Home : Our Work : Areas of Research : Marine Meteorology
7 Grace Hopper Ave, ST2
Monterey, California 93943
Phone: (202) 641-1522

 

 

About

The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory’s Marine Meteorology Division strives to better understand the atmosphere and coupled environments so that they can be better simulated, better predicted, and help the warfighter make better decisions.  The Division conducts the Nation’s only full-spectrum research program in the atmospheric sciences and the only Department of Defense S&T program in numerical weather prediction.

The Division performs the basic and applied research that underpins the Navy’s operational numerical weather prediction systems and then develops and transitions those numerical weather prediction systems for use in real-time operations.

The Division also researches how the environment impacts Navy sensors and weapon systems (e.g. ship-board radars, directed energy systems) as well as automated decision guidance systems, such as piracy interdiction, submarine water space, combined mission/logistics planning, and weather impacts on autonomous surveillance assets. 

The Division’s reputation for excellent science enables building relationships with the best university researchers and industry partners in the country. This allows us to identify and harvest scientific and technological expertise that complements our own expertise. We can then assess the new science/technology, implement it in a protected, secure manner, and ultimately transition it to Navy operations.

Areas of Research 

  • Coupled processes – Understanding of the processes that control the interactions between different components of the earth system, including atmosphere/ocean, atmosphere/land, ionosphere/lower atmosphere, etc.

  • Data assimilation – Incorporating observations, especially Navy-specific observations, into model initial conditions that result in improved forecasts.

  • Scale interaction – Identifying and understanding the interaction of processes of different spatial and temporal scales and the communication of information between scales.

  • Tropical Cyclones – Research to better understand processes that govern the strength, structure, and track of tropical cyclones. 

 
Our full-spectrum research portfolio enables Division scientists to take new understanding developed within the Division or the broader research community and incorporate into numerical and/or machine learning prediction systems that provide improved decision guidance to warfighters.

Capabilities include:

ATCF - The Automated Tropical Cyclone Forecast System (ATCF) is an end-to-end forecast system for use in Military operational tropical cyclone forecast commands.  ATCF is used to track, forecast, and generate TC forecast products.  ATCF ingests relevant data, satellite images, numerical weather prediction forecasts and more.  Once ingested, these data are used to analyze and forecast tropical cyclones as they form, intensify and make landfall or dissipate over water.

COAMPS/COAMPS-TC – The Coupled Ocean Atmosphere Mesoscale Prediction system and the Tropical Cyclone version of COAMPS TC are the Navy’s tactical scale operational numerical weather prediction system.  COAMPS integrates advanced science and cutting-edge modeling techniques to deliver accurate, rapidly deployable forecasts that are tailored for dynamic and data-sparse operational environments. As an innovative and mission-critical capability, COAMPS enables more effective planning and execution of global Navy and DoD operations.   COAMPS-TC is the leading tropical cyclone prediction model in the world supporting Navy and DoD operations.

ESPC – The Earth System Prediction Capability is a fully coupled global atmosphere, ocean, sea ice, and wave model providing daily 8-day high-resolution deterministic forecast and weekly 45-day probabilistic prediction forecasts from the top of the atmosphere to the bottom of the ocean.  It provides critical forecasts to the warfighter of the ocean and atmosphere battlespace to guide tactical decisions and strategic planning such as contested logistics and distributed maritime operations. In addition, ESPC supports basic research on coupled atmosphere/ocean/sea-ice processes and predictability.

GeoIPS - The Geolocated Information Processing system (GeoIPS®)  is a collaborative research and development platform for combining disparate datasets into unique meteorological and meteorological-informed products specifically designed to meet Navy warfighter needs. It provides a shared development infrastructure used across the weather community and facilitates rapid transitions of new technologies between both research organizations and operational centers.  The GeoIPS® core infrastructure provides a flexible and modular codebase that allows developers to add new capabilities in the form of plugins.  This open-source code-base allows NRL to leverage the expertise of the greater METOC community, and fosters collaboration with external university collaborators by harvesting and integrating their algorithms and products into the GeoIPS® ecosystem.

NEPTUNE - NEPTUNE is the Navy’s information assured weather prediction system, providing the warfighter with high-fidelity global forecasts of critical METOC at unprecedented horizontal scales.  NEPTUNE can utilize the most modern and powerful high-performance computing systems to predict global and tactical scale atmospheric motions from the Earth’s surface to the top of the atmosphere.  NEPTUNE forecasts provide critical atmospheric input parameters to drive tactical applications that enhance warfighter safety and lethality.  NEPTUNE was developed and validated with a focus on Navy missions, resulting in improved inputs into EMW, terminal defense, contested logistics, and strike warfare applications.  It is designed to provide critical forcing for ocean and ionospheric modeling as well inputs for precision time keeping.