[Wrf-users] Announcement of Opportunity

[Pam Johnson]

        Announcement of Opportunity


  With the WRF Developmental Testbed Center


The WRF Developmental Testbed Center (DTC) offers five to ten visitor 
appointments for the year beginning June 1, 2008 for proposals received 
by April 1, 2008. The DTC Visitor Program supports visitors to work with 
the DTC to test new forecasting and verification techniques, models and 
model components for numerical weather prediction. The goal is to 
provide the operational weather prediction centers (i.e., NCEP, AFWA and 
FNMOC) with options for near term advances in operational weather 
forecasting and to provide researchers with NWP codes that represent the 
latest advances in the technology. It also offers an opportunity for 
visitors to introduce into the WRF system new NWP techniques that would 
be of particular interest to the research community. Successful 
applicants will be offered up to one month of salary compensation, 
travel and per diem. The visitors are expected to visit with the DTC in 
Boulder, Colorado or Monterey, California, or one of the operational 
centers for one month. This one month can be distributed over several 
weeks during a one year period. Access to DTC computational resources 
will enable significant portions of the visitor’s project to be 
conducted from their home institution.

*1.0 **The WRF Developmental **Testbed** **Center** (DTC)*

* *

The Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) program includes plans for 
the rapid and direct transfer of new research results into the numerical 
weather prediction (NWP) process of the National Weather Service (NWS) 
and other operational NWP centers. It also includes plans for providing 
the research community with the latest NWP technology and access to the 
operational models for various research projects. The WRF effort 
embodies the concept of the operational and research communities working 
jointly toward development of next generation NWP capabilities that will 
allow, as new techniques are developed in the research community, the 
most promising results to be rapidly and efficiently transferred to 
operations. **

* *

The DTC is a facility where the operational and research communities 
work closely together to develop and test the next generation numerical 
forecast systems. In the development process, researchers are invited to 
work within the DTC with Center personnel and with members of the 
operational community and for members of the operational community to 
work with researchers to demonstrate the promise of new techniques in 
NWP. In addition, members of both the operational and research 
communities are able to evaluate the current operational models through 
retrospective analysis and diagnosis of their strengths and weaknesses. 
A key objective of the DTC is to offer the research community an 
environment that is /functionally similar /to that used in operations to 
test and evaluate new NWP methods, without interfering with actual 
day-to-day operations of the operational centers.

The DTC is a distributed facility including components in Boulder, 
Colorado and at the Naval Research Laboratory in Monterey, California; 
the component in Boulder is referred to as the Boulder DTC and the 
component in Monterey, California is referred to as the NRL DTC. In 
addition, the Boulder DTC is composed of components at NOAA/GSD and 
NCAR. The visitor could be associated with any of the three components; 
those visiting Boulder would be primarily located at NCAR but would 
interact with DTC personnel at both NCAR and GSD. In addition, since a 
goal of the DTC is to transition research into operations, a visitor to 
the DTC could also be associated with any of the operational centers 
such as EMC at NCEP.

*2.0 **The WRF Code system*

* *

The WRF system consists of code contributed by developers from both the 
research and operational components of NWP community. Each component of 
this code has undergone different degrees of testing. The combinations 
of the various components have also undergone different degrees of 
testing The terminology used by the DTC to describe these levels of 
testing as defined below.

*2.1 Contributed Code*

* *

Contributed Code is the code contained in the WRF system repository. The 
main requirements for inclusion in this category are the code is 
compliant with the WRF coding infrastructure and the technique addresses 
a potential operational weather forecast need or advancement in NWP 
technology. Contributed Code is made available to the community through 
a code repository maintained by NCAR/MMM and the DTC, whereas the codes 
are generally maintained by their authors. Visitors to the DTC could 
conduct tests on components of the Contributed Code.

The WRF Contributed Code contains multiple dynamic cores (Nonhydrostatic 
Mesoscale Model or NMM and the Advanced Research WRF or ARW), physics 
options, pre and post processing systems and a verification toolkit. 
Contributed Code will be expanded in the future to contain the 
components for a hurricane WRF system, and data assimilation systems. 
Eventually it may contain global forecast models. The DTC recently 
released a new verification package called MET (Model Evaluation Tool), 
which provides the capability to apply traditional, as well as more 
advanced verification techniques. MET will also be expanded in the 
future to include additional advanced verification techniques.

*2.2 Reference Configurations*

*/ /*

Reference Configurations are specific configurations of the WRF 
Contributed Code that have been selected by the DTC though consultation 
with its Advisory Board and its sponsors for extended testing and 
evaluation. These tests are more extensive than the tests conducted for 
new releases of the Contributed Code. Extensive verification statistics 
are computed from the results of these tests including the statistical 
significance of noted differences. These configurations can be used as 
benchmarks for further testing and can provide guidance on the skill of 
components of the WRF system. Visitors are encouraged to design tests 
that build off the Reference Configurations if appropriate or perhaps 
contribute to the evaluation of DTC Reference Configuration tests.

*2.3 Operational Configurations***

*/ /*

The Operational Configurations are the fully hardened, fully tested 
configurations that are being run operationally at the various 
operational centers. These configurations are maintained by the 
Operational Testbed Centers (OTC) at the operational centers but made 
available to the community through the DTC. The Operational 
Configurations are a subset of the Reference Configurations and, as 
such, are also candidates for researchers' attention at the DTC. A goal 
of producing incremental upgrades to address weaknesses in existing 
operational components will be viewed as a valid topic for applicants.

* *

*3.0 **How to Respond to this Announcement*

* *

A list of potential topics that are of interest to the DTC are outlined 
in section 4.0. These are general and intended as suggestions for the 
type of projects we will consider. Proposals for participation in the 
visitor program should provide details on the specific work that the 
visitor would conduct with the DTC. Past DTC Visitors are welcome to 
submit proposals for new projects or projects that build on past work. 
All proposals will be subjected to the same review process (see 
description below). The submitted material should include the following:

· Project description including a title (up to 3 pages)

· Curriculum Vitae (1-2 pages)

· Budget for one month of salary for the PI and travel costs (1 page).

As noted above, it is expected that the visitor will spend one month 
resident at one of the distributed DTC sites or operational centers and 
that the total duration of the project can continue for one year. It is 
expected that the visitor will be able to continue the work from his or 
her own institution using DTC computational resources.

/ /

Proposals in response to this announcement should be sent by April 1, 
2008 to

Pam Johnson

NCAR/DTC

P.O. Box 3000

Boulder, Colorado 80307

Express mail address: 3450 Mitchell Lane, Boulder, CO, 80301

Or send electronically to: johnsonp at ucar.edu


        4.0 Possible Visitor Projects with the WRF DTC

This is a general announcement of an opportunity to work with the WRF 
DTC to test existing WRF-based NWP systems in order to assess where they 
are deficient and new NWP technology that shows promise of improving 
numerical weather prediction within the next five years or provides the 
WRF code system with new promising technology for research applications. 
Potential topics include testing new physics parameterization 
components, optimizing physics packages, investigating the interaction 
between physics schemes, comparing dynamic cores, alternative 
verification approaches, data assimilation systems (including 
variational, ensemble-based, observation and analysis nudging and hybrid 
approaches), as well as investigations of the impacts of resolution and 
the tradeoffs between an ensemble versus a deterministic approach.

Some more specific suggested topics that would receive special 
consideration include:

   1. Physics parameterizations
         1. Hurricanes: New/improved physics packages/parameterizations
            are needed to better represent the convective-scale
            environment of hurricanes. Projects leading to improving
            and/or expanding the physics options available in WRF to
            address the hurricane prediction problem are encouraged.
         2. Boundary layer: A number of the new Planetary Boundary Layer
            (PBL) schemes currently being tested by the community would
            be welcome additions to the WRF system. A potential project
            would be to add a new PBL scheme to the WRF physics options,
            and test and compare this scheme with existing schemes both
            in idealized one-dimensional cases, and in full NWP-type
            simulations. This general topic area also includes the need
            for new surface layer schemes for high-resolution regional
            models that are rooted firmly in physics. One area in need
            of special attention is shallow convection forced by
            sensible heat flux at the surface. This testing could be
            extended to seasonal verifications for statistical
            evaluation using DTC datasets.
         3. Physics interactions: The interactions between the physics
            schemes in mesoscale models needs to be carefully
            investigated. In particular, a better understanding of the
            mutual feedbacks between radiation and cloud microphysics
            and the interplay between radiation, cloud microphysics, and
            parameterized convection is needed.
         4. Land-Surface Model (LSM): The Noah LSM, one of the LSMs
            currently available in WRF, is hard-wired to four vertical
            computational soil layers. A potential project would be to
            generalize this scheme to make the number of soil layers
            adjustable.
   2. Verification: A variety of projects focusing on advanced
      verification methods would be of interest. Some examples include
      the following:
         1. Investigate verification approaches that are more
            appropriate for providing model diagnostics than many
            traditional approaches – that is, approaches that provide
            information about particular attributes of model error that
            can lead to a diagnosis of needed improvements in the model.
         2. Apply verification approaches that allow incorporation of
            observational uncertainty in model evaluations, and are able
            to express this uncertainty in the resulting verification
            measures. Demonstrate how this information can be separated
            from other sources of uncertainty (e.g., sampling
            variations) associated with estimates of verification
            measures. For example, it would be of interest to
            investigate the impacts of variations among different types
            of analyses (e.g., for precipitation) used as verification
            observations on variations in traditional and
            non-traditional verification measures.
         3. Apply new spatial verification methods for evaluation of
            ensemble forecasts.
         4. Incorporate the time dimension in a spatial verification
            approach so that timing errors can be diagnosed, and
            application of this approach to a variety of WRF cases.
         5. Recent field studies offer an abundance of data that can be
            used to diagnose strengths and weaknesses of NWP techniques.
            A potential visitor project would be to organize the data
            from these field studies into modules that can be used to
            test certain physical parameterizations.
   3. Ensemble prediction:
         1. Ensemble system: The DTC plans to add an ensemble capability
            to the suite of capabilities it provides to the user
            community. The DTC would welcome visitors who want to assist
            us in assembling an end-to-end ensemble modeling system
            including components to generate an ensemble and post
            processing components specific to ensemble systems.
         2. Ensemble spread: Projects directed at improving the spread
            of model forecasts are of interest to the DTC. Most
            desirable are experiments in which lateral boundary
            conditions are supplied by ensemble forecasts on a larger
            geographical domain (perhaps global) than the regional grid.
            The lateral boundaries should provide uncertainty in the
            ensemble prediction as well as variations in the initial
            conditions, physics packages, and dynamics.
   4. Sensitivity to terrain
         1. How much smoothing is "necessary" for the underlying terrain
            in the WRF cores? The answer to this question will depend on
            the inherent model smoothing and so may be core dependant. A
            project addressing this question would provide valuable
            guidance to both the operational and research communities.
         2. Experiments can also be proposed for tests of the WRF model
            investigating their sensitivity to terrain treatments such
            as form drag and mountain blocking.
         3. The development and testing of different numerical
            approaches for treating the vertical propagation of wave
            energy and damping of reflective gravity waves from the
            model's top boundary are encouraged.
   5. Sensitivity to vertical resolution: The effect of vertical
      resolution on model forecast accuracy needs to be investigated.
      Predictions of phenomena characterized by vertical variations in
      static stability need to be examined as a function of model
      vertical resolution (e.g. tropical cyclogenesis, cold air damming,
      mountain waves, and surface wind forecasts.
   6. Nesting: What is the value-added of including two-way interactive
      nesting verses one way nesting? These tests should include both
      WRF cores using standard verification scores for all nests
      especially the coarsest parental nest to see if there is positive
      feedback to the larger scales. Answers to this question are of
      particular interest to the operational centers since in the future
      operational global and mesoscale models will be run concurrently
      and there is the choice of whether to build two-way nesting (so
      the mesoscale model can feedback into global and therefore the two
      models must be run together) or just a simple one-way coupler
      (which may allow more flexible scheduling for the operational
      model computations).

*/ /*

*5.0 Proposal Evaluation Process*

* *

The proposals submitted in response to this announcement will be subject 
to both external and internal review. The external review will be 
conducted by the DTC Advisory Board, which consists of atmospheric 
scientists from government labs, operational centers, and academic 
institutions. The DTC Director and Deputy Directors will make the final 
selections based on the review by the Advisory Board.