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.