7 November 2014
CW3E
CalWater2 – ACAPEX Notes
Friday morning
Review campaign schedule and staffing plans
Jennifer: XBTs monitor upper layer of ocean before and after AR; ARGO floats shown
by green dots in Google Earth image. Shown profile of ARGO plot. Show overlap of
ARGO dots around RB path. ARGO points don’t drift much. They can be programmed
to go up and down every day. Could request a subset do profile daily. Cost is $16K
each and could be deployed by RB. Talked to someone in Russ Davis group – of
interest perhaps of dropping own instead of using ARGO. Chris; PMEL contacted
about throwing some ARGO floats off. Checked yesterday and said no because RB
would not be where there is a hole in their coverage. But since we won’t be where
they need them PMEL won’t pay. Could we ask PMEL to program for daily time
scale? Looked at 10 day profiles – they have long time series on the web site. Some
are 5 days, some are 10 days. If RB recovers them they might buy back. ARGO is like
a $10million a year operation. If we dropped they would stay in area for around 20
days. They go down and park at 2km depth. So when they are away from surface
currents they tend to stay in place longer. Someone (Chris said) is giving us a buoy
(swift buoy) to throw over. Has ADPT. No expense associated with asking them to
do this more frequently. Scripps are yellow; PMEL are black. Spatial information
good for ocean modeling people. Like having network of radiosondes. Great idea to
ask. May be harder to find on inland side.
Jay: landfall probability tool. Showing image from forecast. Shows not much going
on over coastal regions of calif. Maybe show same at 130 and 140W. Implies we
won’t have rain for a few days. Beyond 5 days see some ensemble members showing
some precip coming.
Ryan/Andrew: GS5 data more focused on west coast – some already being ingested
into MTS. How much lead time for MTS? A few hours or ? Want to look 5 days or a
week or so ahead for dust. Have web portal for this. If we just look on web their
views were global or just north America – did not have northern pacific wide view.
They had this domain before – might make it available on their website. Kim –
satellite data more useful. Andrew: will mostly have old satellite information. Kim
there are other dust products that are used more often – Iowa person – thinking of
this from point of view of information for flight planning. Can see pollution, dust, CO
coming across. Know we can utilize it. Pollution was coming from Japan – could see
it . Andrew – depends on where you want to get the modis from. Around the time
want to make forecasts – modis only works when sun is shining. So data is already
an hour old at 6am and no sun over the pacific. Will rely on modis from day before.
Works for desk – shows plume – where is it now – GS5 says it’s going to do xyz –
probably the best guidance information we have. Get Goddard to help with GS5.
Dave Diner was interested ; would be interested in providing information from
MISER. He’s connected with MISER. Lidar is behind Calypso going – getting more
machinery / interest (JPL/NASA interest via Duane). Duane can help Ryan get Hal
and Jack Kay on board to help with this. Kim said she would pull on this – Patrick
was very interested and gave 2x or 4x resolution product – should see if we can do
that – Andrew – over a very special limited domain. Would need to ask for domain of
interest. Available every 30 minutes. Kim did look at his product before flights to see
heterogeneity of drop sizes.
Kim: question about precip samplers. How wild do we want to go with collecting
precip samples. On RB – Casadero – Sierras – Mike can involve people (i.e. Rangers
collecting snow). Get a broad swath along Sierras to collect for dust impact. Is
pollution being pushed around and showing up in other parts. Would learn a lot
from precipitation samplers. Can get broader spatial coverage. Would also want that
on RB – Chris said he is sure he can find someone to do this. May give time-resolved
sampler to ship (Kim give to Chris). Get hint as to nuclei in clouds – most important
part of time resolved. Turn the samplers on at the same time. They have cartridges
that just advance automatically. Can set to advance ; perhaps at 30 min. Have to
have enough vials for several cases. Will have to call/text ship when you want this
turned on. Question – if VSAT is running then communication is constant (Michael
Levine). Will NOAA have samplers out? (Marty) Allen – Norden, casadero, if Ty has
enough samplers available. Kim may have a couple built. Allen does not have a
sampler. Allen always gets them from Ty. USGS management side shows this as
something to accomplish this winter (Mike). Norden is sierra site. Central Sierra
Snow Lab – no sites in Sierra with s-band. Distrometer at norden. Sampler in Shasta
area ? (Marty) Mike: contacted Frank Gehrke and he will probably be passing
through Scripps week of 17th (November). Andrew could cover (Kim and Mike will
be gone). Good to contact with him during his visit – he would know if there is
someone in the Shasta area. Need to sample new fallen snow. Could core it (Dan
question). Have not done that but Kim in contact with Tom to consider this. Know it
by system. Would not be able to associate it with an event. Seasonally would be very
informative. Playing thumbtag with Tom for a year. Want one at Norden to be
heated. Andrew – one there designed to melt snow as it falls – still time resolved.
Same sampler – just has a heater – needs more electricity. Have we talked to Randall
at snow lab? Kim – no. Ty knows someone in bay area that replaces vials at
casadero. Jessie may be coming out to do this – coordinate the start of samplers.
Want to get the evolution. Need to have someone to contact people. Need to know
when it is going to start raining. Runs for 72 hours (3 days). Have to take care when
collecting and have to freeze. Someone on forecast team needs to know to alert
people to start precipitation samplers. Starting early no big deal – don’t want to
start late. Ty has a guy that will go and train. Janet – need someone that will train on
the use of the instrument. Someone needs to reach out to Jessie – she will coordinate
with CSSL (Sierra) and help at Bodega – that was her thing. Allen – she needs to
attend briefings every day and decide if all sites will be engaged. She may be
involved in some of the flight activities. She could be at Mac for the full time period.
Not hard but good to do training. Chris – freezer on ship for samples. What kind of
freezer on ship Is there a -80? Would need special for -80. The -20 is a big walk-in
freezer? Need to check that. Chris thought there would be room. Could remotely
train via skype (takes about an hour). Could train here too (San Diego). Amon – if
you are to send someone need to consider access. How big is it? About 75 pounds –
about 2 suitcases. Have certain shipping address and attention to names. Ty Copland
will ship these out. Kim needs to reach out to Jessie.
Allen: there should be a mission scientist at Mac throughout the experiment. Mission
scientists need to coordinate to figure out what time to be there. There are 4
scientists. About a week and a half per scientist. Allen is flexible during the time
period. Mission scientist does not fly. They make the call on what module for what
purpose but coordinate with platform scientist. Last stretch will be most interesting
period; Ruby needs to be involved then. 2 aeorosol and 2 ar people. Marty hard to
make call on G1 (aerosol) – Kim says Daniel will be there the whole time. 2 mission
scientists (Marty) the whole time. Enough separation of things for this
Chris reports web page says RB freezer is 0F. Lab has colder ones. Andrew – in field
stored in common household freezer. Extra office space in Bodega has maytag. Kim –
will verify off line.
Do people need to be on list to get access to Mac? If you want to be on ramp (walk
out to plane) need permission. FBO does this for people Ryan designates. Not
everyone needs to have a badge. Can have escort. Facility is open 24/7. From 7pm to
7am need key card. Hangar doors and ramp are via badge. Can also go via front desk
and they will give access. Not everyone is going to get a magnetic key. Quite a few
people will and can pass on when you go. Some people don’t need to be on ramp.
You can be escorted. It’s just line-of-sight. Want to keep people with direct access
manageable. Forecast team will need access to base (not ramp). Meeting room is
magnetically sealed from 7pm to 7am. Can also buzz (doorbell) to get in. It is staffed
24/7.
AE
11-24 Jan: Kim Prather
1-8 Mar: Kim Prather
25 Jan – 28 Feb:
Ruby/Danny
AR
11 Jan: 6 weeks for G4
time split between Marty
and Allen
11 Jan Allen travel for 1223 Jan
23 Jan to wrap up on 2
Feb Marty
2 Feb – 12 Feb Allen
12 Feb – 23 Feb
Ryan Spackman alternate
as needs arise
Science Flights
When do we need to have Mission / Forecast going?
Jay: Plymouth will start forecasts the week prior – 5th of Jan. Jay will head out to Mac
11/12th of Jan. Maybe the 12th. Does not want to be the first one there. Ryan thinks
he can refine this.
Ryan does not want to put out logistics like hotel information. Who will make sure
things are in place at Mac when people arrive. Should it be someone in AOCE? Seems
pretty bare-bones. These is a designated person in science / instrument team that
handles the logistics. G4 will be the first plane coming in. How are the pilots
handling site logistics i.e. hotels ? On DOE side – fair to split up. One issue is that
they are not arriving on the same day? Gal at front desk will send list of hotels. Lions
Gate is $95 a night – right near base – book early because they do sell out. Could
Natalie help out with this? OK with Allen.
Allen: first mission scientist needs to arrive when Jay does. Pick the 11th.
Jennifer: are there people at Mac that will support internet? Usually takes a day to
get computers connected, access? Maybe one person there the week before to
coordinate with IT people. That points to a separate concern – logistics person that
will be there. Jason / John on DOE side – how do we handle the rest? Wait to hear
back from Bill to see what needs to be done. May not have to do anything. Are they
just going to open this up. Last time they upgraded the site speed. Which agency will
contract for what – i.e. for meeting rooms. The more you add on the more you pay.
Someone at NOAA is doing a contract with Bill? P3 and G4 are in ramp – not free –
who is paying? Misconception DOE is the only one that has to do contract with Mac.
Other agencies ? Sounds like AOC side (Janet). Ryan can help broker this. Ryan will
help broker this conversation with Bill.
13 Jan G1 (ready to go for science on 14th) to Tuesday the 10th (go back on the 10th –
no flight that day or on the 9th – could do a flight on the 8th); Kim will be there for
the last (Ruby will be there in between; Ruby and Kim are each doing three weeks;
Danny will cover a few days when Ruby can’t be there)
13 Jan G4: 23rd of Feb is the go home day (have plane for 6 weeks)
13 Jan Bodega Bay
13 Jan RB
16 Jan P3: 4 week deployment
Ryan: G1 tracking – will coordinate.
Ryan: something for ship – asking Chris – have it sent to Chris (missed name of ?)
Roger / John: set up dedicated go to meeting line.
Ryan other loose ends: Sonde data on the RB. Will that be processed in real time?
Will be available to MTS? Amon – no data will be transmitted during Cruise. OPS
people say will use existing com – no more that 128 Kb/sec (if it is connected). With
AMF2 instruments (sharing) expecting to have mentor access to instruments. Data
won’t be transmitted until ship gets to shore. What about GTS? Very low baud
(Chris). Chris – usually send in real time. Visalia unit processes up – produces GTS
message automatically. Sonde data is simple; ascii; tiny; could send via e-mail. Very
low bandwidth. Chris also uses ftp from ship – once a day send processed files via
ftp. That is synchronous – send to boulder and show up on ftp site. Go to inbox and
get moved over. That is “our” data – not radiosonde. Could look at doing that. Bigger
files. Can’t send much in real time from ship.
Ryan: How has McNally done? Transmitted in real time. Human person involved in
quality control? GTS sends mand and sig levels in coded message. But there needs to
be a human being involved ? Chris – no. no person needed beyond pressing button.
Digicora3. With dropsondes run aspen to process all the data. Commercial
radiosonde software for sondes. Once balloon is released you could leave. Need to
press just the right series of buttons to create files you want and then move to
another directory. Ascii files with 5 second resolution. Those files are bigger. May ftp
to site – or produce image. Chris will investigate via Dan Wolf. Amon – will have two
stations (two systems) – Nick wants to launch with overpass time. Can handle
having 3 different sondes at the same time. Can use one system for the three.
Breakdown problem is tracking.
Chris: want to make sure he needs everything he needs to know about RB:
GPS Met Univ Hawaii
Univ Wash swift buoy
Might do ARGO buoy
Do water collection (rain water)
May bring additional freezer
Issue about bandwidth for internet (Amon expect 128 kb/sec; not more; will have
mentor access to system; if ftp hogs up system then mentors want access during
day; no realistic idea of what won’t be available; under good foot print ; should have
access all the time; RB has good connections from top of main mast; good enough to
watch streaming videos; and seen it take 10 min to load one page; need to get
straight with Adrienne; Chris will check with her and cc Amon)
2 digicores – set one up and have one as a spare
Paul: any sea water collection? Chris – if we do CTDs there are water bottles. At site
will collect one set of water bottles. Take and relate conductivity to salinity. Get
accurate calculation of salinity. One sea water collection for the cruise. Chris will
discuss with ops on ship. May want water coming in at water lab (at 4m depth)
bottles go down to 500m. Kim? Get species? Paul – interested in species in surface
layer. Put in freezer. Give extra bottles – Kim will send extra containers. Just collect
and save in freezer. Gives white caps (like what is done off sio pier).
Media Day: 2 hour drive from SFO to SAC (Mac). Amon – Chris intitiate e-mail and cc
Amon to coordinate with DOE (ARM) communication office. 29th of Jan ? That is the
RB port day. Need to involve Scripps in the loop too (Rob Monroe). Close this with
the media people.
Late morning session.
Mission scientists: issues to resolve
Allen: participate in forecast dry run. By then will have a set of situations where AR
exist and get chemistry data from MODIS. Dry run is 8-12 Jan
Kim: mission perspectives – Patrick Minnis will provide help – he is supported by
ARM quite a bit – Thanks to DOE.
Mike: media; should we have a blog; google docs; need to get perspective pr folks in
loop. Do we want to go beyond? Nice to have blog. Have different scientist blog
every day from their perspective. Make facebook page – have twitter – gets lots of
attention from media. SIO has communications group – can we enlist them (Dan).
Mike usual pitch – extremely sexy topic. Fly around storms. Deep in drought;
hopefully knee deep in water this year. Kind of story the media loves. Take pix of
guy looking at computer screen. Kim – from 2011 still getting stories written (i.e.
high country news; doug fox). SIO can handle this because NOAA has to go through
official channels – Dan will check with Rob. Daily blog; have different person signed
up each day. Could put student in charge – could coordinate with Rob.
Platform scientists:
Ryan: Lot of good ideas on flight modules. From P3 end still have work to do . Ryan
has enough information to go back and pull together another draft based on input.
He will circulate in near term. Jim McFadden and Justin Kibbey need something in a
week time to do risk management briefings with teams. Ryan will circulated to
leadership team before goes off to AOC.
Chris: did we decide on G4 altitude? 13 or 9 km? Kept both options on table. Higher
better; hopefully above upper level jet. Want to stick to higher level (Allen; Janet).
Issue of transitioning from flight level to level. Will need motivation / justification
for going down low. Is there any situation where we would want to go down low?
Allen thinks this will be the job of the P3 (go low).
Janet: G4 questions / issues ? If in beginning of experiment there is nothing close to
coast and RB is on “other” side – hard to burn hours in beginning of experiment. Do
we have nimbleness to characterize pre-condition before coming back and catching
even on way back ? Could this be called 3 days in advance? G4 is coming to Mac to
start with. Basically it’s a 72 hour call. Key thing for AR mission scientists.
Andrew / Paul: anything from Bodega. Precip sampler – who is collecting where and
when. RB sounds good now. Need to figure out Norden. BBay / Mac sorted out.
Chris: send short paragraph and pix for his report. Andrew – sending user manual.
Amon – does not sound like big deal so should be able to follow
G1 perspective: Ruby not here – any issues?
AMF2 perspective: Amon – if anyone wants to come during installation. First 3
weeks of Dec and first week of Jan – base access needs to be planned ahead. Unless
you have rapid pass please let Amon know. Need at least 10 days in advance for base
access. Allen question: is wind profiler stabilized? 1290 beam-staring so designed to
compensate for motion of ship. Can also configure to scan (pseudo-scanning mode;
1290 so it might not see very well; but it can be configured for scanning). It is beam
–steering and does compensate for motion.
Working group leads:
Jay: Forecasting; identified periods at Mac – need to nail down exact days; working
with Jon. Need to touch base with Paul. Will work with John for data products. Time
for dry run – time/date? Will have to coordinate with Ryan. 8am pacific will be time
of daily briefings. 8am is tied to pilots plans to file by noonish for the next day. Using
00Z and 06Z data to make forecasts. Opportunity to update with 12Z but not making
many changes based on this so not worthwhile. Oakland center was very critical at
getting plans by noon for the next day. Flying above commercial; need help from
Oakland flying over coastal terrain. Not a notan issue. Jim and Justin said they
wanted stuff by noon. The person to contact is likely Natalie (or Ryan). Will draft up
briefing; discuss; then hand off to pilots.
Marty: Lot of implication about shifting to night flights if you are in the midst of day
flights. Are we ready to keep on table both day and night flights. Takes 3 days to
switch schedules around. And flight plans will be increasingly late every day. Won’t
do 8am one day and then midnight the next day. ARs won’t sneak up on us.
Question: have window of 12 hours. Going to do 7 hour flight somewhere in the 12
hour window. For now keep option open but realize it takes time. Certainly can fly
in dark.
Andrew: modeling/analysis; No loose ends – not a lot of modelers here. Primarily a
planning meeting. Andrew will reach out to modelers to see if they have questions.
No updates from that group.
John Helly: not present
Ryan: ops implementation; remaining ?
Dan: downstream discussion about how all this is analyzed? Duane: specific
application targets? Bullet list – Marty has one or two in his head. So far no list.
Might determine where leveraging happens. There is an RFP that usually comes out
from ARM. ASR – Atmospheric Research ; similar call next year.
Roger – thanks for letting Weather Service being involved.
Jon – nothing now.
Jennifer – waiting for final decision on instrument.
Amon – great
Vanessa – nothing
Paul – list of items
Dave – radar data sets coming off NOAA aircraft (nonW band) and cloud physics off
p3 are raw data sets. Chris – PI for microphysics; Kim said Danny took care of this
before. Important that we have same person look at multiple platforms. Danny is the
logical choice. Jennifer looked at this on G1 last time. ARM has Jennifer ; no one in
NOAA doing this. PI-driven calibration (these are NOAA instruments; they had the
raw data to the investigator and they are on their own – there is a NOAA person that
will run them). Bob Black is the main microphysics guy – he knows about them.
Chris: e-mail him to check stuff out. Bob is in Miami and they are in Tampa. All DMT
(no spec). Running DMT ingest system. Used to use SEA. Chris will contact the guys
in Tampa. Jennifer took quite a bit of data to go from raw data to useful data. Need to
figure out they are well calibrated and functional. Used to contract with Hoff / These
are newer preps. Dave – things are better now. Sara Lans with SPEC now. Start
dialogue with Chuck Brock (just after got new probes had good data; had dedicated
postdoc – she is at spec now). Ryan wants to have this conversation with Chuck.
Used in synex – assimilation on the radar – who will process – Dave will play with it
a little bit. A lot of work; editing to make useable data. Nature of the moving
platform. Wait for HRD to give data? Will be on NOAA flight science web site. Flight
level and all other data from aircraft. Not images; rvp8 sigmet files. Have a way to
create images and do some automated editing but not there yet. ARM has people if
there is money. Kim – do Hoff and Jason ? Nice to have same. Have excellent guys
that do Doppler radar. Chris and Ryan will follow up with groups to make sure data
is spiffy. DOE might fund university stuff but not other agencies.
Mike: AGU; placeholder for press conference to get word out on experiment. Process
for application for AGU sponsored press conference. Grappling with perception that
this is not news because you are not in the air until next month and the stuff last
year is almost a year old. AGU said is this really news? They suggested a workshop
(nominally not as formally declared as a news event – like press conference have 24 people get up and talk – press folks know about it and everyone is invited – then
have question and answer). When ARO first went in Allen did this and got good
questions from press. So far we don’t know if we have a workshop slot. For now it
might be Thursday of AGU week. Do all the agencies come to the desk? Or how is
this done? Rob Monroe said give us some names and that can be adjusted later on.
Kim, Marty, Mike and Dan are placeholders. 3 up to 4 folks for short presentations.
On the table is we have the opportunity. Who should be up there? Open for
discussion. Strong case that it should be the respective agencies rather than a bunch
of scripps folks. Seems like a good way to give visibility to program directors. Who
has to be able to guide us? 4 mission scientists – Ruby, Kim, Marty and Allen. Do we
want to put this in context of drought – he has history with CalWater. In interest of
time 1-2 photographs – aerial like Oroville – headwaters of entire Calif water
system. Could almost cover context. Allen not available but Janet and Chris will be
there.
Duane: May have another aircraft – with top lidar – in e-mail loop moving now
(before Thanksgiving decision) – looking for Asian dust – one gives space and one
gives profile. Validation option with space station – version of calypso lidar on space
station called cats (?) – got NASA excited. Cmap (?) first data comes out in a few
months. Ah, smap.
Ryan: status on bams paper – due in sept. Marty asked for extension. Have until end
of year. Will get to steering committee members for input. Wants to get 2/3 to ¾
draft written and then get co authors to contribute. NOAA internal review can be
waived. Hopefully before Christmas will have good version to submit to BAMS.