DC Area PBL variability experiment

An ad-hoc PBL measurement and collection campaign is recommended as part of the NASA/ROSES real-time PBL anal project. The project web page is found here :

http://www.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/mmb/aq/pbl

Campaign goals include :

• Instrument and methodology cross-comparison to determine Afternoon boundary layer height (BLH).
• Spatial variability of PBL in DC Baltimore area.
• Provide a dataset to compare to remotely sensed estimates of BLH (e.g.: CALIPSO, COSMIC GPS RO).
• Limitations of BLH derivation methods for each instrument and 1st guess estimate of observation errors for the NCEP Real-Time Mesoscale Analysis (RTMA) ingest.

Collection days and Model products are found here:

• Monday September 14, 2009
• Tuesday September 15, 2009
• Saturday September 19, 2009
• Sunday September 20, 2009

Data viewing could be made available through the NOAA/ARL/ATDD data viewer found at:

http://dataviewer.atdd.noaa.gov/rtmacomparison/

Daily NCEP North American Model (NAM-12), Rapid Update Cycle(RUC-13) and experimental NCEP
WRF-NMM 4km and NARAC WRF-ARW 3 km PBL forecasts are available here.

The following table summarizes the measurements that were collected with links to available data.
(Bold, italics means that data, plots are currently available)

nstrument/model	Responsible collector	Location & data files	Availability	PBL Derivation method
NWS radiosondes	Marina Tsidulko, Caterina Tassone,  NCEP	DCA, BWI, IAD	8 AM, 8 PM EDT	Critical Richardson number from T, V, q
ACARS profiles	M. Tsidulko, Caterina Tassone, NCEP	DCA, BWI, IAD	hourly	Critical Richardson number from T, V
Nexrad Radar	Shun Liu,  NCEP	DCA, BWI, IAD	hourly	vertical reflectivity gradient
TDWR Radar	FAA/NCEP/NCAR	DCA, BWI, IAD	hourly	Not available currently
Howard U. Downtown Grall Radiosondes	C. Vogel, W. Pendergrass, ARL	Howard U.  NW DC 38.923447 N -77.019306 W	11 AM, 13,14, 15,17 PM EDT	direct Can only be launched with 50% or less cloud cover & > 5 miles visibility
RFK Stadium Grall Radiosondes	C. Vogel, W. Pendergrass, ARL	RFK Stadium 38.893644 N -76.970364 W	11 AM, 13,15,17 PM EDT	direct Can only be launched with 50% or less cloud cover & > 5 miles visibility
Sodar	C. Vogel, W. Pendergrass, ARL	DOE Forrestal Bldng, DC	hourly	20 m 1^st lvl, w/ 10 m spacing to ~250 m, PSU method ?
BELTSVILLE, MD Vaisalla Radiosondes	M. Hicks, H.U.	Beltsville, MD 39.054°N; 76.877°W	11 AM, 13, 15, 17 PM EDT	direct
915 MHZ wind profiler RASS	B. Demoz, M. Hicks, E. Joseph, Howard U.	Beltsville, MD	30 min	Doppler signal/noise
Raman lidar	B. Demoz, M. Hicks, E. Joseph, Howard U.	Beltsville, MD	30 min	aerosol backscatter
Microwave radiometer	B. Demoz, M. Hicks, E. Joseph, Howard U	Beltsville, MD	1 minute	T,q retrievals
Mult-level flux tower	M. Robjhon, H.U.	Beltsville, MD	30 min	31 m, PSU
UMD Baltimore Campus Vaisalla radiosonde	R. Delgado, W. McMillan, UMBC	Baltimore, MD 39.254628 N, 76.709353 W	No launches scheduled	direct
Elastic Lidar (ELF)	Jamie Compton UMBC	Baltimore, MD	1 min	Aerosol backscatter (532 nm)
Atmospheric Emitted Radiance Interferometer (AERI)	W. McMillan, UMBC	Baltimore,  MD	1-7 min	T q retrievals
GREENBELT, MD MPLNET	Judd Welton, Larry Belcher, NASA/GSFC	Greenbelt, MD 39.01667 N, -76.86670 W	hourly	Aerosol backscatter (532 nm)
Wind lidar	NCAR	Navy Annex, DC	hourly	Doppler signal to noise
CALIPSO	Nikisa S. Jordan	1 km passes	3 AM EDT 9/19/09 14:18 PM 9/19/09	Aerosol backscatter (532 nm)
COSMIC GPS/RO	L. Cucurull, JCSDA S. Goode/UCAR	??	2x/day	radio occultation
RUC model	Caterina Tassone, NCEP	13 km resolution	hourly	Theta-v profiles RI # PBL
NAM Model	Jeff McQueen, NCEP	12 km localized plots	hourly	MYJ PBL
WRF-ARW 3 km	Matt Simpson, LLNL	3 km	time-series	YSU PBL
WRF-NMM 4 km	Marina Tsidulko, NCEP	4 km	maps	MYJ PBL