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GLERL 1999 Milestone Reports
GOAL: Implement Seasonal to Interannual Climate Forecasts
OBJECTIVE: Deliver Climate Services and Assess Socio-Economic Impacts
PM: Socioeconomic and policy assessments of weather impacts as linked to climate variations on seasonal to interannual time scales.
MILESTONE: Prepare manual of procedures and theory for using short-term, seasonal, and interannual probabilistic meteorology outlooks from NOAA and other agencies in derivative water resources probabilistic forecasts via operational hydrology methods.
Scientist: Thomas E. Croley II
Purpose
As part of their strategic plan, under the above goal of implementing seasonal to interannual climate forecasts, NOAA identified their ability to provide monthly and seasonal probability outlooks for temperature and rainfall for up to a year in advance. These forecasts can help to mitigate economic losses and social disruption if, as is NOAA’s plan, there is an infrastructure for generating, transferring, and using these forecasts. NOAA developed several objectives along these lines, two of which are especially relevant for this milestone. They are as follows:
- Deliver useful seasonal to interannual climate forecasts for the U.S. and collaborate in a multinational effort to generate and use similar forecasts.
- Assess the impacts of climate variability on human activity and economic potential, and improve public education so those climate forecasts are understood and acted upon.
This milestone was undertaken to enable anyone anywhere to actually use these extended forecasts of meteorology probabilities, available from NOAA and other agencies. It is an effort to educate decision-makers in the use of these climate forecasts in their own disciplines. It will enable the assessment of weather impacts as they relate to climate variations on seasonal to interannual time scales.
Efforts
A manual of procedures and theory was written for using short-term, seasonal, and interannual probabilistic meteorology outlooks from NOAA and other agencies in derivative water resources probabilistic forecasts via operational hydrology methods. This book describes how to use the numerous forecasts of meteorology probabilities that are now available to the geophysical scientist or engineer. It defines an approach for generating consequent hydrology (or other) probabilities for assessing decision risks for a designer or manager. This is a heuristic approach that is suitable for simultaneously using a wide variety of disparate probabilistic meteorology forecasts over a variety of time scales, time periods, spatial domains, probability statements, and meteorology variables. The book includes application examples largely from the U. S. Laurentian Great Lakes, but the methodology is not particular to the Great Lakes; any hydrology (or other derivative) model of the reader may be used. The examples not only include different (hydrology) models, but also use six currently available agency meteorology forecasts in the US and Canada as well as user-defined meteorology probabilities. The latter include El Niño and La Niña conditional probabilities as well as examples of their derivation and sufficient information for the reader’s own applications.
Decision-makers must make their own judgments as to the importance and priority of multiple meteorology probability forecasts. (Some guidance is provided on priority ordering.) This book then facilitates the use of reader-selected meteorology forecasts to make derivative forecasts. Finally, while the examples in this book deal with long-range meteorology forecasts over a week, a month, or a three-month period, set anywhere over the next 12 months, the methodology applies equally well to, and can immediately be used for, short-term forecasts.
The methodology entails duties that are easily handled by companion software, which is freely available. Otherwise, these duties are cumbersome in detail and could impede obtaining experience with the numerous examples presented in the book, or with actually using the methodology in practice. Companion computer software in the form of a graphical user interface enables the reader to easily perform their duties in an understandable and intuitive manner. An appendix describes the acquisition and use of this software, contains illustrative examples for using it, and provides detailed instruction for duplicating all of the application examples in the book.
Customers
The book will be useful to various geophysical scientists or engineers who are concerned with making forecasts of variables that depend on the weather. These include designers and managers of water resource projects, environmental assessment efforts, impact studies, and many derivative-process behavior descriptions. The book will be disseminated by the American Society of Civil Engineers as a book in their engineering series, pending sufficient review.
Significance
Material of this type will be useful to water resource engineers, forecasters, and decision makers only if concepts are simply presented yet accompanied by sufficient depth in theory and applied principles. Any new methodology has to be clear and straightforward to be useful, yet engineers will not use it unless they also are comfortable with its underpinnings. These two objectives (clarity in presentation of methodology and completeness of theory and application details) can be difficult to achieve simultaneously. Very often, the mathematics and application details that are necessary for understanding a new methodology can obscure the explanation of it and of its use. It is often advantageous to separate the methodology presentation from the theory and application details. The book is organized in several ways. First, the book is divided into two parts; Part I presents the practical use and basic understanding of the techniques developed therein. It is hoped that Part I will enable practitioners to use the techniques, embodied in the free software described in the appendix, to make forecasts of their own based on available forecasts of meteorology probabilities. Part II of the book presents extensions of the methodology, much of the theoretical development, and real-world examples. It should enable the curious to understand why the methodology works, to appreciate what the limitations are, and to establish familiarity with some of the trade-offs involved. It should also illustrate application for all that would use the methodology.
The second way the book is organized is to place selected material in "sidebars" or "boxed sections," which can be skipped at first reading. Such material comprises additional details, supporting mathematics, or discussions of some extensions, which can aid understanding but are not strictly essential for learning and understanding the methodology. These materials are placed where they are most relevant but are organized for omission without impeding the flow of the concepts presented in this book. Readers may, at their discretion, elect to include the material on first exposure or return to it later, if interested, after a basic understanding has been gleaned.
Success
The draft manuscript for the book was completed and sent for final review this quarter. Publication is planned over the next two quarters. As mentioned above, this milestone enables people to use available extended forecasts of meteorology probabilities. It should help educate decision-makers in the use of these climate forecasts in their own disciplines. It will enable the assessment of weather impacts as they relate to climate variations on seasonal to interannual time scales.
Next Steps
Self-installing software, in the form of a graphical user interface, example data, and additional tutorial documentation will be provided to the public over the world wide web. The will be offered as a free companion to the book and should facilitate both understanding the material presented in the book and using multiple extended forecasts of meteorology probabilities in actual practice.
Last updated: July 9, 2002 mbl