[GTP] GTP core fund increase

[pouquet at ucar.edu]

Dear GTP members,

Please find below a request for an increase of GTP core funds.

Given the late hour at which I learned about this possibility, I  
apologize for not having discussed these issues with you but I believe  
that this request is along the lines of what we would like to do in  
GTP. I strongly

Your comments are more than welcome. Doug (in the framework of the  
preceding request, this time for funds with a 3 year time-line) has  
suggested that you be expressing your support (if any ...) for such a  
proposal.

I may add that this is very urgent, some of the discussions taking  
place this coming Tuesday.


Annick


******************

Dear Doug,

I am requesting an increase of -GTP- core fund, out of the 1M fund of  
extra money at NCAR, for a total of $150k, to be allocated as follows:

a) 0.5 post-doc for applications of fundamental turbulence to the main  
core of research at NCAR, in weather and climate modeling.
This 0.5 post-doc is to be supplemented by a 0.5 post-doc coming from  
the scientific divisions of ESSL in co-sponsorship on grounds of  
common interest.
                                   Request: ~ 60k

Please note that you could as well chose to ask for the full post-doc,  
but the condition would remain the same, as per the suggestion of the  
advisory board and as per our wish in GTP, to be working on a topic of  
common interest to GTP and to the scientific divisions in modeling  
turbulent processes.

b) a graduate student for GTP on similar projects. This has the  
advantage of allowing for better links with the university community.
                                  Request: ~ 45k

c) funds for an extended visitor program, allowing in particular for  
(partial) sabbatical (again, co-sponsorship from the scientific  
divisions will be sought).
                                   Request: ~ 35k

d) funds for augmenting the GTP workshop budget (presently of 30k per year).
                                   Request: 15k

                      TOTAL Request: $155k

The many applications that can be envisaged, if we follow the list of  
seminars and funds recently distributed in GTP, are, to name a few:  
the turbulent planetary boundary layer, uncertainty, the pathway to  
dissipation in the atmosphere and ocean, eddy-wave interactions in the  
atmosphere and ocean, vertical transport by cumulus convection and  
numerous other transport properties, canopy turbulence in roughness  
sub-layers, collision-coalescence of cloud droplets and impact on warm  
rain initiation, signatures of nonlinearity and multi-scale processes  
in climate dynamics, convection and ionisation in the solar convection  
zone, or new methods of analysis and visualization of large data sets  
e.g. using wavelets and/or extensions of the VAPOR software,  
intermittency and chemistry, ...
To name a few priorities, getting a better understanding of wind  
energy generation involves getting a better grasp of the processes in  
the planetary boundary layer, of intermittency or of  gravity wave  
propagation and interactions.

Whereas the request in the framework of the 3-year stimulus package is  
centered on getting ready for peta-scale and modeling, this core  
request is more on the long-term necessity to find new ways to get  
accurate data on small-scale processes and two-way scale interactions  
in a variety of context: what distinguishes the Geophysical Turbulence  
Program from the topical research in a given division is its attempt  
at finding synergies and analogies between a variety of problems: it  
looks for the common processes underlying the various applications. We  
can think of the family  of HATS experiments measuring inter-scale  
fluxes as in the BEACHON project, of numerical modeling searching for  
efficient ways to be both accurate and efficient as when performing  
adaptive mesh refinement, or of novel theoretical approaches.

This request represents a sizable increase of the GTP budget,  
presently of 50k, down from close to perhaps 90k in its glorious past.  
Our proposal has the advantage to support fundamental science in  
long-term goals, of being multi-disciplinary and these funds are  
specifically for various forms of collaborations in support of the  
community. GTP is a multi-laboratory multi-divisional  
inter-disciplinary group that tackles the multi-scale physics that  
needs to be better modeled as peta-scale computing (and beyond)  
approaches. This plan was presented at the meeting of the IMAGe  
advisory board and we want to take this opportunity to yield to a  
rebirth of some of the fundamental activities at NCAR.

Please let me know if you need any further information.

Annick

----------------------------------------------------------------
This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.