Project Grant DESC0017168

This Project Grant award of $174,988 from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences will support the development of a millimeter-wavelength (mmWave) rapid scan image phased array radar technology demonstrator unit. The objective is to evaluate the feasibility of a future ground-based, mobile phased array cloud radar system that could provide high-resolution measurements of cloud processes, which are crucial for understanding the Earth's climate and...

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory will provide aircraft-derived atmospheric observations to improve weather forecasting models under a $520,500 cooperative agreement from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Through the award's two-year period, MIT Lincoln Laboratory will extract meteorological data from commercial aircraft equipped with Mode S transponders using airport surveillance radars. This effort aims to increase the number, spatial resolution,...

This cooperative agreement award from the Department of Commerce National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration provides $672,374 to incorporate a freezing rain accumulation model into the Multi-Radar/Multi-Sensor system and expand validation data for freezing rain accumulation analysis. Under the Weather and Air Quality Research program (CFDA 11.459), the University of Oklahoma will deliver a national ice accumulation analysis updated every two minutes, along with new knowledge about...

This Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Geosciences Program (CFDA 47.050) to Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Inc. in the amount of $374,070 aims to better understand how different types of precipitation in tropical cyclones impact their maximum sustained wind speeds. The 4-year project will use airborne Doppler radar data and numerical weather prediction models to examine how precipitation modes, such as convection and stratiform rain, perturb the kinematic...

The National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences awarded a $326,956 Project Grant to the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) to develop a free, online, customizable, college-level course in radar meteorology. This 5-year project, beginning on September 1, 2023, aims to create a series of interactive, multimedia lessons that will educate the general public, professional partners, and students on the uses, applications, and limitations of...

This cooperative agreement award from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will fund the development of global, high-resolution snowpack property datasets and analysis products at the University of Maryland, College Park from August 2021 to July 2023. The $205,000 award supports creating the first multi-decadal, 4-km resolution daily snow cover area, snow water equivalent, and snow depth dataset and analysis system under NOAA's Weather and Air Quality Research program (CFDA...

This $277,610 project grant from the National Science Foundation's Office of Integrative Activities, under the Geosciences program (CFDA 47.050), will fund research comparing in-situ and polarimetric radar hail observations. The University of North Dakota will use existing polarimetric radar and storm-penetrating aircraft data to improve estimates of hail properties from radar. Researchers will process hydrometeor images, analyze radar data to identify times when sweeps intersected hail, and...

This National Science Foundation (NSF) Project Grant under the Geosciences program (CFDA 47.050) provides $406,901 to Colorado State University to conduct research on warm rain evolution and microphysical processes. The key objectives are to: (i) Characterize drop size distributions and evaluate their stability across different rain types and climates; (ii) Retrieve drop size distribution moments from X-band polarimetric radar observations to understand lower-order moment profiles and cell...

This $448,486 cooperative agreement, awarded by the National Science Foundation's Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences (CFDA 47.050 - Geosciences), will fund the deployment of the Doppler on Wheels Network (DOWNET) - a suite of advanced weather instrumentation including two mobile, dual-polarization, dual-frequency, Doppler X-band radars and an array of surface weather stations. This DOWNET facility will be used to study a variety of societally-impactful topics, from tornadoes to...

This National Science Foundation (NSF) Geosciences Program (CFDA 47.050) grant award provides $1,392,273 to Atmospheric & Environmental Research Inc. (AER) to conduct the In-situ Collaborative Experiment for the Collection of Hail in the Plains (ICECHIP) field campaign. The project aims to improve radar detection and monitoring of hail, provide critical ground-truth data for materials science, and enhance the nation's hailstorm prediction capabilities. Over 4 years beginning September...