Below is the uncorrected machine-read text of this chapter, intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text of each book. Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.
6 Management Considerations 6.1 Relation of the U.S. Plan to the International Plan We fully support the efforts of the Tropical Experiment Board to coordinate the national contributions to the experiment with regard to observational strategy; standardization of observational techniques, instrumentation, and data-processing procedures; common use of facilities; and arrangements for archiving the data. Planning groups within this country should strive to develop a national program that is fully compatible with the international plan. 6.2 Toward a Detailed U.S. Plan Planning for the experiment has reached the stage where it must now make a transition from the broad, generalized approach, which characterizes the present report, to a concern with specific details of the various components that make up the observational plan. To effect this transition, it will be necessary to restructure the planning groups so that they can deal efficiently with their new tasks. There will also be a need for a central focus in the planning effort in order to coordinate the efforts of the various working groups and to relate them to the scientific objectives of the experiment. This body will be charged with the responsibility of making those decisions that fall outside the jurisdiction of the individual working groups. Because of the obvious impact of these decisions on the scientific integrity of the experiment, it is important that this body be headed by an individual of unquestioned scien- tific competence and stature. In Chapter 3 it was shown that the total observational system can be 23
viewed as a combination of three subsystems that might function more or less independently. This suggests a natural division in the detailed planning responsibilities. Within the subprograms themselves, there may be further opportunities to divide the responsibility. For example, within the ship-based network, radiosonde and radar requirements could be considered separately. Division of the planning responsibilities along these lines would make it possible to involve many scientists in the planning effort, without creating a cumbersome administrative structure. Most of the work could be done in small working groups charged with concrete, well-defined tasks. For ex- ample, one group might be charged with the task of designing the radiosonde network. Presumably, their duties would include specification of the spacing of ships, the time schedule, the accuracy requirements, instrumentation, data- processing procedures, and archiving. Only the first of these items would re- quire extensive consultation with other planning groups. Although the "radiosonde working group" would be responsible to the overall coordinating group, it would be empowered to make all major decisions relating to its own sphere of influence. The membership of the group would consist of both users (research scientists with a particular interest in the radiosonde data) and providers (representatives of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and other agencies that will be supplying equipment and facilities). This constant dialogue between user and provider is necessary to keep the plans of the scientist realistic and at the same time to keep the opera- tional people aware of the scientific needs. The U.S. "radiosonde working group" would have the power to communicate directly with corresponding groups in other countries. 6.3 Communications We recognize that there will be a need for communication between the various planning groups working on the experiment. This will be particularly true if the planning responsibility is divided up in the manner indicated in the previous section. We offer the following suggestions as possible mechan- isms for stimulating effective communication: 1. It would be desirable to have a place where individuals and groups work- ing on planning could meet informally to exchange information and work out common problems. This would help to focus the planning activities and to give them some degree of continuity. Ideally, the planning center should be centrally located and should have ready access to libraries and other facilities. It should also provide a natural interface between university and government, which in a gross sense assume the roles of user and provider, in the planning dialogue. 24
2. GARP Topics in the AMS Bulletin has been effective in publicizing GARP planning activities. However, there is also need for a more flexible and more rapid means of written communication among those who are di- rectly involved in the experiment. Perhaps a monthly newsletter could fulfill this need. 6.4 Field Operations 6.4.1 There is need for a real-time capability in directing the aircraft opera- tions. This means that the lead time for flight plans must be short compared to the time scale of the mesoscale convective systems they will be sampling. The latter ranges from 6 to 24 hours. Therefore, the lead time should be not more than about 3 hours and preferably much less. The capability for making route changes while in flight would be highly desirable. 6.4.2 The ship network should operate continuously throughout the experi- ment to the fullest extent possible. This means that a number of ships must be reserved for transferring crews and/or substituting for other ships in the network. It is quite possible that fewer ships operating continuously on site may be preferable to a larger number operating for two-week periods with breaks in between. 6.4.3 All instrumentation and data-processing equipment used in the experi- ment should be thoroughly pretested, under field conditions. New instru- mentation should be tested well in advance of the experiment so that there will be time to identify and correct any malfunctions. Observers and tech- nicians should be trained before the experiment. 6.5 Data Processing A sizeable fraction of the cost of the experiment, perhaps as much as 40-50 percent, will be required to process and archive the data. All the necessary computer programs for transmitting, digitizing, scaling, rectifying, trans- forming, checking, correcting, duplicating, and archiving the data should be written and tested before the time of the experiment. This means that funds for carrying out these activities should be made available now. The BOMAP (the Barbados Oceanographic and Meteorological Analysis Project) group might serve as a suitable nucleus around which to build this data-processing effort. 25
