Environmental Information for the Next Generation Air Transpotration System

It is estimated that weather is responsible for approximately 70% of all air traffic delays and cancellations. Annually, this produces an overall economic loss of nearly $40B. These and other negative impacts on the U.S. National Airspace System will increase to the point of unsustainability unless the system is radically transformed. A Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) was proposed to accommodate the increasing demand for capacity and the super-density operations that this transformation will entail. The heart of the environmental information component that is being developed for the new system will be a 4-dimensional data cube which will include a single authoritative source for NextGen Air Traffic Management (ATM) systems. Aviation weather constraints and safety hazards typically comprise meso-scale, stormscale as well as microscale observables. These include convective weather, in-flight icing, turbulence, volcanic ash, space weather and the environmental impacts of aviation. Functional and performance requirements for the NextGen weather system are being established that will require significant improvements in current observations and forecasting capabilities. This will include satellite observations from geostationary and/or polar-orbiting sounders, imagers, lightning mappers, space weather monitors and other environmental observing systems. In 2003, a Joint Planning and Development Office (JPDO) was established by public law to design and implement NextGen. This paper provides the satellite meteorology community with useful insight on salient NextGen environmental information requirements that have been developed by the JPDO Weather Working Group. These efforts will help to shape current and future environmental satellite system capabilities, operations and applications. ____________________ Corresponding author address: John Murray, NASA Langley Research Center, MS 401-B, 21 Langley Blvd., Hampton, VA 23681. E-mail: john.j.murray@nasa.gov