1. Agenda Wednesday Thursday DTC overview Community interactions
Perspectives from operational partners
NOAA/NWS
Air Force
Task area presentations & discussion focused on R2O activities
Working lunch – breakout groups (group assignments listed at end of agenda) discuss building community
Reception (FL3) – come meet staff to get a better picture of what DTC is all about!
Thursday
Community interactions
Breakout groups by task area
SAB closed session
Lunch will be served at noon outside FLA-2205
Briefing on SAB recommendations
Do not need to come to consensus
Capture thoughts of all SAB members
Distributed reporting responsibilities!
Open discussion on future direction of DTC
2016 DTC SAB meeting, September 2016

2. Developmental Testbed Center: Overview
Bill Kuo
2016 DTC SAB meeting, September 2016

3. Outline DTC mission, history, and governance DTC AOP 2016 and budget
Planning process for DTC annual operating plan (AOP)
2015 SAB recommendations & DTC responses
Planning for DTC AOP 2017
Challenges and opportunities
2016 DTC SAB meeting, September 2016

4. What is DTC?
Purpose: Facilitate the interaction & transition of NWP technology between research & operations
O2R: Support operational NWP systems to the community
R2O: Perform T&E on promising NWP innovations for possible operational implementation
Community: Visitor Program, Workshops, Newsletter
Jointly sponsored by NOAA, Air Force, NSF, & NCAR
2016 DTC SAB meeting, September 2016

5. DTC Overview DTC was established in 2003.
The DTC Charter provides guidance for the governance of the DTC.
Charter revision which reflects expanded scope in its final stages
DTC Terms of Operation developed to address day-to-day operations
For FY2016, DTC has a budget of $5.215 M (after fees), with funding provided by NOAA/OAR, NWS, Air Force, NSF, GSD, and NCAR
DTC has a staff of ~40 (total of ~21 FTE), distributed between NOAA/ESRL/GSD (1/3), and NCAR (RAL, MMM & CGD - 2/3).
The DTC Director’s Office is hosted by NCAR/RAL.
For general AOP, total is 3.933M (OAR, AF, HFIP, NCAR & NSF).
New funding to GMTB (FY16) is GSD 400K and NCAR (after fees) $832
Overall total: M
2016 DTC SAB meeting, September 2016

6. DTC Governance and Operation
Operation of DTC: Bill Kuo (Director), Louisa Nance (Assistant Director), Stan Benjamin (ESRL/GSD/EMB Branch Chief), Josh Hacker (NCAR/RAL/JNTP Director)
Priorities set by funding agencies with guidance from Science Advisory Board
Executive Committee
Senior executives from funding agencies
Appoint DTC director, and provide executive oversight; Approve DTC AOP and budget; Approve membership of MB and SAB
Management Board (MB)
Director, deputy directors, members from funding organizations
Work with DTC Director to prepare DTC AOP and budget; Assist DTC Director with the execution of DTC tasks
Science Advisory Board (SAB)
Members from operational and research communities
Provide advice to DTC Director on strategic direction and objectives; Review DTC Visitor Program proposals; Recommend codes for DTC testing
Executive Committee (representatives from funding organizations): appoints DTC Director and performs executive oversight on policy and resource commitments.
Management Board (MB - DTC Director, deputy directors, additional member from each chartering organization): assists Director in preparing Annual Operating Plan, annual budget, and selecting testing activities.
Advisory Board (nominated by MB, members from both operational and research communities): assists the Director with strategic direction and objectives of DTC.
2016 DTC SAB meeting, September 2016

7. DTC Executive Committee and Management Board
Bill Lapenta, Director, NOAA/NWS/NCEP (Chair)
Ralph Stoffler, Acting Director of Weather, Air Force
James Hurrell, Director, NCAR
Kevin Kelleher, Director, NOAA/OAR/ESRL
Louis Uccellini, Director, NOAA/NWS (ex officio, non-voting member)
DTC Management Board
Mike Farrar, Director, NOAA/NWS/NCEP/EMC (DTC Deputy Director, NWS)
Fred Toepfer, Project Manager, NOAA/NWS/HFIP & NGGPS
Mike Gremillion, Air Force (DTC Deputy Director, Air Force)
John Zaptocny, Air Force
Stan Benjamin, NOAA/ESRL/GSD (DTC Deputy Director, OAR)
Tom Hamill, NOAA/ESRL/PSD
Josh Hacker, Director, NCAR/RAL/JNTP (DTC Deputy Director, NCAR)
Joseph Klemp, NCAR/MMM
Bill Kuo, Director, DTC (Chair)
2016 DTC SAB meeting, September 2016

8. DTC Science Advisory Board
Adam Clark, U. of Oklahoma
Brad Colman, Climate Corporation
Kristen Corbosiero, SUNY- Albany
Geoff DiMego, NCEP/EMC
Jenni Evans, Penn State
Rob Fovell, SUNY-Albany
David Gochis, NCAR
S. G. Gopalakrishnan, AOML
Kayo Ide, U of Maryland
Kelly Mahoney, CIRES
Sharanya Majumdar, U. of Miami
Russ Schumacher, CSU
Kathy Gilbert, NCEP/WPC
Tom Auligne, JCSDA
Zhuo Wang, U. of Illinois
David Vollmer, USAF Academy
Tim Whitcomb, NRL
SAB appointment has a term of 3 years, and can be renewed based on mutual interest
2016 DTC SAB meeting, September 2016

9. Evolving structure – through 2014
DTC Director’s Office
Mesoscale Modeling
Ensembles
Hurricanes
Data Assimilation
Verification
Science Advisory Board
Management Board
DTC Visitor Program
Activities are divided into basic task areas / Staff may be assigned to contribute to multiple tasks/ Tasks also utilize common tool sets / oversight structure where each task is assigned a lead…
Collaboration with NOAA testbeds
2016 DTC SAB meeting, September 2016

10. Evolving structure – July 2015
DTC Director’s Office
Mesoscale Modeling
Ensembles
Hurricanes
Data Assimilation
Verification
Global Model Test Bed
Science Advisory Board
Management Board
DTC Visitor Program
Collaboration with NOAA testbeds
2016 DTC SAB meeting, September 2016

11. Evolving structure – April 2016
DTC Director’s Office
Regional Ensembles
Hurricanes
Data Assimilation
Verification
Global Model Test Bed
Science Advisory Board
Management Board
DTC Visitor Program
Collaboration with NOAA testbeds
2016 DTC SAB meeting, September 2016

12. DTC Funding Summary FY11 – FY16
2016 DTC SAB meeting, September 2016

13. DTC Budget – AOP 2016
2016 DTC SAB meeting, September 2016

14. AOP 2016 Budget Allocations* (in K)
Task
OAR AF
NCAR
NSF
NWS
Total
Director’s Office
$604 -
$169
$773
Visitor Program
$100
$200
Regional Ensembles
$949
$11
$960
Data Assimilation
$754
$50
$804
Hurricanes
$451
$409
$860
Verification
$185
$154
$216
$555
Global Model Test Bed
$1,063
$3,043
$204
$227
$1,641
$5,215
LBN: Please keep in mind that all these numbers are after fees.
*After NSF cost recovery fee and UCAR fee
2016 DTC SAB meeting, September 2016

15. DTC funding sources (in $K)
FY2015
FY2016
FY2016-FY2015
NOAA/OAR
$2793 -
NOAA/NWS
$1981
$1641
-340
GSD
$250
Air Force
$104
$204
+100
NCAR
$223
$227 +4
NSF
$100
Total
$5,451
$5,165
-286
Note: numbers in this table do not include the allocation of carry-over from the Director’s reserve – just new funding
2016 DTC SAB meeting, September 2016

16. DTC budget allocations (in $K)
Funding allocation
FY2015
FY2016
FY2016-FY2015
Director’s Office1
946
773
-173
Visitor Program
200 -
Mesoscale Modeling
763
960
-241
Ensembles
438
Hurricane
840
860
+20
Data Assimilation
590
804
+214
Verification
324
555
+231
Global Model Test Bed
1,400
1,063
-337
Total
5,501
5,165
-336
Note: Allocation for director’s office includes the $50K from the director’s reserve carry-over.
1 FY15 director’s office includes $50 K from Director’s reserve carry-over
2016 DTC SAB meeting, September 2016

17. DTC Annual Operating Plan Process
Sep Dec Jan Feb Apr 2017
SAB provides input
DTC develops draft AOP
Need to point out that this performance period does not pertain to NGGPS funding.
MB review & approval
EC review & approval
DTC Period of Performance:
1 April – 30 March
DTC AOP Execution
2016 DTC SAB meeting, September 2016

18. DTC Science Advisory Board
Role
Recommendations
Membership
2016 DTC SAB meeting, September 2016

19. DTC Science Advisory Board
SAB Chair: Rotating, with one-year term
SAB should be forward-looking and focused on science-based strategic recommendations (instead of budgetary and programmatic issues)
SAB recommendations should be made in a context of awareness of DTC’s capabilities and constraints
Allowing the SAB recommendations to be actionable and relevant to the development of DTC AOP
SAB should maintain its independence, and should not be constrained in its discussion and recommendations
SAB is not a FACA committee. No consensus is required.
Participation of operational centers allows a direct dialog with SAB
2016 DTC SAB meeting, September 2016

20. General SAB Recommendations - I
Prioritize activities based on usage & expected impact, to identify activities that are lower priority in a resource-limited environment.
During AOP 2016 proposal development, DTC carefully considered both user base & types of T&E activities in initial proposal and looked for consistency – NMMB user support discontinued based on assessment of community & direction of DTC T&E activities.
T&E activities are crucial to DTC’s mission and should be encouraged and supported: demonstrate impact on operations and enhance support activities.
Balance between support activities & T&E activities was carefully considered during AOP 2016 discussions with DTC MB
2016 DTC SAB meeting, September 2016

21. General SAB Recommendations - II
Do not get too focused too soon on global models at the expense of other important duties. Continued focus on high resolution T&E activities is appropriate with eye towards impacting next generation global model(s).
Base funds for AOP 2016 remained focused on regional applications.
Establish and/or improve connections w/ EMC’s Model Evaluation Group (MEG), JCSDA and other testbeds, as well as with forecasters and SOOs.
Staff members participate in weekly MEG telecons & presentations advertising DTC Visitor Program now include information about MEG.
Collaborative project with HWT on evaluation of CLUE was proposed for AOP 2016, but did not make the cut.
Staff participated in planning meeting for 2017 HWT Spring Experiment
2016 DTC SAB meeting, September 2016

22. General SAB Recommendations - III
More computing and storage resources are needed to support DTC activities. This should not be a chronic limitation.
Continued to raise this concern with external management.
Investing small amount of NCAR funds to setup containers for UPP, MET and MMET cases.
Reach out to university PIs who have CSTAR proposals, as they could create valuable projects for the visitor program.
List of PIs shared with task leads and leads were encouraged to review list for prospective contacts
Identify individuals with global modeling expertise to serve on the SAB.
Recommendation taken into consideration when developing list of potential SAB nominees and global modeling expertise is now included.
2016 DTC SAB meeting, September 2016

23. Specific recommendations: Mesoscale Modeling
MMET is a valuable resource:
Need to increase visibility.
Expand to include global case studies as a way of leveraging future focus on global models operated at mesoscale resolutions.
Reconsider acronym MMET due to potential source of confusion with MET.
Include more cases in MMET high lighting model skill drops, including extension to global models.
Proposed/funded work related to MMET includes a regional workshop co-hosted with a university to increase visibility and future direction is now more closely tied to MEG.
Changing acronym discussed at length prior to submitting BAMS article on MMET - determined it was best to move forward without changing.
Invest in T&E of convective-allowing ensembles and leverage other groups (e.g., HWT) doing high- resolution ensemble modeling.
Collaboration with HWT on evaluation of CLUE included in AOP 2016 proposal but not funded.
Aerosol-aware physics remains an opportunity for T&E tasks.
Included in initial list of topics for AOP 2016 proposal, but did not make the first cut.
With increased importance of ensembles, facilitation of ensemble post-processing is a key goal and DTC can play an important role in this effort.
Post-processing activities were not included in AOP 2016 proposal, but are now being considered for AOP given potential for synergy with visitor projects.
Mesoscale modeling and ensemble tasks should eventually be merged due to their natural synergy.
Done!
2016 DTC SAB meeting, September 2016

24. Specific recommendations: Ensembles
Continue research in stochastic methods (e.g., stochastic physics and SKEBS, etc.) and leverage development in the GSI ensemble development effort.
Continued T&E related to stochastic methods proposed and funded for AOP
Shift research towards convection-permitting resolutions, which can include leveraging existing efforts such as the HWT.
Focus of T&E for AOP 2016 transitioned from 13-km to 3-km.
Resolution testing at grid spacings such as 13 km is still valid owing to applicability to current global modeling.
Resources did not allow T&E for both 13-km and 3-km resolution. Determined testing at 3-km would be most helpful for informing EMC’s implementation plans.
Engage research community with respect to post-processing techniques and probabilistic products, e.g., for high-resolution applications such as convection-permitting ensembles.
Post-processing activities were not included in AOP 2016 proposal, but are now being considered for AOP 2017 given potential for synergy with visitor projects.
2016 DTC SAB meeting, September 2016

25. Specific recommendations: Hurricanes
Work towards incorporating hurricane-specific model physics into the CCPP framework that is currently under development for NGGPS and take a model-agnostic approach to model physics and initialization.
While no specific work has been undertaken wrt incorporating hurricane-specific physics into CCPP, these types of additions were incorporated into the development of the IPD/CCPP concept over the past year.
Continue HWRF basin-scale hurricane modeling efforts with the community and with HFIP.
DTC is continuing to provide developer support for the basin-scale modeling efforts.
Continue working with the operational group at EMC regarding model testing and upgrades.
DTC is continuing its close collaboration with EMC’s HWRF team regarding testing activities.
Expand Hurricane T&E activities regarding model physics to include other model physics, such as PBL schemes, and involve visiting scientists in this effort.
T&E related to physics improvements is included in AOP 2016 and team is collaborating with multiple visitors on projects related to physics advancement.
Premature for DTC to put resources into NMMB for hurricane tasks at this time.
DTC is not currently investing resources into NMMB for hurricanes. 25
2016 DTC SAB meeting, September 2016

26. Specific recommendations: Data Assimilation
Look for more synergy with mesoscale and hurricane task groups to leverage resources and identify and de-emphasize tools that appear to be relatively unused and/or obsolete to economize support costs.
T&E activities for DA and Regional Ensembles tasks are both focusing on HRRR and are being more closely coordinated this year.
Look for opportunities to involve visiting scientists in designing new T&E activities.
DA team continues to look for opportunities to collaborated with visiting scientists and are encouraging prospective visitors to apply to DTC Visitor Program.
Look for ways to provide researchers with access to data and preprocessing capability employed in operational models so they can conduct R2O properly.
DA team updated data resources and processing information on website and continues to provide data format support. Also helped community users communicate with EMC data processing team to obtain data preprocessing information.
Continue efforts regarding the GSI code refactoring, including collaborating with the Joint Effort for Data Assimilation Integration (JEDI) effort to unify DA architecture and make DA tools more model-agnostic.
Continuing discussions with Tom Auligne on potential ways to collaborate with JCSDA on these topics.
Continue working with operations in supporting 4D EnVar, as this is needed to support R2O.
AOP 2016 T&E activities are focusing on 4D EnVar application to HRRR (3 km) 26
2016 DTC SAB meeting, September 2016

27. Specific recommendations: Verification
Popularize and support verification in general and MET in particular through community outreach, such as regional workshops and AMS short courses.
Regional workshop proposed/funded under AOP Looking to partner with JCSDA and possible U of Maryland for this workshop.
Actively poll users and potential users regarding their requirements and priorities.
Have put significant effort over the past year into gathering requirements and priorities with a focus on NOAA and AF partners. Needs are also identified documented through helpdesk requests and issue tracking software
Develop a real-time web presence showcasing MET-based verification, and/or leverage & popularize existing efforts, as a way of enhancing familiarization with and interest in MET.
Upgrading METViewer to handle larger database to make statistics for operational suite available to the community.
Work towards developing a set of best practices for using MET, especially including visualization and reporting of verification statistics.
Initial work funded for AOP 2016 and sets will be made available on website. Expect this work will be augmented in AOP
Invest a portion of NGGPS funding to support global applications of MET.
NGGPS is contributing to verification unification centered on MET through funding to NCAR outside the DTC. Portion of DTC OAR base is also contribution to unification effort.
Develop connections to forecast offices now that they are using MET.
Have formed strong connections with EMC and WPC, which has led to being included on NWS QPF verification advisory team. Anticipate increased use of MET by MEG during 2nd half of AOP 2016, which includes NWS participants from various NCEP centers, regional headquarters and forecast offices.
Make ensemble verification a high priority
Verification task is working closely with Ensembles task and contacts within NOAA to develop requirements for unification effort – ensemble verification is a high priority for the unification effort. 27
2016 DTC SAB meeting, September 2016

28. Specific recommendations: Global Model Test Bed
Look for ways to enhance synergies among the various DTC areas of responsibility.
Continued to look for ways global effort might complement work being undertaken for regional applications. Looking for potential to merge MMET and GMTB Physics Testbed.
High priority should be placed on the IPD/CCPP. This effort could represent a way of enhancing how the various areas of the DTC interoperate.
IPD/CCPP is central to all atmospheric physics work being undertaken by GMTB.
Pursue a broad reach when planning the sea ice modeling workshop.
Workshop included participants from broad cross-section of the research and operational sea ice community. 28
2016 DTC SAB meeting, September 2016

29. Planning for AOP 2017
Preliminary guidance for DTC is ‘flat budget*,’ however, potential cuts are possible. “Continuing resolution” is expected.
DTC prepares draft AOP 2017 for a budget ranging from -10% to +10%.
Selection of AOP 2017 proposed activities for funding will be determined based on priorities of sponsors and available budget.
SAB’s recommendations will be taken into consideration for the preparation of AOP 2017.
* GMTB budget will be adjusted back to what it was in 2015
2016 DTC SAB meeting, September 2016

30. Challenges and Opportunities
Recent Developments and UMAC Recommendations:
NGGPS
Phase 2: GFDL FV3 has been selected as dynamic core
Phase 3: Operational implementation
Implementation of FV3 into NEMS framework
Implementation of Common Community Physics Package (CCPP)
Implementation of 4DEnVAR data assimilation
Target: 10km, L128, April 2019 (only 30 months away)
Unification of regional NWP systems at NCEP
Consolidation of NAM, HRRR, SREF, HWRF
High-resolution ensemble over continental U.S.
Needed to support the missions of several NCEP centers
2016 DTC SAB meeting, September 2016

31. Challenges and Opportunities
Areas where DTC can contribute to help EMC implement recommendations from UMAC
NGGPS:
Assist NGGPS to evolve into a community model
Testing FV3 for convective scale applications
Unifying regional NWP
Ensure requirements of current regional NWP systems can be met by a single dynamic core
Test stochastic physics approach for single model ensemble
High-resolution (3km) ensemble:
Participate in its development, testing, post-processing, and evaluation
2016 DTC SAB meeting, September 2016

32. Challenges and Opportunities
Hurricane prediction:
Work with EMC to develop a plan for the transition of HWRF
Testing HRRR and FV3 for hurricane applications
Data assimilation
Collaborate with JCSDA on the support of regional/global operational data assimilation system
Participate in the development of JEDI
Verification
Work with NOAA to continue to unify verification across various modeling groups and centers based on MET for both development and consolidated evaluation.
Participate in the development of JEDI observation database
2016 DTC SAB meeting, September 2016

33. Thank you! http://www.dtcenter.org/
2016 DTC SAB meeting, September 2016