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The 2003 America's Cup
Meteorologists from The Atmospheric Studies Group
provided a complete weather service to Team Dennis Conner (TDC)
in support of their bid for The 2003 America's Cup held in Auckland, New
Zealand.
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Figure 1. Shows the location of the 2003 America's Cup racing area. Terrain contours overlay
dominant landuse categories, where yellow demarcates urban areas and green -
varying ranges of vegetated and forested land areas.
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ASG’s commitment to the team consisted of a three phase approach which
began in winter of 2001 and continued to the end of the series in March
2003. The three phase approach included:
- Design of a meteorological monitoring
system
- Meteorological equipment acquisition
and installation. Historical analysis of data from the Hauraki Gulf. Re-routing
and reformatting of real-time data to a central data server. Model sensitivity
tests and model preparation.
- Operational meteorological support and analysis
The first task (July 2001 – December 2001) involved searching
for suitable locations for an independent network of 10m meteorological sites
and a vertical profiler system. The aim of this independent network was to complement
those stations already in existence over the Hauraki Gulf as well as to better
capture the synoptic and mesoscale circulation patterns over the Gulf.
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Figure 2. One of several independent meteorological
sites placed at strategic locations around the Hauraki Gulf. Due to the remoteness
of some of these sites they rely on solar power.
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Figure 3. Vertical profiler used to measure the state of the atmosphere in the first 1000m.
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The second task (October 2001 – March 2002) involved the
purchase of surface meteorological equipment and installation of this equipment.
Each site had to be assessed with respect to exposure to dominant wind direction,
safety from vandalism and farm animals, clear horizons as well as telecommunication
access and power requirements. Landowner consent formed a significant part of
this work.
Other aspects of this task included historical analysis of data over the Hauraki
Gulf, model sensitivity tests and model comparisons. Lastly, re-routing of
all the available observational data to a central data server and the reformatting
of this data to get it in a format suitable for modeling.
Task three (September 2002 – March 2003) involved twice daily computer simulations
of weather conditions in New Zealand from ASG's local office in Massachusetts
using the state-of-the-science MM5 numerical weather prediction model.
This model was initialized and carefully monitored during normal daylight hours
in the US (nighttime in New Zealand). Data from this model was then sent to New Zealand
first thing in the morning of race day in New Zealand. On the morning of each
race day forecast data from MM5 model was interfaced to ASG’s diagnostic
meteorological model CALMET by an ASG scientist based in New Zealand
who provided real-time analysis of the meteorological conditions to the
racing crew just before the start of each race. CALMET was fine-tuned
over the Hauraki Gulf and used all available observational data as well
as detailed terrain and land-use information in order to produce realistic fine
scale flow fields.
The MM5 model was run with three nests, starting with a coarse outer domain
(Domain 1), a less coarse inner nest (Domain 2) followed by a third fine nest
(Domain 3). The CALMET domain made up a fourth inner-most domain and had the
finest scale.
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Figure 4. Approximate locations of the triple nested
MM5 model domains and the fine scale innermost CALMET model domain.
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The CALMET fine-scale simulations provide valuable information
on expected small-scale winds such as sea breezes and terrain-forced flows associated
with the hills surrounding the Gulf.
Other Interesting Web Sites:
Visit the America's Cup village in Auckland, New Zealand at
http://www.nzcupvillage.co.nz/flash.htm
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