The Numerical Weather Prediction Information Technology Environment (NITE)

Ligia Bernardet, Laurie Carson
ESRL, NCAR
Noon November 4 in Room 2890

Abstract:
In order to support its forecast needs, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has several operational Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) systems, each requiring ongoing development to improve forecast skill. While the NOAA National Weather Service (NWS) centralizes the development and determines which updates are implemented in operations, research and development (R&D) are also conducted by the research branch of NOAA and by the academic community in general. This distributed model of development creates a potential for NOAA to benefit from a large body of scientific work, but also poses some challenges.

In order for scientists outside of the NWS to contribute relevant R&D, it is important that they work with the current operational codes, workflows, and input datasets. However, obtaining such codes and inputs, and configuring the system to run with data assimilation and cycling workflows identical to the ones used in operations, can be a daunting task for the research community.

To facilitate the use of operational NWP systems by the R&D community, NOAA has partnered with the Developmental Testbed Center (DTC) to create the design of the NWP Information Technology Environment (NITE). In this presentation we will discuss the requirements and priorities for NITE and review some existing model launcher and experiment databases that can inform NITE’s development.


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