November 18, 2008 Cecilia Miner NWS Aviation Services Branch NextGen Environmental Information Team: NextGen 4-D Weather Cube and IOC Requirements November 18, 2008 Cecilia Miner NWS Aviation Services Branch

Overview What is the Environmental Information Team? What is the 4-D Cube? What is the Single Authoritative Source? What are IOC requirements? What are FY09 tasks toward IOC?

What is the Environmental Information Team? Senior Policy Committee JPDO Executive Board (DoD, FAA, NOAA, NASA) NextGen Executive Weather Panel (NEWP) (DoD, FAA, NWS, NASA) JPDO Weather Working Group 4-D Cube Integration Demo/Test FAA NWS DoD Industry FAA Industry Govt Industry Env Info IT/Ent Svcs Env Info Govt Industry Govt Industry

What is the 4-D Weather Cube? The 4-Dimensional (4-D) Weather (Wx) Cube (3 dimensions plus time) will contain: Continuously updated weather observations (surface to low earth orbit, including space weather and ocean parameters) High resolution (space and time) analysis and forecast information (conventional weather parameters from numerical models) Aviation impact parameters Turbulence Icing Convection Ceiling and visibility Wake vortex The 4-D Wx Cube of the future will contain “all” weather data, not just aviation parameters.

What is the 4-D Weather Single Authoritative Source? The 4-D Wx Single Authoritative Source (SAS): Is only a portion of the 4-D Wx Cube Provides a common weather picture for National Air Space (NAS) participants (Airlines, DoD, FAA, etc.) Is the basis for all aviation decisions by Air Traffic Management (ATM) in the FAA Is formed by merger of model data, automated gridded algorithms, climatology and observational data, and meteorologist input/data manipulation to ensure consistency and accuracy

Aviation weather information ( latitude/longitude/height) Virtual 4D Weather Cube Observation Aviation weather information in 3 dimensions ( latitude/longitude/height) Hazard 0 – 15 mins Virtual 4D Weather Cube 15-60mins 1- 24 hrs 4th dimension time

The 4-D Cube: A Conceptual Model Observations Forecasting Numerical Modeling Systems Satellites Network Enabled Operations Statistical Forecasting Systems NWS Forecaster Radars Data Integration 4D Wx Cube Aircraft 4D Wx SAS Automated Forecast Systems Surface Forecast Integration Soundings Grids Decision Support Systems Custom Graphic Generators Custom Alphanumeric Generators Integration into User Decisions

What are IOC Requirements? Threshold - Minimum set of weather information required to meet anticipated automated decision support tools at IOC plus information required to meet FAA regulatory requirements Objective – Additional data that may enable NextGen operations but which is not yet mature in development or which is not required by FAA at IOC

IOC Observations/Diagnostics Radar Other Ground-based Observations Airborne Observations Space-based Observations Model Diagnostics/Analyses

IOC Forecast AIRMET X SIGMET TAFs Models CCFP G-AIRMET FIP CIWS fcst Convection C&V Icing Turbulence Winds AIRMET X SIGMET TAFs Models CCFP G-AIRMET FIP CIWS fcst GTG

IOC IT Definition Threshold – Objective Ability to exchange data between systems Respond to requests Support publish and subscribe Objective Support complex retrievals and calculations IOC IT Concept of operations and architecture being defined in FY09

FY09 Tasking: Cube Contents Assess role of forecaster in the production of rapidly updated automated guidance for convection, turbulence, icing and low ceiling & visibility Expand NWS gridded data sets Conduct feasibility study of adding C&V to NDFD/NDGD Demonstrate tools which allow meteorologists to add value to 4D automatically generated gridded information Develop gridded LAMP output Net-enable selected data sources for information sharing prototype

FY09 Tasking: IT Services Extend 4-D cube IT ConOps (use cases) Develop integrated IT architecture Investigate common IT security requirements Conduct data exchange format gap analysis Develop registry standards Prototype interagency information sharing using federated registry standards Begin IT service demonstrations Examine NextGen test-bed integration options