1. 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

2. 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?

3. 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

4. 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.

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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

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

10. 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

11. 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

12. 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

13. 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