NCEP
Synergy Meeting Highlights: February 6, 2012
This meeting was led by David Novak (HPC),
and attended by Michelle Mainelli (NCO),
Chris Caruso-Magee (NCO), Rebecca
Cosgrove (NCO), Carissa Klemmer (NCO), Shrinivas Moorthi (EMC), Jordan Alpert
(EMC), Eric Rogers (EMC), Hendrik Tolman (EMC), Bob Grumbine (EMC), Mary Hart
(EMC), Stephen Barry (EMC), Mary Hart (EMC), David Bright (AWC), Steve
Silberberg (AWC), Steve Weiss (SPC), Andy Dean (SPC), Michael Brennan (NHC), Richard
Pasch (NHC), Keith Brill (HPC), Scott Scallion (MDL), Gene Petrescu (AR), Andy
Edman (WR), Chris Smallcomb (WR), Pete Browning (CR), Bernard Meisner (SR),
Melissa Kreller (SR), Jeff Waldstreicher (ER), Brian Miretzky (ER), Josh Watson
(ER), John Kelly (NOS), and Frank Aikman (NOS)
1. NCO (Chris Caruso-Magee)
Supercomputer
Issues
Cirrus
encountered disk problems which forced the emergency CCS switch to Stratus on
Feb 6. In general, switches between Cirrus and Stratus have become frequent,
disrupting development testing.
GFS
Ensemble Forecast System
Implementation
date is 12 UTC Tuesday Feb 14.
Rapid
Refresh (RAP)
30-day
evaluation ends 2-23. Earliest possible implementation date is 3/6.
NAM
A 140
m/s stratospheric wind caused a crash on 12/24. A fix for this situation and
additions to GEMPAK are being tested.
MDL
2.5KM
CONUS Gridded MOS and HRQPF are expected to be implemented in early March.
Ensemble
Kernal Density MOS is being worked on by NCO for
Other
NCO is
currently working on NGOFS (NOS model), the Hybrid Data Assimilation for the
GFS, Global Multi-grid Wave model physics upgrade, update to the Global Dumps
(for D. Keyser), and the Verification upgrade ( only used by EMC).
Changes
to USGS decoder and SHEF decoder were implemented Feb 7. This implementation benefits
NOS and any users of these data types.
CCS
quarterly upgrade for Cirrus is planned for 2/15 but is on hold pending
resolution Cirrus disk problems which forced the emergency CCS switch.
For the latest schedule updates
see: http://www.nco.ncep.noaa.gov/pmb/changes/
2. NOTES FROM EMC
2a. Global Climate and
Weather Modeling Branch (GCWMB) (Shrinivas
Moorthi, Jordan Alpert)
Data Assimilation/Hybrid
3-D VAR Ensemble Kalman Filter (3D-VAR/EnKF)
The parallel forecast has
begun which was started at 1 June 2011 and has been run up to real time. A cold
bias over polar regions was discovered. Investigation showed that not enough
cloud was being created and that changes to a parameter controlling
super-saturation improved the situation. �NHC expressed interest in seeing how this
change affects the tropical cyclones and NHC and EMC will do so. Most skill
indications are positive regarding the full changes.
The implementation is
expected no earlier than April 24th, 2012.
Establishing a EMC/NCO/HPC
Model Monitoring Group
Preliminary meetings have
begun regarding the establishment of a model monitoring group among
EMC/NCO/HPC. Such a group would mimic the function of the ECMWF monitoring
program, and encourage model development eyes on the model output on a daily
basis. More details will come.
2b. Global Ensemble
Prediction System (GEFS)
The
new GEFS goes in 12 UTC Tuesday Feb 14. Evaluations were neutral to positive.
The biggest improvement appears to be with tropical cyclones in the Atlantic
Basin. The implementation introduces a cold bias in 2 m temperature, which EMC
is investigating aggressively.
2c. Mesoscale Modeling
Branch (MMB) (Eric Rogers)
Recent NAM issues
- NAM forecast failed at 06z 12/24/2011
- Problem traced to linear instability associated with a very strong
(~135 m/s) stratospheric jet over the Arctic
- A fix for the problem was identified and tested successfully,
implementation into ops NAM pending
- In early January, NAM CONUS nest had noise problems (non-fatal) in
height fields due to CFL violations associated a strong upper tropospheric jet
off New England; increasing the divergence damping eliminated the noise.
Implementation into ops NAM is pending, and will be done at the same time as
the fix for the 06z 12/24/2011 failure.
Rapid Refresh
- NCO currently running 30 day parallel evaluation, ends March 10.
- Tentative implementation date is March 20, 2012
More information and
results can be found here (http://www2.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/impDoc.html) under
"Implementation Briefing" in last column of the NAM 3.0 row; and
under the EMC home page (http://www.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/) under "NAM
Upgrade" on the right, click "Description of Changes
SREF implementation
The new SREF is run with
horizontal grid spacing of 16-17 km, essentially half the grid spacing used
now. Other changes will include
�
Elimination of Eta and RSM
�
Addition of the NMMB
�
More diverse physical parameterizations
�
An initial condition perturbation strategy using a hybrid Breeding
and Ensemble Transform method, and analyses from GDAS, NDAS, and Rapid Refresh
�
Post-processing enhancements�
Expect 30 day parallel
to start sometime in March; NCO will run 30 day parallel on development machine
with the GFS EnKF 30 day parallel test because there is insufficient room on
the production machine to run both parallels. To minimize the impact on
development, the NCO SREF parallel will use fewer resources than it would in
production, resulting in delayed real-time availability.
The new SREF has a tentative
implementation in early May.
2d. Marine
Modeling and Analysis Branch (MMAB) (Hendrik
Tolman)
There are several planned
upgrades, although no parallels have been scheduled yet.
Wave models
Wave physics are being
upgraded. This improves the winter time swell bias in the North Pacific
Working on GRIB 2 update
for AWIPS II to allow wave model output.
Ice / SST
-RFCs are in development
for assimilation of the SSMI-S dataset for the ice concentration model
-Improvement in the
resolution of the ice drift model planned.
-Working on modernizing
the climatology used in the RGSST.
3. NATIONAL OCEAN SERVICE (Frank
Aikman)
FY12:
NGOFS
(Northern Gulf of Mexico Operational Forecast System) is on schedule for
operational implementation by March 27, 2012.
ESTOFS
(Extratropical Surge and Tide Operational Forecast System) is on schedule for
operational implementation by April 02, 2012.
CREOFS
(Columbia River & Estuary Operational Forecast System) is on schedule for
operational implementation by June 05, 2012.
�
FY13:
SFBOFS (San Francisco Bay
Operational Forecast System) is on schedule for operational implementation by
March 31, 2013.
4. FEEDBACK FROM MDL/OPERATIONAL CENTERS/REGIONS
4a. MDL (Scott Scallion)
HRMOS
QPF and 2.5 km gridded MOS have completed the necessary length of time for
parallels and are ready to move into production.� If any of the centers or regions want to
provide comments MDL will include them in our briefing package.� Expecting a early March implementation date.
The next upcoming
implementations from MDL are the first elements for EKDMOS (T, Td, Tmax, Tmin)
and upgrades to the LAMP station guidance.
4b. NCEP Centers and NWS Regions
Southern Region � GSD
providing series of webinars on the new RAP for forecasters.
5. Michelle Mainelli, NCO presented
on the AWIPS SREC prioritization process for new AWIPS requirements.
6. The
next scheduled Synergy Meeting will be Monday, March 26, 2012.