Science and Technology

SAIC provides complete science and technology solutions to US and international government agencies, such as the US Air Force, US Navy, the US National Weather Service (NWS), and National Meteorological and Hydrological Services worldwide. Our solutions include:

• Designing modern weather services
• Developing new tools to display and disseminate forecast information
• Developing numerical models and other software solutions.

Modernization of the Hellenic National Meteorological Service (HNMS)
SAIC is modernizing Greece's weather services in preparation for the 2004 Olympic Games; assessing the capabilities from a hardware, software, communications, and interface perspective; and testing end-to-end data flow.

For the HNMS, SAIC is providing the technical assessment, site surveys, program oversight, integration, and testing of all weather sensors and forecast system upgrades. Our review of the modernization effort includes developing a master architecture consisting of data flows, product requirements, interface compatibility between subsystems, and a risk assessment for the deployment of an operational "system of systems."

We also are developing a concept of operations for HNMS weather services and providing training for weather service personnel. Additionally, we are designing and witnessing a series of tests to confirm data flow from end to end and from system to system, resulting in products that HNMS forecasters can use to provide Olympic weather support.

SAIC's HNMS modernization support includes these systems:

• Doppler Weather Radar at Aegina
• Doppler Wind Profiler System
• Integrated Meteorological Support Subsystem (IMSS)
• Meteorological Information Archiving and Management System (MIAMS)
• Nowcasting Subsystem
• Olympic Meteorological Centre (OMC). Includes locations at Olympic Headquarters, Sailing Venue, Office of Forecasting and Weather Watch, and a Technical Support Office
• Meteorological Satellite Receiver Subsystem
• Supercomputer System for Numerical Models.

United States Air Force Weather (AFW) Architecture Study
Enabling AFW to meet future Air Force and Army mission needs by increasing capabilities and decreasing maintenance costs, within budget.

SAIC provided senior AFW decision makers with functional and physical architecture alternatives, as well as system acquisition and research and development road maps for implementing selected architectures within technology, manpower and funding constraints.

These road maps and the accompanying architecture showed AFW how to increase capabilities within the same projected budget. The resulting system acquisition and research and development road maps gave decision makers a time-phased plan that will allow AFW to meet future customer support needs.

Forecast Information Systems
Developing applications to improve the delivery of weather forecast information at National Weather Service (NWS) Forecast Offices

AWIPS: SAIC is helping prepare, review, and develop hydrometeorological techniques to implement, sustain and refresh the Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS) used at NWS forecast offices. AWIPS extracts meaningful information from the enormous volume of data provided by satellite and in situ observing systems and assimilates it with information provided by the national guidance centers. AWIPS then enables forecasters to prepare warning and forecast products for dissemination to the public and media.

Graphical Forecast Editor: SAIC also is helping develop the Graphical Forecast Editor and the National Digital Forecast Database. Forecasters are able to modify gridded fields while maintaining consistency between parameters and automatically smoothing affected fields. These data then feed the National Digital Forecast Database, which generates forecasts from the gridded data.

Environmental Modelling Support
Developing the next generation of numerical forecast systems

Next-Generation WRF: SAIC scientists and programmers are working on an NWS team to develop the next-generation Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model, which will replace the current operational mesoscale model at the NWS National Center for Environmental Prediction and at the US Air Force Weather Agency. It will operate on a 1- to 10-km horizontal grid, enable users to mix and match algorithms best suited to specific environmental conditions, and work across a wide variety of platforms.

The diversity of dynamic cores in WRF and the ability to use multiple initial conditions allows forecasters to generate ensemble predictions. These have the potential to provide much more useful probabilistic forecast information than the current deterministic numerical weather predictions.

OMEGA: Independently, SAIC scientists have developed the Operational Multiscale Environment model with Grid Adaptivity (OMEGA). This is based upon an adaptive unstructured triangular mesh that facilitates the placement of additional spatial resolution anywhere required. OMEGA is used operationally for real-time aerosol and gas hazard prediction.

The flexibility of the OMEGA grid structure allows the creation of grids that have high resolution at diverse specific locations, which improves forecast accuracy by resolving both the physical processes in the region of interest at higher resolution and the surface properties that affect the weather.