Overview
The North American Upstream Feature-Resolving and Tropopause Uncertainty Reconnaissance Experiment (NURTURE) is a NASA-funded large-scale aircraft field campaign.
- It will advance knowledge of the processes that lead to extreme high-impact weather (HIW) events during the winter, such as severe cold air outbreaks, windstorms and hazardous seas, snow and ice storms, sea ice breakup, and extreme precipitation.
- HIW events have significant socioeconomic costs and threaten national security (e.g., destabilizing supply chains and damaging infrastructure).
NURTURE is officially endorsed by the World Weather Research Programme (WWRP) of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Under the Polar Coupled Analysis and Prediction for Services (PCAPS) goals of the WWRP, activities will explore the limits of predictability on different spatial and temporal scales and parameters in the atmosphere–cryosphere–ocean system, and connections between polar and lower latitudes. Under the Predictability, Dynamics, and Ensemble Forecasting (PDEF) goals of the WWRP, NURTURE will target the mesoscale potential vorticity (PV) anomalies associated with tropopause polar vortices (TPVs) in the upper-troposphere and lower-stratosphere (UTLS) and related diabatic processes that may have a strong influence over the downstream predictability of high-impact weather phenomena.
NURTURE’s activities will advance dynamical meteorology and predictability research and promote the quantification of forecast uncertainty.
Scientific Objectives
The overarching goal of NURTURE is to quantify the impact that perturbations poleward of the jet stream have on jet stream variability and high-impact weather (HIW) events.
The Science Objectives are to advance the knowledge of:
- Processes that control upstream perturbations to the jet stream, such as tropopause polar vortices (TPVs), dry air intrusions, turbulence, and interactions with jet stream
- Upper tropospheric and lower stratospheric influences on tropopause and the jet stream
- Boundary-layer processes that facilitate communication between the troposphere and surface and that precondition the environment for High Impact Weather (HIW) events
NURTURE will emphasize the life cycles of mesoscale and synoptic-scale disturbances of Arctic origin and how their juxtaposition with mid-latitude features creates high-impact weather. It will also target measurements needed to reduce systematic process errors in numerical models within the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere (UTLS) and maritime tropospheric regions in the vicinity of features responsible for HIW. The findings of NURTURE will be instrumental in improving the accuracy of numerical weather models and predicting high-impact weather events, thereby enhancing our ability to prepare for and respond to such events.
Observational Approach
We will utilize the NASA Boeing 777 for the first time!
- 4 – 6-week aircraft campaign targeting features that develop and intensify and have the potential to lead to HIW.
- Ideally, the base of operations should be located just poleward of the climatological January-February jet stream, with a very long sampling range.
- Need paved runways >~ 8000 ft with an aircraft hangar due to icing
- Weather is a major consideration. We don’t want to be grounded during the best sampling opportunities.
- Air traffic is also a major consideration. North Atlantic volume is very high!
Hemisphere-wide observations!
- In winter 2026, we are collaborating with large-scale aircraft field campaigns based in Biloxi (USA) and Shannon (Ireland), which will occur during the same timeframe.
- Together, with the NASA 777 range of 2700 nautical miles (5000 km), we will be able to collect detailed observations of the atmosphere from Europe, Greenland, the entire North Atlantic Ocean, all of Canada, most of the United States, and much of the Arctic Ocean.
