DRAFT
Summary of the Visit of Dr. Louis W. Uccellini to Taiwan
Prepared by Bill Kuo
20th March, 2014
12:30 p.m. Dr. Uccellini visited the Academia Sinica (Chinese Academy of Science)
and had lunch with a few key scientists of the Academy, including: Dr. Pao K. Wang,
Director, Research Center for Environmental Changes (RECE), Dr. Shaw Liu, Former
Director of RECE, and Dr. Lou Lee, Director, Institute of Earth Sciences. Both Dr.
Shaw Liu and Dr. Lou Lee are members of Academia Sinica (this is very high honor).
Dr. Lou Lee was former Minister of National Science Council, and played a key role
in getting both COSMIC-1 and COSMIC-2 funded in Taiwan. During the lunch
meeting, the discussion was focused the current status of COSMIC-2 program, and
the way forward. Dr. Lou Lee, Dr. Shaw Liu, and Dr. Pao K. Wang are all very
influential in the Taiwan atmospheric science community. Their support is very
important to COSMIC-2.
After lunch, Dr. Louis Uccellini met with Dr. Chi-Huey Wong, President of the
Academia Sinica and the Vice President for Physical Sciences, Dr. Yu Wang. Dr.
Uccellini explained to President Wong how other scientific disciplines (such as
biological and medical sciences) come to appreciate the importance of forecast and
now wish to learn such skill from the meteorological community. President Wong,
who is trained as a chemist and is an expert in developing treatments for some
diseases, commented on how weather and climate impact the human health,
especially in tropical and subtropical regions. VP Wang is also a chemist and during
the visit, Dr. Uccellini discussed with her the much broader interdisciplinary nature
of modern atmospheric science, such the importance of the field of atmospheric
chemistry, as compared to that a few decades ago. Dr. Uccellini’s visit to Academia
Sinica was a great success.
Following the visit to the Academia Sinica, Dr. Louis Uccellini visited the Ministry of
Science and Technology. Three staff from the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT)
participated in the meeting, including Mr. Brent Christensen, AIT Deputy Director,
Mr. Josh Cartin, AIT Economic Section Chief, and Mr. Forest Atkinson, AIT Economic
Officer. On the Taiwan side, Minister San-Cheng (Simon) Chang was accompanied by
Dr. Yi-Bing Lin, Deputy Minister, Dr. Tzhong-Chyuan Chen, Director of Dept. of
Foresight and Innovation, MOST, and Dr. Yue-Gau Chen, Director of Dept. of Natural
Sciences and Sustainable Development, MOST, Dr. Ching-Hua Lo, President of
NARLabs, and Dr. Guey-Shin Chang, Director of NSPO. Dr. Uccellini discussed the
value of GPS Radio Occultation (GPSRO) data from the FORMOSAT-3/COSMIC-1
mission and their impact on global numerical weather prediction and the broader
atmospheric research. Dr. Uccellini pointed out that the GPSRO data, though only
accounting for approximately 3% of the data being used to initialize global forecast
models, is ranked #5 among all observing systems in terms of their impact on
forecast accuracy. The fact that the GPSRO data are of high vertical resolution, high
accuracy and being unbiased is very important. Because GPSRO data are unbiased,
and do not require calibration, they have become the ‘benchmark’ for other satellite
observations, allowing these other satellite observations to be better used for
operational global NWP. The high accuracy of GPSRO data was also instrumental in
identifying the biases of other instruments, for example, the warm bias of the
commercial aircraft reports. Dr. Uccellini also discussed the importance of GPSRO in
improving hurricane forecast. A recent study over the Western Pacific showed that
the GPSRO reduced the track errors by 24% for three typhoons occurred during the
T-PARC experiment in 2008. Encouraged by these results, NCEP operational
hurricane prediction model, HWRF, will be assimilating GPSRO data starting in
2014. Dr. Uccellini expressed his appreciation to Minister Chang, for his support for
both the COSMIC-1 and COSMIC-2 programs. Dr. Uccellini also expressed our sincere
appreciation for the tremendous patience Taiwan partners has shown us, knowing
the frustration they have experienced over the past three years, waiting for US to
come through our share of the funding. Dr. Uccellini stated that US partners would
do all we can to secure the necessary funding to move the second constellation of
COSMIC-2 forward. Minister Chang, who was trained as a civil engineer, appreciated
the positive remarks on the significance of COSMIC-1/COSMIC-2 missions. He said
that he often heard positive comments from his own staff regarding these two
satellite programs. However, there is nothing like hearing it directly from a
distinguished scientist outside the organization, and expressed his appreciation for
Dr. Louis Uccellini to take the time to visit the Ministry.
Following the visit to MOST, Dr. Louis Uccellini visited the NARLabs, which stands
for National Applied Research Laboratories. NALabs is a non-profit corporation,
mostly funded by the MOST. NARLabs oversees 11 research centers, including the
National Space Organization (NSPO), which is responsible for the development and
execution of the COSMIC-1 and COSMIC-2 programs. Another research center
managed by NARLabs is the Taiwan Typhoon Flood and Research Institute (TTFRI).
NARLabs staff, Ms. Sophie Wang, gave a briefing on NARLabs and its research. Dr.
Uccellini discussed the interaction between NWS and Taiwan concerning weather
prediction and climate projection, as well as typhoon prediction. The upcoming
Typhoon Workshop and HWRF Tutorial in May 2014 will be co-organized by TTFRI.
Dr. Lo, President of NARLabs, hosted a dinner in honor of Dr. Uccellini, which is
participated by several key members of the Taiwan’s meteorological community,
including Prof. Chun-Chieh Wu, National Taiwan University, Dr. Tiger Liu, Chief
Scientist of NSPO, Prof. C. P. Chang, National Taiwan University and Naval
Postgraduate School, and Dr. Cheng-Sheng Lee, Director of TTFRI.
21st March 2014
Dr. Louis Uccellini gave his keynote speech at the Annual Meeting of Taiwan’s
Meteorological Society, entitled “Taking Weather Prediction to the Next Level:
Linking Forecasts to Impact-Based Decision Support Services”. In his keynote
speech, Dr. Uccellini discussed the trend in extreme weather events and progress
that has been made to increase our ability to predict extreme events days in
advance, using Hurricane Sandy as an example. He then discussed the need to link
forecasts to decision-making services, which is the NWS’s initiative to build a
“Weather-Ready Nation”. Dr. Uccellini concluded the talk by presenting efforts
devoted by NWS to improve predictions, through upgrades to the current
operational numerical weather prediction systems, to meet the society’s needs. The
keynote speech was very well received, and there were active exchanges with the
audience following the presentation.
After a brief visit to the Director-General of the Central Weather Bureau, Dr. TzayChyn Hsin, Dr. Louis Uccellini attended a lunch hosted by the Minister of
Transportation and Communication, Dr. Kun-She Yeh, who has the oversight
responsibility over the Central Weather Bureau. Dr. Uccellini and Dr. Yeh discussed
the on-going collaboration between NWS and CWB in hurricane modeling, data
assimilation, and short-term climate projection. The upcoming Hurricane Workshop
and HWRF Tutorial will also be co-sponsored by the Central Weather Bureau. Seven
NWS staff and three DTC staff will participate in the event, and the NOAA Hurricane
Forecast Improvement Project (HFIP) will be a co-sponsor. Dr. Hsin stated that
NWS-CWB collaboration has been extremely beneficial to CWB operation. Dr. Yeh
expressed his appreciation to Dr. Uccellini for his continued support for the NWSCWB collaboration, which greatly benefitted the people in Taiwan.
After lunch, Dr. Louis Uccellini visited the Environmental Prediction Administration
(EPA). He was warmly greeted by Dr. Kuo-Yen Wei, Director of EPA, and his staff. Dr.
Uccellini and Dr. Wei discussed increased demands and challenges in environmental
prediction, as well as the relationship between meteorological forecast and
environmental prediction. For example, rainfall can have a significant impact on
water quality. Dr. Uccellini discussed the increased society’s needs for NWS to
provide non-traditional environmental prediction, including beach forecast. As a
result, the missions for NWS have been broadened and become more complex. Dr.
Wei was very intrigued by Dr. Uccellini’s perspective on environmental prediction,
and hope to have more interaction with NWS and CWB in the future.
Dr. Uccellini then attended a Forum on Future Meteorological Research and
Operation, organized by the Taiwan’s Meteorological Society. Dr. Uccellini gave a
short presentation, entitled “Accelerating Research to Operations to Serve Society’s
Needs”. In his talk, Dr. Uccellini discussed the growing need to accelerate research
and technology advancements into weather, water and climate operations. Dr.
Uccellini described the “NOAA Research and Development Funnel”, in which NOAA
testbeds are being utilized to accelerate the research to operation transition. He
used hurricane prediction as an example, discussing how the NOAA HFIP Program
engaged the research community and the Developmental Testbed Center (DTC) to
accelerate the improvement in HWRF model that led to improved skill in hurricane
prediction. Dr. Uccellini emphasized that to accelerate R2O we must embrace O2R.
Encouraging research community to use operational NWP system will greatly
facilitate the R2O process.
Dr. Uccellini also viewed posters presented by Taiwanese students. One poster given
by Mr. Tzu-Shun Lin, a student from the National Central University, caught his
attention. Mr. Lin studied the effects of land hydrologic processes on soil moisture
and its subsequent impact on the meteorological characteristics. This study made
use of the WRF model coupled with the Noah Land Surface Model (LSM). Mr. Lin
also compared the soil moisture initialization by the NCEP Final Analysis (FNL) as
well as the NCEP Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLADS). Dr. Uccellini
complemented Mr. Lin’s work, saying that his work is very useful and would have
important implication to operation. Mr. Lin was very encouraged by Dr. Uccellini’s
interest and comments.
Following a series of presentations by the panelists, Dr. Uccellini participated in the
forum discussion. Many issues were raised, particularly, concerning human capital
development and the future direction of research and operational meteorology in
Taiwan. Dr. Uccellini was active in these exchanges, and provided his perspectives.
Dr. Pao K. Wang, President of Taiwan’s Meteorological Society (e.g., Meteorological
Society of the Republic of China), who hosted the visit of Dr. Uccellini, wrote the
following comments:
“Louis' visit has been a wonderful event here, as you could see from the attendance of
this year's annual meeting of MSROC. I was told that the attendance was about twice
as much as the past years. I am most happy about the large number of young
meteorologists attending our meeting. There is no doubt that many were attracted to
the meeting by Louis presence and the talk. I believe that Louis is the first US NWS
Director to visit Taiwan. It was great that Louis gave a keynote speech about his
vision about the meteorological service in US. I am sure that it has given
meteorological scholars as well as practitioners in Taiwan a very deep impression so
that they will most likely have that vision in mind when they do their own planning.
Louis also set a very good example by mingling freely with young scientists and
students that must have given them much encouragement.”
Dr. Pao K. Wang hosted a dinner in honor of Dr. Louis Uccellini. The dinner was
joined by key members of the meteorological society.
22nd March, Saturday
Dr. Louis Uccellini visited the Jhuzihhu Weather Station of the Central Weather
Bureau, which is located on the Yangmingshan Mountain, approximately 20 km
from the City of Taipei. This is a traditional weather station, manned by five CWB
staff. It provides important benchmark for automatic weather stations. Dr. Uccellini
took an active interest in the instrumentation and their observation practice.
Dr. Ching-Yen Tsay hosted a lunch in honor of Dr. Uccellini. The guests included
Prof. Chao-Han Liu and Dr. Lou Lee. Tsay, Liu and Lee were the three key players
that got COSMIC-1 started in Taiwan in the late 1990s. Other guests included Prof.
George Chen and Prof. Chun-Chieh Wu, both from the National Taiwan University,
and Dr. Ming-Dean Cheng and Dr. Mark Cheng, who are Director of Forecast Center
and Research Center of CWB, respectively. Dr. Tsay took an active interest in the
current status of NWP at CWB, and strongly encouraged CWB to collaborate with
NWS on weather and climate modeling.
In the afternoon, Dr. Uccellini visited an old mining town, Pingxi, which has become
a popular tourist spot. As part of a Taiwanese tradition, people launch “sky lantern,”
which is essentially a small hot air balloon to convey their “wishes” (or prayers) to
the “heaven” (e.g., God) on a special festival. Launching these ‘wish balloons” has
become a very popular activity for tourists. Dr. Uccellini launched a wish balloon,
conveying his good wishes for the NWS Initiative of the “Weather Ready Nation” and
the success of the COSMIC-2 Program. This brought a great ending to his short two
and half day visit to Taiwan.