Applicant's Name: Greg Stossmeister Institution: University Corporation for Atmospheric Research/Joint Office for Science Support Address: P.O. Box 3000 Boulder, CO 80307-3000 USA Telephone: (303)497-8692 Fax Number: (303)497-8158 E-mail Address: gstoss@ucar.edu Type of Temporary Agreement requested: An agreement that temporarily enables a non-real time SeaWiFS HRPT station to decrypt real-time data and release it to the Authorized Users list. Time period of temporary agreement: Dates (month/day/year): 11/24/2004 - 02/01/2005 SeaWiFS HRPT Station to provide data: HCAR List of Authorized Users to access real-time data. 1. Greg Stossmeister Project Title: Operational Support for RICO Field Campaign Investigator(s): Richard Dirks, Jim Moore, Greg Stossmeister Funding Agency(s): National Science Foundation Description of the Research Project and Justification for Real-time SeaWiFS Data: The objective of RICO in the broadest sense is to characterize and understand the properties of trade wind cumulus at all scales, with particlar emphasis on determining the importance of precipitation. At the smallest scale, the most fundamental problem - recognized for over a half century - is explaning the rapid onset of precipitation in shallow tropical clouds. At the intermediate scale, processes controlling the mesoscale structure and coverage of shallow tropical cloud systems are not well understood. At the largest scale, our inability to describe the statistical behavior of trade wind cloud fields confounds our attempts to properly represent the exchange of radiant energy, moist enthalpy, momentum and trace constituents between the atmosphere and ocean over vast expanses of the planet. These scales are inextricably linked and the nature of these linkages is an important aspect of RICO. In the field, project forecasters will use SeaWiFS data along with other meteorological information to prepare project forecasts and briefings. The SeaWiFS aerosol and ocean color products are expected to be extremely useful. Project PIs will use this information to plan aircraft flight patterns, research vessel tracks, and ground and upper-air instrument sampling strategies as well as other operations details. The role of UCAR/JOSS in RICO is to provide operational and logistics support. Among our operational responsibilities are the delivery of necessary satellite, surface, and upper- air data as well as other meteorological and oceanographic data required for operations planning. UCAR/JOSS would like to provide the real-time SeaWiFS data for the project via our ground station (HCAR). Real-time reception of telemetry would be required during the set-up and operational phases of the project. Current plans are for the set-up of satellite equipment to begin in late November, with the project running through the end of January.