Weekly Briefing

 
Published: 3 November 2011

Every Wednesday evening, all of the AMIE/DYNAMO/CINDY scientists on site gather in the TV room at the Equator Village hotel. It’s not movie night, but the weekly project briefing. Along with the local scientists, participants call in from various universities and labs in the United States, from the research ships, and from the other observational sites to hear the latest on the project. Since the in-field participants are spread out across the Indian Ocean, it can be challenging to keep up on what is happening at all the sites, so this is a nice opportunity to touch base each week.

Scientists gather in the Equator Village for the weekly briefing. (back row) Jackson Tan, Scott Powell (middle row) Bob Houze, Dick Johnson, Eric Maloney (front row) Chidong Zhang, Jothiram Vivekanandan.
The briefing typically starts off with an update from Jon Gottschalk at the NOAA Climate Prediction Center on the large-scale atmospheric state in the Indian Ocean, the current MJO status, and the latest operational model forecasts. Due to the limited bandwidth, especially on the research ships, he manages to condense quite a lot of information into a few key figures. As someone who is not an expert on large-scale dynamics, it has been quite an education to hear these briefings. I usually don’t understand all of the discussion – but I am learning more every time!

Next, we hear status updates and any interesting observations over the past week from each of the observational sites – the AMF2, SPol, and SMART-R sites on Addu Atoll; the sounding sites at Male and Diego Garcia; and the Revelle and Mirai research ships. The DYNAMO array covers quite a large area in the Indian Ocean, and the weather can be quite different at Diego Garcia and the ships than it is on Gan. One day we heard that the Revelle had gotten 7 inches of rain in a single night! I was pretty glad it hasn’t rained that much on Gan, but some of the radar scientists on Gan were a little disappointed to miss it.

The final third of the call is an opportunity for scientific discussion of the latest research results, questions or clarification about data or operations, and any other topics of interest. Since the briefing is in the early evening on Gan, it usually leads to some good scientific discussion that continues over dinner.

–Sally McFarlane