The UCAR Community Advisory Committee for NCEP Jim Kinter George Mason University Fred Carr, University of Oklahoma Gilbert Brunet, UK Met Office WWOSC User, Applications and Social Science Program Session PS321 - August 19, 2014

UCAR* Community Advisory Committee for NCEP* UCACN Goal: Helping NCEP establish clear leadership in the world as The Nation’s trusted source, first alert, and preferred partner for environmental prediction services * UCAR: University Corporation for Atmospheric Research * NCEP: National Centers for Environmental Prediction

NCEP = Part of Larger Community Weather & Climate Enterprise Academia Private Sector NOAA OAR NESDIS NOS NMFS NWS NCEP Regional Offices

U.S. National Weather Service L. Uccellini L. Furgione (including WFOs, CWSUs, RFCs) NCEP Office of Director – W. Lapenta

UCAR Community Advisory Committee for NCEP Structure Established by UCAR in 2011 in response to recommendation of 2009 UCAR Review of NCEP Membership: 12-14 members (3-year terms, renewable once), including experts in each of the diverse areas of responsibility of the NCEP Centers, drawn from academia, NGOs, the private sector and Federal and state agencies, and selected by UCAR, in consultation with the (co-)Chair(s) of the UCACN and the Director of NCEP Responsibilities Every 5 years, conduct a comprehensive review of NCEP or other major strategic planning task In years between reviews, monitor progress of the Centers w.r.t. NCEP strategic plan and the previous review recommendations.

Current UCACN Members Member, Affiliation Term Expertise Alan Blumberg, Stevens Inst. 2016 OPC, NHC, EMC (MMAB) Lance Bosart, U. Albany 2016 HPC, NHC, SPC Gilbert Brunet, UK Met Office 2015 EMC, OD* Fred Carr (Co-Chair), U. Oklahoma 2015 AWC, HPC, NHC, SPC, OD John Dutton, Prescient Weather 2015 CPC, EMC, NCO Jim Kinter (Co-Chair) , COLA & GMU 2015 CPC, EMC, NCO, OPC, OD Bill Kuo, NCAR 2016 EMC, NCO Gary Lackmann, North Carolina State U. 2016 HPC, SPC, OPC Tsengdar Lee, NASA 2015 EMC, NCO Warren Qualley, Harris Corp. 2016 AWC Karen Shelton-Mur, FAA 2015 SWPC TBD 2017 NHC * OD = Office of the Director (NCEP)

UCACN Findings The 2009 UCAR Review formulated 263 recommendations to NCEP (OD and 9 Centers). Review reports are public: http://www.vsp.ucar.edu/UCACN/index.html NCEP is performing well in its primary mission of providing products and services in support of protecting life and property in a timely manner. Many of its service centers are recognized as world leaders in their particular missions and in making real-time weather and climate data, codes, and other products freely available. Much of NCEP’s recent progress was due to the strong leadership of the NCEP Director (Uccellini), which has been recognized and commended by UCACN. New NCEP Director (Lapenta) also committed to strategic thinking.

UCACN Findings (2) NCEP is under-resourced for its mission. EMC, in particular, is not equipped to fulfill its vision to provide world-leading models with its current structure and broad portfolio.

Leadership Opportunities In order to help the US become a Weather-Ready nation, NCEP has the opportunity to provide leadership on several crucial issues confronting the Weather and Climate Enterprise: Unique to NCEP and US NWS: Warn on Forecast; Impact-based Decision-Support Services Hurricane Forecast Improvement Project Open Environmental Information Services initiative NWS role in FAA NextGen Beyond weather and climate: Remit for forecasting ecosystems, air & water quality, space weather, decadal climate, etc. Typical of NMHS agencies in the 21st century: High-performance computing, IT security, data mgt., etc. Improved data assimilation and linkages to observing systems Climate Services

UCACN Recommendations What NCEP Needs To Do Develop new strategic plan, including partnerships, with foci: Unified atmospheric, oceanic and coupled modeling system in concert with other parts of NOAA and the weather & climate enterprise Next generation atmospheric and oceanic data assimilation and ensemble systems - e.g., (coupled) hybrid EnKF-4DVar; NMME Ocean, coastal and SS&I modeling Ecological forecasting capabilities Strengthen test beds (including IT) to accelerate R20 and O2R Work on Impact-based Decision-support Services (IDSS) via its service centers Initiate Open Environmental Information Services activities Build a first class Statistical Forecasting Group to address increasing importance of ensembles and probabilistic forecasting Support Visiting Scientist Programs - Universities; NOAA labs Hire outstanding NCEP Chief Scientist (with budget authority) and Directors of CPC, EMC, and WPC

UCACN Recommendations What NWS/NOAA/DOC Need to Do NCEP should be resourced commensurate with its broad mission to ensure improvement of the critical services it provides the nation Ensure that NCEP has adequate computational and IT resources for both operations and R&D  Provide mechanisms to attract and retain talented scientists at NCEP Encourage NCEP’s collaboration with the Earth system modeling community to design and implement the next generation models for weather, climate and oceans Develop a strategic multi-agency plan for sustaining the North American Multi-Model Ensemble (NMME) Create a grants program for weather and NWP in OAR

Weather and Climate Interface Develop a strategic plan for a unified atmospheric, oceanic and coupled modeling system in concert with other parts of NOAA and the weather & climate enterprise, which includes the next generation Climate Forecast System Consider how best to use the NMME forecasts at shorter leads, e.g., for 1-10 days (enhanced ensemble) and 2-4 weeks (probabilistic) Evaluate methods of creating ensembles for long-lead weather and short-term climate prediction Consider reforecasts for validation and calibration of weather and climate forecast ensembles Investigate HPC and data mgt. resources trade space for resolution, ensembles, improving physics, DA, reanalysis and reforecasts Evaluate, with strategic partners, NCEP’s role in the Earth System Prediction Capability, s/w framework being led by USN

Storm Surge and Inundation Develop science-based strategic plan for SS&I and oceanographic modeling in general; plan move toward next-generation models, including external partnerships Consolidate under NCEP the oceanographic NWP missions and resources that are currently spread all over NOAA Enhance staff to address oceanographic, IT issues Dedicate more IT resources to SS&I to support the more sophisticated models (and their ensembles) that are needed

Regional Modeling Increased partnerships with OAR and others are very positive Consolidate regional/mesoscale/stormscale NWP modeling Evaluate requirements for global and regional models Move toward one regional (N. America) model w/hourly updates Provide Centers with storm-scale CONUS forecasts and ensembles Evaluate “trade space” in allocation of computing resources Long-term: Unified, community-based systems (possibly two systems for global and storm-scale)

Other Challenges / Opportunities HPC: 2015 computer upgrade and future computing architecture (r)evolution Space Weather: Managing space weather issues among NWS, NESDIS, NASA and Air Force Weather and Climate Enterprise (1): Defining role of NCEP vs. private sector in regional/global modeling Weather and Climate Enterprise (2): More effectively involving academia in addressing issues relating to all of the above

Going Forward … Actions are needed in the areas of: Observations – optimal mix of new obs. systems needed, incl. both satellite and ground-based profiling; OSSEs and OSEs needed, possibly via testbeds; continuous evaluation of value, and more effective use of all obs (e.g. recommendations from NRC “From the Ground Up” report and NASA decadal survey) Data assimilation – transition to superior scheme (hybrid EnKF - 4DVar), accelerate incorporation of new data streams Modeling – e.g. recommendations from NRC, “When Weather Matters” and “Second to None” reports; e.g. NCEP/OAR/Univ. coop. re parameterizations (revised physics to match increased resolutions) Computing resources – 10-100X increase over next 5-10 years, balancing operations vs. R&D and FLOPS vs. storage/bandwidth/security/archives Culture – NCEP needs a credible in-house R&D component that partners effectively with the rest of the modeling community

Any questions? Thank you!