Bill Kuo

Summary of DTC EC Meeting26th August 2010

DTC EC Meeting – 26th August 2010First face-to-face meeting for the DTC ECWho are present from EC:

Don Berchoff, Louis Uccellini (NWS)Sandy MacDonald (OAR)John Egentowich (Air Force)Roger Wakimoto (NCAR)

Guest: Steve Payne (Navy)DTC Management (Kuo, Nance, Brown, Koch)DTC Management Board (Lapenta, Rugg,

Toepfer, Surgi)

AgendaDateAugust 26, 2010

Agenda

Meeting Objectives: Achieve Consensus DTC Vision and Priorities  8:00 – 8:30       Coffee

  8:30 – 8:45       Welcome and Overview of Meeting Objectives (Don Berchoff)

  8:45 – 9:45       Strategic Planning for DTC (Bill Kuo)

9:45 – 10:15      NWS and U.S. Air Force Focus Area (Don Berchoff and John Egentowich)

 

10:15 – 10:30     Break

10:30 – 11:15     DTC: Facilitating Research into Operation   (Louis Uccellini and Roger Wakimoto)

11:15 – 12:00     New Directions for Atmospheric Modeling:   (Sandy MacDonald and Steve Payne)

 12:00 – 1:30      Working Lunch: Executive Session: Decisions and  Implementation Strategy (All)

Summary of EC Meeting:The DTC EC endorsed the on-going DTC activities and budget

allocation for FY2010, and considered them consistent with the sponsoring agencies’ expectation.

The EC approved the DTC preliminary work plan and budget allocations for FY2011, which will follow closely those of FY2010.

Two task areas were selected for consideration for augmentation, shall additional resources become available. This includes: DET and NEMS. DTC was asked to provide a plan and budget estimate.

Sandy MacDonald considered GPU a very important emerging technology for NWP. He strongly recommended DTC to prepare the WRF community to migrate toward such technology. DTC is charged to come up with a strategy on WRF-GPU.May consider organizing a meeting on this topic

HFIP and HWRFQuantifiable significant improvement in the skill of

hurricane prediction is a major milestone for the Hurricane Forecast Improvement Project (HFIP). This is a NOAA priority. The EC tasked DTC management to develop a Hurricane Prediction Test Plan, in collaboration with HFIP program office. Louis was thinking a HWRF-AHW test plan similar to

core tests for Rapid Refresh.The consensus is that hurricane prediction is moving

toward multiple model ensemble.DTC needs to help EMC improve the performance of

HWRF, and also help HFIP with multi-model ensemble prediction.

Global modelingSandy MacDonald did not support DTC getting

involved with global modeling. Possible reasons are:ESRL has an agreement with NCEP for operational use

of FIMGlobal modeling is now taking a new turn: Earth System

Predictive CapabilityDTC is already spreading too thinNot obvious that DTC will receive significant new

funding in the next few years to migrate into this areaEarth System Predictive Capability:

Multiple agencies collaboration (NWS, OAR, Navy, Air Force, NSF, DOE, … etc)

From 1 day to 30 years – seamless weather & climate prediction

Model frameworkThere are still major disagreements between NCAR

and NCEPLouis would like NCAR to move toward NEMS for its

current and future modeling systemsHolland, Klemp, and Skamarock did not agreeThere are no “obvious” benefits for research community

to migrate toward NEMSDTC needs to find a path for the two communities:

The large research community that is still actively using ARW

The EMC modeling suite which are being migrated toward NEMS

DTC is charged to organize a software engineering meeting to identify a viable “path” for R2O and O2R

Performance MeasureDTC needs to have quantifiable performance

measure. Our sponsors need to know that they are getting their money worth with DTCThe DTC MB is charged to come up with the measureWe need to come up with a “draft” for DTC MB’s

consideration (before someone comes up with something that we cannot live with).

In-kind contributions to DTC should be accounted for:NCEP/EMC staffNWS – DTC liaison (Naomi)MMM – WRF supportAir Force (?)

FundingThe FY2011federal budget is not good. All agencies are

asked by Obama to set their FY2011 budget at 95% of their FY2010 level.We should consider doing very well if we can get what we

had in FY2010. This will require strong support from high levels in NOAA and Air Force.

DTC EC agreed that DTC’s budget should increase as DTC is asked to take on more responsibilities:Louis argued that NSF should provide a lot more support for

DTC (than just the $100K for the DTC Visitor Program)Louis suggested DTC having a “grant program” – to support

research to operations transition DTC EC will discuss this with NSFDTC EC will also seek additional support from FAA, DOE and

FAA

DTC MB/SAB Meeting21-23 September 2010

DTC SAB MeetingThis is the first time DTC Science Advisory Board SAB)

meetDTC SAB will do a thorough review of on-going DTC

activities, and provide comments and recommendations:Is the on-going effort appropriate for the DTC?Are the resources allocated to the tasks appropriate?Comments and suggestions on the DTC FY2011 work planComments and suggestions on the future direction for DTC

tasksSome DTC SAB members consider DTC is taking on too

many tasks, not focused, and under-funded. One wrote: “… DTC is on disaster course without focus on key issues…”

Concluding remarks:The DTC MB/SAB meeting is a very

important one to all of us.The recommendations from SAB will be

forwarded to DTC MB and EC, and have significant influence on the budget for DTC, and resource allocation within the DTC.

DTC MB will have a careful review of the FY 2011 preliminary task plan and budget. Funding strategies will be developed for FY 2011 based on SAB reviews and the MB discussions.

So, please don’t take it lightly.