Taiwan-Area Atmospheric and Hydrological Observation and Prediction Experiment (Tahope) - General Project

Taiwan-Area Atmospheric and Hydrological Observation and Prediction Experiment is an international joint project of Taiwan and U.S. (PRECIP2020) that will conduct observation experiments for severe weather (Mei-yu and typhoon) in the vicinity of Taiwan. The main themes of the project range from large-scale environmental influence, mesoscale convective systems as well as microscale cloud physics processes, under the special topography of Taiwan island with steep mountain. Through the joint network of atmospheric and hydrological observations, real-time or near real-time assimilation analysis and prediction will be conducted using advanced atmospheric and hydrological models. In order to accomplish this large bi-lateral joint observation and prediction experiments, Taiwan Typhoon and Flood Research Institute/National Applied Research Laboratories (TTFRI /NARLabs), on the expectation of meteorology community, takes a role in integrating the available domestic observation instruments and invites interested community colleagues to jointly submit an integrated three-year research proposal (1 August, 2018 – 31 July, 2021) to Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), Taiwan. The U.S. Partners have submitted requests to U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and National Oceanic and Atmodpheric Administration (NOAA) on a variety of robust instruments (P3-aircraft, S-PolKa radar, C-Pol radar, vapor flux meter DIAL, etc.) to combine with Taiwan operational observation facilities (radars and radiosondes), atmospheric and hydrological measurements (C-Pol radar, wind profiler, dropsonde, aerosonde and experimental watershed) of TTFRI to perform joint observation experiment during 25 May to 30 September 2020; meanwhile, evaluation of data impact on assimilation and prediction from own domestic satellite (FORMOSAT-7) GPS RO and reflectometry measurements will be carried out, in particular. The U.S. partners include project principal investigators, Dr. Michael Bell and Kristen Rasmussen (CSU professors) and several renowned meteorologists. On Taiwan side, a project office lead by Director General of TTFRI, Dr. Ching-Yuang Huang, has been set up and has integrated four working subgroups, namely, Observation Experiment (OB), Data Assimilation (DA), Modeling and Analysis (MA), and Hydrological Application (HA). Each chair of four working groups (OB, DA, MA and HA) is mainly responsible for recruiting and collaborating participating sub-proposals that are then subject to further integration for consolidated coordination by the project office with help of two project consultants. The formed Scientific Advisory Committee consisting of local senior scientists in atmosphere and hydrology provides valuable comments and suggestions on the proposed scientific goals and experimental design of the joint project. For experimental extension and enhancement, we are also looking forward to seeing participation of international interested neighbourhood.