糖心原创出品

UAH鈥檚 Earth System Science Center is located in the Robert 鈥淏ud鈥� Cramer Research Hall.

Michael Mercier | UAH

Cutting-edge, state of the art weather and climate data and analyses for Alabama business and governmental stakeholders is the goal of a new partnership between 糖心原创出品 (UAH) and Regional Earth System Predictability Research LLC (RESPR), a company with a UAH alumnus as its chief executive officer (CEO).

RESPR CEO Dr. James Stalker (Ph.D., Atmospheric Science, 1997; M.S., Atmospheric Science, 1995; M.S., Mechanical Engineering, 1992) recently signed a memorandum of understanding with UAH, a part of the University of Alabama System, that partners UAH鈥檚 Earth System Science Center with the company to develop the analyses to cover 10 sectors important to Alabama, including agriculture, water resources and climate change.

The analyses will tie weather and climate effects to Alabama鈥檚 economic growth and the state鈥檚 gross domestic product.

On the UAH side, Dr. John Christy, interim vice president for research and economic development and Alabama鈥檚 state climatologist, joined Dr. Kevin Knupp, professor of atmospheric and Earth science, Dr. Walter 鈥淟ee鈥� Ellenburg, an ESSC research engineer, and Dr. Arastoo Biazar, an ESSC principal research scientist, in developing the partnership.

Led by Dr. Knupp and Dr. Stalker, the effort will employ a novel modeling strategy that will provide datasets and resources for a host of applications statewide.

鈥淒r. Stalker offers an opportunity to work with UAH to generate a unique characterization of decades of Alabama鈥檚 weather history on an hour-by-hour basis for each square kilometer over the entire state,鈥� says Dr. Christy.

鈥淭his type of detailed information is of high value to those who design infrastructure, grow crops, monitor air quality and manage transportation systems 鈥� just to name a few of its many applications,鈥� he says. 鈥淎nd, it is terrific to see someone you had in class 30 years ago look to his alma mater for such a project."

The National Weather Service could benefit from the development effort in operational meteorology, because the 1-kilometer resolution of the data will provide insights on micrometeorology and microclimatology. Likewise, agriculture could benefit because of improved insights on variability of precipitation, temperature and soil moisture.

The work could be valuable to the utilities industry because a better understanding of wind variability has proven to be beneficial to wind turbine operations, as well as to research and academia, where such high resolution data could provide insight into tornado phenomena.

鈥淎 better understanding of bird and insect migration could be a product of this research,鈥� says Dr. Knupp. 鈥淭he general population should benefit from this activity via improved forecasts of all sorts of weather.鈥�

鈥淓ven though this is a major milestone in building out this project for Alabama, it took place after multiple iterations without much fanfare due to the pandemic,鈥� Dr. Stalker says. 鈥淎ll the credit goes to Dr. John Christy, who was essential to establishing the partnership.鈥�

The partners plan to introduce their technology solutions and processes for implementation and show how various sectors will benefit at a meeting Nov. 19 at noon in the National Space Science Technology Center (NSSTC) located in UAH鈥檚 Robert 鈥淏ud鈥� Cramer Research Hall.