University of Oklahoma to Lead New NOAA Data Assimilation Consortium

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May 21, 2024, 12:03 ET

NORMAN, Okla., May 21, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The University of Oklahoma will lead a new multi-university consortium to improve weather forecasts using enhanced weather prediction systems, recommended as part of President Biden's Investing in America agenda.

The Department of Commerce and NOAA recommended up to $7 million from the Inflation Reduction Act to establish the Consortium for Advanced Data Assimilation Research and Education, called CADRE. Other universities involved in the consortium include Howard University, Pennsylvania State University, the University of Maryland, Colorado State University, and the University of Utah. Additionally, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, State University of New York at Albany and City College of New York will participate as non-funded collaborators.

"CADRE will work collaboratively to perform innovative data assimilation research and development to improve weather forecast from short range to subseasonal to seasonal scales. It will promote transitioning advanced data assimilation research into NOAA's operational weather forecast systems," said Xuguang Wang, Ph.D., OU professor and CADRE director. "CADRE will also fill serious gaps in the data assimilation workforce through increasing the number of graduate students and postdocs formally trained in data assimilation and through enhancing the national and international data assimilation workforce pipeline."

Data assimilation is the science that combines observations with numerical models to analyze the earth system as it evolves over time. It is used every day to provide the starting points for weather forecasts. Data assimilation can also be used to understand how a weather or ocean system might change over time and to keep a weather model on track by constantly correcting the model with new weather observations. CADRE will address challenges in data assimilation for weather such as gaps in the data assimilation workforce and the lack of sustained innovative data assimilation research. Learn more at https://link.ou.edu/cadre.

SOURCE University of Oklahoma