| NSF Org: |
AGS Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | August 12, 2015 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | January 7, 2020 |
| Award Number: | 1522830 |
| Award Instrument: | Cooperative Agreement |
| Program Manager: |
Eric DeWeaver
edeweave@nsf.gov (703)292-8527 AGS Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences GEO Directorate for Geosciences |
| Start Date: | August 15, 2015 |
| End Date: | July 31, 2021 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $3,500,000.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $10,850,000.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
FY 2016 = $1,750,000.00 FY 2017 = $2,800,000.00 FY 2018 = $1,750,000.00 FY 2019 = $1,750,000.00 |
| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
3090 CENTER GREEN DR BOULDER CO US 80301-2252 (303)497-1000 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
3300 Mitchell Lane Boulder CO US 80301-2272 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): | Climate & Large-Scale Dynamics |
| Primary Program Source: |
01001516RB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT 01001617DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT 01001617RB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT 01001718DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT 01001718RB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT 01001819DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT 01001819RB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT 01001920DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT 01001920RB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT |
| Program Reference Code(s): |
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| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.050 |
ABSTRACT
Launched in 2006, the Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere and Climate (COSMIC) is a constellation of six polar-orbiting satellites in Low Earth Orbit. The primary payload of each satellite is a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver (developed at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory) which receives positioning signals from the GPS transmitter satellites as they rise and set relative to the COSMIC satellite. The GPS signals are refracted by the atmosphere as they travel from the transmitter to the receiver, to an extent which depends on the temperature and water vapor content of the lower atmosphere and the density of electric charge in the ionosphere. The refraction causes a delay in the phase of the transmitted signal which can be inverted to retrieve profiles of electron density (in the ionosphere), dry atmospheric temperature, and water vapor (although water vapor requires additional information). Because the profiles are retrieved from the rising and setting, or occultation, of the GPS transmitters, the technology is referred to as GPS Radio Occultation (GPSRO), or more generally as GNSSRO, where GNSS is the Global Navigation Satellite System. GNSSRO has proven to be a highly effective observing method as the measurements can be made under all weather conditions, are unaffected by clouds and aerosols, and are absolutely calibrated (SI traceable) through the clock system that supports the GPS transmitters.
Funds under this award support COSMIC-related work in four categories: 1) processing, serving, and archiving COSMIC data for use by the research community; 2) conducting research to improve GNSSRO inversion science and techniques; 3) conducting research in support of scientific applications of GNSSRO data; and 4) education and outreach activities to promote the use of GNSSRO data and its application to atmospheric research. Item 1 is the bread-and-butter activity of this award and its predecessors, and support is also provided here for improving the quality of the profiles and generating additional data products such as monthly mean climatologies for both lower- and upper-atmospheric variables. In addition to the COSMIC satellites, a small number of GNSSRO "missions of opportunity" are also supported. These are research satellites to which a GNSS receiver has been added as a secondary payload (GRACE-B for example). Activities under item 2 continue the PIs' leadership role in the development of new GNSS processing techniques, for example by developing methods to correct errors caused by diffraction in sporadic E layers in the ionosphere. Research under item 3 develops new assimilation techniques such as the use of 2D ray-tracing methods to account for horizontal refractivity gradients. Another task is to develop long-term climate-quality datasets in which profiles from different satellites are optimally combined to account for differences in their error characteristics. GNSSRO data are well-suited for generating long-term multi-mission datasets given their SI traceability. Work under item 4 addresses a gap between the availability of GPSRO data and its adoption by the research community. Activities include hosting academic visitors, conducting meetings and workshops, and holding summer colloquia and tutorials.
The work has intellectual merit due to the great value of the COSMIC observations for weather, climate and ionospheric research. The work has scientific broader impacts through the PIs' education and outreach efforts to promote the adoption and use of the data by scientists from several research communities. In addition, the PIs provide the COSMIC data to operational weather forecasting centers worldwide, and the data has been shown to be quite useful for improving the skill of weather forecasts.
This award supercedes AGS-1033112, the previous cooperative agreement under which NSF provided funds to COSMIC. While NSF is no longer providing funds via the earlier CA, that award will remain active as it contains funds from other agencies to support the development of the follow-on COSMIC-2 mission. This award does not provide funds for COSMIC-2.
PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH
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PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
COSMIC (Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere, and Climate) is a joint US-Taiwan six-satellite constellation mission that is making use of radio signals from the Global Positioning System (GPS) to sound the Earth?s atmosphere via a technique called GPS radio occultation (RO). From 2006-2020, COSMIC collected highly accurate globally distributed measurements of temperature and moisture from the Earth?s surface to over 30 km altitude for use in operational weather forecasting and climate research applications. COSMIC also provided measurements of electron density in the ionosphere above 100 km altitude to help scientists understand space weather science. Figure 1 shows the distribution of COSMIC soundings (in green) around the globe for a one day period along with current weather balloon station locations (in red). Under this award, the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) designed the COSMIC mission and served as program manager on behalf of NSF and U.S. agencies to execute the mission. UCAR has also supported other RO missions of opportunity, as well as the COSMIC-2 mission, in reaching their full scientific and operational potential by supporting the development and processing of data for these missions.
The main outcomes of this project have been: the development of the UCAR COSMIC Data Analysis and Archive Center (CDAAC); the operation of the CDAAC to process and distribute nearly 20 Million (~7 Million from COSMIC) RO data products to the operational and research science communities; more than 550 scientific peer-reviewed publications related to COSMIC and radio occultation; science applications research contributing in the areas of weather, climate, and space weather; technical and educational support for early career scientists and data users to increase the scientific capacity in the field of GNSS RO.
UCAR has developed a fully automated state-of-the-art RO data processing, distribution, and archival system. The CDAAC hardware, software, and science data processing algorithms have been developed with over 100 person-years of scientific and engineering effort and currently provide high quality GPS RO data to the science community. The CDAAC data products have been extensively validated in peer-reviewed publications via comparisons with data from other instruments, numerical weather prediction and space weather models, as well as data from other data processing centers. Table 1 shows the number of atmospheric profiles generated thus far for all missions. UCAR makes all processed RO data available via https://www.cosmic.ucar.edu/what-we-do/data-processing-center/data/. Although the COSMIC mission was decommissioned in May 2020, COSMIC-2 was launched in June 2019 and is producing the highest quality RO data ever recorded which will benefit the community for years to come.
COSMIC data have been used in over 550 scientific publications that have demonstrated significant impact on operational weather prediction, climate monitoring, and space weather and ionospheric research. For example, major global weather prediction centers, including NOAA?s National Center for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) and the European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF) are achieving measurably improved weather forecasts by assimilating near real-time RO data. RO data are also a powerful observational tool to monitor the Earth?s climate due to their high accuracy and stability over time. COSMIC and other RO datasets are already being used to investigate temperature trends in the troposphere and stratosphere, and with continued RO datasets going forward such as COSMIC-2, similar future studies will be able to provide temperature trends of the Earth?s atmosphere with high confidence. COSMIC data are also being used by scientists to better understand ionospheric processes and better predict space weather, which will lead to future societal benefits for navigation, communication, and electrical power grid applications.
To maximize the scientific benefit of COSMIC data to society, the UCAR COSMIC Program has supported development and educational efforts to increase capacity in RO science and technology. There are now over 5000 data users from over 100 countries, representing major U.S. and international universities, leading operational weather centers, research laboratories, and several private companies. UCAR has organized data user workshops since the start of the program to provide these users with technical and scientific support and a forum to present, discuss, and learn about new advances in RO technology and scientific applications. UCAR has also provided scientific and computer mentoring of under-graduate and graduate students, post-docs, and culturally diverse under-graduate students in the UCAR/SOARS (Significant Opportunities in Atmospheric Research and Science) program. Finally, UCAR has disseminated the CDAAC software to universities to further education of young researchers in RO technology and scientific applications.
See images attached for Figure 1 and Table 1:
Figure 1: Global map of predicted COSMIC RO sounding locations (green) and Radiosonde weather balloon stations (red).
Table 1: Profile count for all missions processed by the CDAAC through Nov. 20, 2021. The COSMIC-1 mission, for now, contributes the largest number of profiles.
Last Modified: 11/24/2021
Modified by: William S Schreiner
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