[unav_all] Termination of GPS Met Program

[John Braun]

Dear Colleagues,

I would like to call your attention to a development that I hope is  
of interest to you.  The United States network of nearly 400 ground- 
based GPS receivers (see link to map below) that is run by NOAA’s  
Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) is in danger of being shut  
down for lack of support totaling less than $1M. As you know, this  
network produces real-time observations of precipitable water (PW,  
the total amount of water vapor in a column) over the U.S.  These  
data have been shown to be important in weather forecasting in  
general, and severe weather forecasting in particular.  Given the  
importance of these observations, I hope you will join me in signing  
an open letter to Vice Admiral Lautenbacher to encourage NOAA to find  
some way to continue support of this unique and valuable national  
network (see link to draft letter below).  Please respond in a timely  
way if you are interested in joining this effort, because we would  
like to mail the letter next week.  Also feel free to pass this  
message on to interested friends in the Atmospheric Sciences community.

Respectfully, Steven

Professor Steven Businger
Department of Meteorology
2525 Correa Rd.
University of Hawaii
Honolulu, Hawaii 96822
(808) 956-2569
(808) 956-2877 FAX
businger at hawaii.edu
http://weather.hawaii.edu

link to map of GPS sites:
ftp://ftp.soest.hawaii.edu/businger/outgoing/GPS-MetNetwork3-31-06.pdf

link to open letter to NOAA:
ftp://ftp.soest.hawaii.edu/businger/outgoing/OpenlettertoNOAA.pdf

link to PPT presentation (~8 MB file):
ftp://ftp.soest.hawaii.edu/businger/outgoing/StateofGPS-Met3.ppt