Student Experience Report

Introduction

     My name is Richard Palmieri, and I am an M.S. student in Atmospheric Science at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, NC. The purpose of this essay is to present my account of a trip I had the opportunity to take under the NSF/AWARE program (through Dr. Bill Kuo at NCAR/UCAR COSMIC) with Dr. Dev Niyogi (at NCSU) and Dr. Fei Chen (at NCAR). The destination was Beijing in the People's Republic of China. The primary purpose of the visit was to attend the Joint Institute of Urban Meteorology (IUM)/National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Workshop on Urban Meteorology: Observations and Modeling; and to meet with scientists at the Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences (CAMS) and the Chinese Meteorological Administration (CMA). My weeklong stay in Beijing proved to be enlightening, not only intellectually, but culturally as well.

     Accompanied by my advisor, Dr. Dev Niyogi, I arrived in Beijing on Sunday (Oct 10, 2004) afternoon. We were greeted first-hand by one of the primary reasons for the conference that we were attending: urban air quality concerns. Visibilities were low as smog blanketed the airport and the city. Representatives of IUM met us at the airport. They gave us a brief introduction to the city as they brought us to our home for the next week, the XiYuan Hotel. For our entire stay, the IUM and the CAMS/CMA provided extensive support to make our trip enjoyable and memorable. Both Dev and I owe them many thanks.

Scientific Experience

     On Tuesday and Wednesday (October 12 and 13, 2004), Dr. Niyogi and I attended the Joint IUM/NCAR Workshop on Urban Meteorology. The conference had three main sessions: the first focused on observing the urban boundary layer, the second on urban landuse modeling, and the third on urban air quality and pollution. At the onset, Ms. Wang (Director, IUM) and Dr. Chen (NCAR) gave an overview of the workshop objectives. Ms. Wang also presented a summary of observational and modeling research underway at the IUM, and laid a foundation for collaborative opportunities.

     The first session was co-chaired by Dr. Jielun Sun (NCAR) and Ju Li (IUM). During the first session, Dr. Jielun Sun from NCAR highlighted current issues in urban boundary layer (UBL) meteorology; Mr. Ju Li from IUM gave a talk describing the Beijing UBL Experiment 2004 (BUBBLEX 2004); and Dr. Don Lenschow from NCAR gave a presentation focusing on the recent efforts underway to model and observe the UBL. This presentation was followed by a talk by Dr. Mingyu Zhou of the State Oceanic Administration. Dr. Zhou presented results on deriving urban albedo from satellite remote sensing in the Beijing area. Professor Weimei Jiang from Nanjing University gave a summary presentation on the different research projects at Nanjing University currently focusing on the UBL issues. Dr. Sun presented a summary of Session I of the conference, outlining the problems and challenges that exist for obtaining measurements within each layer of the UBL. Additionally, she listed five types of observations needed by urban models to improve weather forecasts: i) surface roughness, for momentum and scalar variables, ii) displacement heights, iii) boundary layer depths, iv) albedo and radiative properties of aerosols, and v) subsurface and urban canopy heat storage and water transportation properties.

     Session II was co-chaired by Dr. Dev Niyogi (NCSU) and Dr. Chaolin Zhang (IUM). The focus of this session was on urban landuse modeling, and consisted of four presentations. The presenters included Dr. Fei Chen of NCAR, who gave a presentation on recent progress in modeling urban landuse in the MM5 and WRF models, and the impact of including urban canopy models in simulating mesoscale/ urban scale processes; Professor Dui Wu and Dr. Xuejiao Deng from the Institute of Tropical and Marine Meteorology, who presented their observational setup for assessing the land-atmosphere interaction and haze occurrences in the cities of the Pearl River Delta Region; Dr. Dev Niyogi from NC State University, who spoke on representing the direct and indirect effects of urban regions in weather and climate models; and Dr. Chaolin Zhang of IUM, who presented results of numerical experiments on the impact of land-surface characteristics on Beijing's summer water resource. Dr. Niyogi gave Session II's summary. In this summary, he stated that presentations in this session showed that the addition of urban models has had positive results on the overall model performance and would assist numerical weather prediction. When dealing with urban modeling, typically the limiting factor on the complexity of the urban model is the availability of input data, which relates back to Session I's discussion on making observations within the UBL. Dr. Niyogi listed a few things that the presenters in the session felt were important to improve in order to advance urban modeling: i) estimation of latent heat flux in urban areas (many times this is assumed to be zero, which is incorrect); ii) update of landuse information, and some method of continuously (or at least on a monthly or seasonal basis) updating this information as development occurs; iii) consideration of indirect effects such as from aerosols, and iv) recognition that haze formation is a multifaceted problem, of which meteorology is only one aspect. The presenters felt that various research communities focusing on urbanization issues that are dedicated to specific regions (e.g. the Pearl River Delta region) are necessary and beneficial, because the urbanization problem appears to be very site-specific.

     Session III was co-chaired by Dr. Kaihon "Alexis" Lau (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology- HKUST), and Dr. Xiachun Zhang (IUM). Presentations during Session III primarily focused on urban air quality and associated environmental issues. Professor Jiayi Chen of Peking University highlighted the importance of mesoscale flows and their relation to air pollutant transport in Beijing. Dr. Kaihon Lau of the HKUST gave a presentation on the application of an urban landuse model in the simulation of a severe air pollution event in the Pearl River Delta. The results indicate that landuse change caused by urbanization are an important driver for regional haze occurrences. Dr. Xiangde Xu from the Chinese Academy of Meteorological Studies gave a talk on the Beijing City Air Pollution Observation Field Experiment and the measurements and monitoring efforts underway in different regions. Dr. Xiaoling Zhang from IUM gave a presentation describing the monitoring program and primary results at the Shangdianzi regional background station, which would be used for studying the future trends in air quality as the region continues to urbanize. Dr. Lau summarized the session discussion, during which he stated that the common theme of all the presentations during the session was that individual regions have specific phenomenon that are most important for that region's air quality. Many of the session's presentations were of studies that used some sort of observed air quality data. With this theme in mind, Dr. Lau turned during the summary presentation to the issue of air quality data. The group of presenters felt that the continual quality control of air quality measurements might be the most important factor in using air quality data. Further, they suggest that some sort of quantification scheme for this quality control be developed, so individual researchers have the ability to determine whether any set of data meets the standards required for their study. The importance of expanding the remote sensing of air quality data was also stressed. Finally, the session presenters stressed that work should be undertaken to better understand the feedback of air quality on meteorology, instead of focusing solely on the affect of the meteorology on air quality.

     In the final session, the session participants met in groups and developed a summary of the important recommendations, summaries and issues discussed in their session. Some of the questions being addressed in these discussions included (many of the answers to these questions are addressed in the preceding paragraphs):

• Session 1:
  • How should a UBL observing system be designed to meet the requirements for weather and climate research and applications in urban environments? Which sensors, procedures, and processes are needed?
  • Which measurement strategies will provide the best cost/benefit returns for operational decision makers?
  • What are the requirements across the spectrum of data gathering, collection assimilation, archival, and dissemination processes? How can we address them?
  • Are there new sensors and other measurement platforms available or emerging that could improve UBL observations?
  • What types of data sets are needed to improve UBL modeling?
• Session 2:
  • What meteorological information needed by urban decision makers is not yet available? Why?
  • How can we make better decisions, if given better meteorological information, for managing the safety, health, and economic well being of urban communities?
  • How could we quantify the socio-economic impacts of meteorological information on urban communities?
  • How can education, training, and outreach improve urban management and decision making with meteorological information?
• Session 3:
  • Do current meteorological observations meet the requirements of urban applications?
  • If not, in which areas are they lacking? What is the highest priority in terms of meteorological observations?
  • How can meteorological observations be improved to meet modeling and operational demand for urban areas?
  • How can we design an observation system for urban weather and climate monitoring?

     The workshop co-chairs developed a summary of the presentations and collaborative opportunities possible between U.S. and Chinese meteorologists. Some of the collaborative ideas included several projects on: surface albedo, including evaluation of remotely-sensed albedo from MODIS, utilization of improved albedo over urban areas in NWP models, impacts of urbanization on albedo and the effect on the local/regional weather and ecosystems, and the installation of an albedo observational network; aerosol loading and air pollution problems, including the analysis of air pollution data, development of measurement techniques for diffuse radiation and evapotranspiration in urban areas, and air pollution modeling; the analysis and evaluation of the BUBBLEX 2004 dataset; the continued development of an urban model for Beijing; and the development of the real-time WRF/UCM forecasting capability for the support of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.

     All of the presentations were detailed and well done, and I felt like my understanding of the problems that urban development causes for weather and air quality forecasting was vastly improved after attending the conference. The breakdown of the conference into sessions that focused on separate aspects of the problem really aided the flow of the conference. The variety of presentations from the U.S. and the Chinese scientists provided a good sense of the breadth of this topic and the enormity of the task at hand. To me, the take-home message was that if we are to advance the science of urban meteorology, the best way to go about it is to collaborate and coordinate with each other, both ensuring that work isn't unnecessarily repeated, and ensuring that all the best minds in the field are working on the problem.

     While in Beijing, Dr. Niyogi and I also visited the Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences (CAMS). While at CAMS, we were introduced to their Global/Regional Assimilation PrEdiction System (GRAPES) model, which is a global grid-point model. The GRAPES system is intended to be a multi-scale modeling effort, with applications ranging from global ensemble studies to local weather forecasting. The dynamical parameterizations used in GRAPES are similar to those used in WRF, and much of the work done on one model may be ported to the other. Dr. Niyogi and Dr. Chen gave presentations including physical parameterizations related to land surface processes and its role on convective initiation and precipitation forecasting.

     In addition to the weather forecasting tasks, the CAMS is the only agency that develops a national weather forecast for television. Dr. Niyogi and I were able to watch as a CAMS meteorologist created the national forecast presentation that would later be distributed to media outlets and broadcast after the noon news. CAMS produces four national forecasts a day, and all media outlets play the same national forecasts. We were also able to meet with the researchers working on remote sensing and radiation measurements networks and discuss potential collaborative opportunities related to extending the analysis on land-atmosphere interaction conducted over the U.S. to the southeast Asia region.

Cultural Experience

     Not being from a large city, and not having ever lived in a large city, the differences in culture were readily apparent to me. Beijing is not only a completely different world, culturally speaking, than Raleigh, North Carolina, but it is also a tremendously large city, with a population of nearly 18 million people. Combine these two factors, and initially I was overwhelmed. However, we were very fortunate that between IUM and CAMS, someone was always willing to take time out of their schedule to help us out and show us around. On the few days that Dr. Niyogi and I had to be tourists, our experiences were surely much more pleasant than they otherwise would have been because of the assistance of our new found friends at IUM and CAMS. They were able to show us many wonderful historical attractions, and give us some sense of the history associated with them. During our time there, we visited the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, the Temple of Heaven, the Summer Palace, the tombs of the Ming Dynasty, and the Great Wall. The architectural style was amazing, and incredibly unlike anything found in the United States. As enormous as these structures were, there was incredibly intricate artwork on a vast majority of the structures, giving just a glimpse into the number of man-hours it must have taken to build these impressive structures. Knowing that most of what we were seeing had been there since long before our country even existed put a lot of what I was seeing into perspective.

     Another readily apparent difference between American and Chinese culture is the cuisine. I was pleasantly surprised to find that even though most, if not all, of the food was different from what I normally eat, it was also enjoyable. IUM and CAMS were incredibly generous in providing meals for Dr. Niyogi and I. We had the opportunity to eat at the only truly vegetarian restaurant in Beijing. On the menu were listed meat products, such as chicken and spare ribs, but when the food was brought out, you could see that in place of chicken was tofu, and in place a spare ribs was lotus root, both flavored like the meat they were replacing. Usually Dr. Niyogi ate either at the hotel or at the conference (or at CAMS), though we did venture out to eat at a KFC one evening. We also found one Starbucks Cafe in the Forbidden City.

     While we were in Beijing, Dr. Niyogi and I had an opportunity to visit the Xiushui ("silk") Market, which is a street market where vendors sell clothing, handicrafts, "Rolex" watches, and other things of that nature. The number of different vendors was amazing, only surpassed by the number of people. I had never been to a market such as this one, so seeing all the bartering and the high-pressure sales tactics was a very interesting experience! I was able to get a few gifts for family while I was there, but more than anything I left there very impressed with Dr. Niyogi's bartering abilities!

     The traffic was another aspect of the visit that was memorable. The roads and the city's infrastructure are truly well done, however the sheer volume of cars and people was overwhelming. We witnessed three fender-benders in one week, and I came out convinced I cannot drive on those roads!

Concluding Remarks

     I am incredibly thankful that I was given this wonderful opportunity to visit China, and specifically Beijing. The opportunity to interact both with scientists I would likely not otherwise have had the opportunity to interact with, and to see a culture I may very well never get the chance to see again, was something I will remember for the rest of my life. Both IUM and CAMS fall under the umbrella of the Chinese Meteorological Administration (CMA), so I would like to thank the members of the CMA that I was fortunate enough to meet, as well as NSF and NCAR, for all of their help and support during this trip, and a special thanks to Drs. Bill Kuo, Dev Niyogi, and Fei Chen, for making the trip a reality.