Arlington, Virginia
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Members |
UPC Staff |
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John Merrill (Chair) Representatives |
Ben Domenico Not attending: Members:
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Director's Report (Fulker)
In his final report to the committee as Unidata Director Dave summarized Unidata's report to the UCAR Board's February meeting. Points contained therein, include:
Three themes comprised the remainder of the report: conveying a sense of Unidata's depth, providing context, and expressing appreciation.
Appreciation to NSF: The agency supported the program generously in the early days. Gene Bierly and Dick Greenfield provided leadership and support through some difficult times. Cliff Jacobs has been an ideal Program Officer, asking questions, seeking funds, holding the program to high standards.
Appreciation to Unidata Staff: staff have given time and energy, creativity, and support for the community and for one another, the end result of which has turned out to be a more successful and significant organization than anyone would have thought. Dave presented an outline describing staff areas of responsibility and reporting structure. Important endeavors currently underway include:
All aspects of the Program Center (user relations, data sources, data distribution, current software, Java software, scheduling, finances, and staffing) were characterized as "green" with the exception of a "yellow" on staffing because of the need for several new core positions.
Dave answered his own rhetorical question, why leave Unidata when the program is in an exciting development stage? New challenges and the importance of the digital library—the library of the 21st century—are two answers. Navigation in a (many dimensional) "knowledge space" and the finite number of hours in a given day are others.
Discussion
Discussion centered on sharpening Unidata's focus and NSF's view that UCAR entities
seem, from time to time, to be competing for the same NSF funds. DLESE proposals,
for example, seem to be competing for funds Unidata might seek or has sought.
Synergies between the two programs exist although DLESE's focus is on education
and Unidata's is on technology. Reviewers and NSF officers are scrutinizing
proposed funding requests and commenting negatively when such competition is
apparent. Unidata has built a trusting relationship with its community, and
DLESE is in the process of building trust with and among its community. In the
case of the LEAD proposal, the University of Oklahoma, not UCAR or Unidata,
will be the principal organization, and Unidata is a collaborating entity, thus
its participation in this proposal's activities seems appropriate.
Action Item 1: a presentation by Unidata and DLESE policy committee representatives to the National Science Foundation detailing plans for coordinating their respective efforts to support their communities should be undertaken. Margaret Leinen, Mike Mayhew, Cliff Jacobs, Bernard Grant will be the target audience.
Budget Report (Graham)
The good news about the budget is that there is not much news. We anticipate new funds in the amount of 2.85M which means that expenditures, projected at 2.95M exceed new funds by about 100K; however, carryover from FY01 will keep the program in the black. For FY02, Salaries and Benefits remain the largest slice of the budget pie.
Core ATM funding supports the greater part of the staff, but staff on non-core funds has increased significantly in the past eight years. We will continue to look for outside funding that is within the scope of our mission.
Users Committee (Clark)
Doug Yarger received the Russell DeSouza award at the annual AMS meeting in
January. Next Rich discussed the users survey and provided a question-by-question
assessment of it and the implications of the results. (Surveys were sent to
organizational representatives as well as to individual users.) The survey results
are being incorporated into the Strategic Plan and will be used to help determine
some of the key issues to be addressed in the 5-year funding proposal.
Survey results are on line at: http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/plaza/surveys/spring_2001/results/
Discussion
Committee members strongly agreed that the survey results can serve as a
blueprint for the future, and as such should be used to inform the proposal
process. They also expressed some concern that only 28% of survey respondents
had knowledge of MetApps and suggested the series currently running in BAMS
might include an article about the MetApps effort. The survey indicates
that the community is supportive of the idea of holding regional workshops to
promote information sharing among peers.
Action Item 2: reflecting concern that only 28% of the Users Committee survey respondents knew of the MetApps effort at the UPC, an article for the Unidata BAMS series detailing and explaining MetApps should be prepared.
Agency Reports
National Science Foundation: (Jacobs)
Agency-wide Cliff noted the following :
GEO's anticipated increase for FY03 is 13.4%; its funding is up 40% since 2000. The increased funding for FY03 will be targeted towards areas specifically called out in NSF Geosciences Beyond 2000: planetary metabolism, planetary energetics and dynamics, planetary structure, and planetary ecology.
The environmental cyberinfrastructure (see NOTE below) initiative is an agency-wide undertaking to define the cyberinfrastructure needs for the environmental initiative. Environmental communities have defined their problems chief among which is the lack of cyberinfrastructure.
NOTE: cyberinfrastructure was defined by NSF's CISE head (Ruzena Bajcsy) and includes supercomputers, visualization, human-computer interactions, high performance communication networks, the Grid, federated data repositories, collaboration tools, on-line instruments and fabrication facilities, digital libraries, collaboratories, knowledge networks, knowledge ecologies, and research universities of the future.
Discussion
Responding to a question about the ITR and Biodiversity initiatives, Cliff
noted that while it is true that these initiatives are winding down the funds
remain a part of the NSF budget. In other discussion Cliff noted that NSF's
budget is reviewed and allocated in congressional committee.
NCDC: (Watkins)
NCDC's mission is fourfold:
Discussion
NOAA/NWS: (Helms)
CRAFT data: NWS Radar Operations Center (ROC) is conducting a cost/benefit analysis of collecting archive Level II (base data) to support National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) and National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) requirements for access to these data. The proposed solution (Phase I) is to use the AWIPS Wide Area Network (WAN) to centrally collect the base data and retransmit them to NCDC, NCEP, and external users from the Telecommunications Gateway (TG) in Silver Spring, Maryland. This capability should be completed by the end of FY03. Collection of FAA Terminal Doppler Weather Radar (TDWR) will be disseminated in the same manner with projected availabilty of this capability by the end of CY03. Latencies from the ORPG to the TG will be close to the NIDDS product latencies which is, >95% of products arrive at the TG in less than 60 seconds. Phase 2's goal is that of regional distribution of base data from high bandwidth access points.(Partners in this acvitity include representatives from the university community and the private sector.) This phase will continue the CRAFT spirit of regional distribution of radar data using high speed and low latency networks. Internal AWIPS WAN uses Message Handling System (MHS); technical issues with MHS vs. Unidata's LDM will be addressed at the regional access points.
CONDUIT. NWS is sending NCEP gridded data to Unidata through the Next Generation Internet (NGI). NWS is willing to expand the data requirements beyond the current NOAAPORT data set to include full resolution Eta 12Km and ensemble grids contingent upon a decision by the Unidata Users Committee.
NWS continues to support collection and expansion of MDCRS data. It is working with JOSS (Rex Fleming) to develop and deploy the Water Vapor Sensor System, version 2, (WVSS2) laser diode sensor. Contingent on funding, testing and roll-out of WVSS2 probes on commercial aircraft will proceed with a goal of 1,200 sensors in the fleet.
The NWS TG has been funded to establish a TG backup capability, will likely be established at "Mt Weather" FEMA facility in Virginia NWS PAO News Release: NWS Telecommunications Gateway Backup - Critical Infrastructure Protection: $7.5 million NOAA requests a total of $7.5 million to provide critical infrastructure protection for the NWS Telecommunications Gateway (NWSTG). This investment will enable NWS to acquire the equipment and facility infrastructure necessary to ensure continuity of operations at the NWSTG. The NWSTG is the Nation's critical telecommunications hub for collecting, processing, and distributing weather data and information. The data processed by the NWSTG are used by hundreds of customers world-wide, affecting a wide-range of economic and emergency management decisions. These users include: the NWS WFOs and NCEP, the private meteorological industry, broadcast media, Foreign countries, and the U.S. Military.
NWS is considering its options for supporting the next generation Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS) to support operational meteorologists. In the option analysis will be changes to the data distribution paradigm. Past experience has demonstrated the cost effective nature of satellite broadcast of data (NOAAPORT). However, a mix of data distribution capability next several years.ities is being considered for future AWIPS more along the lines of Unidata capabilities. NOAAPORT will continue to be supported in its current capacity.
NASA: (Maiden)
NASA's Earth Science Enterprise focuses on extending the use of Earth science
and remote sensing technologies to develop a tool for decision makers in nationally
important areas, i.e., to get data to the right people. ESE partners with the
information community to disseminate information.
ESE provides systems engineering, research and technology development within
an information framework of data sources, data products, data distribution,
and decision support systems associated with Earth science and remote sensing.
ESE works in partnerships with information community.
Our challenge and opportunity is to identify, and realize the potential for,
earth science and remote sensing technology solutions to contribute spatial
information products to serve decision support system objectives that are in
the national interest.
Discussion:
Making NASA datasets available to the Unidata community would be a valuable
collaborative activity. Of particular interest are: scatterometry, coastal,
and forecast models.
Action Item 3: Martha Maiden and Ben Domenico will initiate discussions on how to more effectively represent and serve our two communities. Specifically they will explore the following:
GIS (McNeeley)
Shannon presented the steps taken thus far to implement the action item from the October meeting for increased collaboration between Unidata and ESIG. The most visible and probably the most important action undertaken thus far has been the collaboration mentioned earlier by Dave, that of coordinating the GIS seminar series. In addition Unidata staff members have participated in an ESIG "coffee break" presentation. The seminar series has included a range of speakers including Unidata visitor, Stefano Nativi, whose presentation included details of his work at the UPC on Geospatial Information Interoperability.
The NCAR GIS Initiative began as a directive in the NCAR Strategic Plan. Its goals are threefold: to explore opportunities that geographic information technology can offer for integrated interdisciplinary research both within the organization and between NCAR and the research community; interoperability and data exchange; and visualization and improved means of communicating scientific information to the public.
GIS applications are employed in emergency management, and it may be possible to get Wayne Blanchard, FEMA higher education project head to speak at the next Policy Committee meeting. The energy sector, pollen forecasters, and the agricultural community are among other GIS users.
Unidata Users Survey results reflected interest on the part of the community to have access to GIS datasets.
Other possibilities for continuing and amplifying the ESIG/Unidata collaboration
are: exploring proposal possibilities and exploring partnerships for demographic/socio-economic
data.
Director's Search (Fellows [by conference call])
The Unidata Director's search is underway with applications being accepted until May 1. A wide net is being cast in the search to ensure that the applicant pool is diverse in every sense. Imagination and vision are imperative . The goal is to distribute awareness both within and from outside of the atmospheric science committee. At this time the announcement has been made via an all-community e-mail to Unidata's community, and advertisements that will be placed in EOS, AAAS: Science, Chronicle of Higher Education, IEEE, AWIS: Association of Women in Science, Black Issues in Higher Education and possibly other sites or publications. The search panel includes a Policy Committee member, a UPC staff member, a UOP director, an NCAR Director from a division that works closely with Unidata, and possibly a fifth member from outside UCAR..
The search presents a challenge to the Policy Commitee. Jack requested that committee members be diligent in their participation in the process. Members wishing to make candidate suggestions should contact Jack at: Extension 303 497-8655, or jfellows@ucar.edu and to assist in distributing awareness of the process outside of the Atmospheric Science.
Discussion
The search panel is flexible on the interview process to be employed; either
a presentation or interview process will be considered, and it will be an interactive
process. Policy Committee concerns will be represented in the search by the
presence of a committee member sitting on the panel.
Jack will update the Policy Committee as the search progresses.
Strategic Planning (Fulker)
Some significant changes were made to the Strategic Planning document since the October 2001 Policy Committee meeting. Chief among them is language that recognizes the importance of the collaboration (already begun) with social and environmental groups. Thus a new bullet was added to the "Core Values" section of the proposal which states that support for studying crucial scientific and social issues is a core value. The social issues theme was echoed in the Goals and Objectives section where suggested modifications included adding GIS databases to the "software to visualize/analyze geoscience data" bullet, and an "including social issues" phrase was added to the support and engagement of diverse users bullet.
Other suggested changes are:
Following this discussion, further revision to the document occurred which reflected the suggested changes and emphases. See the Adopted Strategic Plan .
Tuesday, 26 February 2002
Unidata Equipment Grants Proposal (Graham)
Action Item 1 from the October 2001 meeting stated: The Policy Committee
recommends that the UPC write an unsolicited proposal to the National
Science Foundation to administer internally the Unidata Equipment Grants process
following a careful cost analysis of impacts to the Program. In response to
that item, Joanne reported the following steps undertaken at the Program Center:
NSF is now awaiting a proposal from the UPC with details about how it plans to administer the Equipment Grants.
2008 Funding Proposal (Domenico)
Work on the 5-year funding (2003-2008) proposal has begun. The timing for submitting the proposal (mid-October 2002) may present some interesting challenges: it will, essentially, be complete when the new director is seated in the UPC, but obviously that individual may wish to influence the document. Nonetheless we cannot delay the writing of it.
Action Item 4: The Program Center will produce a working draft of the 2008 proposal for the next Policy Committee Meeting (20-21 May 2002).
At least five areas of increased demand and emphasis were noted:
Committee members Ackerman and Rammamurthy volunteered to assist the program staff with proposal development.
Closer Interaction with UCAR/NCAR (Merrill)
This item generated a great deal of discussion. While it seems that the UPC is working cooperatively more than ever with NCAR (e.g., ATD, USWRP, RAP), the amount of actual planning coordination that occurs is unclear. Closer coordination in the planning and proposal submitting areas is greatly to be wished. (A major problem in submitting joint proposals with NCAR divisions is the difference in our overhead rates.)
The committee determined that Ben, as Acting Director, will contact several NCAR directors seeking and requesting more coordination at the strategic level. John will initiate discussion with Rick Anthes to determine how we might be more effective in our interactions.
The meeting adjourned at 12:45 PM, a personal best for most attendees.