Competition for a Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere

The NOAA Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR) invites applications for the establishment of a Cooperative Institute (CI) for Research in the Atmosphere. This new cooperative institute supports the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research's Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) and Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML), National Weather Service (NWS), and the NOAA National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service (NESDIS) Regional and Mesoscale Meteorology (RAMM) Branch in helping NOAA meet its mission responsibilities. This new CI will need expertise and resources necessary to conduct research associated with the development of satellite applications for atmospheric forecast systems applicable to scales that span the spectrum from regional to global. The research will focus on the regional up to the global spatial scales and include time scales from minutes to months, a period typically considered the climate-weather connection. Their work will include the development of algorithms and numerical modeling techniques ranging in complexity from statistically based multi-satellite weather forecast products, to complete forecast systems that utilize earth system modeling frameworks. Data assimilation studies will also be needed to extract the information content from satellite and other observing systems. The new CI will emphasize short to medium range weather forecasting, on satellite-based decision tools to improve warnings, and on improvements to Impact-based Decision Support tools. It is also anticipated that there will be close coordination with on-going work at existing NOAA CIs that focus on climate, chemistry and oceanography and other data sources (such as radar). Because of the complex processes involved, research using complex coupled atmosphere, ocean, and land surface modeling systems will be needed in order to understand and predict regional weather events (such as hurricanes and fire weather), as well as for studies of weather influences on regional climate variability and climate influences on weather systems. The new CI will need capabilities to validate such models using satellite, in situ and remotely-sensed observations; to evaluate problem areas; and to improve forecasts. In addition, the CI will need the ability to develop multi-sensor products from satellite and other observing systems for regional and mesoscale meteorology applications, with particular emphasis on high impact hazardous weather detection and prediction where modeling approaches sometimes have limited utility. Since some of this research will need to be transitioned to NOAA operations, these activities will require the CI to develop and use sophisticated proxy data and observing system simulation techniques to test the future value of these systems before it become operationally available.