Weather Advisory Research Articles

Farm Women Participation in Natural Resource Conservation: Technology Adoption Study in Semi-Arid Regions of India

Background: Semi-arid regions (SARs) of India are characterized by limited rainfall and often prone to droughts. These regions typically receive moderate to low levels of precipitation, making agriculture and water availability significantly challenging. In India, 55% of population is engaged in agriculture and its allied activities. Despite making a significant contribution to livelihoods, the sector continues to face challenges as soil degradation and resource depletion have reduced crop and livestock outputs. To mitigate the effects of land degradation and conserve rainwater, government has taken significant measures to make natural resource conservation a priority throughout the country. To conserve the natural resources, women are always playing an important role as they are always involved in agricultural activities. Methods: The study was undertaken to investigate the role of women in Soil and Water Conservation (SWC) in 3 SARs of India. The purposive sampling was done as watershed beneficiaries were selected as sample respondents. Result: The results revealed that majority of women (55%) had a medium level of technology adoption. Multiple regression analysis revealed that women’s age, education, farming experience, risk bearing, social participation and cost-effectiveness were influencing the adoption of SWC technologies in watersheds. The correlation analysis reflected that out of sixteen factors, eleven factors namely age, education, farming experience, land holding, risk bearing, social participation, agro advisory and weather advisory, skill development, ease of use and cost effectiveness significantly affected the adoption of SWC technologies.

Farmer's Opinion on the Usefulness of Agro-advisory Services in the NICRA Operated Districts of Odisha

Agro Advisory Services (AAS) play a dominant role to minimize crop losses and increase crop production and productivity. AAS provides basic, timely and accurate pre-information of diff erent climate and weather conditions for diff erent crops. With this milieu, National Innovation on Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA) is operating in fi ve climate vulnerable districts of Odisha. In this study three districts were selected based on the diff erent agroecological situations. Diff erent advisory services like agro-advisory, weather advisory, the usefulness of news letter, farm literature and farm videos. Agro-advisory services were found more than half of the farmers found it highly useful while 20 per cent found it useful. The scenario is much better in NICRA districts in comparison to non-NICRA districts (p=0.006). But in weather advisory, 35 per cent of farmers found it was highly useful while 15.8 per cent of farmers found it was useful. About a quarter (26.7%) of farmers expressed Newsletter is highly useful whereas 21.7 farmers opined it is useful. About 23.3 per cent of farmers found farm literature was highly useful while 25.8 per cent found it useful. Only 10 per cent of farmers opined that farm videos are highly useful whereas 18.3 per cent told it is useful. In the Non-NICRA areas, 33.3 per cent see these services as highly useful or useful. This scenario is signifi cantly better in NICRA areas (p=0.008).

Climate risk management strategies and food security: Evidence from Cambodian rice farmers

This study investigates the adoption of three climate-resilient strategies (3CRS), drought/flood-resistant rice varieties, integrated pest management (IPM) practices, and weather advisory; the impact of 3CRS on food security, namely, productivity and profits of the Cambodian paddy farmers. Using endogenous switching regression (ESR) approach and household survey from Cambodian farmers, the study finds a low adoption rate (14%) of 3CRS. The low adoption of 3CRS means missing opportunities for rice farmers. Access to information through training and input suppliers is found to increase the adoption of 3CRS. The adoption of 3CRS increases rice yields and profits by 36% and 45%, respectively. Additionally, if nonadopters adopted 3CRS, rice yields and profits would increase by 55% and 52%, respectively. Findings suggest the development of institutional capacity, implementation, and dissemination of knowledge of climatic changes, and adaptation strategies to increase food security.

Experimental Evaluation of the AIRWOLF Weather Advisory Tool for En Route Air Traffic Controllers

The objective of this study was to examine the potential benefits for air traffic controllers from the use of automated weather advisories. In a part-task simulation, we used a weather support tool called Automatic Identification of Risky Weather Objects in Line of Flight (AIRWOLF) that (a) detects conflicts between aircraft and hazardous weather, (b) alerts the controller, and (c) generates automatic weather advisories. During the simulation, air traffic control (ATC) subject matter experts responded to AIRWOLF alerts and either provided weather advisories to pilots via radio in two main conditions or provided data link communication in a third control condition. Automated advisories (a) eliminate the need for a manual production of weather advisories; (b) reduce the production time, voice duration, and overall advisory duration; and (c) reduce the cognitive workload associated with the dissemination of weather advisories. The results showed that the AIRWOLF tool could support air traffic controller weather avoidance actions and provide accurate and timely weather advisories to pilots. The weather advisory tool could support en route controllers for the safe, efficient, and strategic efforts required to handle adverse weather conditions in the en route environment.

Ludic Eloquence: On John Ashbery's Recent Poetry

Ludic Eloquence: On John Ashbery's Recent Poetry Roger Gilbert Cornell University What have we proved? That we don't have the one idea Worth having, that all else is beneath us, If within our grasp? But no, it should be in some book Perhaps, the book one has never read: there it keeps Its high literacy like a pearl: no point in displaying it, It's too eloquent, too gracious, for these times At least. "Winter Weather Advisory," April Galleons "All the learned doctors in the world will never come to a clear understanding of his madness, because he's plainly an off-again on-again madman, shot full of lucid streaks." Don Quijote, volume 2, chapter 18 A remarkable phenomenon in recent American writing has gone largely unnoticed. A major poet, now eighty, has over the last sixteen years published at a rate few poets half his age could match. To put the matter in purely quantitative terms, since 1991 John Ashbery has issued eight major collections of poetry, two book-length poems, and three volumes of critical prose—the equivalent of an entire career's output for many poets. The nine poetry volumes alone total 1,210 pages, more than the sum of all his previous books of poems, published between 1956 and 1988. Few critics would claim that Ashbery's recent poetry rises to the impossibly high mark set by his three masterpieces of the early 1970s, The Double Dream of Spring, [End Page 195] Three Poems, and Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror; indeed it seems clear that the poet himself has renounced much of the canonical ambition that issued in those books. Yet I think it would be a mistake to assume, as some critics have, that Ashbery's poetry of the last decade and a half is simply an inferior version of his earlier work.1 In fact, I hope to show that this new poetry differs fundamentally from what precedes it, though it can't be fully appreciated apart from the earlier work, either. Ashbery's recent poetry might best be understood as an exuberant, often openly comic fantasia on the central themes and narratives of his major poems from the 1970s. The poet's ongoing preoccupations with the elasticity of time, the elusiveness of knowledge, the waywardness of desire—themes his earlier poems had explored with a kind of bemused severity—now appear gorgeously decked out in sequins and spangles, arrayed in glittering tropes and delicious phrases. By turns lucid and ludic, Ashbery's recent poetry reveals an artist still in love with every aspect of his medium, still eager to try out new tricks and techniques, still incomparably eloquent in his voicing of the inner life. A Late Abundance Before I attempt to describe the special qualities and virtues of Ashbery's recent poetry in detail, let me return to the question of his remarkable fecundity and consider some possible explanations for it. One event that had an undoubted effect on Ashbery's productivity was his winning a lucrative MacArthur fellowship in 1985, which allowed him to take an extended break from teaching and other breadwinning activities. This in turn led to a significant change in his writing habits, as he explained in a 1988 interview with John Tranter: [End Page 196] I don't usually write every day but in fact I have been in the last six months. I've got this large grant which is for five years. I actually got it three years ago this month, so I've got two more years to go. It took me two years to recover from a lifetime of drudgery, and to rest up, and get my bearings, as it were. I used to think that it wasn't good for me to write very often. I thought once a week was perhaps the maximum. Otherwise it seemed as though it was coming out diluted, or strained. However I seemed to have changed my mind about this, and...

Intercomparison of In-Flight Icing Algorithms. Part II: Statistical Verification Results

Abstract Recent research to improve forecasts of in-flight icing conditions has involved the development of algorithms to apply to the output of numerical weather prediction models. The abilities of several of these algorithms to predict icing conditions, as verified by pilot reports (PIREPs), are compared for two numerical weather prediction models (Eta and the Mesoscale Analysis and Prediction System) for the Winter Icing and Storms Program 1994 (WISP94) time period (25 January–25 March 1994). Algorithms included in the comparison were developed by the National Aviation Weather Advisory Unit [NAWAU, now the Aviation Weather Center (AWC)], the National Center for Atmospheric Research’s Research Applications Program (RAP), and the U.S. Air Force. Operational icing forecasts (AIRMETs) issued by NAWAU for the same time period are evaluated to provide a standard of comparison. The capabilities of the Eta Model’s explicit cloud liquid water estimates for identifying icing regions are also evaluated and compar...

Intercomparison of In-Flight Icing Algorithms. Part I: WISP94 Real-Time Icing Prediction and Evaluation Program

Abstract The purpose of the Federal Aviation Administration’s Icing Forecasting Improvement Program is to conduct research on icing conditions both in flight and on the ground. This paper describes a portion of the in-flight aircraft icing prediction effort through a comprehensive icing prediction and evaluation project conducted by the Research Applications Program at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. During this project, in- flight icing potential was forecast using algorithms developed by RAP, the National Weather Service’s National Aviation Weather Advisory Unit, and the Air Force Global Weather Center in conjunction with numerical model data from the Eta, MAPS, and MM5 models. Furthermore, explicit predictions of cloud liquid water were available from the Eta and MM5 models and were also used to forecast icing potential. To compare subjectively the different algorithms, predicted icing regions and observed pilot reports were viewed simultaneously on an interactive, real-time display. To m...

Comparing PIREPs with NAWAU Turbulence and Icing Forecasts: Issues and Results

Pilot reports of aircraft turbulence and icing were compared with forecasts of those phenomena from the National Aviation Weather Advisory Unit for a 45-day period in the winter of 1992. An observation-driven approach was used because it is considered more appropriate for accomodating the subjective reporting that is characteristic of the observational dataset. A number of comparisons were done for subsets of the data based on the magnitude of the reported event, aircraft altitude, and type of forecast. Positive observations of events compared with forecasts more favorably for the icing data than for the turbulence data. Observations of nonevents compared with forecasts more favorably for the turbulence data than for the icing data. Positive observations of both icing and turbulence compared with forecasts more favorably below 18 000 ft than above 18 000 ft. Null reports for icing appear to be more representative of “no icing” than the zero-icing reports.

New approach in research education to solve problems of dryland farming in Africa

For quite some time now, Africa has faced food shortages that are largely due to deterioration of agricultural environments and high population growth rates, leading to a combination of production pressures. The agricultural problems are particularly pronounced in dryland farming, and the means to mitigate them have to be mainly of a low external input nature. A case study from Kenya of an integrated research education approach holds much promise for contributions to solve such food production problems in the drylands of Africa and other low external input sustainable agriculture (LEISA). The approach emphasizes interdisciplinary research education of local scientists by problem‐oriented research in tackling environmental hazards facing the farmers. Six primary sequential steps, from problem identification via field quantification to the contributions to solutions, are distinguished as essential. In the Kenyan example, it was possible to give a “weather advisory,”; that is, an extension message with strong agroclimatological components, on the biophysical and economic limits of alley cropping Cassia siamea with maize in a semiarid environment. Adaptation requirements of some commercial instruments under tropical conditions were also covered. Such a range of subjects is essential if research education is to contribute to protection from environmental hazards in dryland farming.

Operations of the National Severe Storms Forecast Center

The National Severe Storms Forecast Center in Kansas City, Missouri, is composed of several operational forecasting units, all national in scope. It includes the Severe Local Storms Unit (SELS), the National Aviation Weather Advisory Unit (NAWAU), and a Techniques Development Unit (TDU). Within SELS there is a synoptic interpretation message (SIM) section and a mesoscale discussion (MD) section. The SELS Unit has been in Kansas City since 1954 and is responsible for providing a wide array of products related to severe weather: convective outlooks, public weather statements, mesoscale discussions, status reports, and tornado and severe thunderstorm watches for the 48 conterminous states. SELS is also responsible for preparing a national weather summary. NAWAU provides alerts, nationally, of hazardous weather, known as AIRMETs and SIGMETs, and convective SIGMETs to aviation interests. NAWAU also issues aviation area forecasts. The SIM section prepares a diagnostic interpretative message that incorporates satellite and other information and relates them to model trends. The MD section supports the SELS program by providing short-range updates on developing mesoscale systems. The Techniques Development Unit has been responsible for working hand in hand with SELS to reap the benefits of applying interactive computer-processing technology, progressively giving the forecaster more effective means to provide improved services. Illustrating these improvements is the fact that severe weather watches have significantly increased in accuracy, especially in handling violent death-dealing tornado situations. An illustrative example of SELS products is shown for the severe weather outbreak of 15–17 June 1992. The example shows how skillfully this episode, producing 172 tornadoes and 462 other reported severe weather events, was forecast. Emphasis is made of the need for consistent and well-coordinated watches and other advisories when dealing with widespread, rapidly moving, severe weather-producing systems.

Toward the Improvement of Aircraft-Icing Forecasts for the Continental United States

An automated procedure is developed for detecting and forecasting atmospheric conditions conductive to aircraft icing over the continental United States. The procedure uses gridded output from the Nested-Grid Model, and is based on the manual techniques currently in use at the National Aviation Weather Advisory Unit in Kansas City, Missouri. Verification of the procedure suggests forecasting performance on par with the human forecasters. Unfortunately, efforts at more-rigorous performance analysis are hindered by the inadequacies of the verification database, which consists of pilots’ subjective reports of airframe ice buildup. In general, no-ice conditions are not reported. The physics of aircraft icing are reviewed, and the current manual techniques are discussed. The automated procedure provides an infrastructure for implementing incremental improvements in the algorithm as observations and numerical models improve.

An Objective Clear-Air Turbulence Forecasting Technique: Verification and Operational Use

Abstract An objective technique for forecasting clear-air turbulence (CAT) is described. An index is calculated based on the product of horizontal deformation and vertical wind shear derived from numerical model forecast winds aloft. The forecast technique has been evaluated and is now in operational use at two forecast centers with international aviation responsibilities: the National Meteorological Center (NMC) in Washington, D.C., and the Air Force Global Weather Central (AFGWC) in Omaha, Nebraska. The index is also an operational forecast tool at the Canadian Atmospheric Environment Service (AES), and the National Aviation Weather Advisory Unit (NAWAU) in Kansas City, Missouri, both responsible for domestic aviation forecasts. The AFGWC index also includes horizontal convergence in its calculation. Thresholds were selected empirically by comparing index values with the location and intensity of observed CAT. Verification indicates that the index is quite reliable. The probability of detection (POD) va...