By James S. Tyree
The Oklahoman

The University of Oklahoma, federal and state government, and private industry have a new name for a partnership that's lasted nearly 50 years: The Weather Sphere.

John Snow, dean of OU's College of Atmospheric and Geographic Sciences, said the Weather Sphere is a brand name for 37 weather-related entities, most of which are based on OU's south research campus or elsewhere in Norman.

"If you are going to compete, you have to market yourself, you have to brand yourself,” he said. "The research and development, weather services and training, they are all available here.”

The Atmospheric Radar Research Center is an example of that partnership. The OU-run center does most of its radar research for federal agencies while training many of its 30 graduate students for the private sector.

Bob Palmer, a meteorology professor and faculty head at the center, said at least a third of its research, much of it on new phased-array radar technology, is for the National Severe Storms Laboratory.

"There's also the Radar Operations Center, and they are extremely important because they care for every NEXRAD radar in the world,” Palmer said. "So they fund our work and we give them the algorithms back.”

Palmer said interaction with private industry is another goal, with input from partner companies helping to improve the quality of engineering and meteorology students.

Cross-training students

The lab also relies on collaboration from within the university. Electrical engineering students take meteorology courses, meteorology students enroll in several engineering courses, and the cross-learning helps them all in radar meteorology.

Palmer, an electrical engineer, was hired five years ago to teach meteorology.

The center recently invested $1.3 million in microwave radar equipment; it also has an environmental control room with two antennas, one for transmitting data and the other for receiving it.

In that controlled environment, researchers can see what an individual weather condition looks like on radar without interference from other signals.

Technical Manager Chad Kidder said the information is recorded as numerical data that ultimately "helps us refine the science of radar technology.”

The center is one of 14 university-related entities in the Weather Sphere, along with 13 private businesses, the Norman Economic Development Coalition, Norman Chamber of Commerce, the state Commerce Department and the Oklahoma Climatological Survey.

It also has five National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Weather Partners based in Norman: the National Weather Service, National Severe Storms Laboratory, Radar Operations Center, Storm Prediction Center, and Warning Decision Training Branch.

The Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies is another federal agency in the Weather Sphere.

Snow, the college dean, said the weather partnership in Norman began around 1960.

"The meteorology program is here in part because the federal government approached the university and said we'll set up a permanent presence here if the university reciprocates by starting a school of meteorology,” he said.

Private business became a third partner in the 1990s, he said, and that aspect has grown since the south research campus opened earlier this decade. Climate-related companies lease space in OU's Partners Place buildings, while others do business off campus.

The arrival of Weathernews, the world's largest private weather company, in 2004 sparked a flurry of climate-related companies coming to, or working with, OU.

Copyright 2008, The Oklahoma Publishing Company