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TIP 6 Summary | |
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Summary The European Centre for Medium Range Forecasting (ECMWF) in Reading, England hosted the sixth session of the Tropical Atmosphere Ocean (TAO) Implementation Panel (TIP-6) which was held from 4-6 November 1997. The purposes of TIP-6 were to review the present status of the TAO array; to address technical and logistic issues related to its maintenance; to provide a forum for discussion of enhancements and expansions of the array to other tropical oceans; and to promote the use of the TAO data for research and operational activities. An additional purpose of TIP-6, and the reason for holding it at ECMWF, was to foster improved communication between the TAO Project and operational weather and climate prediction centers. Participants from eight nations attended this session.
TIP-6 opened with an update on the strong El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) event presently underway in the tropical Pacific. TAO data have proven to be extremely valuable in monitoring the evolution of this event which is the strongest of the century. They have also been a key source of data for initializing coupled ocean- atmosphere forecast models, many of which predicted that 1997 would see the development of a warm ENSO event. The panel then turned to discussing issues of instrumentation, array maintenance, and data dissemination. There are TAO moorings at 64 sites across the equatorial Pacific, including five sites where long-term current measurements are being made and 13 sites where standard ATLAS moorings have been replaced with next generation ATLAS moorings. The next generation ATLAS is based on inductive coupling technology and provides increased temporal resolution, increased accuracy for ocean temperature, and flexibility to add additional sensors such as rainfall, radiation, and ocean conductivity. Discussion topics included ship time requirements, vandalism and damage to the buoys, outreach efforts to the fishing communities, ocean velocity and salinity measurements, and data dissemination updates on the World Wide Web. The throughput of TAO data on the Global Telecommunications System (GTS) was also discussed. Updates were presented on Japan's TRITON array of moored buoys scheduled to be deployed in the western Pacific starting in March 1998, the PIRATA array which has begun with two moored buoys deployed in September 1997 in the tropical Atlantic (France, Brazil, and U.S.), and Taiwan's mooring in the South China Sea deployed in April 1997 as part of the South China Sea Monsoon Experiment (SCSMEX). India deployed four moored buoys in the Bay of Bengal in 1997 with plans to augment these with six buoys in the Arabian Sea in 1998 as part of the Indian National Data Buoy Programme. Information on a proposed new climate-related mooring program in the tropical Indian Ocean, namely JASMINE (Australia and the United States), was also presented. Presentations on international and national climate programs included updates on CLIVAR, GOOS, OOPC, NOAA's Office of Global Programs, International Research Institute for Climate Prediction (IRI), Pan American Climate Studies (PACS), Atmospheric Radiation Measurements (ARM) Program, and the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM). A review of the Data Buoy Cooperation Panel (DBCP) and its functions was also presented. Scientific presentations highlighted the uses of TAO data at several operational weather prediction centers (ECMWF, NCEP, M,t,o France, and the U.S. Navy). Additional presentations focused on ENSO forecasting and regional impacts, surface flux and salinity variability in the tropical oceans, ocean color, and large-scale current fluctuations. Several recommendations from TIP-6 emerged during discussions following the presentations. The importance of salinity measurements was recognized for improving ocean general circulation models and for initializing short-term climate forecasts. It was suggested that additional surface and subsurface salinity sensors be added to selected moorings as a contribution to an emerging salinity monitoring effort which includes VOS, S-PALACE, and other platforms. A second recommendation was to measure surface fluxes with the highest possible accuracy at selected sites in order to verify flux climatologies and to improve coupled models. Two other recommendations were made regarding the GTS data stream. Considering the importance of boundary layer moisture in atmospheric model calculations of surface fluxes, it was recommended that relative humidity measurements from the TAO buoys be placed on the GTS so they could be assimilated and/or used for model validation at operational centers. Due to the sparseness of measurements from the Indian Ocean, it was recommended that an effort be made to make the data from the National Data Buoy Programme of India available on the GTS. Finally, it was recommended that the TAO Implementation Panel become an action group of the DBCP. |
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