UNC-CH SABSOON Partnership Work Plan for First 6-month period.

The UNC-CH Partnership includes R. Luettich, H. Seim, and F. Werner, and largely deals with implementation of hydrodynamic model systems, coordination with the meteorological model and acquisition of available in situ data. The roles and tasks of the UNC-CH partnership for the duration of the funding period include:

implementation of the SAB model and operational now/forecast system
assimilation of HYCOM (GODAE) products
incorporation of meteorological model products.
identification and acquisition of additional in situ data

Recall these model descriptions, in the context of the NOPP/SABSOON modeling proposal.

QUODDY - A baroclinic ocean model, with high resolution in the limited area of SABSOON. It will be initialized from its own previous forecast, subject to some analysis (as yet undetermined). Forcing will be by ETA forecast wind stress, pressure, and heat flux; and by the ADCIRC forecast sea level. Responsibility: Brian Blanton, UNC-Chapel Hill.
ADCIRC A barotropic ocean model, on a wide-area grid. It will be initialized with its own prior forecast, forced by NCEP atmospheric forecast products, and produce forecasts of detided barotropic pressure containing the far-field wind-band repsonse to NCEP forecast forcing. Responsibility: Rick Luettich, UNC-Moorehead City.
ETA - A standard meteorological model, implemented for a limited-area, high-resolution met. forecast in the SAB region. It will be initialized with NCEP data products. Responsibility: Pat Welsh, NWS-Jacksonville.

The 6-month workplan for each point above is elaborated upon below. Recall that the Consortium's 6-month goal is to have in place at NCSC a SYSTEM which consists of the three separate models and their orchestration to operate in harmony to produce and archive, in forecasting and non-assimilating mode, a sequence of seven three-day forecasts, on a daily interval.

Implementation of the SAB model and operational now/forecast system
Grid Development. The grid that ADCIRC will use in the wide-area pressure field computations must be determined. The most recent domain, with the most comprehensive bathymetric and coastline data bases, may require the parallel version of ADCIRC for computations to proceed in a timely and integrated manner. Using the northwest Atlantic grid selected by R. Luettich, several appropriate subgrids will be extracted for the following purposes: 1) climatology, 2) tower-region OSSE's, 3) Cape Hatteras region OSSE's using existing Mineral Management Service mooring data for experimentation. This will allow consistency of bathymetry for all oceanic grids from the large-scale to the limited-area inversion.
Climatology. We will be constructing an initial climatology for the SAB consisting of hydrographic, surface atmospheric, and initial "Fundy" solutions. This will be geared toward serving as an initial Best Prior Estimates for initial inversion runs. The atmospheric climatology will be derived from COADS as well as meteorological model Reanalysis from NCEP and ECMWF. Surface parameters of wind stress, heat flux, pressure, etc. will be computed.
Implementation. Together with our NWS partner, the 3 models (described above) will be installed and synchronized at NCSC, with initial tests of the acquisition of external data sources. This primarily refers to the national ETA grid results to drive the smaller-region ETA which in turn provides surface flux parameters to both ADCIRC and QUODDY. Historically, our operational systems using ADCIRC and QUODDY have relied on NCEP's AVN model for flux parameters. The switch to ETA products will involve some decoding (de-GRiBbing, specifically) and interpolation to hydrodynamic model grids (using OAX?).

Data Exchange. The data exchange between the 3 models will be addressed. A common exchange format, or a smooth method for on-the-fly "conversion" will need to be determined. Additionally, the data stream automatically acquiring external data as well as providing intermdeiate data from one model to the nest will begin initial design, wit the goal of a hands-off automatically retrieval design analogous to that implemented for the GB-RTDA work.
Incorporation of HYCOM (GODAE) products As discussed at the first PI planning meeting (October 29-31, 2000 at NCSC), the time schedule for the operational HYCOM results will not allow full integration of the HYCOM forecast fields into the SABSOON operational model system. Initial contacts with the HYCOM Consortium (primarily E. Chassignet) will be strengthened to understand the HYCOM-GODAE time scales. Initial progress can be made, however, using HYCOM/MICOM Reanalysis results, whose availability appears imminent.
Incorporation of meteorological model products. Organization of the data exchange between the met. models and hydrod. models will require a good archival strategy. The NWS's (P. Welsh) experience will be invaluable here. Essentially, the national ETA model will provide surface flux parameters to ADCIRC and initial and boundary conditions for the 10-km ETA model operated by P. Welsh. The identification of the ETA products to use for ADCIRC will be determined in the near future.
Identification and acquisition of additional in situ data sources. The sources of additional in situ data will be identified. Automated methods and pathways for its retrieval will be designed and implemented, along with an appropriate archival strategy.

Burma-Shave.

Definitions/Abbreviations/Acronyms:

AVN: NCEP's upper-level air current (aviation) global, spectral forecasting model
COADS: Comprehensive Ocean-Atmosphere Data Set
ECMWF: European Centre for Medium-Range Forecasting
ETA: NCEP's national/regional forecasting model
GODAE: Global Ocean Data Assimilation Experiment
HYCOM: HYbrid-Coordinate Ocean Model version of MICOM
MICOM: Miami Isopycnal Coordinate Ocean Model
NCEP: National Center for Environmental Prediction
NCSC: North Carolina Supercomputing Center, Alias MCNC
OSSE:Observational System simulation Experiment
RTDA: Real-Time Data Assimilation