Directors Report Unidata Users Committee Meeting 11 March

Director’s Report Unidata Users Committee Meeting 11 March 2004 Mohan Ramamurthy Unidata Program Center UCAR Office of Programs Boulder, CO

Community Relations: Meetings n n UPC staff actively participated at both the AGU Fall Meeting in San Francisco (Dec 8 -12) and the AMS Annual Meeting in Seattle (Jan 10 -15) A new Unidata booth was unveiled at the AMS Annual Meeting in Seattle • Compared to some other UCAR booths, there was good traffic through the Unidata booth; • Staff had many useful interactions with the community;

Russel L. De. Souza Award n n This award honors “individuals whose energy, expertise, and active involvement enable the Unidata Program to better serve the geosciences. ” Honorees personify Unidata's ideal of a community that shares data, software, and ideas through computing and networking technologies. 2004 Award Winner: Dan Vietor, Unisys Corporation (formerly at Purdue University) “Your development of WXP enabled universities to analyze and visualize weather observations and forecasts and helped pioneer the production of graphical meteorological products for access via the World Wide Web. ”

AMS Annual Meeting Papers n The staff was involved in a record number of 15 papers at the AMS Annual Meeting n Topics covered: • • • IDV and Level II data Merging Net. CDF and HDF 5 LDM and THREDDS Meteo. Forum GIS integration NNTP and P 2 P technologies for data delivery IDV as a collaborative tool Community driven portal with web services LEAD VGEE

Unidata Presentations: A Sample

Meetings n Unidata was involved in two important meetings during the AMS Annual Meeting in Seattle n Meteo. Forum meeting (Jan 10, 2004, Organized by COMET) • Meteo. Forum participants met to discuss the progress and future of the Meteo. Forum project • 18 participants from WMO, WMO RMTCs (6), COMET, Unidata, and UOP; • IDD-Brazil inaugurated at the end of December; 4 sites already participating; • Reverse data flow (from S. America to U. S. ) may begin soon n CRAFT-CONDUIT (C 2) meeting (Jan 14, 2004, USWRP) • The two groups are being combined • The C 2 Advisory Committee will be responsible for developing strategies for Internet access to real time (streaming) meteorological observations, as well as output from both experimental and operational forecast models, for use by the education and research communities. • Committee will comprise university, government and private sector members

Staffing n We recently hired two Software Engineers to work on the LEAD project. • Doug Lindholm, formerly at RAP • Tom Baltzer n Hiring of an Administrative Assistant for the front office was completed last week. • Sandra Petrie, currently with NCAR Director’s Office, will officially begin at the UPC on March 15 th. n Stu Wier, a Software Engineer in the IDV group, left Unidata in early January to pursue other interests. n Scott Kehoe, Web Developer, left Unidata in February. The search for a replacement will begin soon. A silver lining: These (temporary) vacancies are resulting in some easing of pressure on our FY 04 budget

Space: The Final Frontier! • FL 4 remodeling put on hold – not enough money in the budget • Remodeling won’t happen for until the next bond release • Meanwhile, some FL 4 programs will be moved around Unidata • UPC will expand into the south wing, occupying the entire east wing, 1 st Floor • We will have more total space • Will have all staff in

Equipment Awards n Equipment awards will again be made this year; n Announcement to community made in early January 2004; • Deadline: 27 February; n Available funding in FY 04: $100 K; less if UCAR overhead (OH) is included; n We have received 10 proposals, totaling $182 K (without OH); Selection panel met yesterday to review;

Real-time Data Flows • The LDM-6 has greatly improved the timeliness and reliability of data streams; • As a result, 48 sites in 28 unique domains are now receiving CONDUIT data; • 41 sites in 21 unique domains are receiving WSR 88 D Level II data via CRAFT; • NWS will use LDM-6 to distribute WSR-88 D Level II data operationally. • Unidata Real-time data distribution via IDD/LDM 6

Operational LDM Use Recently, the Korean Meteorological Administration has started using the LDM for some of their internal data distribution to/from nearly 40 weather service offices.

Email Support Load The total support load at the UPC remains high and appears to be varying seasonally.

Proposal Activity n Unidata is collaborating in a couple of new ITR proposals: • Advancing digital gazetteers: Theory and practice of the integration of space and place in networked information systems, PI: Linda Hill, UCSB. (Unidata Co-PI: Ben Domenico) • A comprehensive framework for use of NEXRAD data in Hydrometeorology and Hydrology, PI: Krajewski, U. Iowa (Unidata Co-PI: Mohan Ramamurthy) n ESIP/OGC proposal to NSF • Earth System Science - Improving Interdisciplinary Information Sharing, PI: Liping Di, George Mason U. (Unidata Co-PI: Ben Domenico)

State of the Program: A Snapshot n n n n n Community relations : Data sources IDD : Green Software Development : Collaborations Staffing : Support Load Space : Finances (Core) Non-core funding Green : Green Yellow (due to support load) : Green Yellow, soon to be Green : Yellow