ATReC: Atlantic-THORPEX Regional Campaign

Summary

The Atlantic THORPEX Regional Campaign (ATReC) is a field campaign that occurred during October-December 2003, that aims to contribute to the testing of the hypothesis that forecast errors over Europe and the east coast of the US can be reduced by targeting extra observations over oceanic storm-tracks and other remote areas. The primary goal of ATReC is to test the real-time quasi-operational targeting of observations using a number of platforms. This will be the first time that the real-time adaptive control of such a complex set of observing platforms has been attempted. This is considered to be an essential preparation or “proof of concept” for future targeting field campaigns. Additional scientific objectives of the ATReC will contribute to the understanding of the location and predictability of sensitive areas, the impact of targeted observations on forecast performance, and the benefit of potential new observing platforms. During the project a number of supplementary sources of remote and in situ meteorological observations were made available, in addition to the routine observing system. These included dropsondes from up to five European and American research aircraft, land-based radiosondes, additional (high frequency) AMDAR reports from commercial aircraft, radiosondes launched from ASAP ships, driftsondes launched from the east coast of North America, and rapid-scan winds from geostationary satellites.