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Why Urban Met Now?

Nearly two-thirds of the U.S. population lives in urban areas occupying less than two percent of the U.S. landmass. America’s vulnerability to severe weather and hazards related to air quality, water quality, atmospheric dispersion of dangerous materials, and climatic variations are rising as the urban proportion of the population increases.

To manage these and other risks to public safety, health, and property, urban leaders and managers are demanding more accurate and specific weather and climate information for use in their decision processes. Urban meteorology—a specialized, interdisciplinary approach to studying the natural environmental interactions with urban communities—provides an integrated response to these demands for better, more useful information.

Three factors have come together to make this the right time to address key issues in urban meteorology. First, technological advances in remote sensing and other observing platforms have made urban observations on the subregional scale possible. The evolution of coupled computer models linking processes in the atmosphere, soil, ocean, and biosphere at smaller grid scales has improved the ability to use these observations to assess and predict more accurately the state of the urban environment. Second, recent national and international events have heightened attention to potential acts of terrorism, particularly in urban centers with large populations. Chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear (CBRN) releases, whether intentional or accidental, threaten public health and safety and can contaminate our air, water, and soil. The atmospheric transport and diffusion (ATD) models, to prepare for such emergencies and respond to them, depend upon other urban meteorology inputs. The ATD models are themselves an important component of our total technological capability in urban meteorology. Third, concerns for public health and safety include but extend beyond atmospheric dispersion of hazardous substances. The health problems associated with the extreme forms of urban weather and climate can threaten survival, as exemplified by the record heat wave that scorched Europe in August 2003, claiming an estimated 35,000 lives. Lesser degrees of weather extremes or even benign periods of weather can be insidious or cumulative in their affects on overall public health. For example, pollutants affect the quality of the air we breathe and the water we drink.

Urban Meteorology as a Priority for Federal Agency Coordination

Involvement of the Office of the Federal Coordinator for Meteorology (OFCM) in urban meteorology dates from September 1998. At that time, the Federal Coordinator identified it as a priority for Federal agency coordination under the auspices of the Federal Committee for Meteorological Services and Supporting Research (FCMSSR). Federal activities in urban meteorology were then focused on air quality. The OFCM subsequently broadened that focus to include ATD modeling as a tool for understanding urban air quality issues, as well as airborne hazards in the event of accidental releases of hazardous materials.

The terrorist attacks on America in September 2001 gave a new urgency to the need for ATD modeling in the event of a deliberate attack using chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear weapons of mass destruction. In August 2002, the OFCM-sponsored Joint Action Group for the Selection and Evaluation of Atmospheric Transport and Diffusion Models (JAG/SEATD) published its report, Atmospheric Modeling from Weapons of Mass Destruction: Response by Federal Agencies in Support of Homeland Security. At its October 2002 meeting, the FCMSSR assigned an action to the Federal Coordinator and the Interdepartmental Committee for Meteorological Services and Supporting Research (ICMSSR) to plan and conduct an interagency forum on ATD modeling capabilities. This forum was to address the state of science, identify priorities and issues for needed research and development, develop model evaluation procedures, and plan for field studies. The forum would bring the Federal agencies together with representatives of user communities, academia, and the private sector. After the Department of Homeland Security was established, it joined the ATD modeling activities as a lead player within the OFCM Federal coordinating infrastructure. The Challenges in Urban Meteorology Forum is being presented through a partnership of the Department of Homeland Security, Science and Technology Directorate, and OFCM.

Another driver for broadening the scope of this forum was the report by the 10th Prospectus Development Team of the U.S. Weather Research Program, Forecast Issues in the Urban Zone. This report tied research and development requirements in crosscutting areas of meteorology to a general assessment of urban users’ needs. A third driver was the detailed compilation of user needs performed under the Joint Action Group for Weather Information for Surface Transportation (JAG/WIST) and published in 2002 as Weather Information for Surface Transportation: National Needs Assessment Report. This report identified the needs of urban transportation system managers and users for timely and accurate weather information. The Challenges in Urban Meteorology Forum will also address issues and recommendations identified in the National Research Council report, The Atmospheric Sciences, Entering the Twenty-First Century.

Scope of the Urban Meteorology User Forum

The focus areas for the forum are severe weather, homeland security, air quality, water quality, and climate.

Cutting across all of the focus areas are the capabilities of urban meteorology and information communication needed to provide urban decision makers—from service system managers to business and political leaders, to the general public—with timely and useful information. Among the crosscutting issues identified for the Challenges in forum are: