Announcement of Opportunity

With the Developmental Testbed Center

The Developmental Testbed Center (DTC) is a partnership between the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA), US Air Force and NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). The DTC is a multi-institutional organization whose staff are primarily affiliated with the NSF NCAR Research Applications Laboratory (RAL) and the NOAA Global Systems Laboratory (GSL).

The DTC offers visitor appointments through the DTC Visitor Program. The program supports visitors to collaborate with the DTC to test, evaluate and improve forecasting tools, verification techniques, or model components of weather forecasting systems, with the ultimate goal of facilitating the transition of innovations or advancements to operational forecasting systems run by the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) and Air Force (AF).

Prospective visitors are required to submit a proposal. Selected visitors will have a year to complete their project beginning on a mutually agreed upon start date, where some portion of the work can be conducted from their home institution. The program offers two types of projects: 1) projects undertaken by the Principal Investigator (PI), and 2) projects undertaken by a graduate student advised by the PI. The general parameters for these two types of projects are described below. To accommodate each visitor’s situation with flexibility, we encourage prospective visitors to contact us to determine whether a variant of these general parameters would be acceptable before submitting a proposal.

Projects by PI

Successful applicants for this type of project can request travel, per diem and an honorarium to work with the DTC staff and/or staff at one of the operational centers for up to two months. It is possible to distribute the two months of support over multiple visits, within reason, during the one-year period [Tips: Some past visitors have found it useful to plan an initial visit early in their visitor appointment, a second visit in the middle of their visitor appointment and a final visit near the end of their appointment, where the total number of travel days across the three trips is no more than two months]. Honorarium support is possible for some remote work at the visitor’s home institution. Support to attend conferences and publication costs related to the project may be requested.

Federal employees are not eligible for financial support through the DTC Visitor Program, and should contact the DTC Director Louisa Nance (nance@ucar.edu) to discuss other avenues for collaborating with the DTC.

Projects by a graduate student advised by the PI

Successful applicants for this type of project will be offered up to one year of living per diem stipend and travel expenses for the graduate student to work with the DTC staff and/or one of its partners [e.g., NCEP's Environmental Modeling Center (EMC)], and up to two weeks of travel and per diem for the project PI to visit the location of the graduate student. The graduate student is welcome to come for multiple shorter visits, within reason, over the one year period. Support to attend conferences and publication costs related to the project may also be requested.

1. Topics of Interest

This announcement is for an opportunity to work with the DTC to evaluate operational modeling systems in order to assess/identify deficiencies, evaluate new modeling technology that shows promise of improving weather forecasts within the next two to six years, or provide the DTC with promising new technology for research applications in accordance with chartered focus areas. We encourage interested parties to contact us by emailing visitor-program@dtcenter.org prior to submitting a proposal to discuss whether your project will be a good fit, particularly if the scope falls outside of the suggestions below.

1.1 TESTING AND EVALUATION, VERIFICATION METHODS, and MODEL IMPROVEMENT

Projects are particularly encouraged for model improvement and/or testing and evaluating new modeling, forecast, and verification technologies, such as:

• Testing and diagnostics related to uncovering problems related to model physics, initialization, model uncertainty, spread, ensemble design, and potential solutions.
• Testing and evaluation that demonstrates/applies cutting-edge verification methods
  • Metrics for coupled model systems, such as land-atmosphere coupling metrics, and process-oriented metrics for coupling between other Earth system components (atmosphere, ocean, and snow/ice).
  • Process-oriented metrics with a focus on the upper atmosphere, mid-latitudes, tropical cyclones, air quality, and polar regions.
  • Phenomena defined by multiple Earth system fields (e.g. drylines, snowbands, drought potential).
  • Spatial verification methods applied to fields other than precipitation (e.g. sea-ice extent, wind gusts, dust storms)
• Testing and evaluation of artificial intelligence (AI)/machine learning (ML) based prediction systems, or of modeling techniques that leverage AI/ML.

1.2 ADVANCING SOFTWARE TOOLS DEVELOPED BY DTC

The DTC develops and maintains two software tools that are core to its testing and evaluation activities: METplus (https://dtcenter.org/community-code/metplus) and CCPP (https://dtcenter.org/community-code/common-community-physics-package-ccpp) along with its companion single-column model (SCM). These tools facilitate Hierarchical System Development (HSD; cf. https://ufscommunity.org/articles/hierarchical-system-development-for-the-ufs/) for Earth System Modeling (ESM) systems such as the Unified Forecast System (UFS). HSD involves testing small elements of an ESM first in isolation, then progressively connecting these elements with increased coupling between ESM components.

Projects are encouraged that enhance these two software tools and/or the HSD framework, such as

• Interoperability of the CCPP Physics
• Enhancements to the CCPP Framework
• Physics innovations (new schemes or enhancements to existing ones) with the potential for improving forecast skill
• New canned cases or capabilities for the CCPP SCM
• New METplus use cases that demonstrate use of existing verification or diagnostic methodologies specified in the outcome of the 2021 DTC UFS Verification Workshop.

2. How To Apply

Potential topics of interest are outlined in Section 1. These topics are general and are intended as suggestions for the type of projects we will consider. Proposals for participation in the DTC Visitor Program should provide details on the specific work the visitor would conduct with the DTC and/or one of its partners (e.g., EMC). Previous DTC visitors are welcome to submit proposals for new projects or projects that build on past work. All proposals will be subjected to the same review process (see description below). The submitted material should include the following:

• Project description including a title, computational resource requirements (processing, disk space and storage), location of planned visit(s) and duration(s), if honorarium support is requested (PI projects only), and expected outcomes (up to 5 pages).
• Curriculum Vitae (1-2 pages).

As noted above, it is expected that the visitor will spend a residency of no more than two months (twelve months for a graduate student project) at the DTC, an operational center or a combination of time at the DTC and an operational center. The total duration of the project can continue for one year. It is expected that visitors will be able to continue their work from their own institution using DTC computational resources. We do allow for some flexibility within the general guidelines and encourage prospective visitors to contact us to discuss their ideas and configuration of their visit prior to applying.

Proposals in response to this announcement should be submitted through an online application form at: https://dtcenter.org/visitor-program/application.

3. Proposal Evaluation Process

Proposals submitted in response to this announcement will be subject to both internal and external review. The external review will be conducted by the DTC Science Advisory Board (SAB), which consists of scientists from government labs, operational centers, and academic institutions. The DTC Management Board will make the final decision based on recommendations to the DTC Director from the review by the DTC SAB. Focus categories for which the reviewers are asked to rate proposals include:

• Relevance to the DTC mission
• Feasibility
• Potential to influence future operational implementations
• Innovative research/scientific merit
• Alignment with current activities
• Relevance to the suggested topics in the DTC Visitor Program Announcement of Opportunity

4. Contact

Please send any questions/inquiries for the DTC Visitor Program to visitor-program@dtcenter.org