EMC/HPC/MPC synergy meeting highlights 8/28/00



This meeting was led by Peter Manousos and followed a generic agenda denoted by the subtitles below. Attendees included Dave Michaud, Zoltan Toth, Geoff Dimego, John Ward, Hua Lu Pan, Steve Jascourt, Keith Brill, Ed Danaher, and Steve Lord.



1. IBM SP

a. Current Status: John Ward reported no problems with the IBM SP and that the GFDL-X is now running out to 126 hours.



b. Status of Phase II: John Ward stated that the upgrade of the SP to Phase II has begun and the target date for completion remains mid November of this year. Optimization of the IBM SP in Phase II is still expected to be completed by mid January, after which plans are to extend the Eta to 84 hours to support 3-day QPF requirements.



c. Implication of the Eta 22 becoming operational on the SP: Continuing from last meeting, Dave Michaud presented results of the final 2 tests to optimize the Eta 22km being run on the SP within the 192 node fence with no delays in production time at 48 hours using the production times on the C90 as a benchmark. The final test (test 5) fit in under the 192 node fence with a 30 minute delay at forecast hour 48.. approximately 5 minutes earlier than the C90 benchmark. There are still 3 possible "choke" points however, given the increase in size of files to be transmitted. These include, OSO, das1, and some service centers. OSO will in the end be able to accommodate the approximately 1gig/day increase and the spin up of 2 new Dell servers by approximately the end of September at the WWB will assume some of the load on an already peaked das1 server. However, the service centers (AWC, SPC, and TPC) com-lines are currently full and are not expected to be upgraded until proposed money in the FY 2001 budget is approved. This means TPC, SPC, and AWC will be unable to receive the 22 km Eta on higher resolution grids than they presently receive for the 32 km Eta.



2. Notes from EMC

a. Global Modeling Group: Hua-Lu reiterated the characteristics of the parallel Global Model which include

a "Reduced Grid" (reduction in resolution toward the poles where it now reaches around 1 km because the longitude lines meet as they approach the poles), incorporation of 30 second orography, a fix to the Ozone scheme, and a modified quality control scheme will be implemented operationally during September. The MRF-x which features a modification to the convection scheme to mitigate the potential for spin ups will be tested for possible implementation sometime after the completion of Phase II.



b. Mesoscale Modeling Group: Geoff Dimego reported that some work needs to be done with the tuning of the 3DVar for the Eta 22. Verification scores utilizing the direct use of radiances showed no improvement (and no degradation). The results of the analysis scheme's fit to radiosonde data however were "not so good". The Mesoscale Modeling Group will still go to CAFTI September 6th with the intent to get a tentative approval contingent upon the results of retrospective cold season runs. Delay of the implementation of the operational Eta 22 may delayed [fix wording] as requested by the Space Flight Meteorology Group (SMG). There are 2 upcoming Space Shuttle Missions (one in September and one in October) and SMG has asked to delay the implementation at least until after the first mission. It is possible that the implementation may occur between the September and October mission.



3. Status of the Ensembles

The focus of discussion centered around the global EPS. Zoltan Toth stated the the verification results of the T126 EPS out to 60 hours are good and perhaps in November that the EPS will be run at T126 resolution out to 84 hours. The plan is to in 2001 increase the number of members to 20/cycle and run at T126 resolution out to 180 hours. This is because the incorporation of previous run's members into the current cycle shows that this is advantageous only after 6-7 days lead time. Therefore, more members per cycle are needed, and at higher resolution.





4. Input to EMC from Operational Centers

HPC reported to the Global Modeling Group that the MRFx seems to be handling the development of tropical systems and heavy convection more realistically. That is, the MRFx is not as aggressive with developing perturbations in the tropics nor does it seem to over predict large areas of excessive rainfall (over 1") amounts in the medium ranges (3-5 days). The MRFx did an excellent job with hinting at the decay of Hurricane Debbie as compared to the operational MRF which maintained the storm out through longer lead times. Finally, as a side note, HPC reported that the GFDL seemed to better handle the path of Tropical Storm and Hurricane Albert as compared to the UKMET.



5. Next Meeting Proposed Monday September 25, 2000 at noon in room 209.