Aviation Digital Data Service
Displays and Java applets were standardized so that the ADDS is more appealing and easier to use. Load and display
time speeds of the Java applets were addressed. A process/product monitor was implemented at AWC to help in moving
operational support to AWC. An AWIPS/Linux system was set up and modified to handle the creation of all automated
JPEG satellite images.
Advanced Traffic Management System
The branch developed Northern Hemisphere Jet Stream and Winds Aloft products for dissemination on the Volpe center's
ATMS system. The product uses high-resolution RUC data and AVN data in the creation of the products.
FAA Traffic Management Units
The branch is building and deploying client and server FX-Connect systems for the Dallas/Fort Worth CWSU,
Dallas/Fort Worth WFO, and the AWC. These systems will be deployed and operational in the early part of 2001.
WorldWide Weather Workstation
An AWIPS/Linux system was used to prove that the W4 concept can work. In collaboration with the
International Division, the branch successfully sent and received compressed gridded AVN datasets which were then
displayed on the AWIPS system. An AWIPS/Linux system was set up with a Colombian localization that was used at the
American Meteorological Society Annual Conference to demonstrate W4 concepts.
Projections
AWIPS/FX-Advanced at the Aviation Weather Center
The branch will continue to increase the amount of aviation data that are available to the aviation forecasters at
the AWC. Work will continue with the Product Development Teams (PDTs) of the Aviation Weather Research Program to
incorporate their datasets into the AWIPS framework and make them available to the forecasters. The National
Convective Weather Forecast will be incorporated into the Convective SIGMET tool as a first guess field for the
next hour's Convective SIGMET product.
Aviation Digital Data Service
Staff will continue refining aspects of the ADDS and adding new features. A proof of concept will be demonstrated
for pilots and Flight Service Stations (FSSs). This will mark the first time that pilots can simultaneously view
and discuss a weather briefing for their flight with FSS personnel. The branch will also add the ability for the
ADDS system to ingest "PILOT" reports from pilots carrying palm pilots. Java applets will be enhanced to give
global coverage for aviation impact variables (AIVs).
Advanced Traffic Management System Project
The Northern Hemisphere Jet Stream and Winds Aloft products will become operational on the Enhanced Traffic
Management System (ETMS) at the Volpe center in early 2001. Staff will work to incorporate the 40-km version
of the Rapid Update Cycle (RUC) at the Volpe center as part of the Northern Hemisphere product set, to replace
the 80-km RUC Family of Services version on the Eta domain. Volpe staff have expressed an interest to add the
Canadian Eta grid to their Northern Hemisphere winds aloft product. The branch is also planning to work with
the Volpe center in adding the National Convective Forecast Weather product developed by NCAR to the ATMS/ETMS
data streams.
FAA Traffic Management Units
Working with the Modernization Division, branch staff will enhance the FX-Connect system so that NCWF data can be
displayed and used by forecasters in developing Terminal Area, Gate Area, and Center Area forecasts. Once products
have been identified for these three areas, work will begin on automating the creation of the products. Additional
PDT products will be added to the system, as well as AIV products and aviation background maps.
WorldWide Weather Workstation
The branch will work with the International Division as required to create localizations and set up AWIPS/Linux for
delivery at remote sites.
Advanced Computing Branch
Thomas B. Henderson, Chief
Objectives
The main objective of the Advanced Computing Branch is to advance the future production of high-resolution analysis
and forecast systems through research and development in high-performance computing. This is accomplished in part
by porting numerical geophysical models from FSL, the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP), and other
organizations to high-performance computing architectures. These new state-of-the-art architectures, typically
composed of commodity off-the-shelf components, offer a less costly alternative to traditional computers for the fast,
efficient production of numerical forecasts.
In pursuit of their goals, branch scientists have developed a high-level directive-based parallelization tool called
the Scalable Modeling System (SMS). Traditional serial Fortran programs are parallelized by adding SMS directives,
in the form of Fortran comments, to the serial Fortran source code. The source code translation component of SMS is
then used to automatically transform code to parallel form, inserting calls to SMS subroutines that perform interprocess
communication and other parallel operations as needed.
The SMS subroutines form a software layer between the prediction model's source code and Message Passing Interface (MPI),
the industry standard for interprocessor communication. This layered approach provides SMS users with ease of use and
minimal impact to their code, portability, and high performance. Source codes that include SMS directives are fully
portable to a large subset of existing high-performance computers, Unix workstations, and symmetric multiprocessors
(SMPs). SMS provides high-performance scalable I/O and supports both native and portable file formats. Also, data
ordering in files is independent of the number of processors used. Further, since parallel operations are implemented
as a layered set of routines, machine-dependent optimizations can be made inside SMS without impacting the model source
code. User-specified optimizations are also possible; for example, the execution of redundant computations to avoid
time-consuming interprocessor communication will reduce run times in some cases.
SMS also provides tools to assist in testing and debugging parallel programs. Several weather and ocean analysis and
prediction models have been parallelized using SMS, including FSL's Quasi-nonhydrostatic (QNH) model, FSL's Rapid
Update Cycle (RUC), FSL's Local Analysis and Prediction System (LAPS), Rutgers University/UCLA's Regional Ocean
Modeling System (ROMS), Central Weather Bureau's Typhoon Forecast System (TFS) in Taiwan, and NCEP's Eta. Computer
architectures supported by the SMS include the IBM SP2, Cray T3E, SGI Origin 2000, Fujitsu VPP, Sun E10000, H-P Exemplar,
Linux clusters (both Intel and Compaq Alpha based) with Myrinet, and other Unix workstations and SMPS.
Accomplishments
The branch continued development and enhancement of the functionality and portability of the SMS. The most significant
newly developed features are run-time debugging tools, support for nested models, and support for commonly used Fortran90
syntax such as dynamic memory allocation. New documentation was written: the SMS User's Guide, the SMS Reference Manual,
and an overview white paper.
In collaboration with FSL personnel outside the branch and with other institutions, the branch continued efforts on the
development of the I/O API for the Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) model. Working closely with NCAR and others, the
initial version of the model's I/O API was implemented and released with the first WRF prototype.
During the last year, much progress was made on parallelization efforts, as follows:
- Parallelization of a singly nested version of the TFS model for the Taiwan Central Weather Bureau.
- Parallelization of portions of the LAPS model.
- Parallelization of the Regional Ocean Modeling System (ROMS) to support Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL).
- Parallelization of NCEP's Eta model using SMS and comparison o fperformance with NCEP's hand-parallelized version.
Performance was identical, but the SMS version is much easier to maintain, test, port, and upgrade.
Other activities included continued support for the parallelized RUC and QNH models, as needed. Assistance was provided
to users of the High-Performance Computing System at FSL. The branch also continued its support of the HPCS management
team with planning and guidance regarding hardware and software upgrades.
Projections
Branch plans during Fiscal Year 2001 include:
- Continue to develop and enhance SMS.
- Complete parallelization of the fully-nested version of the Typhoon Forecast System (TFS) for the Taiwan CWB.
- Parallelize an atmospheric chemistry code for the Aeronomy Laboratory.
- Parallelize an ocean model for the Environmental Technology Laboratory.
- Continue to participate in the design and implementation of the WRF model.
- Continue to support users of SMS and of FSL's High-Performance Computing System.
- Provide SMS user training.
- Publish results in conference proceedings and journals.
- Support acceptance testing and integration of HPCS upgrade.
