UNIDATA Facts, Fables, Future John A Dutton 15 October 2009 Unidata’s 25th Anniversary Boulder, Colorado

History is a set of stories of varying veracity A friend History is fables agreed upon Voltaire

The IBM 650 digital computer -- November, … the spirit that lives in the computer Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs Harold Abelson and Gerald Jay Sussman, 1985

Computers in weather research and education Penn State Meteorology (John Cahir) … The DEC computers read NWS teletype circuits to Acquire the data to draw cross sections and maps and to initialize simple barotropic models The light tables gave way to computer terminals… we learned that two students could work together at a terminal, not three Similar developments were in progress at other institutions

The NWS bombshell ca George Cressman, NWS Director, announced that the circuits on which we depended would soon be replaced by a closed NWS communications system. There would be a 9600 bps port for access to NWS public statements, observations, and NMC products, including satellite data, gridpoint data, MOS, and some climate products.

The three motivations for Unidata  Ensure the ready availability of observations and computer model output for education and research  Facilitate collaboration and sharing of university software systems  Ensure that all institutions (and students) enjoyed access to contemporary capabilities

Third Heads and Chairs Workshop, October 1982, Boulder  Commend UCAR for a rapid initial response…  Observe that weather data … and university interactive computing are of utmost importance to research and education in atmospheric science  Urge UCAR to proceed with all deliberate speed to explore all feasible alternatives to distributing weather data and developing related computational facilities for the university community  Urge UCAR to impress on NSF, NOAA, NASA, DoD …the necessity of supporting such efforts in the national interest.

The Madison workshop … July 1983 Request UCAR to organize and NSF to fund a UNIDATA system that will  Provide … current weather data, imagery, and forecasts … and access to archives  Support local interactive computing  Provide communications between university computers and mainframe computers  Provide for [management] and analysis of observations from field experiments

Three vignettes  The favorite topic…machines  The LDM  Tensions

The UCAR Proposal to the NSF 16 July 1984 Phase I. The Madison meeting Phase II. Create a UCAR project office to design the Unidata system Phase III. Implement

Phase II. Project Director: Dave Fulker Governance: Steering Committee --> Policy Committee Working Groups  Data Access  Communications  Local Processing and Display  Applications and Software

Unidata Steering Committee John A Dutton, Chair, Penn State Ernest Agee Purdue Donald R Johnson Wisconsin Clifford Mass Washington Walter MacIntyre NCAR Julia Paegle Utah Robert Serafin NCAR Jesse Stephens Florida State Verner Suomi Wisconsin Thomas Vonder Harr Colorado State Stan Ruttenberg UCAR Projects

The Communications Challenge How would Unidata arrange for digital communication between the NWS and universities and among the universities themselves? Project Universe in the UK ==> an NCAR proposal to design and test a satellite communication system

The Internet 1960s ->ARPANET->1977 TCP/IP -> NSFNet -> 1990s NSF Internet-> explosive growth CERN 1992 Hypertext Language World Wide Web NCSA U. Ill 1993 Mosaic Browser

NWS Data Policy Richard Hallgren, Director The NWS should collect the observations and produce the numerical forecasts it needs to perform its mission of protecting life and property … and no more. All NWS data and information should be readily available to the taxpayers who have already paid for it.

… a computer-based numerical replica of the Earth and its processes running continuously on petascale computers linked in the Internet cloud …a digital mirror of the planet itself. The Virtual Earth System (NRC,2008) The Future Earth System …a predictive version of the VES, continuously looking days, weeks, months, and perhaps decades into the future VES … Verner E Suomi

The Virtual Earth System 201X

Unidata was possible only because the academic atmospheric sciences community had agreed decades earlier to collaborate through UCAR and because NSF had agreed to support that collaboration. UCAR and Unidata are unique community resources and unique in American science. We can hope that the community, with the help of NSF, will continue to recognize their value, will continue to nurture them, and will govern them wisely. When the need for Unidata arose, both organizations were prepared to act.

Thanks …