EMC/HPC/MPC/NCO/CPC Synergy Meeting Highlights 06/30/03


This meeting was led by Peter Manousos and was attended by the following: Geoff Dimego, Larry Burroughs, Hua-Lu Pan, John Ward, Steve Jascourt, Kevin McCarthy, Ed Danaher, Bill Bua, Keith Brill, Dave Feit, and Jim Hoke.


1. IBM SP and CCS

The CCS has been operational since May 19th, 2003 and has exhibited record performance in product delivery (rarely have there been any delays since it was declared operational). The development side of the CCS although twice as fast as the IBM SP has 40% less CPUs available for testing and therefore has already become saturated. A backup test of the CCS is scheduled for 12Z July 9th, 2003. Two new frames are also slated to be installed and will become operational by September 1, 2003 for support of Air Quality modeling.


2. Notes from EMC

a. Global Modeling Group: Hua-Lu Pan reported that the long wave radiation package has completed parallel testing and is ready for implementation. This package has no discernable impact in the troposphere other than to slightly reduce (warm) the low-level cold bias, but it also tends to make the stratosphere cooler compared to the current version of the GFS. Also a subgrid scale orographic package centered around form drag over complex terrain is being tested in anticipation for implementation this winter. The Global Modeling Group also conducted a number of tests to address the grid scale feed back issue. A summary of results can be found at

http://www.hpc.ncep.noaa.gov/qpfbombs/display.html#remedy


b. Mesoscale Modeling Group: Geoff Dimego reported that the spring bundle of the Eta (as described in previous Synergy Meeting Notes and in great detail at http://wwwt.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/mmb/tpb.spring03/TPB_6-17-03.htm ) will be implemented within a few weeks. Several changes to the Eta are slated to be implemented this fall and will be centered around overhauling shortwave radiation [presently the oldest part of the model], tweaks to the land surface scheme, bias adjustment to precipitation assimilation (tends to be too low), major changes to the convective scheme and its interaction with the grid-scale precipitation (the convection changes may or may not be ready in time), and an attempt to improve or remove the use of temperature data from surface observations in the EDAS. The EDAS presently spreads surface temperature information upwards some distance from the surface, adversely affecting the short-term forecast in EDAS. This has been identified as a cause for an inferior performance of the EDAS to GDAS (the GDAS does not utilize surface temperature data ). Two issues with the NMM have been identified: 1) a bug that prevented much evaporation even under conditions of high soil moisture - this was fixed beginning 18 UTC June 24 and has a huge impact over wet soil, eliminating the large hot/dry bias, 2) a high bias in heights throughout the troposphere in FireWx runs with domains covering rugged topography (but not as much in any high-resolution window runs or eastern US FireWx runs) - the bias is around 20 meters plus a 10-meter diurnal oscillation (highest late afternoon) and is even a bit higher at high-elevation stations. The high heights do not affect temperatures or thicknesses (since the height bias is nearly the same at all levels up to the tropopause). 

A new air quality model is being tested over the northeast quarter of the US for use by the EPA and states as guidance for issuing air quality alerts. It is hoped that the air quality model will be operationally in place for next summer’s ozone season. Access will be restricted. The air quality model handles chemistry using Eta model fields for weather variables.


C. Marine Modeling and Analysis Branch (MMAB): Larry Burroughs reported that the

suite of wave models has been implemented except the North Pacific Hurricane model. Visibility fields produced off the GFS 4x/day are being evaluated by OPC (initial feedback is very favorable) are slated to be implemented in early summer of 2003, with plans for delivery of 3-hourly visibilities into AWIPS in response to field requests (see http://polar.wwb.noaa.gov/mmab/expt.html ) The web site for marine “TPB”s are http://polar.wwb.noaa.gov/mmab/tpbs


4. Next Meeting TUESDAY (not Monday) July 29th, 2003 at noon in room 209.