Trans-Pacific Profiler Network:
Observations to Improve the
Analysis and Prediction of El Niño, Global Weather, and Climate
What is the TPPN?
The Trans-Pacific Profiler Network (TPPN) is comprised of Doppler radars, called wind profilers, located on six remote island sites spanning the data sparse region of the tropical Pacific Ocean. The Earth System Research Laboratory operates the TPPN in collaboration with the University of Colorado, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES). The TPPN wind profiling radar site at Biak, Indonesia is shown here.
What is Measured?
The instruments use "clear air" atmospheric echoes to measure a "profile" of both horizontal winds and vertical motions, at heights from the surface to 5-15 kilometers (depending on the frequency of the instrument). In addition to the wind profile, information about precipitation and atmospheric turbulence is also obtained.
Why?
The global tropics is mostly covered by ocean and is therefore poorly observed. Observations from the tropics are critical not only for day-to-day global weather forecasting, but also for understanding and predicting phenomena such as El Niño, which can affect year-to-year climate variability over large regions of the globe. Wind profilers are a cost effective means for providing reliable observations of wind and other critical atmospheric variables from remote island sites, as well as moving shipboard platforms.
Accomplishments of the TPPN
- High spatial and temporal resolution wind profiles from remote island sites in the tropics
- Detailed observations of El Niño signals over the equatorial Pacific
- First direct measurement of vertical motions and their diurnal variability in the tropics
- Improved methodology for classifying precipitating cloud systems
- Provided observations that have improved scientific understanding of:
- marine boundary layer winds
- moisture budgets
- diurnal, annual, and interannual variability of atmospheric circulation
- atmospheric heat budgets