Now that a few months have passed since the end of the MAP SOP, we can begin to gain some perspective on the whole project. Reinhold Steinacker's summary of the weather events, in comparison with climatology, provides considerable insight. Philippe Bougeault has also pulled together a summary of MAP for an article in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. His discussion will help us, and the rest of the atmospheric science community, understand the objectives of MAP and the enormous value of the MAP data sets. Individual investigators or groups may be preparing summaries of their own subprojects. For example, Jim Doyle is preparing an article comparing the gravity wave breaking climatology of 1999 with the previous year (1998). Louisa Nance is working to summarize the PV subproject. My intention, in this brief note, is to comment on interdisciplinary research in MAP.
Behind the intense day-by-day activity in Innsbruck and Milano, a rare and valuable interaction occurred between scientists from different disciplines within the atmospheric sciences. The advice sought and given, the friendly competition for resources, the shared elation over a successful mission and the shared exhaustion after an extended IOP (e.g. IOP 15) had the result of expanding our view of atmospheric science. Scientists in subdisciplines which have had a tendency to move apart in recent years found themselves with a new appreciation of how the whole atmosphere, and how our whole discipline can work together. I recall intense discussions linking meteorology and flood hydrology, dynamic and thermally driven valley winds, synoptic and mesoscale circulations among those who, at their home institutions, do not have colleagues in these other fields.
One of the most exciting collaborations which may arise from MAP is between Wet and Dry MAP. While this linkage was not explicitly emphasized in the MAP planning documents, and the separation between the Innsbruck and Milan Centers made interaction more difficult, considerable Wet/Dry discussion took place during the SOP. Some of this interaction occurred in the daily planning meetings across our not-so-perfect international telephone connection. Certainly the Wet and Dry MAP scientists, working together in Innsbruck, had extensive opportunity for interactions. An important contribution was also made by those who travelled between the two Centres, helping to unify our activities.
There are several reasons why I believe that Wet and Dry MAP participants should make a special effort to work together. First, theoretical and numerical study of dry mountain flow is making rapid advances. As more is known, the knowledge of airflow dynamics can be applied to the more complex moist problems. Second, the advances in ground based and airborne radar and microphysical measurements, on display during MAP, are providing a remarkable base of observations and interpretations. These results will inspire further work and provide a way to verify numerical models. Many potential applications of our work demand a better understanding of how dry and wet processes interact. Examples include Foehn, QPF, pollution scavenging, glacier heat and mass budgets and water resources. And, let me not forget the troublesome forecasting problem of valley fog, the nemesis of our Innsbruck aircraft operations.
I look forward to seeing the diverse MAP community working together over the next few years.
Ron Smith
New Haven, CT