THORPEX Pacific Asian Regional Campaign (T-PARC)

One aspect of THORPEX is to develop research plans to meet the regional forecast needs for Asia, North America, the EU, and the Southern Hemisphere. The THORPEX Pacific Asian Regional Campaign (T-PARC) is a multi-national field campaign planned by the Asian and North American Regional Committees and their associated national science committees that address the shorter-range dynamics and forecast skill of one region (Eastern Asian and the western North Pacific) and its impact on the medium-range dynamics and forecast skill of downstream regions (eastern North Pacific, North America and perhaps stretching to Europe). The field phase of T-PARC is designed to leverage multi-national efforts to address these two overarching foci. While T-PARC encompasses varying time and space scales, the primary objectives of each region are the same (i.e., to increase understanding of the mechanisms that will lead to improved predictive skill of high impact weather events) . This multi-scale approach is desirable as these two regions have strong dynamical links. For example, high-impact weather events over the western North Pacific and East Asia, such as persistent deep tropical convection and intense cyclogenesis, can trigger downstream responses over the eastern North Pacific and North America via upper-tropospheric wave packets on the primary Asian wave guides. These wave packets can, in turn, be invigorated by subsequent cyclogenesis events, which make the impacts farther downstream fast-spreading, far-reaching, and associated with reduced predictability. The high-impact weather events over North American driven by these processes include intense extratropical cyclones, orographic precipitation, flooding, severe weather and the hot, dry winds that increase the risk of wild fires and the severity of droughts. T-PARC will take between May and December 2008 with a concentrated US measurement campaign during August and September.

An overview of the experimental design. T-PARC includes facilities explicitly deployed for the experiment, but also includes collaborate with other measurement campaigns taking place in the 2008 time-frame.

T-PARC Science Plan

Experiment Design Overview

Proposed Paticipation (Section J "Special Information and Supplementary Documentation")

Naval Postgraduate School (a wiki-based web site being hosted by the Naval Postgraduate School to promote communication among T-PARC scientists

For more information on T-PARC email David Parsons at parsons@ucar.edu

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