Report on the International
U.S. MAP Meeting in Boulder, CO

The first international MAP meeting in the U.S.A. took place in Boulder, Colorado, February 23-26, 1998. The local organizers under the lead of J. Kuettner, together with the participants (US: 41, Can:1, Europe: 22), were able to create a stimulating and productive atmosphere. The meeting's focus was on the MAP scientific objectives, observing platforms and instrumentation, and operational aspects, including flight track options, and it offered a great opportunity for interaction between the U.S. and European PI's and technical operators, and other key MAP people.

J. Kuettner's vast experience in the area of international field projects has taught him that the success of an experiment depends as much on human relationships as on solid advance scientific and technical planning. Certainly, the Boulder meeting considerably helped the MAP community to overcome the North Atlantic separation so that the partners could become better acquainted. To reinforce this, time was scheduled for the reiteration of all scientific objectives of MAP such that the interrelation of the various interests became evident. More formally, the Science Plan has been settled to harmonize the U.S. and the European interests (see article).

Ph. Bougeault gave a short talk on PYREX, a field campaign in the Pyrenean mountains conducted in 1990, presenting results that are surely encouraging for MAP. For a summary on PYREX see Bougeault 1995 and Bougeault et al. 1997. Also, the presence of Th. Gutermann, chairman of the MAP-IGP and director of the MeteoSwiss, D.Jorgensen of NSSL in Boulder who is responsible for submitting the proposals for the P-3 and all related aircraft facilities to NOAA, and S. Nelson, Program Director for Mesoscale Dynamic Meteorology at NSF, substantiated the importance of the meeting. Finally, at the end of the meeting, R. Gall pointed out that he foresees a productive cooperation between the US and Europe during MAP.

This report briefly summarizes the main activities of the meeting presenting first a selection of national news. Subsequently the discussions on ground based and airborne observing systems are condensed. Specific issues will be detailed in the Science and Implementation Plans, and in specialized articles in this Newsletter.

The session on international and national status reports served to inform the audience about the organizational and financial status of the participants. A selection of information of special interest thereof is condensed in the following. The considerable momentum MAP has developed in Europe is reflected by the two EU funded MAP-related programmes HERA and RAPHAEL, and a joint initiative of European National Weather Services. HERA focuses on the description and analysis of heavy precipitation events in the Alpine region, and its funds total to about 1.6 MECU. The basic objective of RAPHAEL (Ranzi 1997) is to develop, implement and demonstrate the use of coupled meteorological and hydrological models on the regional scale in order to improve flood forecasting and management in complex mountain watersheds. Funds for RAPHAEL amount to about 1 MECU. Moreover, the EUMETNET programme MAP-NWS, an effort involving eleven European national weather services, ensures the operation of the Programme Office and the Data Centre with about 1.1 MECU until the end of 1999 (Gutermann 1997).

Detailing the organization of the field phase becomes progressively important, and the recent decision that the MOC be located in Innsbruck really started the setup of the centre. The funding status appears optimistic and Austria has already appointed its meteorological and flight operations directors: Peter Parson, ZAMG, and Herbert Pümpel, Austro Control, respectively (see article). Canada is preparing to run the non-hydrostatic MC2 model operationally for the whole Alpine region at 2 km resolution. They plan to integrate the MC2 in nested mode with the Swiss Model at the Swiss Centre for Supercomputing in Manno, Switzerland (near Lugano). In France the funds for the field phase have already been committed. However, the amount is such that the French involvement will have to be limited to two months instead of the full three months of the project. One important concern in Germany is to find additional funds for the Falcon aircraft, which at present is committed only for three weeks and 30 flight hours. The UK MetOffice is likely to participate in MAP with the C-130 aircraft for two weeks, probably in the first half of September. In Italy, apart from the POC in Milano-Linate (see article), the setup of a coordinated network of operational radars is an issue of major concern in the attempt to prepare an Alpine radar composite for the field phase. Apart from providing important administrative support to MAP, Swiss institutions including the Swiss Army have been able to considerably increase the number of radio soundings in the Alps. The US participation in MAP has been substantiated by the ÔU.S. Overview Document and Experiment Design' which is now at NSF for review. The US aircraft involvement is vital to the MAP field phase, particularly the Doppler radar-equipped Electra and the P3. The status of the high-altitude WB-57, important for the detection gravity wave breaking areas, however, is very uncertain at present and S. Nelson, encouraged to think about writing a proposal to NSF for the German Falcon in order to have an alternative for the WB-57. Indeed, progress in the Phase I modelling efforts was discussed by E. Richard and J. Doyle, and model intercomparisons indicate that the prediction of wave breaking areas and heights may indeed be possible.

Routine observation stations, including hydrological stations, in the Alpine region are great in number. They are managed by many different providers, and only a part of the stations are real-time accessible. For each target area the issue of non-GTS data has to be addressed. Additionally, the deployment and possible setup of special observing systems has been discussed for each target area. A complete set of preliminary target area instrumentation will be published in the Science Plan (http://www.map.meteoswiss.ch) after its approval by the SSC and the IGP at the next MAP Meeting in June.

One focus in the Lago Maggiore target area is the radar experiment involving the Mt. Lema, Ronsard, and S-Pol radars. To this end these radars have to be coordinated between themselves, with the ÔDoppler on wheels' radar (the Doppler on wheel is an X-band Doppler radar mounted on a van and can be used in valleys where the visibility for the research radars is bad), the wind profilers, and the operational weather radars, including the software to process data and issues of frequency allocation. For hydrological application as many stations as possible should be available in near real-time to run discharge models. The Rhine Valley target area is planned to have a unique density of radio sounding station as well as special observing platforms (lidars, sodars, wind profilers, etc.) for the study of Foehn. Also, excellent instrumentation is planned for the study of gap flows in the Brenner Pass area. Equipped in this manner the MAP-SOP experiment has the potential to deliver an extremely valuable data set for basic studies and validation of models.

Aircraft will play an essential role during the SOP. Table 1 lists the aircraft that are intended to be deployed in MAP. Also, special instrumentation, availability and the funding status for each are given. In connection with aircraft deployment the issues of flight track permission and drop sonde permission have to be addressed. This is particularly difficult because six different Alpine countries are involved. Concerning flight track permission, ALPEX-experienced H. Finkenzeller has emphasized to request maximum flexibility, i.e. MAP should not ask for fixed flight patterns but rather for flight areas. Requests to air traffic control should be submitted six months in advance. As a general approach strategy, one should ask for a maximum, and be prepared for alternative routing and secondary missions. First sketches of flight tracks have been discussed but the planning for the various scientific objectives has to be tackled in dedicated workshops.

H. Pümpel and P. Parson gave a presentation on the excellent facilities in Innsbruck (for details see article). They pointed out that it is important for the research group to submit their requirements regarding telecommunication lines, connections, accommodation and more. As to the meteorological products needed at the MOC forecast office, they will be defined in the WG-FC workshop in April. Unfortunately no representative of the POC in Milano-Linate was able to attend the meeting. Nevertheless, the people responsible for the POC are very well motivated and funds are already committed.

In summary, the meeting was characterized by a friendly and constructive atmosphere. A number of points important to the field phase planning were addressed in the meeting. The outcome will be concentrated into the Science Plan, documents that will contain the scientific, operational, and strategic goals of the field phase. Moreover, the discussion on the decision making process for SOP operation has been initiated. A mission selection team will have to be formed which is responsible for the daily operations and properly reflects the interests of the different countries as well as the scientific objectives. It will be the purpose of the planning meeting in Ascona, at the end of October 1998, to pin down the details of the many aspects of the operations in the form of the Implementation Plan.

Bougeault, Ph., 1995. PYREX and MAP: A natural link. MAP Newsletter, 2, 17-22. Available at MeteoSwiss or http://www.map.meteoswiss.ch.
Bougeault, Ph, B. Benech, P. Bessemoulin, B. Carissimo, A. Jansa Clar, J. Pelon, M. Petitdidier, and E. Richard, 1997. PYREX: A summary of findings. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 78, 637-650.
Gutermann, Th., 1997. Funding status. MAP Newsletter, 6, 20-21. Available at MeteoSwiss or http://www.map.meteoswiss.ch.
Houze, R., J. Kuettner, and R. Smith (editors), 1998. MAP U.S. Overview Document and Experiment Design. Available at UCAR, Boulder, CO, 57pp.
Ranzi, R., 1997. The RAPHAEL project. MAP Newsletter, 7, 9-12. Available at MeteoSwiss or http://www.map.meteoswiss.ch.