INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC WORKING GROUPS STATUS REPORT FROM IPWG INCLUDING IPWG-8 WORKSHOP RESULTS

Transcription

1 WORLD METEOROLOGICAL ORGANIZATION COMMISSION FOR BASIC SYSTEMS OPEN PROGRAMME AREA GROUP ON INTEGRATED OBSERVING SYSTEMS INTER-PROGRAMME EXPERT TEAM ON SATELLITE UTILIZATION AND PRODUCTS THIRD SESSION GENEVA, SWITZERLAND, 2-5 MAY 2017 IPET-SUP-3/INF.2.4 (26.IV.2017) ITEM: I.2 Original: ENGLISH INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC WORKING GROUPS STATUS REPORT FROM IPWG INCLUDING IPWG-8 WORKSHOP RESULTS (Submitted by Ralph Ferraro, NOAA and CGMS Rapporteur of IPWG) Summary and Purpose of Document This document reflects the report of the International Precipitation Working Group to the 45 th session of the Coordination Group for Meteorological Satellites (CGMS- 45), also provided herewith to IPET-SUP-3. ACTION PROPOSED The third session is invited to note content and recommendations provided in this report.

2 Prepared by IPWG Agenda Item: WGII/4 Discussed in Plenary/WGII STATUS REPORT FROM THE INTERNATIONAL PRECIPITATION WORKING GROUP (IPWG) Includes responses to: CGMS action/recommendation: WGII4 A43.03; WGII/4 R44.06 HLPP references: 3.3.1, and Working paper was written by the two co-chairs of the International Precipitation Working Group (IPWG), Dr. Ziad Haddad and Dr. Dong-Bin Shin. The report highlights the recent achievements of IPWG during the past year, including the outcome of IPWG-8/IWSSM-5 (October 2016, Bologna, Italy) and provides an outlook for the planned activities over the next two years. The report also addresses recommendations and actions from CGMS-44, as well as any IPWG items from the HLPP. The IPWG-8 was held at the Consiglio Nazionale dell Recerche (CNR) congress facility of the Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate (ISAC) in Bologna, Italy from October 3-7, It was held jointly with the 5 th International Workshop on Space-based Snowfall Measurement (IWSSM-5). The meeting was attended by nearly 160 participants representing 23 countries that included 63 oral and 88 poster presentations. Additionally, a satellite training course was given, which took place in parallel to the IPWG-IWSSM workshop; 30 participants attended the three day course. Two new co-chairs were selected; Ziad Haddad (NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory, USA) and Dong-Bin Shin (Yonsei University, Korea). 1 IPWG OBJECTIVES AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS OVER THE PAST YEAR As a reminder, the primary objectives of IPWG are: Promote standard operational procedures and common software for deriving precipitation estimates from satellites; Establish standards for validation and independent verification of precipitation estimates; Foster the exchange of data on inter-comparisons of operational precipitation estimates from satellites; Stimulate increased international scientific research and development in this field; Page 1 of 9

3 Provide recommendations to national and international agencies regarding the utilization of current and future satellite instruments on both polar and geostationary platforms; Encourage regular education and training activities. Primary accomplishments since CGMS-44 include (and are detailed in the following sections of this working paper): Organized and conducted the 5 th International Workshop on Space-based Snowfall Measurement (IWSSM-5) and the 8 th Meeting of IPWG, and concurrent training activity, in Bologna, Italy (October 3-7, 2016). Promoted IPWG, expanded membership and updated membership database; as of October 2016, membership was 478 (an increase of 181 from 2014) from 40 nations/organizations. Maintained and updated the IPWG web page ( Completed an IPWG focused publication (summarizing key scientific achievements from the IPWG-7 workshop in October 2014) in the Journal of Hydrometeorology - Eleven papers in total were accepted for publication. Engaged with CGMS on topics of interest, including participation at CGMS sponsored meetings and engagement with other science working groups; Engaged with other entities like CEOS, GEO and other applications groups, including participation at relevant meetings; 2 OUTCOME FROM IPWG-8/IWSSM-5 The IPWG-8 was held at the Consiglio Nazionale dell Recerche (CNR) congress facility of the Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate (ISAC) in Bologna, Italy from October 3-7, It was held jointly with the 5 th International Workshop on Space-based Snowfall Measurement (IWSSM-5). The meeting was attended by nearly 160 participants representing 23 countries that included 63 oral and 88 poster presentations. Additionally, a satellite training course was given, which took place in parallel to the IPWG-IWSSM workshop; 30 participants attended the three day course. The meeting organizers, made a dedicated effort to reach out with the precipitation user community (in response to a previous CGMS request), thus, each plenary session included at least one speaker from the user community. Specific details on the meeting agenda and posted presentations can be found at More detailed science oriented results from the joint meeting will be presented within the CGMS-44 WG-II oral presentation. Some other highlights included: Two new co-chairs were selected; Ziad Haddad (NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory, USA) and Dong-Bin Shin (Yonsei University, Korea). Page 2 of 9

4 A special recognition from WMO was presented to Vincenzo Levizanni, for his scientific achievements and his unprecedented contributions to IPWG over the past 15 years. A special issue in the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society has been organized by outgoing co-chair, Remy Roca and former co-chair, Chris Kidd, that will highlight the scientific presentations of the joint workshop As in past meetings, dedicated working group sessions were held, with each group developing a set of internal and CGMS level actions and recommendations; these are highlighted below and in section 3 of this report Validation Working Group (VWG) The VWG was co-chaired by Viviana Magioni (George Mason University, USA) and Elena Tarnavsky (University of Reading, UK). Primary recommendations and actions developed by the VWG included: Involve more nations in the IPWG validation activity ( Specifically, both India and China are ready to move forward in their participation. Post IPWG-8 and at the time of this writing, letters have been sent from WMO to agency leads at IMD and CMA requesting participation. Perform an assessment of uncertainty associated with satellite precipitation products over various climatic regimes Develop new orbital/swath validation protocol leveraging off the EUMETSAT Hydrology-SAF activities Develop snowfall validation protocols, as well as promote collaboration between rainfall and snowfall communities Research Working Group (RWG) The RWG was co-chaired by Ali Behrangi (NASA/JPL, USA) and Yeji Choi (Yonsei University/Korea). Primary recommendations and actions developed by the RWG included: Retrieval of high-latitude precipitation is still a major challenge; exploitation of future satellite payloads such as EarthCare, cubesats, NASA Decadal survey, etc. is encouraged There are unique oceanic ground validation data sets that should be documented and used by algorithm developers Special attention should also be devoted to shallow precipitation systems such as orographic and lake effect snow. There is a growing synergy between the precipitation retrieval and NWP data assimilation communities in the modelling of precipitation microphysical properties and land surface emissivity Page 3 of 9

5 The recent launches of Himawari-8 and -9 and GOES-16 offers a new opportunity to improve synergy between the MW and IR (and lightning) communities to improve our understanding of precipitation/storm dynamics Applications Working Group (AWG) The AWG was co- chaired by Tufa Dinku (IRI/Columbia University, USA) and Daniel Vila (CPTECH/INPE, Brazil). Primary recommendations and actions developed by the AWG included: Continue to develop and enhance training activities between IPWG and WMO; this can be accomplished through the IPWG web page and developing closer synergy with the WMO VLAB (hold an annual precipitation training event?) Develop white papers and journal articles that summarize the usefulness of the various mature satellite precipitation products for different application areas. Provide links to various on-line data resources for analysing and displaying satellite precipitation products, including a catalogue on applications and case studies With the advent of many other useful, non-meteorological service maintained precipitation data sets, IPWG needs to work within the auspices of WMO to get a catalogue of such data sets. Develop an IPWG social media page to advertise activities of the working group Data Assimilation Working Group (DAWG) The DAWG was co-chaired by Benjamin Johnson (NOAA/NESDIS, USA) and Kozo Okamoto (MRI/JMA, Japan). The former New Technology WG was combined with the DAWG at IPWG-8. Primary recommendations and actions developed by the DAWG included: Encourage closer linkage between the retrieval of cloud, rain, ice and snow and the cloudy/raining data assimilation communities. This may include a regular series of scientific workshops bringing together both communities. In addition, the NWP community should also be involved with defining sensor requirements for future observing systems. Higher temporal and spectral sampling at microwave frequencies is needed for future global observing systems, which may include geostationary platforms and cubesats. In addition, lower data latencies are desirable. Encourage closer synergy with ITWG and ICWG on the topic of DA. Develop validation strategies for cloud/precipitation microphysics (i.e., ground sites, aircraft campaigns, etc.) Scattering Working Group (SWG) Page 4 of 9

6 The SWG is a new working group that was formed as a result of the joint activity between IPWG and the NWP community; specifically, the 3 rd Joint JCSDA-ECMWF Workshop on Assimilating Satellite Observations of Clouds and Precipitation into NWP Models (December 2015, College Park, MD, USA). It is also a forum to pull together some specific needs of the rain and snow communities. The SWG was co-chaired by Stefan Kneifel (University of Cologne, Germany) and Alan Geer (ECMWF, UK). Primary recommendations and actions developed by the SWG included: A community consensus single-scattering set of databases is needed to advance the modelling and retrieval of cloud/precipitation hydrometeors. This can be accomplished through specific focus groups such as this newly formed one! Exploit such databases within community radiative transfer models, which currently has hard coded scattering information has embedded within. 3 OTHER MATTERS 3.1 IPWG-8/IWSSM-5 SURVEY In order to build upon the successful workshops, but also recognizing the growing size of them (the last two workshops were attended by over 100 participants), we developed an on-line survey to help for the planning of IPWG-9. The results can be found at but included some of the following: 96% satisfaction rating for the usefulness of the meeting 96% satisfaction rating on feeling welcomed at the meeting 94% satisfaction rating on the meeting logistics 88% satisfaction rating on the training session 86% satisfaction rating on the poster session 85% satisfaction rating on the working group sessions, although only 70% felt that there was enough time dedicated to them Talks related to the interpretation of satellite measurements were the most favorite (77%), followed by validation (66%), meteorology (49%), agency reports (48%); those related to oceanography were least favorite (13%) 86% felt that the joint IPWG/IWSSM meeting was useful and that this group should meet jointly every 2 years (67%) as opposed to 4 years or longer (33%) 3.2 IPWG Special Issues Completed an IPWG focused publication (summarizing key scientific achievements from the IPWG-7 workshop in October 2014) in the Journal of Hydrometeorology - Eleven papers Page 5 of 9

7 in total were accepted for publication. Joe Turk (NASA/JPL, USA), former IPWG co-chair, served as the special editor. A special issue in the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society has been organized by outgoing co-chair, Remy Roca and former co-chair, Chris Kidd that will highlight the scientific presentations of the joint IPWG-8/IWSSM-5 workshop. To date, close to 50 proposed paper titles were received, with a submission deadline of June Planning for IPWG-9 Planning is well underway for the next meetings of the IPWG and IWSSM; it is likely that the next workshop will be held in Korea during the week of October 22, Co-chair Dongbin Shin is working closely with colleagues at KMA to determine final details of the meeting. 3.4 IPWG Web Site - Information Portal The IPWG web site continues to be the main information portal to its membership; several updates continued to be made over the past year. It is maintained by former co-chair, Vincenzo Levizzani. The main features of the web site include information on current/past meetings (including reports and presentations), a summary of mature precipitation algorithms, validation (methodologies and links to various regional sites), training, etc. 3.5 Fostering closer collaboration with other ISWG s Although there are several common topics between IPWG, ITWG and ICWG (and potentially IWWG and IRWG), the only true way to improve collaborations amongst the groups is for attendance at relevant meetings. The outgoing and incoming cochairs feel that a greater financial commitment is needed by CGMS in order to allow for their attendance at these meetings; because of the growing size of IPWG, the resources provided are generally needed to support those meetings. 3.6 IPWG contributions to internal and external programs There are several activities within CGMS, CEOS and GEWEX related to precipitation and water observing systems. Current and former IPWG co-chairs have been involved with the development of white papers defining the satellite observational requirements for global precipitation measurements. Recently, former co-chairs contributed to a CEOS Water Mission feasibility study; outgoing co-chair Roca is now the lead of the GEWEX data working group and is organizing a precipitation assessment; former co-chair and current rapporteur Ferraro represented IPWG at a recent WMO workshop on exploiting satellite products to monitor climate extremes. Page 6 of 9

8 It is the goal of IPWG to send a consistent message across these various international groups to better define the satellite component for precipitation measurements. 4 IPWG STATUS ON CGMS-44 ACTIONS/RECOMMENDATIONS WGII/4 A43.03: IPWG Rapporteur to liaise with IMD (AK Sharma) on the development of precipitation validation sites over India. Status Ongoing. A letter of request was sent by WMO to IMD on 2 March 2017 requesting their participation; a positive response (via ) was received on 13 April 2017 from Ashim Kumar Mitra. IPWG validation working group will serve as the primary focal point with IMD. WGII/4 R44.06: To enhance coordination, ISWGs to discuss with ICWG co-chairs key items for collaboration. Status Ongoing. Over the past year, there has been some dialog between outgoing chair, R. Roca, and the chairs on ICWG on items of collaboration. As noted in section 6 below, face to face meetings are limited due to travel costs. 5 IPWG STATUS ON HLPP ( ) AND PROPOSED ADDITIONS 5.1 STATUS ON CURRENT HLPP HLPP Apply the IPWG validation protocol (as defined on its web page) to precipitation combination datasets generated using multiple satellite and in-situ data sources, and expand the number of participating agencies to broaden the validation domain. Status Most of the existing validation sites are now incorporating many of the blended products that are generated by the CGMS agencies and IPWG community. In addition, letters of request to India and China have been sent out requesting their participation, with a positive response already received from IMD. HLPP Enhance the use of satellite precipitation datasets through an IPWGled user workshop where training on visualization and analysis tools will be one of the topics. Status IPWG plans on contributing to a future VLAB session dedicated to precipitation (TBD) that would include visualization and analysis tools. HLPP Through coordination between IPWG, ITWG and ICWG, continue to improve microwave radiative transfer models to include complex surfaces (e.g., Page 7 of 9

9 snow, desert, etc.) and scattering atmospheres (e.g., frozen hydrometeors) to support improved algorithm development for current and future satellites. Status ongoing. The first ever joint IPWG/ISWWM workshop in Bologna, Italy in October 2017 formed a Scattering Working Group which was a direct result of a recommendation of the 3 rd Joint JCSDA-ECMWF Workshop on Assimilating Satellite Observations of Clouds and Precipitation into NWP Models (December 2015, College Park, MD, USA). 5.2 PROPOSED ADDITIONS TO HLPP Under section 1.1, IPWG proposes that a statement be added, perhaps as an amendment of 1.1.1, as follows Where possible, the overpass times of the baseline LEO be staggered in a way that maximizes the sampling of the diurnal cycle. Under section 3.1, IPWG proposes that a statement similar to and be developed for passive microwave sensors. Under section 3.2, IPWG proposes that a statement be added Establish a framework for the merging of multi-sensor (e.g., Visible, IR, MW, lightning) radiances and/or precipitation retrievals that is applicable for various time scales (e.g., flash flood to climate). 6 ACTIONS AND/OR RECOMMENDATIONS FOR CONSIDERATION BY CGMS PLENARY SESSION (OR WORKING GROUP II) Actions: 1. For all CGMS Members Ensure the continuity of the current constellation of passive microwave sensors (for high quality satellite precipitation products for weather, climate and hydrological applications) through proper coordination of satellites, sensors and equatorial crossing times. 2. For all CGMS Members Ensure the continuity of existing in situ precipitation observation networks, promote access to those that are currently inaccessible but already in operation, and explore new sources of in situ observations. 3. For all CGMS Members Timely (< 1 hr) and free access to all geostationary visible, IR and water vapor data that is required to improve global hydrological prediction. 4. For all CGMS Members Recognizing the need to develop synergies between IPWG and other ISWG s (most specifically ICWG and ITWG), enhanced travel Page 8 of 9

10 assistance is needed for the IPWG and ISWG co-chairs in order to build meaningful collaborations. Recommendations: 1. To WMO - Recognizing that IPWG has considerable expertise in precipitation science and applications, IPWG requests the WMO (likely via VLAB) to establish a yearly training event on precipitation data sets and applications, for which IPWG will provide disciplinary expertise. 2. For all CGMS Members - Recognizing the need for continued enhancements to the baseline precipitation observing system to a broader user community (including hydrology, NWP prediction, RTM modeling), IPWG recommends that CGMS members continue to pursue advanced sensors through close coordination with CGMS ISWG s including IPWG, ITWG and ICWG. Page 9 of 9