# Presentation: 001917

## Developmental Testbed Center (DTC)Bob Gall 

**June 2004**

## Vision

**   ****The DTC will be a facility where the NWP communities interact to ****accelerate testing and evaluation**** of new models and techniques**** ****for research applications and ****operational implementation****, in a way that doesn’t interfere with current operations. **

## Why Do We Need a DTC

**Currently in the US the transfer of new NWP science and technology from research into operations is inefficient.  **
***Primarily conducted at the operational centers***
***It does not take advantage of the considerable talent elsewhere in the research community***
**Presently the research and operations NWP communities have divergent goals and insufficient opportunities to collaborate in an operations-like environment.**
**There is nowhere that these communities can join to perform extensive rigorous model testing using a common model and operational data stream without disrupting operations.**

## Goals

**Link Research and Operational Communities**
**Speed transition of research results into operations**
**Accelerate improvement in weather forecasts**
**Develop and test promising new NWP techniques**
**Provide an opportunity for NWP community to perform cycled or real-time tests of model and data assimilation systems **

## The Flow of Science from Research to Operations in the WRF Era:Bridging the “Valley of Death”

- DTC

- NCO

**Navy**

**NCEP**

- FNMOC

-  **Air  Force**

- AFWA

- OTC-
- NCEP

- OTC-
- Air Force

- OTC-
- Navy

- The research community:

***NCAR***

***Universities***

***EMC***

***NOAA Labs***

***NRL***

***NASA***

***Others***

## Desired Outcomes

**   **
**The DTC will have...**
**Established a repeatable process of testing WRF Contributed Codes for elevation to Reference Code status**
**Established an ongoing system for maintaining and supporting  WRF Reference Code to the community**
**Established a sustained flow of rigorously tested new science and technologies to operations**
**Established a process for testing and evaluating new NWP science and technologies and retrospective testing of operational model systems**
**Established a working relationship between the research and operational communities**

## Basic Structure of the DTC

**The physical center will be located in Boulder. Components at NCAR and FSL.**
**Components will be distributed at other locations**
***NRL***
***Visitors at their home institution***
***Other?***

## The DTC Architecture

**WRF**

**Community**

**Supercomputing**
**Centers**

**Operational Testbed Centers**

**NCEP / AFWA / FNMOC**

**Co-Laboratory**

**Visitor Program**

**Developmental Testbed Center**

**GCE**

**GCE—Grid Computing Environment**

## Phased Implementation

**Phase 1**
***Initial DTC Implementation (FY03-FY05)***
**Phase 2**
***Fully Functional DTC (FY06-FY07)***
**Phase 3**
***Unified Modeling in the DTC (FY08-FY09)***
**Ocean Modeling, Global modeling...**

## Phased Implementation

**Phase 1**
**Began WRF Test Plan for operational implementation of Mesoscale Ensemble**
**Strengthened working relationship between DTC partners (NCEP. AFWA, FSL, NCAR)**
**Completed the basic WRF Reference Code including NMM, and EM cores and ported to FSL, NCAR and AFWA computers.**
**WRF EM core implemented at NCEP for real-time predictions**

## Phased Implementation

**Phase 1**
***FY04 ***
**Complete and evaluate WRF Test Plan**
***Critical for NCEP IOC of WRF in FY04***
**Begin providing WRF code to the community ( both NMM and EM cores)**
**Begin visitor program (University and NCEP scientists)**
***Model verification, testing WRF Physics packages...***
**Build on the development and testing in FY04 and examine questions raised in FY03 testing**
***Optimal configuration of mesoscale ensembles***
***Optimal physics packages for WRF***
***Develop verification infrastructure***
***Impact of number and distribution of vertical levels in the two cores***
**Real-time high resolution (4km) forecast test over the Mid-Western US with NWS forecasters for convection season**
**Begin planning for DTC computational Enviromnent**
***	******	******	***

## Western HRW – February 2003 – Surface T – 30 h forecast

## Current Activities within the DTC

**Visitor program this summer**
***Bill Gallus ( Iowa State Univ)—Ensemble techniques***
**a doctoral student—Verification techniques**
***Dave Dempsey (San Francisco State Univ)—Impact of Physics packages***
***Ying Lin (NCEP)—Verification Techniques***
***One additional university visitor—TBD***
**	****	****	****	****	****	****	****	****	**

## Additional DTC Projects after start of 05

**Conduct a real-time 4km forecast experiment over the CONUS.  Emphasis on Eastern US for the winter season**

## FY 04 Funding

**NCAR**
***$250K***
***Computer Resources ($40K/month, $200K special request)***
***Space Allocation ($90K)***
**NOAA OAR**
***$350K***
***Two reassigned NOAA positions ($300K)***
***Computer Resources (IJET  $40K per month)***
**NOAA NWS**
***$300K***
**Total from all sources including computer resources**
***$2.4M***
**                                                   **

## Eventual Annual BudgetEnd of Phase 3

**Visitor Program****	****	****	****	****	****$1.0 M**
**13 FTE technical staff****	****	****	****	****$2.9 M**
**Other personnel 3 FTE (Admin, Director) ****	****$0.7 M**
**Enhancement to computing, **
**	****networking and storage****	****	****	****$0.6 M**
**Space ****	****	****	****	****	****	****$0.2 M**
**Travel and other ****	****	****	****	****$0.1 M**
**Total****	****	****	****	****	****	****$5.5 M****	****	****	**

## End