AMS Short Course on Experimentation and Development of Physical Parameterizations for Numerical Weather Prediction Using a single-column model and the Common Community Physics Package (CCPP)

The AMS Short Course on Experimentation and Development of Physical Parameterizations for Numerical Weather Prediction Using a single-column model and the Common Community Physics Package (CCPP)  was held on 12 January 2020 preceding the 100th AMS Annual Meeting in Boston, MA. 

The goal of this course was to familiarize participants with new tools for experimentation and development of physical parameterizations for Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP). Students were exposed to the physics suites available through the Common Community Physics Package (CCPP), a library of physical parameterizations that is in use with NOAA’s Unified Forecast System. Supported suites include the operational GFS, the suite under development for the next operational GFS implementation, the suite used by the Rapid Refresh and High-Resolution Rapid Refresh (RAP/HRRR) models, and a suite developed under the auspices of a NOAA Climate Process Team.

In this course, the CCPP was taught in conjunction with the Global Model Test Bed (GMTB) single-column model, a simplified framework that enables experimentation in a controlled setting. Various research cases were provided as forcing datasets for the single-column model, all originating from experimental field campaigns focused on specific meteorological phenomena, such as a DOE-ARM LASSO case focused on shallow convection and a TWP-ICE case focused on maritime deep convection. In addition to its conceptual simplicity, the single-column model is not computationally demanding and can be executed on computers readily available to graduate students or in the cloud. 

Instructors include Developmental Testbed Center subject matter experts from NOAA Global Systems Division and the National Center for Atmospheric Research.