Planning Grant: Engineering Research Center for Precision Meteorology (ERC-PM)

工程研究中心的规划赠款竞争是作为ERC计划内的试点招标运行。ERC竞赛不需要规划赠款，但旨在培养团队规划收敛的中心规模工程研究的能力。正如许多人从经验中了解到的那样，天气预报是一门不精确的科学，依赖于对许多不同预测的结果进行平均。因此，预测往往在预测的程度上是不准确的，在时间、地点或严重程度等重要细节上也是不准确的。并非罕见的是，预测完全错误，有时会造成灾难性的后果。虽然在过去的几十年里，大规模的天气预报已经有所改善，但在局部范围内准确的天气预报是我们力所能及的，但如果没有范式的变化，将改变天气企业，并为我们的许多食品，能源，交通和气候触发的天气挑战解锁解决方案，就不可能实现。如果成功，这一举措将给广大公众带来广泛的好处。请考虑以下场景：想象一下，如果机场对结冰何时结束有可靠的预测，如果种植者确信附近农场的风生真菌不会飘到他们的田地里，如果第一反应人员知道局部风力变化控制野火蔓延或大雨可能受到洪水影响的地方。考虑从准确的本地预测中获得的年度收益，以优化风电场生产和太阳能输出。想象一个航空预警网络，在低空发现不可见的风切变和晴空湍流。想象一下，通过城市和农村环境中的微尺度天气预测实现高度可靠的自主空中出租车和送货网络。考虑减轻偏头痛患者和其他有天气引起的健康问题的人的预警。考虑使用一个移动的灵活的大气观测系统来减轻恶劣天气警报和相关应急反应的差异的可能性。这些和其他尚未想象的机会将有可能与精密气象学。因此，该团队提出了一项规划拨款，以评估拟议的精密气象工程研究中心。高度准确，及时，本地规模的天气预报-精密气象学-将能够解决影响社会的广泛问题，包括食品，能源和气候相关的挑战。提高微尺度气象模式准确性的关键是将增加低层大气（包括大气边界层）内的原位观测与优化利用这些观测的高分辨率数值天气预报（NWP）相结合。增加ABL观测的关键技术包括无人机系统（UAS）;在ABL及其他领域的传感中具有已证实的价值，引发了气象观测科学基础的重大转变。优化这些测量和数值天气预报之间的耦合，以最大限度地发挥影响，需要工程，大气科学，数据科学和社会科学之间的融合研究。如果成功，该中心将通过数据支持的本地化天气预测实现经济和社会影响，与当前的气象预测相比，提供显着的交付时间，准确性和分辨率改进。通过一个全面的方法，我们相信精密气象中心（CPM）将实现这一愿景。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。

The Planning Grants for Engineering Research Centers competition was run as a pilot solicitation within the ERC program. Planning grants are not required as part of the full ERC competition, but intended to build capacity among teams to plan for convergent, center-scale engineering research.As many people know from experience, weather forecasting is an imprecise science that relies on averaging results from many different predictions. Thus, forecasts are often inaccurate in the degree of prediction and miss the mark in important details of timing, location, or severity. Not uncommonly, the forecast is just plain wrong with sometimes disastrous consequences. While weather forecasts at the large scale have improved over the last few decades, accurate weather prediction at local scales is within our reach, but not possible without paradigm changes that will transform the weather enterprise and unlock solutions to many of our food, energy, transportation, and climate-triggered weather challenges. If successful, this initiative will have a broad range of benefits to the general public. Consider the following scenarios: Imagine if airports had reliable predictions of when icing will end, if a grower was assured that the wind-born fungus at a nearby farm would not drift into their fields, and if first responders knew of localized wind shifts governing wildfire spread or heavy rain in locations likely to be impacted by flooding. Consider annual gains from accurate local prediction for optimized wind farm production and solar energy output. Picture an aviation warning network for invisible wind shear and clear air turbulence at low altitudes. Imagine highly reliable autonomous air taxi and delivery networks enabled by microscale weather prediction in urban and rural settings. Consider the relief of advance warning for migraine sufferers and others with weather-induced health issues. Think of the possibility to alleviate disparities in severe weather warnings and associated emergency response using a mobile, flexible atmospheric observing system. These and other opportunities yet to be imagined will be possible with Precision Meteorology. Therefore, this team proposes a planning grant to evaluate a proposed Engineering Research Center for Precision Meteorology.Highly accurate, timely, local-scale weather prediction - Precision Meteorology - will enable solutions to issues that impact a broad array of problems impacting society, including food, energy, and climate related challenges. The key to improving accuracy of microscale meteorological models, and thus local prediction, is to couple increased in situ observations within the lower atmosphere, including the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL), with high-resolution numerical weather prediction (NWP) optimized to utilize these observations. A key enabling technology for increasing ABL observations includes Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS); emerging with proven value for sensing in the ABL and beyond, initiating a significant shift in the scientific foundations of meteorological observations. Optimizing the coupling between these measurements and numerical weather prediction to maximize impact requires convergent research among engineering, atmospheric science, data science, and social science. If successful, this center will achieve economic and societal impacts through data-enabled localized weather prediction offering significant lead-time, accuracy, and resolution improvements over current meteorological predictions. Through a comprehensive approach, we believe a Center for Precision Meteorology (CPM) will achieve this vision.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.