Mohan Ramamurthy
Director, Unidata Program Center/UCAR, USA

Workshop Introduction

Unidata: A Community Facility for the Atmospheric and Related Sciences

The principal focus of Unidata's activities is on real-time weather data provision. In addition, Unidata develops tools, middleware, and services that contribute to broader cyberinfrastructure needs of the geosciences community.

Tom Yoksas
head, User Support, Unidata Program Center/UCAR, USA

Data Democratization – Promoting Free and Open Data Exchange Throughout the Americas

Unidata's involvement in international outreach activities began in ernest with its involvement in the UCAR-funded Meteoforum Pilot Project. In Meteoforum, UCAR's Unidata and COMET programs evaluated the possibilities for technology transfer to WMO Regional Meteorological Training Centers (RMTCs) in WMO regions III and IV. One result of Unidata's effort in Meteoforum was the establishment of the South American peer of the North American-based Internet Data Distribution (IDD) system. The incipient data sharing network has matured into the IDD-Brasil through a strategic partnership with INPE/CPTEC.

Waldenio Gambi de Almeida
INPE/CPTEC, Brazil

Data and tools from CPTEC available for the IDD-Brasil

Use of IDD-delivered data and Unidata tools at CPTEC/INPE: data that CPTEC is ingesting for distribution and the tools that CPTEC has developed and makes freely-available to the community.

Coffee break

Marisa Gloria Cogliati
Universidad National del Comahue, Argentiana

A Description of Meteorological Surface Dataset in Northern Patagonia, Argentina

The talk presented the state of observational meteorological network in northern Patagonia, Argentina and the first steps in the creation of a web site with information about available datasets, location and periods of observational data, institutions that obtain this data and the availability of such information.

Glenn Rutledge
Meteorologist/Physical Scientist NOAA/NCDC/NOMADS, USA

NOMADS – The NOAA National Operational Model Archive and Distribution System

An overview of the NOMADS project at NOAA/NCDC.

To help set servicing priorities, NCDC is soliciting feedback from the user community. This presentation describes in more detail the attributes of the three reanalysis efforts, and gives users the opportunity to indicate which portions of the resulting data are most likely to be needed on-line, at least, initially.

Jaqueline Murakami Kokitsu
IPMet, Instituto de Pesquisas, Brazil

IPMet Web-Based Meteorological Database System with Emphasis on Radar Data

IPMet (Instituto de Pesquisas Meteorológicas) of Unesp has been archiving radar data to be used for research since the installation of its first C band radar in 1974. In order to provide rapid and transparent access to those data, a dedicated system for archiving, recovering and visualizing radar data was developed, which uses a relational database management system and has a Web-based user interface. The new database system also allows the incorporation of various other meteorological data.

Sistema de Banco de Dados Meteorológicos Baseado em Web do IPMet com Ênfase em Dados de Radar

O IPMet (Instituto de Pesquisas Meteorológicas) da Unesp vem armazenando dados de radar para utilização em pesquisa desde a instalação de seu primeiro radar banda C em 1974. Com o objetivo de fornecer um acesso rápido e transparente a esses dados, foi desenvolvido um sistema dedicado de arquivamento, recuperação e visualização de dados de radar, que utiliza um sistema gerenciador de banco de dados relacional e possui interface com o usuário baseada em Web. O novo sistema de banco de dados também permite a incorporação de vários outros dados meteorolóicos.

Guilherme Chagas
Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal
Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Integrating Numerical Models into GEMPAK and the LDM

Introduction to the basic infrastructure bridging LDM and GEMPAK, focusing on decoding and ingesting gridded data. Case study on CPTEC's ETA model and its dissemination through IDD.

Marcus Vinicius Salgado Mendes
CPTEC/INPE, Brazil

GEMPAK Regional - Versão Regional do Gempak

Modificações e Implementações feitas no Gempak do Unidata para permitir a visualização de productos nacionais.

Marcelo Romanero de Moraes
CIRAM/COPAGRI, Santa Catrina, Brazil

Withdrawn

Pedro Leite da Silva Dias
Director, Laboratório Nacional de Computação Científica (LNCC)
Professor, USP/DAS, Brazil

Model Intercomparison and Validation System
THORPEX A Global Atmospheric Research Programme
Model Intercomparison – Super Model Ensemble

Ensemble forecasting/prediction challanges:

• How to deal with model and initial condition uncertainties?
• How can we validate model forecasts?
• More strict metrics: e.g., fit to surface observations
• How can we evaluate the impact of model/data assimilation changes?

Tom Whittaker
University of Wisconsin/SSEC/CIMSS, USA

Satellite Research Activities at University of Wisconsin, Space Science & Engineering Center and the Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies (CIMSS)

This presentation gave a high-level overview of the wide-ranging research activities taking place at SSEC/CIMSS, mostly related to satellites, but with some other remote sensing activities.

Coffee break

Maria Assunção Faus da Silva Dias
Director, Centro de Previsão de Tempo e Estudos Climáticos - CPTEC/INPE
Professor, USP/DAS, Brazil

Facing the Challenges of Meteorology in South America

The evolution of convection and the aerosol impacts in tropical So. America was the focus of this lecture which emphasized the unknowns. The role of data access and data assimilation was discussed.

Chris Rocken
Chief Scientist, COSMIC/UCAR, USA

COSMIC Data for Atmospheric Research And Operations

The COSMIC project is generating about 2000 daily profiles of electron density in the ionosphere and refractivity, pressure, temperature and water vapor in the neutral atmosphere. About 1.5 million ionospheric and 1.2 million neutral atmospheric profiles have been generated since the launch of the mission's 6 satellites in April 2006. All data from the mission are available from the COSMIC program.

Recently the program has also begun to make real time neutral atmospheric products available via the Unidata LDM. This presentation summarized the mission status, discussed data quality and applications and described how the data can be accessed by scientists and operational centers.

Juan Benavides
SIG Developer, CATHALAC, Panama

The Role of Data & Information Infrastructures in Supporting Climate Change Adaptation in Latin America & the Caribbean

Tom Whittaker
University of Wisconsin/SSEC/CIMSS, USA

The next Generation of McIDAS – McIDAS-V

The next generation of McIDAS is being developed at the University of Wisconsin/SSEC. Based on the VisAD and (Unidata's) IDV libraries, this new analysis and visualization toolkit will also embrace the capabilities found in the HYDRA project for hyper-spectral analysis. The presentation talked about the evolution of McIDAS and the decision to embark on this new version.

A workshop was held to give some hands-on experience with McIDAS-V and Unidata’s IDV.

Elen Cutrim
Professor of Geography Western Michigan University, USA

Use of Unidata Tools in an Educational Environment – (Withdrawn)

Tom Whittaker
University of Wisconsin/SSEC/CIMSS, USA

Browser applets for education

Over the past ten years, dozens of “applets” (small applications) have been developed to assist in teaching fundamental principles in meteorology. These applets are freely available for download. This presentation focused on the process of creating them, as well as giving an overview of what is available.

Rosane Rodregues Chaves
Universidade Estadual do Norte, Brazil

Jennifer Collins
University of South Florida, USA

Temperature Variability in South America Between 1948 - 2007

Coffee break

Sergio Henrique Soares Ferreira
INPE/CPTEC, Brazil

CPTEC procedure to decode FM94-BUFR Automatic Weather Station data for use in GEMPAK

This presentation gave an overview of the CPTEC software to encode and decode FM94-BUFR format. This software is currently used to convert INMET and CPTEC Automatic Weather Station data from BUFR to the text format needed for GEMPAK.

Luiz Cavalcanti
INMET, Brazil

Workshop Sobre Vigilance, Prognostico y Alerta de Eventos Severos Curitiba, 16-18 abril, 2008 (A.D. Moura, Director of INMET)

Tim Spangler
Director COMET/UCAR, USA

The COMET Program

Overview of UCAR’s COMET Program and COMET’s MetEd Training Modules.

Tom Whittaker
University of Wisconsin/SSEC/CIMSS, USA

Teletraining with VISITview

The VISITview teletraining package is used for remote training and education of meteorologists world-wide. It was developed for the United States National Weather Service, and is freely available. A variety of modes that are available were discussed along with procedures for creating and distributing lessons.

A workshop that walked through the development of a lesson was held.