The Antarctic Mesoscale Prediction System -- AMPS -- is an experimental, real-time numerical weather prediction capability that provides support for the United States Antarctic Program, Antarctic science, and international Antarctic efforts. AMPS produces numerical guidance from the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model with twice-daily forecasts covering Antarctica. The effort is sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Office of Polar Programs and the NSF UCAR and Lower Atmospheric Facilities Oversight Section. It is a collaboration of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the Byrd Polar Research Center of The Ohio State University, and the University of Colorado.

AMPS employs the ARW with polar modifications, which better capture conditions over the high latitudes and extensive ice sheets. They include a fractional sea ice representation and modified thermal and radiative properties of the permanent ice surface. Released to the general WRF user community in V3.1, they have been demonstrated to improve forecasts over both the Antarctic and Arctic.

AMPS produces a host of products for a worldwide community of users and nations, and the forecasts are made available on the web: http://www.mmm.ucar.edu/rt/amps . The AMPS runs are done on NCAR's bluefire supercomputer and feature six forecast grids. These cover the continent with grids ranging from 45-km (outermost domain, over a large portion of the Southern Hemisphere) to 1.67-km (over the region around McMurdo Station, the primary base for USAP operations). AMPS research includes Antarctic weather phenomena, model polar physics development, and model polar performance assessment.

Model-derived satellite image from 120-hr AMPS forecast initialized at 1200 UTC 14 Jan 2010

Related Links

AMPS Real-Time Forecasts