Unidata Users Committee Meeting Summary

12-13 March
Boulder, Colorado

Meeting Agenda

Meeting Action Items/Resolutions

Members: Jim Steenburgh, Univ of Utah, Chair	UPC Staff:
Elen Cutrim, Western Michigan Univ	Steve Chiswell
Charles Graves, St Louis Univ	Ethan Davis
Anton Kruger, Univ of Iowa	Ben Domenico
Mark Laufersweiler, Univ of Oklahoma	Emily Doremire
Michael Morgan, Univ of Wisc-Madison	Steve Emmerson
Donna Tucker, Univ of Kansas	Joanne Graham
Michael Voss, San Jose State Univ	Jo Hansen
	Linda Miller
	Don Murray
	Mohan Ramamurthy
	Russ Rew
	Jeff Weber
Special Guest:	Anne Wilson
Jack Fellows, Director, UCAR Office of Programs	Tom Yoksas

Administrative:

• The next Users Committee will be held 7-8 October 2004
• Tom Mote, Univ of Georgia and Tom Whittaker, Technical Advisor, absent
• Steve Ackerman, Unidata Policy Committee member, will act as the Policy Committee Liaison
• Melanie Wetzel, previous Liaison, has become Chair of the Policy Committee
• Review of Action Items:
  • Letters to Deans and Systems Administrators (or technical site contacts) are in process of completion
  • Resolution for Case Studies-ongoing
  • Summer workshop information will be saved from one workshop to another to facilitate planning, "message in a bottle" approach (Laufersweiler, Morgan and Kruger are working on this effort)
  • Equipment Grants Panel Review took place 10 February. Final results will be made available in approximately one month
  • Message in the Bottle-in preparation
  • Letter of support for a possible UCAR award was provided by the Users Committee for LDM development staff
  • More suggestions by the panel members have been made to streamline the Equipment Awards process
  • DeSouza Award-solicitation-completed with award going to Dan Vietor
  • NDFD cannot be included in the CONDUIT datastream, but will continue to review
  • Phone survey by Users Committee members was fruitful, report below
  • Regional workshop discussion took place with Rich Clark and Dave Fitzgerald, Millersville University-see below for details
  • Orientation continues to be conducted for new Users Committee and Policy Committee members
    • acronyms have been added to the Web site for reference by new members
  • Scientific Review Committee, NCEP-in process, will continue tracking formation of committee to include a Users Committee representative
  • Floater action – Tom Yoksas –addresses below
  • Unidata Users Committee thanked NCAR/SCD for providing delayed mode access to data.

Policy Committee Report - Jim Steenburgh

• Meeting frequency discussed for both the Policy Committee and the Users Committee (currently three times per year for Policy Committee)
• Does the Users Committee need a third meeting?
• Committee discussion: Stick with two except for years of workshop planning
• Unidata is distributing 7.2 TB of data per week, making them a top user of Internet2
• Tim Spangler-RT data is flowing to the Caribbean education community
  • Planning a workshop in Miami – Action-Tim S provide information in an email regarding meeting in Miami for interest
• FY05-NSF 3% increase
  See $$ increases
• NOAA budget-CSTAR program may see a boost in funding this year
• NWS interested in solution for NDFD grids - comments are welcome

Resolution 1: The Users Committee recommends to the Policy Committee that the Users Committee continues to meet twice per year, with the option of holding a 3rd Users Committee meeting during summer workshop years.

UCAR/NCAR Realignment - Jack Fellows

Jack Fellows was invited to the Users Committee meeting to provide an overview and update of the NCAR Realignment activities. Following are bulletted items covered during his discussion, including Users Committee comments.

• Overview of current structure of UCAR/NCAR/UOP
• Some of the reasons for considering reorganization include:
  • Approximately 60% of funding from NSF-the remaining budget comes from other agencies
  • Current cooperative agreement-2003-2008 requires a series of reviews starting in 2006
  • Proposal Review Panel recommended realignment
  • Reorganization would provide an adaptive center
  • Create new modes of university collaboration
  • Increase interdisciplinary activities
  • NCAR Director, Tim Killeen, has 13 direct reports
    • Would like to reduce the number of direct reports
    • Redefine job descriptions to focus on community support and service
  • NSB-2003 approved all funds for proposal-over half billion dollars
  • NSB tasked the NSF/ATM to do a study;
    • NSF tasked the BASC to conduct the study
  • Effective balance among the types of research and activities
  • Balance among stakeholders
  • Centralized and distributed communication infrastructure
  • NCAR has strategic plan approved by Board of Trustees
  • Is the organization flexible, multiple investigators projects
  • Need to reduce stove-piping
  • Criteria defined
  • Proposed reorganization chart
    • Reorganization is proposing three institutes to facilitate collaborative projects with the community
    • Implementation begins in June, 2004, but will be gradual
  • Additional points made for reorganization include:
  • Organize to make more agile
  • Co-authored papers between NCAR groups were sparse when compared to co-authored papers with external community
  • Positioning NCAR to be more competitive
  • Merger-UOP groups are service oriented-community driven
  • Great philosophy for community support-if merged, NCAR would gain value
  • Question of management and how it might help for competition
  • Reorganization must include a balance between Boulder and university, and metrics for organization
  • There is a need to engage the UOP committees and community before any action is taken relative to a merger
  • Unidata might fit in Computational & Information Systems Lab with SCD or the IMAGE Institute, but could fit elsewhere too
  • Policy Committee discussion with Rick Anthes was congenial
• Policy Committee discussion with Jack Fellows revealed a discomfort with the idea of the potential merging of Unidata with NCAR
• Users Committee Discussions included:
• What happens in tough budget times at NSF
• Will animosity be created between universities and NCAR if NCAR continues to go to NSF for more funding?
• How do you promote the collaboration – shuffling of same programs into different areas, but they may continue to function in the same manner
• Incentives need to be provided – How about an Opportunity Fund to promote collaborations?
• “Center” is important aspect to provide community service and governance.
• UCAR could continue separately from NCAR, due to alternate funding, i.e., NASA, NOAA, DOE.
• Can UCAR stand on its own?
• It could cost NSF up to $5M to recompete the NCAR contract.
• NSF funds science & technology centers, e.g. radar.
• It could be divided into various fields (centers).
• Difficult to imagine focus of all centers and the coordination aspect of the centers
• Stovepiping does take place in NCAR-some staff do not know what Unidata is or does
• Other discussions:
• CUAHSI-hydrology-modeled after UCAR-emulate
• COMET is the first UOP program to be getting some NCAR funding
• MeteoForum- receiving funding from UOP STORM fund
• Support has not been funded for some NCAR projects, e.g., MM5
  • Effort has shifted from MM5 to WRF
• Should Users Committee put together list of considerations
  • Benefits/consequences
  • Need to mention support received from Unidata
  • Who sets priorities if merged?
  • Will notion of Users Committee still exist if merged?
  • Question of fees for Unidata – many years ago Unidata sites had to pay for satellite broadcast and radar service (don't want to return to those days)
  • Consensus of relationship to UOP and NCAR?
  • Suggest that Institutes have Users Committees for guidance and interactions with Unidata
  • Should we create an opportunity fund for UCAR-action item?
  • Building collaborations important whether there is a merger or not
  • Need to communicate to the Policy Committee the value of enhancing collaboration between UOP and NCAR and the importance of exploring ways to work together

Resolution 2 (revised and passed unanimously-30 Mar 04): The Users Committee believes that the Unidata community would benefit from enhanced interactions between Unidata and NCAR and encourages the Policy Committee to work with UCAR to create ways, such as an opportunity fund initiative, to improve such interactions. The Users Committee, however, has strong concerns about more dramatic changes, such as a merger of NCAR and UOP.

Director's Report - Mohan Ramamurthy

• Community Relations
  • AGU, AMS meetings
    DeSouza Award was presented to Dan Vietor, Unisys.
    15 presentations at AMS on a myriad of topics
    (Provide highlights along with slides for summary)
• Some Unidata staff will be moving to the offices across the hall from the current Unidata suite. These offices are now populated by JOSS staff, who will be relocating upstairs. The move is scheduled to take place by May 2004.
• Equipment Awards: are oversubscribed
• C2 is the new name which combines the CRAFT and CONDUIT projects. There are now 48 sites receiving CONDUIT high resolution model data in 28 unique domains
• NWS uses LDM 6 to distribute WSR-88D level II data operationally
• Announcement of Level II data distribution is imminent
• Korean Met Service is using LDM for data distribution for internal data distribution
• Vietnam and Hanoi and NWS to South Pole are considering LDM for data distribution
• Proposal activity includes some activities in the Hydro community-see Mohan’s slides
• Email support—continues to grow, encroaching on development at Unidata
  • Question of LDM6 support - initially there was a flurry of email, but it has dropped off. Supports tends to be seasonal, based on university sessions.
  • Question of support-portal-repeat questions
  • Always a constant educational process for university students on software packages
  • Some questions are more complex than others requiring more time from Unidata support-not a turn key approach
  • What can Users Committee to do help ease the support conundrum
• test some new methods, i.e. first pass, providing priorities (Laufersweiler)
• Strong confirmation of Unidata support from the Users Committee

Floater Discussion-Tom Yoksas, all

Millersville, which has been managing the radar and satellite floaters everyday for years asked that the Users Committee and Unidata query the usage and necessity of the floaters. They do not receive many community requests, and wondered about the value of the floaters. A message was sent to the community, to which three or four comments were received. It appears that the radar floater can be eliminated, but the satellite floater should remain. The UPC can assist the community to create their own satellite floater and how to create their own l km Vis.

Action 1: As soon as possible, the UPC will provide a 30 day notice and ultimately delete the radar floater from LDM feed. It will also prepare users for the ultimate removal of the satellite floater. Removal of the satellite floater will be considered at the next Users Committee meeting.

Status Report Summaries
Case Studies - Weber, Ho
GEMPAK - Chiswell
IDV Development- Murray
IDD-LDM - Chiswell, Emmerson, Schmidt, Weber, Yoksas
McIDAS - Yoksas
NLDM - Wilson
NetCDF - Rew/Hartnett
SuomiNet - Weber
DODS-OPeNDAP - Davis/Ho
Equipment Grants - Graham
Plaza Web Portal - Graham
THREDDS - Domenico/Caron
o Approaches to Environmental Data Analysis and Display
External Liaison - Miller
Support -Yoksas/Rew

DeSouza Award-All

Agreement that community members and Unidata staff are allowed to make nominations for the DeSouza Award. The solicitation for nominations will be sent earlier this year; the first announcement will be done in June, the second announcement will be sent in September, after Labor Day. The Users Committee agreed that nominations from the previous year will be carried over to the current year for consideration.

COMET's CALMet (6th International Conference on Computer-Aided Learning and Distance Learning in Meteorology) - Joe Lamos

• International conference every two years-last one in Brazil, prior in Helsinki and Melbourne
• Helping computer assisted learning
• Hydrology and Meteorology focus
• Attendance in past has been met services, academic
• Limited to 120 participants
• 12-16 July-creating activities for learning
• How to integrate learning objects into presentations
• Promote cross sharing of ideas and resources
• May be an opportunity for Users Committee members to submit abstract for workshop or incorporate Unidata tools
• Faculty workshop will be held in conjunction with CALMET

Improving Community Input-All

The Users Committee provided overviews of their community contacts.

• The topics will be logged for Unidata's action, but will not be published due to privacy laws and regulations. The Users Committee and staff appreciate the information that is being collected and will respond accordingly.
• The Users Committee will continue polling of sites prior to the October meeting. They will collect site contact phone numbers and email addresses to assist the UPC in updating records.

Action 2: The Users Committee recommends that the UPC evaluate and, if desirable, implement the use of mailing list digests similar to that used for the netCDF mailing list.

Action 3: The Users Committee recommends that the UPC develop a monthly e-magazine (“e-zine”) as a method of educating and informing the Unidata community of new or recent activities and info-items.

AMS BAMS articles - Jo Hansen, Mark Laufersweiler, Michael Morgan and Anton Kruger

Message in a bottle alludes to the next workshop; information to pass on to the next planning group.

BAMS article-task force had set aggressive timeline for submission of the group of articles. Five out of seven contributors have sent draft articles. The article is a suite of articles to be published in BAMS. Contributors are:

• Alex deCaria
• May Yuan
• Sam Williamson
• Scott Shipley
• Mohan Ramamurthy
• Ted Haberman
• Olga Wilhelmi

CONDUIT & CRAFT - Jim Steenburgh, Steve Chiswell, Linda Miller

CONDUIT and CRAFT are merging into one planning group, C2. The group met during the AMS Annual Meeting in Seattle, WA. Discussion issues included the idea of distributing NDFD grids via CONDUIT. It was determined that it is not feasible at this time. See the C2 link for additional information on the meeting. If interested, community members should subscribe to the C2 email list to stay apprised of the activities associated with CONDUIT and CRAFT. To subscribe, use MajorDomo.

• Duplicated MRF grids have been removed
• Plans to remove 40km RUC
• GFS to 180
• Will add Eta 218 grid with GRIB2
• Use of JPEG 2000 for data compression
• There is a need to map out a topology
• A primary limitation for some sites due to the size of the queue
• Initial fields of the GFS (one degree) are not delayed in queuing; next step is.5 degree
• 61 forecast steps; arrive on disk in 30 minutes
• Unable to get data via FTP in 30 minutes, due to volume of data (1 GB)
• GEMPAK can analyze Level II data-new header being used
  • need a new decoder for the new headers
• IDV reads Level II data

General Discussion:

• Question of improving communication for Unidata
• Newsletter or online "ezine" suggested
• Digest with links to various articles - provide the user with various subscription options (digest or as article become available)
• The issue of Peter Nieley's Weather Program was raised and discussed.
• LEAD status report should be included at the next Users Committee meeting

Action 4: Mark Laufersweiler will contact Peter Neilley and, if possible, put his Weather program on the Unidata G-Forge site.

Action 5: The Users Committee will perform another round of community outreach to three member universities per committee member. In addition to open discussion concerning Unidata support and activities, committee members are to collect a list of as many Unidata users as possible from each institution (including contact information), solicit information concerning how Unidata can better communicate with end users, and type up summary notes for the UPC.

A spring Workshop will be held at Millersville from 3-5 June 2004 and will be hosted by Rich Clark and Dave Fitzgerald. Organizers include:

• Rich Clark
• Dave Fitzgerald
• Don Murray
• Joanne Graham
• Emily Doremire
• Elen Cutrim
• Jim Steenburgh, ex-officio
• Linda Miller

The workshop will feature the IDV. Limit focus of workshop to things to be tied to a common environment. Another important goal is for the community to get together to discuss what they are doing at their sites. Half day devoted to IDV, but the remainder of workshop should be devoted to other activities that are similar, i.e., “birds of a feather”.

Action 6: The Users Committee, UPC, & Millersville University will hold a users conference featuring the IDV and use of Unidata technology in the classroom on 6-8 June 2004. An organizing committee has been established to help organize the workshop.

Action 7: Solicitations for the DeSouza Award will be conducted in June, followed by a reminder around Labor Day.

[Internal Committee Action : Elen Cutrim will cook for the next Users Committee meeting. Jim Steenburgh will look into free seafood! Get chef’s hat. Linda Miller will provide house. Tom Yoksas will supply beer.]

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Linda Miller, External Liaison, Unidata
University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
P.O. Box 3000
Boulder, CO 80307-3000
303-497-8646 fax: 303-497-8690