A Progress Report On A Hands On Interdisciplinary Program For Severe Weather And Next Generation Multi Function Radar
- Conference
- Location
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Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
- Publication Date
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June 22, 2008
- Start Date
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June 22, 2008
- End Date
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June 25, 2008
- ISSN
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2153-5965
- Conference Session
- Page Count
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18
- Page Numbers
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13.89.1 - 13.89.18
- DOI
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10.18260/1-2--4044
- Permanent URL
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https://strategy.asee.org/4044
- Download Count
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406
Paper Authors
Mark Yeary University of Oklahoma
Robert Palmer University of Oklahoma
Kevin Kloesel University of Oklahoma
Tian Yu University of Oklahoma
Dr. Tian-You Yu is an Assistant Professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. His education at the University of Nebraska and post-doc experience at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado provide a unique cross-disciplinary background of atmospheric research. He has many reviewed technical journal and conference papers in the areas of applications of signal processing techniques to radar problems and studies using atmospheric radars. In parallel with his technical strength, he has a passion for delivering high quality education. He has developed and taught several undergraduate and graduate courses at the University of Oklahoma.
Kent Johnson University of Oklahoma
Dr. Kent Johnson is an Assistant Professor of Adult and Higher Education and Director of the Program for Instructional Innovation at The University of Oklahoma. He formally was Director of Assessment at Arkansas State University and Research Associate and Program Manager for Assessment at Pennsylvania State University’s Schreyer Institute for Innovation in Learning. Kent has worked extensively in Engineering Education designing and assessing curricular innovations.
Mike Biggerstaff University of Oklahoma
Dr. Michael Biggerstaff is the lead scientist behind the Shared Mobile Atmospheric Research and Teaching (SMART) radar program, a collaborative effort between the University of Oklahoma, Texas A&M University, Texas Tech University, and the National Severe Storms Laboratory that built and successfully deployed two mobile radars to enhance storm research and to improve meteorological education. Dr. Biggerstaff has received awards in teaching and advising. He received several invitations for short courses in the U.S. and abroad.
Phil Chilson University of Oklahoma
Dr. Phil Chilson received a PhD in Physics from Clemson University in 1993. The focus of his studies was the use of radar for the investigation of precipitation. He then spent three years at a Max-Planck Institute in Germany, where he continued his atmospheric research using radar. In 1997, he became a research scientist at the Swedish Institute of Space Physics as part of the Atmospheric Research Programme. In 2000, Dr. Chilson returned to the US to begin work in Boulder, CO, where he was appointed as a Research Scientist with the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES). Since 2005, he has been an Associate Professor in Meteorology at the University of Oklahoma. Throughout his career, Dr. Chilson has been heavily involved in the development and use of radar and radar technologies for the investigation and study of the Earth's atmosphere.
Guifu Zhang University of Oklahoma
Dr. Guifu Zhang is an associate professor in the School of Meteorology at the University of Oklahoma. His main interest is to develop remote sensing techniques for understanding and quantifying weather and earth environments. His research and education interests also include wave propagation and scattering in geophysical media subjected to turbulent mixing and filled with hydrometers and other objects. He is currently teaching and researching in the areas of cloud and precipitation microphysics, electromagnetics, radar polarimetry and phased array radar interferometry for weather applications. He has taught many courses and published over 40 journal papers. Prior to joining OU, Dr. Zhang was a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).
Abstract
NOTE: The first page of text has been automatically extracted and included below in lieu of an abstract
Introduction Severe and hazardous weather such as thunderstorms, downbursts, and tornadoes can take lives in a matter of minutes. In order to improve detection and forecast of such phe- nomena using radar, one of the key factors is fast scan capability. Conventional weather radars, such as the ubiquitous NEXRAD (Next Generation Radar developed in the 1980’s), are severely limited by mechanical scanning. Approximately 175 of these radars are in a national network to provide the bulk of our weather information. Under the development for weather applications, the electronically steerable beams provided by the phased array radar at the NWRT can overcome these limitations of the current NEXRAD radar. For this reason, the phased array radar was listed by the National Research Council as one of the primary candidate technologies to supersede the NEXRAD [1]. By definition, a phased array radar is one that relies on a two-dimensional array of small antennas. Each antenna has the ability to change its phase characteristics, thus allowing the overall system to collectively locate specific interesting regions of weather. The NWRT is the nation’s first facility dedicated to phased array radar meteorology. In addition, the demand for students trained in this area will be high as new radar technologies replace the ones designed 20 years ago, and as weather radar usage extends into areas such as homeland security. From the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) perspective, the phased array radar technology developed at the NWRT will be used to enhance the safety and capacity of the National Airspace System. Moreover, this proposal is consistent with one of NOAA’s Mission Goals for the 21st Century: to serve society’s needs for weather information [2].
In order for students and researchers to study the characteristics of the NEXTRAD and the NWRT, resources are available on campus for experiments. In addition to these radars, other radars are available for a wide variety of atmospheric investigations. Five radars are discussed here, as depicted in Figure 1. To begin, students have an unprecedented oppor- tunity to take advantage of a unique federal, private, state and academic partnership that has been formed for the development of the phased array radar technology at the NWRT, as depicted by panel 1 in Figure 1. Eight participants contributed to the installation of the new radar, including: NOAA’s National Severe Storms Laboratory and National Weather Service Radar Operations Center, Lockheed Martin, U.S. Navy, Federal Aviation Admin- istration, and BCI, Inc.
Panel 2 in Figure 1 depicts a mobile radar known as the Shared Mobile Atmospheric Research and Teaching Radar or SMART-R [3]. This research and educational portable enterprise is a coalition of scientists from the University of Oklahoma (OU), National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL), Texas A&M University (TAMU), and Texas Tech University (TTU) who embarked on a project to build and deploy two mobile C-band Doppler weather radars for storm-scale research and to enhance graduate and undergraduate education in radar meteorology. This project culminated in the successful development and deployment of the first mobile C-band Doppler weather radar, radars capable of accurately measuring both clear-air circulations and damaging winds in heavy rain.
Yeary, M., & Palmer, R., & Kloesel, K., & Yu, T., & Johnson, K., & Biggerstaff, M., & Chilson, P., & Zhang, G. (2008, June), A Progress Report On A Hands On Interdisciplinary Program For Severe Weather And Next Generation Multi Function Radar Paper presented at 2008 Annual Conference & Exposition, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 10.18260/1-2--4044
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