NOAA’s CENTER for OPERATIONAL OCEANOGRAPHIC PRODUCTS and SERVICESNOAA’s CENTER for OPERATIONAL OCEANOGRAPHIC PRODUCTS and SERVICES

SLT Informational Briefingfor

San Francisco Bay Operational Forecast System(SFBOFS)

Product Lead – Darren WrightProject Lead – Machuan Peng

August 14, 2012

NOAA’s CENTER for OPERATIONAL OCEANOGRAPHIC PRODUCTS and SERVICESNOAA’s CENTER for OPERATIONAL OCEANOGRAPHIC PRODUCTS and SERVICES

Project Goals This project will develop and implement the San

Francisco Bay Operational Forecast System (SFBOFS)

Develop and test SFBOFS on NOAA’S HPC-COMF. Implement and evaluate the nowcast and forecast system in

development mode. Develop and complete graphic products and SFBOFS web pages. Compare the forecast results against observation and complete

nowcast/forecast skill assessment report. Work with NCEP and CSDL to transition SFBOFS to operations.

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Technical Approach

FVCOM (Finite Volume Coastal Ocean Model) will be employed to make forecast for water level, 3-D velocity, temperature, salinity in San Francisco Bay area.

Installation of SFBOFS on COMF (Coastal Ocean Modeling Framework) on NOAA CCS to ensure model’s robust performance.

Develop technical documentation describing OFS operation and maintenance.

NOAA’s CENTER for OPERATIONAL OCEANOGRAPHIC PRODUCTS and SERVICESNOAA’s CENTER for OPERATIONAL OCEANOGRAPHIC PRODUCTS and SERVICES

Technical Approach

Major Features-Three dimensional unstructured grid

-Wetting and drying module (new)

-81065x15380 nodes

-Vertical sigma coordinate system

-20 vertical layers

-4 cycles/day

NOAA’s CENTER for OPERATIONAL OCEANOGRAPHIC PRODUCTS and SERVICESNOAA’s CENTER for OPERATIONAL OCEANOGRAPHIC PRODUCTS and SERVICES

Long-term goals

Provide accurate and reliable operational forecast system in San Francisco Bay region and improve NOS’ OFS performance in shallow water.

The completion of this project will potentially pave the way for future bio-physical, ecosystem operational forecast in shallow waters.

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BenefitsCO-OPS has new OFS to support PORTS products SFBOFS is expected to provide reliable forecast of sea level, water

temperature, salinity and velocity in San Francisco Bay region.

Stakeholders will benefit from this forecast system US Coast Guard, Navy, harbor pilots, professional and recreational mariners

(safe navigation). SFBOFS provides necessary forecast results to EPA, USGS and academia. The forecast also gives valuable info to NOAA Office of Response and

Restoration for oil spill and other disaster mitigations.

This OFS could serve as foundation for other efforts within NOS and CO-OPS

Tri-office project America’s Cup Transit Time application Eco-forecasting

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Major Timelines

CSDL deliver SFBOFS code to CO-OPS 12/12 SFBOFS testing on CCS 01/13 Web development 02/13 Complete nowcast/forecast skill assessment 03/13 Pseudo-production implementation 04/13 Initial code delivery to NCO 05/13 NCO parallel testing 08/13 Production implementation 09/13 Complete SFBOFS SOP 10/13

NOAA’s CENTER for OPERATIONAL OCEANOGRAPHIC PRODUCTS and SERVICESNOAA’s CENTER for OPERATIONAL OCEANOGRAPHIC PRODUCTS and SERVICES

Resources

SFBOFS is estimated at 15 months: labor hour is estimated at 2487 OD and 334 for ISD

OD OD/Project Lead OD/Technical Lead OD/Oceanographer (Testing, web product development)

ISD Graphics product development Unix system administrator Stuff

Note: another 11 labor hours go to communication plan

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Risk Assessment & Mitigation

Technical Risks FVCOM instability for shallow water

Work with FVCOM developers SFBOFS in quasi-operational model in support of America’s

Cup Will run on NCEP development server under CO-OPS

account

Schedule Risks NCEP moratorium

Work with CSDL before moratorium is lifted

Resource Risks Only three employees in modeling group

More people if possible

NOAA’s CENTER for OPERATIONAL OCEANOGRAPHIC PRODUCTS and SERVICESNOAA’s CENTER for OPERATIONAL OCEANOGRAPHIC PRODUCTS and SERVICES

Communication Plan

As the 34th America’s Cup will occur in San Francisco Bay from July 4 to September 21, 2013, the rollout of this project seems very meaningful and timely. During the event, SFBOFS cannot be run in operational mode according to the project’s schedule. However, we will attempt to provide the sailors and event organizers pseudo-production forecast guidance on surface wind, current, water temperature and other variables by running the model in quasi-operations mode. Meanwhile project outreach will be conducted for potential NOAA and non-NOAA users. Talks and posters will be presented in scientific conferences as the project moves forward. Brief meeting with communication specialist of CO-OPS has been done recently and more detailed outreach plan will be approved soon.

NOAA’s CENTER for OPERATIONAL OCEANOGRAPHIC PRODUCTS and SERVICESNOAA’s CENTER for OPERATIONAL OCEANOGRAPHIC PRODUCTS and SERVICES

Questions & Discussion