Verification of an ENSO-Based Long-Range Prediction of Anomalous Weather Conditions During the Vancouver 2010 Olympics and Paralympics

A brief review of the anomalous weather conditions during the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games and the efforts to predict these anomalies based on some preceding El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) signals are presented. It is shown that the Olympic Games were held under extraordinarily warm conditions in February 2010, with monthly mean temperature anomalies of +2.2 °C in Vancouver and +2.8 °C in Whistler, ranking respectively as the highest and the second highest in the past 30 years (1981–2010). The warm conditions continued, but became less anomalous, in March 2010 for the Paralympic Games. While the precipitation amounts in the area remained near normal through this winter, the lack of snow due to warm conditions created numerous media headlines and practical problems for the alpine competitions. A statistical model was developed on the premise that February and March temperatures in the Vancouver area could be predicted using an ENSO signal with considerable lead time. This model successfully predicted the warmer-than-normal, lower-snowfall conditions for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics and Paralympics.     

Comparisons of Snowfall Measurements in Complex Terrain Made During the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver

Solid precipitation (SP) intensity ( $ R_{\text{s}} $ ) using four automatic gauges, Pluvio, PARSIVEL (PArticle, SIze and VELocity), FD12P and POSS, and radar reflectivity factor ( $ Z $ ) using the POSS and PARSIVEL were measured at a naturally sheltered station (VOA) located at high level (1,640 m) on the Whistler Mountain in British Colombia, Canada. The R _s and other standard meteorological parameters were collected from March 2009, and from November 2009, to February 2010. The wind speed (ws) measured during this period ranged from 0 to 4.5 ms^?1, with a mean value of 0.5 ms^?1. The temperature varied from 4 to ?17 °C. The SP amount reported by the PARSIVEL was higher than that reported by the Pluvio by more than a factor of 2, while the FD12P and POSS measured relatively smaller amounts, but much closer to that reported by the Pluvio and manual measurements. The dependence of R _s from the PARSIVEL on wind speed was examined, but no significant dependence was found. The PARSIVEL’s precipitation retrieval algorithm was modified and tested using three different snow density size relationships (ρ _s–D) reported in literature. It was found that after modification of the algorithm, the derived R _s amounts using the raw data agreed reasonably well with the Pluvio. Statistical analysis shows that more than 95 % of $ Z_{{h_{\text{poss}} }} $ data measured by POSS appears to correlates well with the reflectivity factors determined using the three ρ _s–D relationships. The automated Pluvio accumulation and manually determined daily SP amount (SPm) measured during five winter months were compared. The mean ratio (MR) and the mean difference (MD), and the correlation coefficient (r) calculated using the data collected using the two methods, were found to be 0.96, 0.4 and 0.6 respectively, indicating respectable agreement between these two methods, with only the Pluvio underestimating the amount by about 4 %.     

Realizing User-Relevant Conceptual Model for the Ski Jump Venue of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics

As was the case for most other Olympic competitions, providing weather guidance for the ski jump and Nordic combined events involved its own set of unique challenges. The extent of these challenges was brought to light before the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics during a series of outflow wind events in the 2008/2009 winter season. The interactions with the race officials during the difficult race conditions brought on by the outflows provided a new perspective on the service delivery requirements for the upcoming Olympic Games. In particular, the turbulent nature of the winds and its impact on the ski jump practice events that season highlighted the need of race officials for nowcasting advice at very short time scales (from 2 min to 1 h) and forecast products tailored to their decision-making process. These realizations resulted in last minute modifications to the monitoring strategy leading up to the Olympic Games and required forecasters’ conceptual models for flow within the Callaghan Valley to be downscaled further to reflect the evolution of turbulence at the ski jump site. The SNOW-V10 (Science of Nowcasting Olympic Weather for Vancouver 2010) team provided support for these efforts by supplying diagnostic case analyses of important events using numerical weather data and by enhancing the real-time monitoring capabilities at the ski jump venue.     

An Experimental High-Resolution Forecast System During the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games

Environment Canada ran an experimental numerical weather prediction (NWP) system during the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games, consisting of nested high-resolution (down to 1-km horizontal grid-spacing) configurations of the GEM–LAM model, with improved geophysical fields, cloud microphysics and radiative transfer schemes, and several new diagnostic products such as density of falling snow, visibility, and peak wind gust strength. The performance of this experimental NWP system has been evaluated in these winter conditions over complex terrain using the enhanced mesoscale observing network in place during the Olympics. As compared to the forecasts from the operational regional 15-km GEM model, objective verification generally indicated significant added value of the higher-resolution models for near-surface meteorological variables (wind speed, air temperature, and dewpoint temperature) with the 1-km model providing the best forecast accuracy. Appreciable errors were noted in all models for the forecasts of wind direction and humidity near the surface. Subjective assessment of several cases also indicated that the experimental Olympic system was skillful at forecasting meteorological phenomena at high-resolution, both spatially and temporally, and provided enhanced guidance to the Olympic forecasters in terms of better timing of precipitation phase change, squall line passage, wind flow channeling, and visibility reduction due to fog and snow.     

Assimilation and High Resolution Forecasts of Surface and Near Surface Conditions for the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games

A dynamical model was experimentally implemented to provide high resolution forecasts at points of interests in the 2010 Vancouver Olympics and Paralympics Region. In a first experiment, GEM-Surf, the near surface and land surface modeling system, is driven by operational atmospheric forecasts and used to refine the surface forecasts according to local surface conditions such as elevation and vegetation type. In this simple form, temperature and snow depth forecasts are improved mainly as a result of the better representation of real elevation. In a second experiment, screen level observations and operational atmospheric forecasts are blended to drive a continuous cycle of near surface and land surface hindcasts. Hindcasts of the previous day conditions are then regarded as today’s optimized initial conditions. Hence, in this experiment, given observations are available, observation driven hindcasts continuously ensure that daily forecasts are issued from improved initial conditions. GEM-Surf forecasts obtained from improved short-range hindcasts produced using these better conditions result in improved snow depth forecasts. In a third experiment, assimilation of snow depth data is applied to further optimize GEM-Surf’s initial conditions, in addition to the use of blended observations and forecasts for forcing. Results show that snow depth and summer temperature forecasts are further improved by the addition of snow depth data assimilation.     

Adaptive Blending of Model and Observations for Automated Short-Range Forecasting: Examples from the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games

An automated short-range forecasting system, adaptive blending of observations and model (ABOM), was tested in real time during the 2010 Vancouver Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in British Columbia. Data at 1-min time resolution were available from a newly established, dense network of surface observation stations. Climatological data were not available at these new stations. This, combined with output from new high-resolution numerical models, provided a unique and exciting setting to test nowcasting systems in mountainous terrain during winter weather conditions. The ABOM method blends extrapolations in time of recent local observations with numerical weather predictions (NWP) model predictions to generate short-range point forecasts of surface variables out to 6 h. The relative weights of the model forecast and the observation extrapolation are based on performance over recent history. The average performance of ABOM nowcasts during February and March 2010 was evaluated using standard scores and thresholds important for Olympic events. Significant improvements over the model forecasts alone were obtained for continuous variables such as temperature, relative humidity and wind speed. The small improvements to forecasts of variables such as visibility and ceiling, subject to discontinuous changes, are attributed to the persistence component of ABOM.     

The Impact of Weather Forecasts of Various Lead Times on Snowmaking Decisions Made for the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Winter Games

The Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics were held from 12 to 28 February 2010, and the Paralympic events followed 2 weeks later. During the Games, the weather posed a grave threat to the viability of one venue and created significant complications for the event schedule at others. Forecasts of weather with lead times ranging from minutes to days helped organizers minimize disruptions to sporting events and helped ensure all medal events were successfully completed. Of comparable importance, however, were the scenarios and forecasts of probable weather for the winter in advance of the Games. Forecasts of mild conditions at the time of the Games helped the Games' organizers mitigate what would have been very serious potential consequences for at least one venue. Snowmaking was one strategy employed well in advance of the Games to prepare for the expected conditions. This short study will focus on how operational decisions were made by the Games' organizers on the basis of both climatological and snowmaking forecasts during the pre-Games winter. An attempt will be made to quantify, economically, the value of some of the snowmaking forecasts made for the Games' operators. The results obtained indicate that although the economic value of the snowmaking forecast was difficult to determine, the Games' organizers valued the forecast information greatly. This suggests that further development of probabilistic forecasts for applications like pre-Games snowmaking would be worthwhile.     

Surface and Upper Air Fields During Extreme Winter Precipitation Over the Western Himalayas

Surface and upper air circulation features associated with extreme precipitation years are demonstrated during winter season viz., December, January, February and March (DJFM) to examine winter weather affecting the western Himalayas. These circulations are studied over the domain 15°S–45°N and 30°E–120°E. This domain is considered particularly to illustrate the distribution of precipitation due to a wintertime eastward moving synoptic weather system called western disturbances. Surplus and deficient years of seasonal (DJFM) precipitation are identified using ± 20% departure from mean from uninitialized daily reanalysis data of forty (1958–1997) years of the National Center For Environmental Prediction (NCEP), US. The years 1965–1969, 1973 and 1991 are found to be surplus years and the years 1962, 1963, 1971, 1977, and 1985 are found to be deficient years. Comparative study between composites of these two categories is made using students t-test of significance. Significant differences in sea-level pressure, zonal and meridional component of wind at surface and upper levels, total precipitable water content, geopotential height and temperature are observed in the two contrasting seasons.     

Dynamics of the Development of Aluminum Monoxide Clouds in the Upper Atmosphere During the Launch of Solid-Propellant Rockets

Various mechanisms of the formation of AlO molecules during the operation of solid-propellant rocket engines in the upper atmosphere and processes of AlO glow decay are considered. The main contribution to AlO formation at altitudes of 120–200 km is made by the interaction of metallic aluminum contained in products of solid propellant combustion with atmospheric oxygen. The decrease in the brightness of AlO clouds is caused by a decrease in the AlO concentration as a result of cloud expansion due to diffusion processes and AlO oxidation with atomic oxygen.     

Statistical Association between Space Weather and Meteorological Variables During Winter in the Baltic Sea Region

Geomagnetism and Aeronomy - Some authors suggest that space weather events may affect daily weather variables, such as air temperature and atmospheric pressure. Associations between space weather...     

The Contrasting Features of Winter Circulation During Surplus and Deficient Precipitation Over Western Himalayas

Contrasting features associated with surplus and deficient precipitation years are studied to examine atmospheric circulation characteristics during the winter season viz., December, January February and March (DJFM) to assess the wintertime synoptic weather system affecting the western Himalayas. Large-scale balances of kinetic energy, vorticity, angular momentum, heat and moisture fields are analyzed. Winter circulations are studied over the domain 15°S–45°S and 30°E–120°E. This domain is considered particularly to illustrate the distribution of precipitation due to wintertime eastward moving synoptic weather systems called western disturbances. Surplus and deficient years of seasonal (DJFM) precipitation are identified using±20% departure from mean from uninitialized daily reanalysis data of fourty (1958–1997) years of the National Center for Environmental Prediction (NCEP), USA. The years 1965–1969, 1973 and 1991 are found to be surplus years and years 1962, 1963, 1971, 1977 and 1985 are found to be deficient years. Composites of these two categories are made. Comparative study is made using Students t-test of significance. Examining the aspects associated with energetics during the two extreme categories of winter seasonal precipitation years, higher heat flux convergence in excess years in the area of study of precipitation takes place. Diabatic heating shows cooling. Higher flux of convergence of kinetic energy and higher dissipation of kinetic energy are observed during surplus years.     

Aspects of Low Frequency Oscillation During the Northern Winter as Inferred From Nonlinear Energy Interactions

— The work deals with the computation and analysis of spectral energetics in the frequency domain at 850?hPa and 200?hPa over the tropics (20°S–20°N) and extratropics (20°N–60°N). The data for the winter months, i.e., November, December and January of 1995, 1996 and 1997 are selected for this purpose. The results suggest that much of the low frequency variability of the Northern Hemisphere wintertime general circulation is associated with disturbances which derive their energy from the time-mean flow through barotropic instability. Low frequency fluctuations tend to be larger in horizontal scale and their kinetic energy is largely confined to the upper troposphere. At 850?hPa, strong energy interaction south of 5°N is noticed due to a southward shift of major inflow channel, originating from the Bay of Bengal and entering the ITCZ from the western Arabian Sea. The energy balances in the tropics and the extratropics during winter have different characteristics from those during summer. In contrast to the summer circulation, instead of a downscale decascade as in the case of the extratropics, kinetic energy is transferred in an opposite sense, namely from transients of shorter to those of longer time scales in the tropics during winter. The strong nonlinear energy interactions associated with low frequency waves over the Indian Ocean (5°N–5°S) during winter is the manifestation of the deep convection due to warm water coupled with the crossequatorial low level flow along the ITCZ over this region. Forcing from this region readily excites a large response in terms of nonlinear energy interaction over the extratropical northeast Pacific.     

Risks of airborne pollution accidents in a major conurbation: case study of Zhangjiakou,a host city for the 2022 Winter Olympics

The number of airborne pollution accidents is second only to that of water-borne pollution accidents, in recorded environmental disasters. Acute casualties and public health costs have prompted many airborne pollution risk analyses. To date, few assessment methods have been carried out at regional-scale to quantify acute airborne pollution risk. Herein, a Hybrid Simulation and Risk Analysis approach, involving a systematic combination of simulation, risk ranking, and standardized analysis, is proposed at regional scale. Gaussian and heavy-gas models are utilized in the simulation process, and acute exposure limits preferentially adopted in the risk analysis. The case study shows that 34 of 243 townships in Zhangjiakou City of north China, one of the twin cities selected to host the 2022 Winter Olympics, are threatened by airborne risk sources. It is found that the accidental air pollution risk is comparatively higher in the Xuanhua and Wanquan conurbations. High-risk chemical enterprises (312–432 risk scores) are mostly located near urban areas with high population density where many people are vulnerable receptors to potential air pollution accidents. The resulting risk map indicates that acute airborne pollution from Zhangjiakou would not be a threat either to the proposed Olympic site at Chongli or to downwind Beijing.     

太湖梅梁湾冬末春初浮游动物时空变化及其环境意义

根据１９９８年２－３月完全原庆湖梅梁湾地区水环境综合调查,对有关浮游动物时空情况进行了分析,这次调查共设７个点,湾口上的Ｊ２,Ｊ４与湾内的Ｊ６,Ｊ７均是分５层采样,共分无风,小风和大风３次天气过程,每次过程采集２到３次样品与记录。结果显示,太湖梅梁湾地区浮游生物中枝角类和桡足类的生物量与水温变化关系密切,水温越高,生物量越高,温度相同时,其生物量与透明度呈正比。     

Revisiting the Basin-edge Effect at Kobe During the 1995 Hyogo-Ken Nanbu Earthquake

The basin edge effect, i.e., the interference of the direct S wave with the surface wave diffracted off the basin edge has been invoked by many authors to explain the damage distribution during the January 17, 1995 Hyogo-Ken Nanbu (Kobe) earthquake. Here we present the results of numerical experiments obtained with the spectral element method in 2-D geometry. Our results confirm that the amplification of horizontal motion close to the basin edge can be twice as large as the one measured in the center of the basin. This additional amplification is shown to depend strongly on the edge geometry and on frequency, due to physical dispersion of diffracted surface waves. In particular we obtain maximal amplification around 3 Hz, at frequencies critical for buildings.     

Winter anomaly observations at the Panská Ves Observatory (Czechoslovakia), 1971–1973

Summary The results of the winter anomaly observations at the Panská Ves Observatory on 2775 kHz and 2614 kHz (A3 method, f_eq1 and 0.8 MHz) are studied for the winters of 1971/72 and 1972/73. Ionospheric responses to minor (1972) and major stratospheric warmings are found to be different and relatively small. A regular winter-anomaly background absorption increase with a maximum in January was observed during both winters studied. Magnetic storms are found to play an insignificant, if any, role in the winter-anomaly phenomenon. The relation between magnetic activity and ionospheric absorption seems to be better in non-anomalous periods.     

Quality Assessment of the Cobel-Isba Numerical Forecast System of Fog and Low Clouds

Short-term forecasting of fog is a difficult issue which can have a large societal impact. Fog appears in the surface boundary layer and is driven by the interactions between land surface and the lower layers of the atmosphere. These interactions are still not well parameterized in current operational NWP models, and a new methodology based on local observations, an adaptive assimilation scheme and a local numerical model is tested. The proposed numerical forecast method of foggy conditions has been run during three years at Paris-CdG international airport. This test over a long-time period allows an in-depth evaluation of the forecast quality. This study demonstrates that detailed 1-D models, including detailed physical parameterizations and high vertical resolution, can reasonably represent the major features of the life cycle of fog (onset, development and dissipation) up to +6 h. The error on the forecast onset and burn-off time is typically 1 h. The major weakness of the methodology is related to the evolution of low clouds (stratus lowering). Even if the occurrence of fog is well forecasted, the value of the horizontal visibility is only crudely forecasted. Improvements in the microphysical parameterization and in the translation algorithm converting NWP prognostic variables into a corresponding horizontal visibility seems necessary to accurately forecast the value of the visibility.     

Long-Term Dynamics of the Ionic Runoff in the Amur during Winter Low-Water Season at Khabarovsk and Trends in Its Variations

Water Resources - Long-term dynamics of the ionic runoff into the Amur at Khabarovsk during winter low-water season are analyzed. A hydrological and hydrochemical characteristic is given to the...