Python Adoption at the Naval Research Laboratory

The use of Python for geophysical research and the rapid growth of pre-existing packages present an opportunity for NRL to update tested techniques and to enable rapid development and accelerated transition of new analysis tools across the varied platforms used for research at NRL and operations at Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center (FNMOC). This talk will describe recent efforts and lessons learned in updating existing tools to Python from a variety of sources, as well as the development of new tools and products.

The major update project is a monitoring suite for the numerous facets of the operational data assimilation system - tasks like monitoring satellite observation availability and impact of observations on the assimilation analysis. Other updates include improving the verification tools for the global forecast system. In all cases, these updates include not only changing graphical output but uniting sets of different tools written in different languages under a single, streamlined umbrella.

In addition to updates, there are several new projects under development geared toward both research and operations. These include calculation and visualization of ensemble-based sensitivities in wave forecast guidance products, probabilistic estimation of pirate threats, and a nascent framework for global model intercomparison and evaluation.