Table of Contents

Subcommittee on Global Change Research, Participating Agencies and Executive Offices

Ad hoc Working Group on Climate Modeling

Foreword

Executive Summary

1. Background

2. Summary of Findings

3. Summary of recommen- dations

4. Final Comments

Charge to the Working Group 

Main Report

1. Purpose

2. Current Situation

3. Scope of Document / Underlying Definitions and Assumptions

4. Elements of Climate Science

5. Issues of Computational Systems

6. Human resources

7. Management / Business Practices / Institutional models

8. Recommen- dations

9. Reference Documents

10. Endnotes

Full Report (PDF)

The Working Group should develop a draft implementation plan for US Global Change Research Program climate modeling activities. The draft plan should be presented to the Subcommittee on Global Change Research by May 1, 1999. The plan should cover all USGCRP climate-modeling activities, and should address two time frames: FY2001-2005 and FY2006-2010.

Option 1: Assume level funding of USGCRP climate modeling activities (at about $70M per year). Full funding of Administration's IT initiative leads to development of more capable supercomputing facilities and availability of competitively awarded software development funding. Enhanced cooperation between climate modeling and IT.

Option 2: Assumes possibility of incremental funding increase of $10M per year for USGCRP climate modeling activities over 5 years (from about $70M per year to about $120M per year). Full funding of Administration's IT initiative leads to development of more capable supercomputing facilities and availability of competitively awarded software development funding. Enhanced cooperation between climate modeling and IT.

The working group should, at a minimum, address the following set of questions.

What are the climate and weather modeling requirements of the U.S.? What improvements are needed in current capabilities and why?

What is the correct balance between software and hardware funding to achieve current requirements and necessary improvements?

What are the relevant weather/climate modeling activities now being pursued by the research and operational community (e.g., what spatial scales and types of models should be included)?

What are the science, IT, and human resources difficulties now hindering these efforts and what are the possible science/IT/human resources solutions to these problems?

What are the emerging science and IT challenges? For instance, how should modeling change in response to the very large increase in the amount and quality of observations data expected in the next ten years?

What would be a realistic timeline to achieve these solutions?

Management Approach.

Should US weather and climate modeling efforts be more closely integrated?

If so, what management structure should be developed to ensure that these efforts (weather, climate) are effectively integrated? Are modifications to the current "distributed" US approach warranted?

How can weather and climate modeling efforts best be integrated into the broader IT effort? What types of IT resources are likely to be available in the next ten years, and how does climate modeling need to change to best take advantage of such resources?

How can we ensure that the most cost-effective IT innovations are adopted and that the IT resources are properly allocated across the related science/IT communities?

How can we ensure that common modeling and IT tools are developed and used effectively across the key modeling groups?

What steps are needed to stimulate more effective interaction between climate modelers, researchers, and the larger IT community?

How do we deal with the human resources issues (how can we get more stable funding for modeling groups)? Is it possible to engage smart young IT people in climate modeling over the long term?

What steps are needed to ensure that climate modeling is prepared for the massively parallel architectures that are becoming predominant in the computing world?