NOAA/NASA Joint GEWEX/GCIP Research Announcement
NOAA/ NASA Joint Call for Proposals addressing science issues in the GEWEX
Continental-Scale International Project (GCIP) and Interdisciplinary Studies
in the Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment (GEWEX) Continental
Experiments context.
Letters of Intent Due April 30, 1997
Proposals Due May 30, 1997
Issued as an amendment to the Program Announcement for the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration Climate and Global Change Program FY 1997 in
the Program area for the Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment (GEWEX)
Program Authority: 49 U.S.C. 44720; 33 U.S.C. 883d, 883e; 15 U.S.C.
2904; 15 U.S.C. 2931 et seq.
(CFDA No. 11.431) - CLIMATE AND ATMOSPHERIC RESEARCH
NOAA Office of Global Programs
Silver Spring, MD 20910
and
Mission to Planet Earth
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Washington, DC 20546
INTRODUCTION:
NOAA and NASA are pleased to announce a joint initiative to address priority
problems in the GEWEX Continental-scale International Project (GCIP) as well
as in establishing intra-continental-scale links within the Global Energy and
Water Cycle Experiment (GEWEX) . This call is aimed at fostering work that
supports the objectives of GEWEX with the prime focus on the GCIP activity
in the Mississippi River Basin. NASA is also interested in addressing issues
associated with moving from individual continental-scale experiments toward a
global synthesis of the continental scale approaches. Together, NOAA and NASA
are planning to fund approximately 25 proposals from this announcement.
Proposals for 3 years duration (or less) are being invited.
Proposals are solicited for two categories of research, namely: 1) Proposals
that focus on the designated areas of the Mississippi River Basin
(approximately 15 proposals will be funded in this category). 2) Proposals
directed toward interdisciplinary studies with an emphasis on
continental-scale land-atmosphere interaction in the GEWEX (or global, not
restricted to Mississippi) context (approximately 10 proposals will be funded
in this category).
The GEWEX Continental-scale International Project (GCIP) is a multi-scale
hydrometeorological project which focuses on the Mississippi River Basin. The
first phase of the project extends from 1995 to 2000. The strategic mission
for GCIP is to demonstrate skill in predicting changes in water resources on
time scales up to seasonal, annual and interannual as an integral part of a
climate prediction system. Projects that are likely to receive favorable
attention are those which address the inclusion of satellite data into the
GCIP program and those which bring innovative approaches to advance issues
currently being addressed and to identified gaps in the current program. To
date, GCIP's successes have included: 1) the determination of the limitations
in different data sources that will be useful in closing regional water
balances; (2) the development of models that provide improved representation
of land- atmosphere interactions in coupled models; (3) the implementation of
initiatives
that effectively deal with the collection, access and processing of in-situ
data describing the land-surface characteristics, and (4) the implementation
of a system for producing, archiving and distributing daily high resolution
data assimilation outputs from three regional mesoscale models for the period
1996 to 2000. GCIP is also seeking projects that advance the new scientific
areas identified in its Implementation Plan (IGPO, 1994) and its Major
Activities Plan for 1997,1998 and Outlook for 1999 (IGPO Publication Series
No. 25).
The GCIP strategy has involved an overall focus on different regions within
the basin as different processes are studied. To date, research has been
concentrated on warm season hydrometeorological processes in the Southwest
region of the Mississippi Basin using in-situ data. Within the three year
time frame covered by this call GCIP will be encouraging new initiatives
related to cold season processes in the North Central part of the basin, and
new initiatives for the Eastern part of the basin where vegetation, orography
and runoff are important aspects of the physical climate system.
Projects leading to the implementation of a substantial program in the
Northwestern part of the basin will also be considered. As indicated below,
this call welcomes proposals for studies of the basin as a whole as well as
research studies using the extensive data sets that have already been
developed for the Southwest.
Successful new GCIP initiatives will contribute to meeting one or more of its
five objectives namely understanding energy and water budgets at different
scales; coupled land-atmosphere modeling, the preparation, validation and use
of data assimilation products; the strengthening of GCIP data facilities
through data collection and data management activities; and the application of
GCIP models and understanding to the water resource management community.
These objectives are described in the following paragraphs.
Several issues are not explicit in the following objectives but permeate many
aspects of GCIP. These include scaling issues and the question of the
transferability of results from one region to another. Scaling affects the
ability to interpret field data measured locally in the context of conditions
over a range of spatial scales and the transfer of model physics from high
resolution mesoscale models to low resolution climate models. Also included
are the issues of techniques for rainfall disaggregation that make use of
either climatological or instantaneous satellite data for hydrological
applications. It also affects scale mismatches in time and space that exist
between atmospheric and basin scale hydrologic models.
The transferability of model results from one climate regime to another is
important both for studies within the Mississippi River Basin and for making
the results of GCIP more universally applicable within the GEWEX program.
GCIP is one of five continental-scale experiments being carried out under the
auspices of the Global and Energy Water Cycle Experiment (GEWEX).
Consequently, it is important for GCIP to ensure that its results can be
transferred to other parts of the world. GCIP plans to make more extensive
use of remotely sensed data for this purpose as it develops links with other
continental-scale experiments where data are sparse.
WATER AND ENERGY BUDGETS
A key objective of the GCIP program is to determine and explain the seasonal,
annual, interannual and spatial variability of water and energy cycles in the
Mississippi River Basin. Research addressing this objective has focused on
the water cycle in the Mississippi River Basin on different spatial and
temporal scales based on the use of conventional radiosonde data and the
outputs from both regional and global scale models. It is clear from these
studies that models and observations will have to be used in combination to
specify energy and water budgets with the level of accuracy needed to provide
model validation data sets. In addition, research on specific water budget
components is needed to improve their estimates in certain regions and
seasons.
COUPLED LAND-ATMOSPHERE MODELS
GCIP research continues to contribute to the convergence of distributed
hydrological models and land-surface schemes, and has led to improved
representations of hydrologic and vegetative processes in models. A 1996
coupled modeling workshop report (Shuttleworth, 1996) details three areas
where further development work is needed to improve these models. Research
opportunities include the better representation of the following processes in
coupled models; 1) precipitation, its sub grid scale variability and its
distribution over time and space; 2) the effects of evolving soil moisture
fields, and 3) the phenology of the annual cycle of vegetation and its
spatial and interannual variability.
DATA ASSIMILATION
GCIP also develops and evaluates atmospheric, land and coupled data
assimilation schemes that incorporate both remote and in-situ observations.
GCIP already has an extensive data assimilation model output data set
available with outputs from three operational mesoscale models beginning in
May 1996. Initiatives are needed to assess the outputs of these models and
to determine the extent to which other types of measurements (particularly
satellite measurements) could be used to improve them.
DATA ACQUISITION AND MANAGEMENT
Although GCIP has undertaken the limited collection of special data sets to
support process and model validation studies, generally the project has
relied upon existing data sets. New data-related initiatives will need to
have a strong scientific component and lead to advances such as the
development of algorithms to provide GCIP-related land-surface information,
precipitation and streamflow characteristics.
WATER RESOURCE APPLICATIONS
This area of opportunity is an emerging priority for GCIP. Advances are
needed in the application of coupled atmospheric-hydrologic models and the
assessment of the utility of climate forecasts in water resource management.
Proposals for demonstration projects showing how water resource managers can
benefit by utilizing GCIP models, remote sensing data and climate predictions
are encouraged. GCIP is particularly interested in supporting proposals that
offer opportunities for demonstration projects showing the value of
assimilated in-situ and satellite data products and models in an operational
water resource management setting.
REMOTE SENSING EMPHASIS
Satellite remote sensing as well as aircraft and surface based remote sensing
applications need to be strengthened in GCIP, especially as enhanced observing
periods occur in the more data sparse regions of the Mississippi River Basin.
Such contributions are particularly important for determining and explaining
the temporal (seasonal to interannual) and spatial variability of the energy
and water cycles in the Mississippi River Basin, and in developing and
evaluating coupled land surface/atmospheric models at resolutions appropriate
to large scale continental basins. The potential contributions of remote
sensing techniques as a means to initially transfer results from data rich
parts of the Mississippi River Basin to data sparse areas within the Basin and
eventually from the Mississippi River Basin to other parts of the world should
be explored. Recognition of the potential for the next generation satellite
remote sensing data (e.g. Data from the Earth Observing System AM Platform,
the New Millennium Program and the Earth System Science Pathfinder Program) in
combination with existing satellite remote sensing data bases is encouraged.
RESEARCH TOPICS COVERED IN THIS CALL
Research resulting from this announcement will accelerate the development of
climate prediction techniques within the context of an "end-to-end" GEWEX
program in general, and GCIP specifically. GCIP will continue to focus on
the development of improved coupled land-atmosphere modules for use in climate
models; a better understanding and quantitative description of energy and
water cycles for the Mississippi River Basin at all appropriate time and space
scales; the development of improved data assimilation system outputs and
better interpretations of climate predictions for water resource management
applications. Since most prediction systems fail to perform optimally due to
inadequate representations of important physical processes, studies that
examine individual hydroclimatological processes are needed. Specific gaps
that need to be addressed within this call include the incorporation of cold
season processes into land-surface schemes, improvements to coupled modeling
through the better representation of land-surface characteristics, interactive
nested regional and global models and improved hydrological models.
Central to this announcement are GCIP plans to address these priorities in
the context of the planned studies of selected portions of the basin as
outlined in the latest GCIP Major Activities Plan (Leese, 1996). In addition,
GCIP retains an interest in modeling warm season precipitation, particularly
in conjunction with the Pan-American Climate Studies (PACS) Program. This
announcement also solicits investigations that focus on using coupled land
atmosphere hydrological models and remote sensing observations to address
intra continental-scale scientific objectives towards the ultimate goal of
developing coupled global hydrological models that properly represent
land-surface hydrological processes and land-atmosphere interactions.
In addition to the traditional GCIP approaches carried out in the past, this
announcement encourages new initiatives addressing aspects of the atmospheric
and surface energy budgets through the use of remote sensing data. The
development of techniques for blending remote sensing data with conventional
data to produce best estimates of the spatial and temporal distributions of
precipitation, soil moisture and vegetation and other surface hydrology
components are of particular importance for determining fluxes of water in the
atmosphere and in the regional hydrology.
The development of techniques and algorithms for use in the derivation of
parameters describing land-surface conditions from satellite data, and the
development of procedures for extending them from data rich to data sparse
areas are also encouraged. GCIP would benefit from projects involving the use
of satellite data for model initialization and validation and the development
of interactive nested models to link regional and global scale models on
weather and climate time scales. Techniques for assimilating satellite data
into regional models are also of interest.
This call also encourages projects that use remote sensing data to enhance the
contributions of coupled regional hydrometeorological models to water resource
planning and management, as well as to establish links between regional and
existing global models which can then be used to address issues such as
inter-annual variability and regional water resource assessments.
HOW TO APPLY:
Those interested in submitting proposals to this call are encouraged to submit
a letter of intent to Rick Lawford, GCIP Project Office, Office of Global
Programs, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Suite 1225, 1100
Wayne Ave., Silver Spring, MD 20910. The letter of intent should clearly
state at the outset whether the proposal addresses Category 1 or Category 2.
This letter should be no more than two pages in length . It should give the
proposed title; describe the project that will be proposed, including the
scientific goals of the research, and the strategy, and address how the
proposal relates to the priorities and goals outlined in the preceding
paragraphs. It is requested that the letter of intent reach the GCIP Project
office no later than 30 April 1997. Facsimile and electronic mail are
acceptable for letters of intent and will receive a response indicating that a
full proposal is encouraged or not encouraged.
Full proposals that address Category 1 (Proposals that focus on the
designated areas of the Mississippi River Basin) must be received at the GCIP
Project office not later than close of business on 30 May 1997. These
proposals will follow the guidelines set out in the FY97 NOAA Climate and
Global Change Program Announcement.
Full proposals that address Category 2 (Proposals which are directed toward
interdisciplinary studies with emphasis on continental-scale land-atmosphere
interaction in the GEWEX context, global - not restricted to the Mississippi
Basin) must be received at NASA not later than the close of business on 30
May 1997. Details on the requirements for submission of proposals to NASA
can be found on the
Internet at "http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/mtpe/" under the MTPE Research
Announcements Section.
Questions regarding this announcement can be directed to either Rick
Lawford, GCIP Project Manager, Office of Global Programs, National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration, 1100 Wayne Ave., Silver Spring, MD 20910 Tel.
(301) 427 2089 Ext. 40; Fax: (301) 427-2222 or lawford@ogp.noaa.gov. or Dr.
James Arnold, Science Division, Mission to Planet Earth, NASA Headquarters,
Code YS, 300 E. Street SW, Washington DC, USA 20546, Tel 202 358 0540; Fax 202
358 2770 or jim.arnold@hq.nasa.gov.
References:
GCIP Studies in the Large Scale Study Area (LSA) East (1997-98)
http://wwwghcc.msfc.nasa.gov/gcip/
International GEWEX Project Office, 1994: Implementation Plan for the GEWEX
Continental-scale International Project (GCIP), Vol.II, Research.
International Project Office, Washington, DC.
Leese, J., 1996: Major Activities Plan for 1997,1998, and Outlook for 1999 for
the GEWEX Continental-Scale International Project (GCIP), Part 1, Research,
IGPO Publication Series No. 25, Silver Spring, MD.
Shuttleworth, J. 1996. GCIP Coupled Modeling Workshop, IGPO publication
Series No. 23, Silver Spring, MD, 20 pp. Plus App.
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