Joint Collaborative Research and Development Project (JCRDP)
Urban boundary layer dynamics and composition research is an area of overlapping capability and expertise for the two NOAA EPP MSI Cooperative Science Centers (CSCs), NOAA Center for Earth System Sciences and Remote Sensing Technologies (CESSRST II) and NOAA Center for Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology (NCAS-M II). As such, it presents CESSRST II and NCAS-M II with a great opportunity to extend their analysis, modeling, and observation capabilities as well as social science efforts through a Joint Collaborative Research and Development Project (JCRDP). The two Centers have engaged with NESDIS and NWS, as well as NOAA Research (NOAA/OAR), to design the JCRDP with a focus on interdisciplinary research and training on urban meteorology, air quality, urban ecosystems, and communities.
This project is highly relevant and impactful because it responds to an unmet needed sustained capability to enable deep analysis of the performance of a new generation of advanced satellite observations for atmospheric composition (e.g. air quality). Such analysis requires advanced, highly accurate ground-based and campaign data to regularly validate satellite products. Furthermore, such data are also needed to validate air quality forecasts. This is all interconnected, because to optimize the use of satellite products in air quality forecasts systems as well as their use in societal impact assessment, the satellite products themselves need to be fully characterized, and any systematic errors must be accounted for.
CESSRST II and NCAS-M II are uniquely positioned to meet this need because they operate their own network of ground-based measurements, have access to other networks, and have been/are involved in NOAA and NASA air quality validation campaigns. With respect to satellites, we will focus the validation effort on the NASA geostationary TEMPO atmospheric composition satellite because this first ever US geostationary capability will be continued operationally by NOAA through the development of the Geo-XO ACX mission. we will also validate capabilities from relevant JPSS and European polar orbiting satellites as well.
We envision the JCRDP will provide to NOAA an atmospheric air quality validation system by leveraging NOAA/partner routinely collected observations and episodic NOAA/partner campaign data, as well as unique observations measured and collected from CESSRST II and NCAS-M II observing systems which includes radiosondes, lidars, doppler radar, flux towers, microwave profilers, Aeronet sunphotometers/radiometers, Pandora scanning radiometers, and NYS and other Mesonet stations. All open source/internet of things (IoT) NWS and EPA data will be archived and also used for model simulations, forecasts, data analytics, and broader impact engagement. The validation system will be used to characterize the uncertainties in satellite derived atmospheric composition retrievals and in air quality forecast models. Without underpinning observations coincident with satellite retrievals and forecasts, there is no way to characterize their performance and to enable improvements. Together CESSRST II and NCAS-M II observing systems cover large sections of the Northeast and Middle Atlantic states, regions with high occurrences of air quality issues impacting vulnerable populations with health issues related to poor air quality occurring from industrial pollution (which has reduced significantly over the decades) and with increasing occurrences of poor air from wildfire smoke.