Atmospheric Model Physics for the NOAA Unified Forecast System Applications Across Scales

NOAA is collaborating with the US weather and climate science community to develop the next generation fully coupled earth system model for both research and operational applications across different temporal and spatial scales. This presentation describes major updates of atmospheric model physics found in recent versions of the Unified Forecast System (UFS) which were prepared for the upcoming operational implementations of the UFS-based global and regional models. Strategies were developed to first test individual physics parameterizations in atmospheric-only forecast experiments, then to further evaluate and improve the parameterizations in the integrated earth system model to reduce model systematic biases and maximize model prediction skills. Significant efforts were made to unify physics parameterizations for all applications to speed up the transition of future physics innovations to operation and to reduce the cost of operational systems maintenance. Successes and challenges of unifying UFS physics parameterizations across scales will be highlighted.