GMAO Campaign Support Highlights Versatility and Range of Product Capabilities
Every year, NASA’s Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO) sponsors up to a dozen or more in-situ Earth observing field campaigns. These campaigns collect data using instruments aboard aircraft, ships, and land stations, for purposes including satellite calibration and validation, precise long-scale weather data collection for decision makers, professional experience for future scientists, and more. Since 1999, the GMAO has provided targeted forecasts for scientific support of requested campaigns, helping with needs such as targeted data flights and comparison of readings to model data, in large part via its flagship numerical weather prediction (NWP) model, the Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS).
Using GEOS’ main two iterations – GEOS-Forward Processing (GEOS-FP) and GEOS-Composition Forecasting (GEOS-CF) – GMAO creates visualizations of model data ranging from standard weather fields, such as temperatures and winds, to more specialized requests such as aerosol constituent breakdowns and transport, planetary boundary layer height (PBLH), fire locations, and targeted gas concentrations, to name a few. Forecast imagery are focused on specific regions and coordinates defined by the campaign coordinators and are presented as maps and single-point datagrams, curtain plots along specified lat-lon lines, and high-resolution animations. With required extra funding, hand-written forecasts, new capabilities such as flight-track curtain plots, trajectories, etc. are also available. Given the global coverage and product variety of GMAO modeling capabilities, if one can visualize it – and it’s logistically possible – the GMAO can assist with research campaign efforts for any location on Earth (Figure 1)!
Imagery produced by GMAO for field campaigns is hosted on the Framework for Live User-Invoked Data (FLUID) website, an on-demand, one-stop destination for field campaign-specific forecasting plots. Forecast data direct downloads and experimental visuals can also be accessed through the NCCS-sponsored dataportal, where users can request archives of forecasts from the campaign period to look back on after the collection period for analysis. Below are select examples of imagery that GMAO has produced by request for supported field campaigns.
Except for 2020-2021 due to pandemic flight restrictions, the GMAO has supported the Arctic Boreal Vulnerability Experiment (ABoVE) annually since 2017. ABoVE aircraft monitor the surface using LiDAR to detect changes in land cover, methane, and other biospheric parameters, which requires a clear view of the surface from the plane. The GMAO provides both automated and hand-written forecasts to help pilots see where cloud cover and wildfire smoke will be minimally disruptive to operations, so they can plan their data-gathering flights to be as productive and efficient as possible (Figure 2).
The Arctic Radiation-Cloud-Aerosol-Surface Interaction Experiment (ARCSIX) spent the summer of 2024 performing flyovers of sea ice off the coast of Greenland and setting up a dozen floating buoys in the Arctic Ocean. Once set adrift, these buoys took meteorologic and aerosol observations from the sea ice, allowing the team to compare model data to said observations. The GMAO created a system to automatically grab the location of each buoy daily and create a “datagram”, a 5-day vertical profile forecast at a single location, for each buoy (Figure 3). These comprehensive forecast plots show selected aerosol species concentrations and winds from near-surface up to 400 hPa, as well as aerosol species breakdowns, precipitation, 2m wind speed, and cloud cover at three levels. These custom location plots are requested by nearly every campaign the GMAO supports, as many of them benefit from data that coincides with specialty ground stations such as AERONET.
The Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem Postlaunch Airborne eXperiment (PACE-PAX) supported the newly launched PACE satellite by validating the instrument’s measurements taken from space. Airplanes and ships were sent to intersect PACE’s data swath, then take measurements of aerosols, cloud properties, and other variables. These in-situ data were then used to verify the new satellite’s observations. GMAO provided “curtain plots”, or vertical profiles of data along a lat-lon line (Figure 4), to the campaign team to compare the vertical data retrievals from both their instruments and PACE with forecast models. These requests focus on aerosol, clouds, and winds, as well as PBLH, and like the datagrams, are also increasingly popular requests from campaign teams.
Some of the campaigns that the GMAO supports request such highly specialized graphics that entirely new capabilities are required to be developed. One such campaign, Airborne and Satellite Investigation of Asian Air Quality (ASIA-AQ), was interested in seeing backwards trajectories of air parcels for the purpose of tracking the origins of wildfire smoke. The campaign team also wanted to see their plane’s relative position to these carbon emissions for a specified flight path. Figure 5, taken from an animation, shows these backwards and forward trajectories, as well as the plane’s approximate location at the forecast time, aerosol optical depth (AOD), and fire locations (orange and red icons). This product is still a prototype and not ready for full public use, but it showcases the evolving capabilities of the GMAO’s forecast visualization support.
The GMAO has been assisting NASA's Earth Science mission by providing analyses and forecasts to research campaigns since the beginning of the 21st Century, playing a critical role at at time of great discovery, and anchoring the ground campaigns that are performed in conjunction with NASA's orbital missions. Yet, the utility of the GMAO is not limited only to sub-orbital Earth science studies - GEOS products are involved with manned spaceflight, as they are used to support missions to the International Space Station (ISS). The GMAO's GEOS data provide forecasts of atmospheric conditions that are used in Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL) simulations from the NASA Engineering Safety Center (NESC), helping to prepare astronauts for the safest landings possible. NASA's Commercial Crew Program (CCP) has used GEOS products for six years now, with 17 missions being supported by the GEOS-FP system since April 2022 (Figure 6, red dots). Whether the mission involves improving weather forecasting capabilities or ensuring a safe return trip for astronauts, the GMAO is rooted in NASA's innovation and success.
