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

2

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

3

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

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

• PUFF

9

PUFF

ASH 3D

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