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DTIC S ELECTE iW(cid:127) MAR 2 3199311 c Naval Research Laboratory 19 Monterey, CA 93943-5006 AD-A261 799 NRL/FR/7541-92-9405 A Prototype Climate Information System TERRY K. JARR~r Marine Meteorology Division January 1993 93-05936 Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited. REPOT DCUMNTATON AGEForm Approved REPOT DCUMNTATON AGEOBM No. 0704-0188 Public reporting burden for this collection of information is estimated to average 1 hour per response, including the time for reviewing instructions, searching existing data sources. gathenng and maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing the collection of information. Send comments regarding this burden or any other aspect of this collection of information, including suggestions for reducing this burden, to Washington Headquarters Services, Directorate for information Operations and Reports. 1215 Jefferson Davis Highway, Suite 1204. Arlington, VA 22202-4302, and to the Office of Management and Budget. Paperwork Reduction Project (0704-0188). Washington. DC 20503. 1. AGENCY USE ONLY (Leave blank) 2. REPORT DATE 3. REPORT TYPE AND DATES COVERED January 1993 Final 4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE 5. FUNDING NUMBERS A Prototype Climate Information System Job OlrderNo. 94012B Program Element No. 0604230N 6. AUTHOR(S) P/iect No. X1752 Task No. T. K. Jarrett Accesslbn No. DN656783 7. PERFORMING ORGANIZATION NAME(S) AND ADDRESS(ES) 8. PERFORMING ORGANIZATION REPORT NUMBER Naval Research Laboratory Detachment Marine Meteorology Division Formal Report 9405 Monterey, CA 93943-5006 NOARL Report 42 9. SPONSORINGIMONITORING AGENCY NAME(S) AND ADDRESS(ES) 10. SPONSORING/MONITORING AGENCY REPORT NUMBER Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (PMW-141) Washington, DC 20363-5100 11. SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES This research was performed by the Naval Oceanographic and Atmospheric Research Laboratory (NOARL), recently designated the Naval Research Laboratory. Formerly NOARL Report 42. 12a. DISTRIBUTIONIAVAILABILITY STATEMENT 12b. DISTRIBUTION CODE Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited. Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC 20375-5320. 13. ABSTRACT (Maximun 200 words) This report describes a prototype Climate Information System (CIS) developed bytheAtmospheric Directorate of the Naval Research Laboratory Detachment for use on the Tactical Environmental Support System, TESS(3). The climatic data requirements for TESS(3) are listed and the CIS design rationale and implementation methodology are documented. The CIS computer software reduces the time and effort required to locate, ingest, and analyze climatic data. The CIS remedies accessibility problems of existing climatologies by using a data base management system to manage on-line data sets. The use of compact computer media allows a wide range of climatic data to be distributed to Navy ships and facilities that would otherwise lack the necessary storage space. The CIS computer graphics capability improves data comprehension by remapping data to common projections. The CIS capabilities are demonstrated with sample data sets that partially meet the TESS(3) requirements. Data sources for the remaining requirements are cited when they could be found, but meeting some requirements will require development of new climatologies. The CIS design allows addition of data sets as they become available. 14. SUBJECT TERMS 15. NUMBER OF PAGES 76 automated climatology, climate information system, tactical environmental support system 16. PRICE CODE 17. SECURITY CLASSIFICATION 18. SECURITY CLASSIFICATION 19. SECURITY CLASSIFICATION 20. LIMITATION OF ABSTRACT OF REPORT OF THIS PAGE OF ABSTRACT Unclassified Unclassified Unclassified Same as report NSN 7540-01-280-5500 Standard Form 298 (Rev. 2-89) Prescribed by ANSI Sid. Z39-18 298-102 Contents Synopsis I Summary 1 Recommendations 1 Appendix: A Prototype Climate Information System 3 NTIS CRA&M OTIC TAB Unannounced Q JUJStlIhCd IOn BY Dispbuliont Availability Codes AVd'l and or I Dist Special 1.1 .. 0 Acknowledgments Development of the Climate Information System was supported by the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command, PMW- 141, CAPT Carl Hoffman, USN, Program Element 64230. This research served as the author's Master of Science thesis in the Department of Meteorology at the Naval Postgraduate School. Appreciation is extended to • the Naval Oceanographic and Atmospheric Research Laboratory, Atmospheric Directorate, for providing this opportunity. In particular, the support of Dr. Edward Barker, who initiated this effort, is greatly appreciated. -- 0 iv A Prototype Climate Information System Synopsis The CLIMA-TV CIS prototype was developed and Naval officers who plan operations that are affected demonstrated using several climatic data sets, including by climatic elements need more efficient support. These synoptic ship observations, cloud amounts, ocean operations include logistics, ship and aircraft transits, acoustic conditions, radiosonde profiles, and station or training exercises, and construction. Currently, the Navy regional summaries. These data sets meet some of the oceanographers who provide climatological support to climatic data requirements of the TESS(3) and occupy the operational planners must rely on labor-intensive about 70 megabytes of disk storage. CLIMA-TV data procedures to extract climatic data from numerous atlases management is supported by the Empress Relational tables, and reports. These manual procedures force users Data Base Management System (RDBMS). This project to spend excessive time on data retrieval and formatting showed the ability of a UNIX workstation and RDBMS at the expense ofdata analysis and application. Efficient to improve climatological support. Most CIS climatic support requires improvements to both the requirements are met by commercial hardware and oceanographer's access to pertinent climatic data and software. The use of such industry standards as Structured the planner's ability to interpret this information. Query Language and Graphical Kernel System reduces Development of a Climate Information System the development effort while enhancing portability. (CIS) is proposed as an effective means of meeting the The CLIMA-TV prototype uses the National Center above climatic data needs. A CIS is a combination of for Atmospheric Research Graphics Utilities to create computer software and hardware that provides localized contour maps showing the spatial variability of climatic access to on-line climatic data sets. The proposed system conditions. CLIMA-TV also provides tabular and is called CLIMA-TV, which is an acronym for narrative climatic summaries. CLIMAtology-TeleVideo. CLIMA-TV uses compact CLIMA-TV is in use on NEONS where the upper air computer media to reduce climatic data storage space and marine climatic atlas data sets support Special requirements. Compared tothe current manual methods, Sensor Microwave Imager data analysis. CLIMA-TV CLIMA-TV saves time and labor by automating data also provides application software for transition to TTh hee trgg ooal al oo ffd tt his ips reseeaarrchh iisT EtoS Sd(e3v),e lop a C IS tob e u . C aIn d Apo Trt ingd thmiso sso rf ttw asr eh ato aT ECS SS (i3s ) hoas e manage and display climatic data in support of naval begun. CLIMA-TV demonstrates that a CIS is more operations. The CLIMA-TV techniques are intended for efficient means of locating climatic information than application to the Tactical Environmental Support manually searching through hard copy publications. System (TESS(3)) and the Naval Environmental Opera- tional Nowcasting System (NEONS). Recommendations Remaining problems center on data acquisition, input, and storage. Time requirements and error rates associated Summary with scanning printed climatologies make the conversion The appendix of this report documents the CLIMA- from paper media to digital data too labor intensive to TV design rationale and implementation methodology, pursue extensively, even with document scanners. The The appendix also provides an overview of data volumes ofexisting digital data sets requires massive climatological concepts, discusses climatic applications on-line storage. CLIMA-TV needs large-capacity hard in the context of naval operations, and reviews CIS disks, erasable-optical disks or CD-ROM media to technology, provide the necessary storage for all required data sets. I Appendix A Prototype Climate Information System Terry K. Jarrett I. Introduction 1 II. Climatology as Applied to Naval Operations 8 III. Climate Information System Technologies 15 IV. System Design 27 V. Initial Data Base Contents 45 VI. Conclusion 64 References 66 3 I. INTRODUCTION A. CURRENT NEEDS Naval officers who plan operations which are affected by climatic elements need more efficient support. These operations include logistics, ship and aircraft transits, training exercises and construction. Currently, the Navy oceanographers who provide climatological support to the operational planners must rely on manual, labor intensive procedures to obtain data. Improving the efficiency of climatological support requires enhancements to both the oceanographer's access to pertinent climatic data and the planner's ability to interpret this information. Plans made for events which will occur a week or more into the future are defined here as contingency plans. The concept of operations for the United States Navy directs that tactical contingency plans which use climatic data will be updated with current and forecasted weather conditions as these observations become available (Roark, 1988). Since war may prevent the communication of the updated weather data, the previously developed contingency plans based on climatology may be the best available. The Commander of the Naval Oceanography Command (CNOC) has published a list of requirements for oceanographic and meteorological climatologies which is shown in Table 1. Some of these requirements are explicitly stated as needs for computerized climatologies, while others are for the more traditional hard copy publications. 1 TABLE 1. VALIDATED CNOC CLIMATOLOGY REQUIREMENTS. The various climatic parameters listed below have been validated by CNOC as required for environmental support. This list is from CNOC letter 3140 (U.S. Navy, 1989a). Ocean wave height, direction and period (primary and secondary) Ocean front position/strength and eddy frequency Ocean current direction and speed Surface visibility Sea ice boundaries and ice coverage Cloud amount and base height (low, mid, high, and total cloud) Ocean profiles: Atmospheric profiles: temperature geopotential height salinity temperature density dew-point sound velocity wind velocity Ocean acoustics: Surf: below layer gradient surf zone width convergence zone range depth of breakers sonic layer depth breaker height 0 shallow sound channel: breaker angle thickness, strength, depth breaker period deep sound channel currents critical depth bottom loss Geophysics: volume scattering water depth ice and volume reverberation bottom materials bottom slope Sea State magnetic variations Precipitation tides Sea level atmospheric pressure Optical water type (turbidity) Radar duct height frequency distributions Marine surface wind speed frequency distribution B. SCOPE OF THE PROBLEM Decades of climatological data collection have yielded numerous atlases, tables and reports summarizing the global and regional climates. Impediments to effectively using these data now center on accessibility, rather than availability. Once located, the climatic data typically are presented as tables and atlases. These static displays underutilize the large band- 2 width of the eye/brain system. Inefficient procedures force climatic data users to spend excessive time on data retrieval and formatting at the expense of data analysis and application. The meteorological spaces aboard naval ships are cramped. The space needed to store the bound volumes of applicable climatic data may be unavailable. For example, the Naval Eastern Oceanography Command (NEOC) has 214 climatology publications on-hand to support its mission (William Bentley, personal communication). Climatic publications, including atlases, occupy more than 37 bookcase shelves at the Fleet Numerical Oceanography Center (FNOC) research library. To place this much climatic data aboard naval ships requires an alternative to a paper publications. Microfilm reproductions of paper based climatologies offer great space savings. This economy is somewhat offset, however, by the need for a bulky and single-purpose microfilm reader. Locating a desired microform may be even more difficult than finding its paper counterpart since a microform is easily lost. Lastly, finding specific data on microfilm is no less labor intensive than it is for paper publications. The above data accessibility impediments are matched by usability limitations associated with both paper and microfilm. Such hard copies provide only static displays which do not facilitate data merging and compari- son. For example, the analysis of data presented in various atlases may require paging back and forth, tracing or photocopying maps and manual adjustments to account for differing map projections and scales. Printing costs often limit the use of color in paper publications and most microfilm is monochromatic. Consequently, coloration (which may improve data com- prehensibility) is generally unavailable in hard copy climatologies. 3 The computer revolution has provided a potential solution to the above accessibility and usability problems. Computer media are compact, hold large amounts of data and are easily reproduced and distributed. Personal and desktop computers are likewise compact and affordable. Many climatic data users already possess such multi-purpose computers. A large commercial software industry provides many useful programs which are economically priced, since the development costs are shared among numerous customers. Some of this software can automate the location and display of climatic data resident on the computer. Recognition of these applications lead the Navy during the 1980's to deploy several computer systems which contain a limited number of climatologies. These developments include the Integrated Refractive Effects Prediction System (IREPS), the Integrated Carrier Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) Prediction System (ICAPS), and phase two of the Tactical Environ- 0 mental Support System (TESS 2). Each of these independently developed systems adopted unique and specific data management and display method- ologies. Consolidation of these climatologies on a single system, such as phase three of TESS (TESS(3)), would necessitate duplicative software functionality or major software revision. For example, since data have been stored in uniquely formatted operating system files, a unique file access routine is needed for each climatology file. Furthermore, each of the existing climatology data files is configured for a specific application program. Access to these files is unavailable except through the applicable program. 0 Similar redundancy, specificity and revision problems exist for the current display software. 4