Article I - Scope
This Implementing Arrangement describes the scientific and
technical activities to be undertaken by the American Institute
in Taiwan (AIT), through its designated representative, the
Global System Division (GSD), (formally the Forecast Systems
Laboratory) of the Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) of
the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA),
United States Department of Commerce. It provides for
continuing development of the forecast system being developed by
the Joint Forecast Systems Project. This project is a
cooperative effort between the Central Weather Bureau (CWB), the
designated representative of the Taipei Economic and Cultural
Representative Office in the United States (TECRO), and AIT’s
designated representative, NOAA/ESRL/GSD. This Implementing
Arrangement is of mutual interest to both TECRO and AIT,
hereafter referred to as the parties. The products of this
Implementing Arrangement will provide substantial value through
development of new and upgraded capabilities and applications
that can be integrated into other NOAA/ESRL/GSD systems.

Article II - Authorities
The activities described in this Implementing Arrangement will
be carried out under the general terms and conditions
established by the Agreement between the Taipei Economic and
Cultural Representative Office in the United States and the
American Institute in Taiwan for Technical Cooperation in
Meteorology and Forecast Systems Development (TECRO-AIT
Agreement), and any subsequent revision as agreed to by the
parties. This Implementing Arrangement is the nineteenth such
arrangement under a succession of umbrella agreements between
TECRO and AIT.
This Implementing Arrangement is hereby attached to that
Agreement and becomes part of the Agreement.

Article III - Services
During the period of Implementing Arrangement #19, TECRO’s and
AIT’s designated representatives respectively, the CWB and
NOAA/ESRL/GSD joint team, will focus on two tasks: (1) the
development of a High-resolution Quantitative Precipitation
Estimation and Quantitative Precipitation Forecast (HRQ2)
System, and (2) continuing interaction on earlier cooperative
projects. Tasks under this Implementing Agreement range from
full scale developmental collaboration to system upgrades and
support that allow systems to operate with the latest technical
and scientific capabilities and specifications. These ongoing
activities, described in more detail in the Statement of Work,
will include the following two tasks:

Task #1 - High-Resolution Quantitative Precipitation Estimation
and Quantitative Precipitation Forecast (HRQ2) System

During Implementing Arrangement #18, TECRO’s and AIT’s
designated representatives, CWB and NOAA/ESRL/GSD
respectively, continued to focus on the Quantitative
Precipitation Forecast (QPF) for water accumulation and
debris flow based on a new advanced 3D variational (3DVAR)
data assimilation scheme as NOAA/ERSL/GSD’s part of HRQ2
task. This new task will support the operational needs from
threats from flash flood, debris flow and landslide.
Motivated by CWB's request to establish a 3-D variational
approach for the model initialization, TECRO’s and AIT’s
designated representatives, CWB and NOAA/ESRL/GSD
respectively, selected to implement the GSI (Gridpoint
Statistical Interpolation) analysis system which is used
operationally by NOAA/NCEP (National Centers for
Environmental Prediction). The GSI package is customized
for CWB for the input data format in order to ingest CWB’s
own data. The initial CWB GSI package was tested and
evaluated near the end of June 2006 with radar data and
conventional observation data. GSI is set up for ingest of
both radar radial velocities and satellite radiance data.
For work in 2007, an effort will be required to assess the
availability of satellite radiance data from geosynchronous
or polar orbiting satellites and to write the software to
deliver this to GSI. Satellite radiance data will enhance
the analysis in the oceanic areas surrounding Taiwan.
Before GSI can be utilized for short term precipitation
forecasting, a diabatic scheme similar to that already in
LAPS must be added to the GSI capability. During
Implementing Arrangement #19, CWB and NOAA/ESRL/GSD will
continue to include additional new observation data
available for LAPS GSI.

GSI has the capability of ingesting model error statistics
(variances) for optimizing its analysis. For this time
phase, the ensemble error statistics are made up of
sequential runs of the background model (either NFS15 or
WRF). Error will be recovered from an independent analysis
and statistics generated. These statistics will be updated
within GSI to optimize the analysis at any time.

The new focus is to adopt a multiscale 3DVAR analysis
scheme called STMAS (Space and Time Mesoscale Analysis
System) as part of LAPS III for surface observations and
other remote sensing data such as radar data. STMAS will be
extended to 3DVAR and eventually a 4DVAR approach. In its
3DVAR version, STMAS will provide multiscale analysis using
an inhomogeneous observation distribution. Like GSI, STMAS
can make use of updating error statistics and can be
configured with a diabatic capability. These two large
efforts (GSI and STMAS) may need to be prioritized by CWB
management.

STMAS uses a sequence of variational minimization in both
the space and time domains to obtain multi-scale grid
analysis, which cannot be done through a single 3DVAR
analysis. At NOAA/ESRL/GSD, STMAS is currently running
every 15 minutes in real time using dense surface
observation data. The STMAS analysis provides a good
verification tool for high resolution model forecasts.

During Implementing Arrangement #19, TECRO’s and AIT’s
designated representatives, CWB and NOAA/ESRL/GSD
respectively, will extend STMAS development from using only
surface data to include remote sensing data from CWB’s
advanced radar network, and maybe satellite data. The goal
is to develop STMAS as an advanced operational nonlinear
analysis tool at CWB in Taiwan to improve local analysis
and more importantly provide a prediction system during
severe weather. An advantage of STMAS is that it has been
developed at NOAA/ESRL/GSD and is not subject to unexpected
changes or upgrades as would be GSI.

NOAA/ESRL/GSD has developed and accessed techniques to
measure atmospheric Integrated Precipitable Water (IPW)
values using ground-based Global Positioning System (GPS)
receivers since 1993. The NOAA GPS-IPW network currently
consists of 405 sites. There are three types of sites in
the network; NOAA Wind Profilers Sites (NPN), Other NOAA
Sites (ONS), and Other Agency Sites (OAS). The network is
controlled by a software processing system developed by
NOAA/ESRL/GSD. The current ground-based GPS-Met observing
software system consists of data acquisition, geodetic
modeling, IPW processing and data evaluation, display and
dissemination.

During Implementing Arrangement #19, TECRO’s and AIT’s
designated representatives, CWB and NOAA/ESRL/GSD
respectively, will ingest GPS observation data from the CWB
GPS-Met network and process these data using the current
NOAA GPS-Met Observing System. NOAA/ESRL/GSD then will
transfer IPW values back to CWB for evaluation.

AIT’s designated epresentative, NOAA/ESRL /GSD,
understands that the National Severe Storms Laboratory
(NSSL) will continue research towards the refinement,
development, and maintenance of applications required for
the Central Weather Bureau (CWB), Water Resources Agency
(WRA) and the Soil and Water Conservation Bureau (SWCB)
operations. The NSSL research is directed towards
improving the monitoring and prediction of flash floods and
severe storm identification and short-term forecasting for
the Taiwan environment. The NSSL research and development
for IA#19 will focus the implementation of advanced QPE and
VSQPF techniques as per: 1) implementation of a new HRQ2
infrastructure and code set, 2) the implementation of an
advanced radar quality control specifically tuned for the
Taiwan environment; 3) 500 meter resolution product
generation; 4) assessment in using dual polarization radar
for radar intercomparison and calibration; 5) verification
and assessment of application performance.

Task #2 - Continuing Interaction on Earlier Cooperative Projects

Several earlier cooperative tasks have been completed.
Technology has been transferred successfully and is
beginning to be used operationally at CWB. NOAA/ESRL/GSD’
s development activities in these areas continue, and
further CWB-NOAA/ESRL/GSD interaction is important to keep
CWB staff up-to-date on current developments. This task
will allow continuing interaction at an appropriate level,
including new software releases of the forecast information
system including the AWIPS/D2D (OB7), radar display using
D2D to replace POP, dual head display support, advanced
ALPS training by NOAA/ESRL/GSD, AFPS text formatter
technical support, and Internet-based forecast workstation
(FX-C) with advanced drawing capability with touch screen
support, NOAA data support, visitors training, exchange of
visits, copying papers and reports, and e-mail interaction.


Article IV - Responsibilities of TECRO
In addition to participation in the joint project team, TECRO
through its designated representative, CWB shall:
A. Provide overall coordination project activities at the CWB
facility;
B. Assign appropriate staff to perform the activities defined in
this Implementing Arrangement and provide support in
accordance with the terms of the umbrella agreement; and
C. Fulfill its responsibilities under the Statement of Work for
Implementing Arrangement #19.

Article V - Responsibilities of AIT
In addition to participation in the joint project team, AIT,
through its designated representative, NOAA/ESRL/GSD shall:
A. Provide overall coordination project activities at the
NOAA/ESRL/GSD facility in Boulder, Colorado;
B. Provide administrative support for preparing reports for
delivery to TECRO’s designated representative, CWB, in
accordance with this Implementing Arrangement ;
C. Assign appropriate staff to perform the activities defined in
this Implementing Arrangement and provide support in
accordance with the terms of the umbrella agreement; and
D. Fulfill its responsibilities under the Statement of Work for
Implementing Arrangement #19.

Article VI - Financial Provisions
In accordance with the TECRO-AIT Agreement, TECRO is required to
reimburse AIT for all costs incurred by AIT’s designated
representative, NOAA/ESRL/GSD, in association with the project
covered by this Implementing Arrangement. AIT shall transfer to
NOAA/ESRL/GSD all payments made by TECRO to AIT for costs
incurred by NOAA/ESRL/GSD in association with this Implementing
Arrangement.
The total cost for activities described in this Implementing
Arrangement is mutually agreed to be U.S. $850,000. TECRO
agrees to transfer fifty percent of the funds to AIT in advance,
with the remaining fifty percent to be transferred upon
completion of the year’s activities, to the extent that funds
for this purpose have been provided by TECRO.
The performance by AIT’s designated representative of
activities under this Implementing Arrangement is subject to the
availability of funds.

Article VII - Intellectual Property Considerations
No intellectual property considerations are expected to arise in
conjunction with activities described in this Implementing
Arrangement. Existing system designs and computer software of
the NOAA/ESRL/GSD Forecast System are in the public domain.
Reports, specifications, and computer software prepared under
this Implementing Arrangement also will be in the public domain
once NOAA and CWB have approved them in final form.

Article VIII - Effective Date, Amendment, and Termination
This Implementing Arrangement is effective on the date of the
last signature hereto and will terminate on March 30, 2009.
This Implementing Arrangement may be amended by mutual written
consent of the parties, and may be terminated by either party by
providing 60 days written notice to the other party. The
estimated completion date for the activities described in this
Implementing Arrangement is June 30, 2008.


FOR THE TAIPEI FOR THE AMERICAN
ECONOMIC AND INSTITUTE
CULTURAL IN TAIWAN
REPRESENTATIVE
OFFICE IN THE
UNITED STATES

黃偉 Barbara Schrage
Barbara Schrage
Managing Director

Date Date 10/5/07