EMC/HPC/MPC/NCO/CPC synergy meeting highlights 02/25/02
This meeting was led by Peter Manousos and followed a generic agenda denoted by the subtitles below. Attendees included Geoff Dimego, Hua-Lu Pan, Pete Caplan, Zoltan Toth, Steve Tracton, Jun Du, John Ward, Maxine Brown, Dave Reynolds, James Partain, Steve Lord, Keith Brill, Larry Borroughs, Ed Danaher, Mike Bodner, Steve Jascourt, and Bill Bua.
1. IBM SP
No changes have been made recently, nor are any planned til the end of the life of the system (since the hardware for the next system is expected to arrive in July). There will be a backup test on 00Z April 4th, 2002.
2. Notes from EMC
a. Global Modeling Group: Hua-Lu reported real time testing on the parallel T254 resolution (T170 after 84 hrs., T62 after 180 hrs.) MRF continues and is still “ok”. Preliminary results for the restrospective reruns of Sept 2001 to look at tropical systems indicate the parallel has better track forecasts than the operational model for forecast hours at 48 hours or less, but has worse score for 72 hours and beyond. Further, preliminary results of running the GFDL with 2 nests off the MRFx are favorable.
b. Mesoscale Modeling Group: Geoff Dimego reported ...
- Parallel testing of the next version of the RUC (20km) will begin this week (the last week of Feb 2002) and continue at a minimum of 8x/day for a month, pending the scheduled 9 April 2002 implementation.
- A crisis Job Implementation Form (JIF) was submitted to NCO to address the Eta-12 cold bias (night time over snow). Specifically the new cloud scheme produces less cloud than the old scheme and is more susceptible to radiational cooling. Also a “patchy snow” and ground heat flux fix will allow ground to heat air in both full and partial snow cover situations. This change will be implemented for the 12Z run on Feb 26 2002.
- The “spring” bundle target for implementation in May 2002 feature minor modifications. These include allowing the grid scale cloud/precip scheme to be FULLY cycled, enhancement of post processed grids to include hydrometeor fields, and the possible inclusion of the radial velocities from the 88D in the EDAS (not the VAD winds which are already included).
c. Global Ensembles: Zoltan Toth reported that a bug dealing with the tropics in the parallel NCEP global EPS has temporarily halted output. Also, NCEP now has access to Canadian EPS output grids. The operational run verifies quite well, but the performance of the EPS remains unknown. Plans still include to combine this with NCEP EPS output as a separate product. Plans to obtain the ECWMF EPS output grids will be pursued next. A meeting within NCEP will be conducted in the short term to evaluate the grids available to NCEP and how to best utilize them at the NCEP service centers.
d. Short Range Ensembles: Steve Tracton and Jun-Du reported that preliminary verification results of the SREF system indicate the spread of the Eta members is too small and the RSM is too large. This is in agreement with subjective verification by HPC. A parallel cycle is planned and which will rescale the inital perturbations to improve the SREF ensemble spread, and will also include the current 10 members plus Eta members using a Kain/Frisch parameterization scheme. Test and evaluation of this will be targeted for completion by summer.
e. Marine Modeling and Analysis Branch (MMAB) - The COFS model will be implemented March 12th. This will feature increasing temporal output of vessel icing out to 3 hourly increments and the availability of coastal fog grids out to 72 hours.
3. Input to EMC from Operational Centers
Dave Reynolds inquired of the possibility of obtaining freezing level grids from the Eta. The result from this inquiry is that HPC will provide the code it is using to produce these grids to EMC for review and then work with NCO to potentially implement prior to 9/2002. Pete Manousos asked EMC for the possibility of obtaining GOES look alike grids from the Eta-12. Geoff stated that this will be attempted and will be put in the queue.
4. Next Meeting Proposed Monday March 25th at noon in room 209.