Indiana University will be demonstrating the IDV running in the cloud at the Supercomputing 2015 conference being held November 15-19, 2015 in Austin TX.

If you're attending the conference, stop by booth 532 to see a range of exhibits from the Pervasive Technology Institute, the Global Research Network Operations Center, and the IU School of Informatics and Computing.

If you're not attending Unidata's AMS Short Course on Data Management, you might be interested in the Short Course on GIS for Atmospheric Sciences being taught by instructors from the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the University of North Carolina. Both Short Courses take place on Sunday, 10 January 2016, preceding the 96th AMS Annual Meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Data management mandates from federal funding agencies, professional societies, and publishers are becoming more common at all scales of research effort. To help researchers navigate the new requirements and implement effective, low-overhead data management workflows, Unidata is hosting an AMS Short Course on Data Management Planning and Implementation: Training on available open-source tools and services from the community and Unidata. The short course will be held the afternoon of Sunday, 10 January 2016, preceding the 96th AMS Annual Meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana.

The short course will provide information on the current mandates, present a researcher-focused approach to data management, and introduce freely available services and tools that can be combined to manage and share research data. The course is intended for practicing researchers who are interested in both meeting the current requirements and implementing “best practice” data management processes in their research effort. The course builds on and extends information available in Unidata's Data Management Resource Center.

In case you missed it — here's a recap of news from the Unidata Program Center for the month of October, 2015.

Dr. Roland Stull, professor in the Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of British Columbia's Vancouver campus and author of several widely-respected meteorology textbooks, has made the contents of his book Meteorology for Scientists and Engineers (3rd Edition) available to the public at no charge. Alongside this 2011 edition he is making available a slightly revised version, completed in 2015, retitled Practical Meteorology.

Both books have been released to use and share for free under a Creative Commons License. According to the books' web site, they cover the same topics in the same order, and share the same index.

Data management mandates from federal funding agencies, professional societies, and publishers are becoming more common at all scales of research effort. To help researchers navigate the new requirements and implement effective, low-overhead data management workflows, Unidata is hosting an AMS Short Course on Data Management Planning and Implementation: Training on available open-source tools and services from the community and Unidata. The short course will be held the afternoon of Sunday, 10 January 2016, preceding the 96th AMS Annual Meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana.

The short course will provide information on the current mandates, present a researcher-focused approach to data management, and introduce freely available services and tools that can be combined to manage and share research data. The course is intended for practicing researchers who are interested in both meeting the current requirements and implementing “best practice” data management processes in their research effort. The course builds on and extends information available in Unidata's Data Management Resource Center.

Scott Jacobs

Scott Jacobs of the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) has been awarded the 2015 Russell L. DeSouza Award by the Unidata Users committee. The DeSouza Award honors “individuals whose energy, expertise, and active involvement enable the Unidata Program to better serve the geosciences.”

Jacobs is the IDP Onboarding Team Lead in the Production Management Branch (PMB) of NCEP Central Operations (NCO). PMB “serves as the technical transition between the research and development of all aspects of the NCEP's computing algorithms and their operational implementation. Production Management is responsible for final checkout of new applications software prior to operational implementation and its maintenance after implementation,” according to their web page. While Jacobs' duties at NCO currently encompass the release of the AWIPS II package, and specifically the National Centers Perspective, he has for many years been an important developer of the GEneral Meteorology PAcKage (GEMPAK) )and the associated National Centers NAWIPS software.

In case you missed it — here's a recap of news from the Unidata Program Center for the month of September, 2015.

The Thriving Earth Exchange (TEX) is an activity sponsored by the Amercan Geophysical Union (AGU) with a focus on real-world environmental challenges that local communities face within three areas: natural hazards/disasters, natural resources, and climate change. TEX endeavors to build collaborative relationships between scientists and non-scientists and help them design and implement local solutions together.

TEX and Amazon Web Services (AWS) are collaborating to use cloud-computing and Earth and space science to advance solutions to community challenges related to natural resources, climate change and natural hazards. Together, they have issued “Sharing Solutions Challenge” with the title “Using Earth and space science and cloud computing to advance community solutions.” For this challenge, they are looking for projects that have working prototypes that address community challenges using Earth science data or tools. Winning projects will receive $15,000 in grant funds to use AWS on-demand cloud services, Free registration to attend the annual 2015 AGU Fall Meeting, and creative assistance and direction in developing videos that highlight the work.

Editor's Note: Metropolitan State University of Denver (MSU) is one of a handful of universities of varying sizes that have incorporated AWIPS II into labs and classrooms in the past two years. MSU's experience shows that incorporating the new NWS technology into the educational mix is both possible and useful even for a small undergraduate program. This article outlines the MSU AWIPS II configuration and discusses some of the adjustments the program made to get the system running smoothly.

Thanks to a Unidata Community Equipment Award grant coupled with some local resources from our university, we (Professor Sam Ng and co-PI Chris Kimmett) at Metropolitan State University in Denver have been able to successfully bring the National Weather Service's AWIPS II forecasting system into the classroom. Professor Ng used AWIPS II alongside Unidata's Integrated Data Viewer as core tools in the Spring 2015 “Weather Analysis Techniques” course for undergraduate meteorology majors, and will continue using AWIPS II in the Fall semester and into the future.