Improved Optical Turbulence Forecasts

We propose a Phase I SBIR project to define a forecast system to predict lower stratospheric and upper tropospheric optical turbulence. The application will be designed to be implemented within the Airborne Laser Atmospheric Decision Aid (ADA). The application will utilize as input data from the Air Force Weather Agency's theater numerical weather prediction (NWP) model. During Phase I, several candidate optical turbulence parameterizations will be examined for inclusion into the ADA. An innovative feature of our proposed application will operate on the input NWP model data to simulate an ensemble spread from a single NWP model forecast, enabling generation of a probablistic optical turbulence product that is capable of revealing nearby (in state space) meteorological and optical turbulence "regimes." Each ensemble member is used as input to two or more diagnostic optical turbulence algorithms. The set of ensemble optical turbulence forecasts are converted into probability density functions, and provided to the ADA. The forecast system will be designed to be configurable, modular, and conform to accepted software engineering standards.