Brian Etherton and Zoltan Toth

DEVELOPMENTAL TESTBED CENTER (DTC)

ENSEMBLE TEAM (DET)

Acknowledgements:

Bill Kuo, Louisa Nance, Barbara Brown

June 27, 2012

WHAT IS THE DEVELOPMENTAL TESTBED CENTER?

The Developmental Testbed Center (DTC) is a distributed facility where the NWP community can test and evaluate new models and techniques for use in research and operations

Established in 2003 as a multi-agency effort

Objective

To serve as a bridge between research and operations to facilitate the activities of both halves of the NWP Community in pursuit of their own objectives

Benefits Research community gets a functionally equivalent operational

environment to test and evaluate new NWP methods in retrospective extended period tests using advanced tools

Operational community benefits from DTC testing and evaluation of strengths and weaknesses of new NWP advances prior to consideration for operational implementation

DTC ARCHITECTURE

The Developmental Testbed Center (DTC) is a distributed facility where the NWP community can test and evaluate new models and techniques for use in research and operations

DTC Director’s Office

Mesoscale Modeling

Hurricanes Data

Assimilation Ensembles Verification

DTC Visitor Program

Five Task Areas

Each task has a task lead, 2 being from NOAA, 3 from NCAR

Crossover

A number of activities (NEMS, SREF, GSI-Hybrid) span more than one

of these task areas.

DTC ORGANIZATION CHART

FORMATION OF DTC ENSEMBLE TEAM IN FY2010 Confluence of necessary ingredients

Need

Strong interest from both community & agencies

Knowledge base

Roadmap from Sept 2009 Workshop

National Workshop on Mesoscale Probabilistic Prediction at NCAR

Opportunity

Increase in funding for DTC from NOAA

Initiative

DTC Director’s Office sets planning process in motion (Oct 09)

DTC ENSEMBLE TEAM MAJOR TASKS

Develop and maintain DTC Ensemble infrastructure Establish NCEP operational system as benchmark Test and evaluate new community methods Transition successful methods to NCEP and other agencies Link up with ensemble work in other test-beds / projects

Input from DET Workshop & revived WRF Ensemble WG Close collaboration with NCEP

Link research & operational communities O2R – Operational codes and requirements from operations to research R2O – Testable techniques from research to operations

Constraints Limited funding ~ 3 FTEs

GSD & NCAR collaborative effort

No funding for research Except via very limited visitor program

Initial focus on mesoscales

INFRASTRUCTURE

Objective Assemble software and procedures to carry out main function of testing

and evaluation of community methods

Structure Six modules identified

Ensemble configuration Initial perturbations Ensemble generation – meso-specific Model-related uncertainty Statistical post-processing Products / services Use of info – general, applies to all ensembles Verification

Requirements Modularity to facilitate transition to operations Portability for ease of execution where computational resources are

available Flexibility to allow testing of new ideas

The DTC is working to

enable the infrastructure

for testing and evaluation

of promising techniques

for transition to

operations.

Applications to all the

modules shown are

invited.

Module 1:

Configuration/Workflow

Module 2:

Initial Perturbations

External

Input (Testbeds,

Operations,

Community)

Module 3:

Model Perturbations

Module 4:

Statistical Post-Processing

Module 5:

Product Generation

Module 6:

Verification

INFRASTRUCTURE

As implemented at DTC, the bias correction reduces the RMSE of 2m temperature forecasts, and the downscaling adds further improvement.

ARW and NMM members of SREF 2011 – 0900 UTC Initialization

Compared to RTMA Analyses

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Downscaling code used in

NAEFS ported to DTC in

early summer

Testing/evaluation of the

application of this code to

the existing NCEP SREF

output showed forecast

improvement

DTC code sent to EMC for

application to the new

NCEP SREF, implemented

in approximately 2 days,

with downscaled forecasts

being produced since

December 7th

Raw SREFx, Bias corrected SREFx, and downscaled

SREFx forecasts (initialized 2100UTC 12 Jan 2012, valid

1200UTC 16 Jan 2012, 87-hour forecasts)

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

SHORT TERM PLANS

North America Ensemble Assemble software and procedures to carry out main function of testing

and evaluation of community methods Tap into NMMB workflows of EMC Tap into NMM and ARW workflows of GSD/HMT ensemble Combine to produce SREF replica

Evaluate application for prediction of heavy precipitation (HMT)

GSI-Hybrid for HWRF Testing and evaluation of components of system

Post-Processing Make use of NCEP, AFWA, and CAPS products codes

Integrate Field Alignment (Sai Ravela, MIT) into system

In consultation with NOAA/EMC, NOAA/HPC, AWC, ESRL/PSD, and

other partners, the decision was made to combine the workflows of the

NCEP-NMMB model with the workflows of the GSD/HMT ensemble

(ARW and NMM models) and run a North American domain.

• Apply lessons learned at FAB, and elsewhere, to national scale.

• Start from NCEP SREF style configuration (WRF-ARW, WRF-NMM, NMMB model cores), but test alternate initial conditions, model physics (based upon FAB/HMT work as well as community input).

• Tap into new high performance computing (zeus)

• Test domain:

9km outer, 3km inner nest.

Run time: 4 hours (240 procs: 72hr 9km / 24hr 3km)

NORTH AMERICA ENSEMBLE (SREF REPLICA)

In consultation with ESRL/PSD, AOML, HFIP, and other partners, the

decision was made to produce an experimental 27km HWRF

Ensemble Test alternate initial

conditions, model

physics (based upon

FAB work as well as

community input).

Input to ensemble data

assimilation.

Develop products from

ensemble as well.

GSI-HYBRID FOR HWRF (BASINSCALE)

DTC Ensemble Team is focused on testing and evaluation of

community developments for transition to operations

North America Ensemble framework, for possible transition to

NCEP SREF

Basinscale HWRF Ensemble framework, for possible transition to

NCEP HWRF ensemble (2014)

DTC is O2R and R2O

Initial focus on mesoscale, but focus can change over time.

Engagement with the community

This joint session – thanks for extending your stay in Boulder.

Joint workshop with NUOPC in September on ensemble design.

SUMMARY