Current and Future Numerical Weather Prediction in the U.S. Navy (Invited Speaker)

The U. S. Navy operates a tightly integrated suite of global and regional Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) models at Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center (FNMOC). These models, most of which were developed by the Marine Meteorology Division of the Naval Research Laboratory, provide the foundation for almost all of the real-time weather and ocean forecasts produced by the Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command. The models are run at all levels of classification, tailored and optimized for support of naval operations, and protected to Department of Defense Information Assurance standards. Thus, the Navy fills a unique and demanding role in the world of operational NWP.

The current models suite at FNMOC consists of:

– NOGAPS – Navy Operational Global Atmospheric Prediction System; T319L42 global spectral model with a top at 0.04 hPa, at the center of FNMOC production. – NAVDAS – Navy Atmospheric Variational Data Assimilation System; 3D-VAR data assimilation system for COAMPS. – NAVDAS-AR – 4D-VAR data assimilation system for NOGAPS. – COAMPS – Coupled Ocean/Atmosphere Mesoscale Prediction System; regional mesoscale model, multi-nested to ~5 km resolution within NOGAPS and globally relocatable in minutes. – GFDN – Navy implementation of the GFDL Tropical Cyclone Model; provides TC track and intensity forecasts in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Ocean basins. – WW3 – WaveWatch III spectral ocean wave model; global and regional implementations, driven by NOGAPS and COAMPS, respectively. – NCODA – Navy Coupled Ocean Data Assimilation System; provides analyses of ocean temperature, salinity, sea-ice concentration and wave height. NCODA supports NOGAPS, COAMPS and WW3. – EFS – Global 20-member Ensemble Forecast System, based on NOGAPS and WW3. EFS will become a key component of the North American Ensemble Forecast System (NAEFS) and the National Unified Operational Prediction Capability (NUOPC). – NAAPS – Navy Atmospheric Aerosol Prediction System; the first operational global aerosol model with assimilation of aerosol optical depth data. Driven by NOGAPS.

All of the models are currently configured, scheduled and operated on the High Performance Computing (HPC) assets of the Primary Oceanographic Prediction System (POPS). Overall, as currently configured, POPS totals to about 42 TFLOPS peak computational capacity distributed across 4,698 processors and 9,271 GB of memory, with 332 TB of disk space and 160 TB of tape archive space. Fleet Numerical's HPC strategy calls for investment in vendor-neutral Linux cluster systems built from commodity processors and interconnects, with heavy emphasis on open-source software.

NRL and FNMOC are pursuing a series of upgrades to the Navy's operational NWP suite, including a weak-constraint NAVDAS-AR, improved physics in NOGAPS and COAMPS, a fully-coupled air-ocean-wave COAMPS, stochastic physics in EFS, and integration of NAAPS into NOGAPS. In addition, Navy is seeking partnerships with other agencies to develop and field the next-generation global model for both weather and climate prediction.