Utility of Aircraft Observations

Utility of Aircraft Observations

Presentation by William Moninger at the Forecast Systems Laboratory's Scientific and Technical Review, 21 July 1999.

QC and Distribution of ACARS Data

Objective	Direct access to ACARS Sounding and en-route data to selected providers/users
Requirement	Timely weather information
Funding	About $100K per year (1/2 FTE)
Connections	6 Airlines, NWS, NAOS Assessment team, Universities/Unidata
Payoff	Improved forecasts Aircraft "incidents" averted Greater airline interest in providing data to NOAA

Input Data

Six airlines provide data
- American
- Delta
- Federal Express
- Northwest
- United
- UPS
Data types
- Eddy Dissipation Rate (28 aircraft)
Observations per day:
- ~46K over the CONUS
- ~52K over the world
Soundings per week
- ~6200 soundings, at
- ~150 airports
- ~60 of which have more than 20 soundings per week

Usage

Data are available at http://acweb.fsl.noaa.gov/
Access to most data is restricted at the data providers' request
In a typical week:
- >2000 views by
- ~50 sites
- government, university, participating airlines
Several sites download binary data every 10 minutes over the web and, recently, using LDM software
Numerical models use the data
- MAPS/RUC
- LAPS
- ETA and AVN, but post-hoc at non-synoptic times

Feedback

Forecasters at airlines, NWS offices, and CWSU's have made good use of the data, as evidenced by:

Plans

Make ACARS data available to AWIPS
Decode United over-water reports
Develop better decoding of EDR and Humidity data
Entice more airlines to participate
- Regional carriers
- International carriers

En-route turbulence forecasting

Objective	Improve passenger safety and aircraft protection through better forecasting of turbulence for the aviation community
Requirement	Timely and accurate turbulence products for use by pilots and dispatchers for flight planning and turbulence avoidance
Funding	FAA; FY98 $313k, FY99 $176k, projected FY00 $176k Base funding; $100k
Connections	NCAR-RAP: acquisition of in-situ turbulence obs. AWC: provide feedback and verification of turbulence products NORPEX: high resolution dropsonde data of jet/front systems
Payoff	Reduce the adverse economic impact that turbulence-related accidents have on the airline industry

Results

Vertical cross-section of potential temperature from dropsondes during NORPEX shows good agreement with DTF5 turbulence forecasts.
Forecasts of turbulence, based on DTF5 and RUC2 are available on the web. These are used at CWSUs.

Plans

Implement turbulence parameterization as a part of the RUC2 model
Verify turbulence product against EDR reports from scheduled aircraft
Verify RUC2 turbulence formulation against field observations (winter 99-00)
Investigate using turbulence observations in model initializations