When Should Researchers Throw in the Towel?

The protective dome being placed over the Phased Array Radar
at the National Severe Storms Laboratory.  

Behind the scenes to much of the public, the weather science community has been furious with the Trump Administration's proposed and actual cuts in meteorological research. One of the institutions affected is NOAA's National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL). Surprising, to many, I agree with some of those cuts. The reason is that some of this research has simply not been paying off after years and years of experimentation. 

For a quarter-century, NSSL has been experimenting with Phased Array Radar (PAR) which allows the atmosphere to be scanned more quickly than using a conventional radar. Work began in 2000 and the first real-time data was collected in 2004. One of the selling points has been better tornado warnings. 

A paper in a 2007 issue of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society makes the following statements or some might call them "promotional comments."

[The rapid scanning is] "essential for significant improvement in warning lead time of impending storm hazards," including tornadoes." and "Thus, an agile adaptive scan could improve the lead times of warning. It would also provide valuable data to storm-scale models, perhaps enabling warnings to be issued based on forecasts in addition to {techniques used today}.  

Unfortunately, things have not worked out that way. Since the paper was published 2007, tornado warnings have only become less accurate. PAR has played no role in tornado warnings one way or another, presumably because it has been unsuccessful at improving accuracy and/or lead-time so it has not been activated at NWS offices. 

Now, 19 years later, a new paper about PAR has been published in the same meteorological journal:

"HORUS" is the name of a mobile phased array radar. The paper states, in part:

HORUS improves the observation of severe weather events such as tornadoes and hailstorms.... These advances in radar technology promise critical improvements in atmospheric science, severe weather monitoring, and public safety by ... ultimately supporting better forecasts and warnings. [emphasis mine]

For more than a quarter-century, NSSL has been "promising" (their word) better tornado forecasts and warnings with PAR not to mention better forecasts and warnings of other types of storms. Except, in real life, the opposite has occurred (see here for an example; and here for statistics) as tornado warnings deteriorated. 

In 1991, when the NWS tentatively decided to deploy a network of Doppler radars, they set up a proof-of-concept experiment where some NWS meteorologists were using the old WSR-57 radars for tornado warnings while another group was using the new prototype Doppler WSR-88D. The Doppler, literally the first day (April 26, 1991) in Oklahoma and Kansas, proved its value through much faster warnings and continued to do so. To my knowledge-- even though it has been 26 years since the PAR experiment began -- nothing like that is being done in real-time today. 

As far as I can tell, the whole purpose of the PAR project is to justify this extraordinary expensive instrument to replace the WSR-88's which are failing ever more often due to their age. Even though a NWS decision about a replacement radar should have been made by now, it has been delayed until 2028. I suspect they are hoping, 

1. There will be some breakthrough that will lower the cost.
2. There will be some case histories, in real-time, that will show PAR can issue much more timely and accurate tornado warnings. 

While it would be nice to have this more versatile radar deployed across the United States, along with a desperately needed sub-network of gap-filler radars, there's no indication Phased Array Radar will justify the cost. The efforts and money currently being expended on PAR should be devoted to fixing the issues with existing tornado warnings and coming up with the specifications for the best current type of radar possible so that they can be replaced on an expedited basis. 

Some great, talented people have been working on this project for decades. But, eventually, enough is enough. Too many in weather science believe that "research" is a good in and of itself, regardless of whether it provides value to the taxpayers who are footing the bill. Time to throw in the towel and try other approaches.