International Civil Aviation Organization
A Collaborative Decision Analysis and
Forecast (CDAF) tool to facilitate real-time
VAAC collaboration
Presented by the United States
VAAC Best Practices/2 and ICAO IVATF/4
Montreal, PQ
12-15 June 2012
History…
• Volcanic Ash Collaboration Tool (VACT) project began
in 2003
– First discussed at 3rd International VA Workshop in
Toulouse 2003
– Prototype CDM concept and common situational
awareness
– Funding through U.S. Aviation Weather Research Program
(AWRP) and National Weather Service 2004-2008
– Funding dried up in 2008
2
StormCenter EVCM-G (VACT phase II)
• Work began in 2010 with StormCenter Inc., NASA
SPoRT, and NWS Alaska Region
– Part of the GOES-R Proving Ground
– StormCenter EVCM tool provided a means to visualize new
GOES-R satellite products
– In addition, NWS Alaska realized that this tool would serve
as a VACT replacement
– Work began to convert and port in all VACT work into this
new tool
– Mt. Redoubt Scenario demoed in May 2011 to finish
Phase I activities with the project
3
EVCM-G (Government version)
• Enhancements made to the software to
address security concerns
• Many features were improved through
feedback with small test group in Alaska
• Efficiencies gained in performance and
stability
• Test group expanded to include Larry Mastin
(Ash 3D), Montreal VAAC (MLDP0), Barbara
Stunder (HYSPLIT), AWC
Issues raised during the VAAC BP 1/2
• Refer to IVATF/4 WP25
• Back to our “3 issues”
– “Visible/discernable ash”
– Collaboration
– Confidence levels
5
Multi-VAAC analysis of ash plume
6
Discussion about confidence?
7
Kasatochi 08 Aug 08 2305 UTC
)
8
Compare/Contrast Models
9
Operational uses of the EVCM-G
• Discussion of confidence levels
• Discussion of “visible/discernable ash” based
on common datasets
• Archive is useful for an after the event
“hotwash”
– e.g. Anchorage VAAC, AVO, FAA
• VAACs and others can collaborate
– Can be used to brief stakeholders
10
Benefits
• Data may reside on local computer or may be
pulled from the internet
• Archiving/playback capability
– Useful in case studies, research, forecaster
training, etc.
• Common visualization platform
– All data displayed on Google Earth
• Display/overlay multiple data sets
– Models, remote sensing data, observations
)
11
What’s Needed
• VAACs need to produce data in .kml/.kmz
format
• Chat capability
– Real time multi-lingual
12