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Weather observation and prediction technologies will be exchanged between the University of Oklahoma and the Korea Meteorological Administration under an agreement recently signed by OU President David L. Boren, and KMA administrator Byung-Seong Chun

Weather observation and prediction technologies will be exchanged between the University of Oklahoma and the Korea Meteorological Administration under an agreement recently signed by OU President David L. Boren, and KMA administrator Byung-Seong Chun.

"This new formal linkage will allow OU and KMA researchers to work together on problems of mutual interest, including hurricane and typhoon prediction; forecasting of weather on the smallest possible scale in both rural and urban areas; and developing and testing advance computer models under a wide range of conditions," said John Snow, dean of the OU College of Atmospheric and Geographic Sciences, who delivered the Memorandum of Understanding to the KMA headquarters in Seoul, Korea, on May 6. "KMA and OU have unique research capabilities that complement one another, including KMA's new computational center, OU's expertise in radar meteorology and engineering, and OU and KMA's dense surface observing systems."

While in Korea, Snow presented a seminar to KMA senior administrators and research staff outlining many of the weather research efforts now under way at OU.

Beginning this summer, and continuing for the next five years, OU and KMA will exchange experts between facilities, expand meteorological and climatological joint research initiatives, and develop training sessions for radar usage, numerical weather prediction and data assimilation.

"Our linkage with KMA will afford OU researchers opportunities to test our technology and computer models under very different conditions from those of the Great Plains," Snow said. "Korea is a mountainous peninsula with water on three sides. Like Oklahoma, Korea experiences great differences in its weather between summer and winter, but the impact of being surrounded by water and the complex terrain makes Korean weather quite different from that in Oklahoma.

"It will be a real challenge to make our observing systems and computer models, which work well in Oklahoma, work equally well in this very different environment," he added. "Fortunately, we will be able to draw on the experience of the Korean meteorologists in this work and will almost certainly learn as much from them as they do from us."

Through this collaboration, KMA plans to make major improvements, including the addition of state-of-the-art technology for radar and meteorological satellite-based observations, observing network operations and numerical prediction technology.