the political process in general has not been easy, because it is a complex and complex process that concerns the political system and its internal and external environment, both of which are influential in the political system and thus on the political process as a whole, After the US occupation of Iraq, the United States intervened to establish a permanent constitution for the country. Despite all the circumstances accompanying the drafting of the constitution, it is the first constitution to be drafted by an elected Constituent Assembly. The Iraqi Constitution adopted the parliamentary system of government and approved the principle of flexible separation of powers in order to achieve cooperation and balance between the authorities.


Author(s):  
Magnus Lindskog ◽  
Adam Dybbroe ◽  
Roger Randriamampianina

AbstractMetCoOp is a Nordic collaboration on operational Numerical Weather Prediction based on a common limited-area km-scale ensemble system. The initial states are produced using a 3-dimensional variational data assimilation scheme utilizing a large amount of observations from conventional in-situ measurements, weather radars, global navigation satellite system, advanced scatterometer data and satellite radiances from various satellite platforms. A version of the forecasting system which is aimed for future operations has been prepared for an enhanced assimilation of microwave radiances. This enhanced data assimilation system will use radiances from the Microwave Humidity Sounder, the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit-A and the Micro-Wave Humidity Sounder-2 instruments on-board the Metop-C and Fengyun-3 C/D polar orbiting satellites. The implementation process includes channel selection, set-up of an adaptive bias correction procedure, and careful monitoring of data usage and quality control of observations. The benefit of the additional microwave observations in terms of data coverage and impact on analyses, as derived using the degree of freedom of signal approach, is demonstrated. A positive impact on forecast quality is shown, and the effect on the precipitation for a case study is examined. Finally, the role of enhanced data assimilation techniques and adaptions towards nowcasting are discussed.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (15) ◽  
pp. 2979
Author(s):  
Yu-Chun Chen ◽  
Chih-Chien Tsai ◽  
Yi-Chao Wu ◽  
An-Hsiang Wang ◽  
Chieh-Ju Wang ◽  
...  

Operational monsoon moisture surveillance and severe weather prediction is essential for timely water resource management and disaster risk reduction. For these purposes, this study suggests a moisture indicator using the COSMIC-2/FORMOSAT-7 radio occultation (RO) observations and evaluates numerical model experiments with RO data assimilation. The RO data quality is validated by a comparison between sampled RO profiles and nearby radiosonde profiles around Taiwan prior to the experiments. The suggested moisture indicator accurately monitors daily moisture variations in the South China Sea and the Bay of Bengal throughout the 2020 monsoon rainy season. For the numerical model experiments, the statistics of 152 moisture and rainfall forecasts for the 2020 Meiyu season in Taiwan show a neutral to slightly positive impact brought by RO data assimilation. A forecast sample with the most significant improvement reveals that both thermodynamic and dynamic fields are appropriately adjusted by model integration posterior to data assimilation. The statistics of 17 track forecasts for typhoon Hagupit (2020) also show the positive effect of RO data assimilation. A forecast sample reveals that the member with RO data assimilation simulates better typhoon structure and intensity than the member without, and the effect can be larger and faster via multi-cycle RO data assimilation.


2017 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 171-184 ◽  
Author(s):  
Masoud Moghaddam ◽  
Jie Duan

The US trade deficit with China has existed for a long time, and its dollar value has been on the rise recently. It is widely believed that the main culprit is the manipulated value of Renminbi relative to the US dollar. Towards that end, this article re-examines the spot exchange rate and bilateral trade nexus using the Fourier approximation and a variant of the well-known gravity model during the sample period 1993: q1–2014: q1. Although China’s exports to the US Granger cause the exchange rate in a co-integrated space, the findings of a vector error correction model indicate that there is not a strong relation between the two. Indeed, within the aforementioned sample, only 15.52 per cent of changes in China’s exports to the USA are attributable to changes in the spot exchange rate. This is noticeably much smaller than impacts of the other variables utilized in the estimated gravity model. As such, the palpable trade imbalance between the USA and China cannot be single-handedly blamed on the spot exchange rate manipulations.


2007 ◽  
pp. 88
Author(s):  
Wataru Suzuki ◽  
Yanfei Zhou

This article represents the first step in filling a large gap in knowledge concerning why Public Assistance (PA) use recently rose so fast in Japan. Specifically, we try to address this problem not only by performing a Blanchard and Quah decomposition on long-term monthly time series data (1960:04-2006:10), but also by estimating prefecturelevel longitudinal data. Two interesting findings emerge from the time series analysis. The first is that permanent shock imposes a continuously positive impact on the PA rate and is the main driving factor behind the recent increase in welfare use. The second finding is that the impact of temporary shock will last for a long time. The rate of the use of welfare is quite rigid because even if the PA rate rises due to temporary shocks, it takes about 8 or 9 years for it to regain its normal level. On the other hand, estimations of prefecture-level longitudinal data indicate that the Financial Capability Index (FCI) of the local government2 and minimum wage both impose negative effects on the PA rate. We also find that the rapid aging of Japan's population presents a permanent shock in practice, which makes it the most prominent contribution to surging welfare use.


2020 ◽  
Vol 72 (12) ◽  
pp. 34-37
Author(s):  
Demetra V. Collia ◽  
Roland L. Moreau

Introduction In the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the oil and gas industry, regulators, and other stakeholders recognized the need for increased collaboration and data sharing to augment their ability to better identify safety risks and address them before an accident occurs. The SafeOCS program is one such collaboration between industry and government. It is a voluntary confidential reporting program that collects and analyzes data to advance safety in oil and gas operations on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). The US Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) established the program with input from industry and then entered into an agreement with the US Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) to develop, implement, and operate the program. As a principal statistical agency, BTS has considerable data-collection-and-analysis expertise with near-miss reporting systems for other industries and the statutory authority to protect the confidentiality of the reported information and the reporter’s identify. Source data submitted to BTS are not subject to subpoena, legal discovery, or Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Solving for the Gap Across industries, companies have long realized the benefits of collecting and analyzing data around safety and environmental events to identify risks and take actions to prevent reoccurrence. These activities are aided by industry associations that collect and share event information and develop recommended practices to improve performance. In high-reliability industries such as aviation and nuclear, it is common practice to report and share events among companies and for the regulators to identify hidden trends and create or update existing recommended practices, regulations, or other controls. The challenge for the offshore oil and gas industry is that industry associations and the regulator are typically limited to collecting data on agency-reportable incidents. With this limitation, other high-learning-value events or observed conditions could go unnoticed as a trend until a major event occurs. This lack of timely data represented an opportunity for the industry and the offshore regulator (BSEE) to collaborate on a means of gathering safety-event data that would allow for analysis and identification of trends, thereby enabling appropriate interventions to prevent major incidents and foster continuous improvement. The SafeOCS Industry Safety Data (ISD) program provides an effective process for capturing these trends by looking across a wider spectrum of events, including those with no consequences.


2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joy Brooke Fairfield ◽  
Krista Knight ◽  
Barry Brinegar

In the first autumn of the COVID-19 pandemic, long-time theatre collaborators in two different cities in the US South discuss the future of an art form that has currently gone dark. Influenced by punk culture, twenty-first-century internet aesthetics, social justice movements and their pets, this decade-strong creative team reflects in a multimedia format on their past work and enumerates their priorities for the future of musical theatre: cheap, remote, inexperienced, local, radical and full of women and sexual/gender minorities.


2016 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 551-560
Author(s):  
ERIC PULLIN

Secrecy has unintended consequences. The release on 9 December 2014 of the US Senate Intelligence Committee's report on the torture of terrorism detainees focused public attention on the secret activities of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Regrettably, lost amidst debate over justifying or condemning state-sponsored torture is a more basic concern, the issue of state secrecy, which underlies the discussion of how governments promote national ends. Only two days after the issuance of the Senate Intelligence Committee's report, the US House of Representatives adjourned without taking action on the Freedom of Information Act reform bill – despite receiving unanimous approval in both houses. This bill would not have required complete openness, but it would have eliminated many of the arbitrary mechanisms that enable the CIA and other governmental agencies to suppress requests for information. Although the House Republican leadership failed to put the act on the legislative calendar, the Obama administration's Department of Justice also deserves opprobrium for surreptitiously opposing the act behind the scenes. The US government's disregard for establishing reasonable rules of transparency virtually guarantees that the CIA will continue to suppress its records, and thus public scrutiny of its unchecked activities, for a very long time to come.


2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 ◽  
pp. 1-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tien Du Duc ◽  
Lars Robert Hole ◽  
Duc Tran Anh ◽  
Cuong Hoang Duc ◽  
Thuy Nguyen Ba

The national numerical weather prediction system of Vietnam is presented and evaluated. The system is based on three main models, namely, the Japanese Global Spectral Model, the US Global Forecast System, and the US Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. The global forecast products have been received at 0.25- and 0.5-degree horizontal resolution, respectively, and the WRF model has been run locally with 16 km horizontal resolution at the National Center for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting using lateral conditions from GSM and GFS. The model performance is evaluated by comparing model output against observations of precipitation, wind speed, and temperature at 168 weather stations, with daily data from 2010 to 2014. In general, the global models provide more accurate forecasts than the regional models, probably due to the low horizontal resolution in the regional model. Also, the model performance is poorer for stations with altitudes greater than 500 meters above sea level (masl). For tropical cyclone performance validations, the maximum wind surface forecast from global and regional models is also verified against the best track of Joint Typhoon Warning Center. Finally, the model forecast skill during a recent extreme rain event in northeast Vietnam is evaluated.


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