This proposal from the University of Oklahoma (OU) in collaboration with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) requests funds to establish a Science and Technology Center for Analysis and Prediction of Storms. The Director of the Center will be Professor Douglas K. Lilly. A new generation of models must be developed to address the storm-scale prediction problem and there is currently no critical mass of scientists anywhere in the U.S. to carry out this research. The Center will fill this gap and will serve as a focal point for other researchers interested in this area. Complementary modelling work is being carried out at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and other universities, but the models used in these related research efforts do not provide adequate frameworks for the multi-scale tasks required in the OU Center. The Center plans to enhance their working relationships with NCAR and other university researchers, especially through exchange of faculty, staff, and students. The initial research will proceed in three directions: model development; predictability research and sensitivity testing; and data assimilation and initialization research. The scope of the problems being addressed spans basic theory, experimentation, and operational testing. The success of such models will necessarily require the use of advanced numerical techniques not previously applied to atmospheric modelling; many will force a complete change in the framework of existing models. In addition, the assimilation/initialization problem will require a different theoretical framework than has been heretofore used. Finally, by developing a new model, full advantage can be taken of rapidly evolving computer architectures, particularly the large memory and highly parallel supercomputers. The research couples the multidisciplinary expertise at OU. The governing physics of many phenomena, e.g., cloud dynamics and surface energy balance, must be investigated and modelled. The model must then be incorporated into a general mesoscale predictive capability, using numerical procedures which accurately simulate the flows involved. With the methods envisioned, the computer is allowed as an "expert system" to alter its numerical algorithm and its spatial and temporal resolution, in response to observable changes in the fields. All of these must be tested using the inputs from real data, and the initialization and assimilation of these data are the linchpins of the process, allowing the predictive capability of the simulation to be tested and evaluated against measured atmospheric processes.
