Enabling Petascale Ensemble-based Data Assimilation for Numerical Analysis and Prediction of High-Impact Weather

Project Information

Discipline
Computer Science (401) 
Subdiscipline
40.04 Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology 
Orientation
Research 
Abstract

This proposal addresses the most challenging problems of very-high-resolution Numerical Weather Prediction, obtaining the optimal state estimations for initializing ensembles of predictions by assimilating the highest volume of weather observations available, and addressing problem sizes and scales that are only attainable on petascale computing platforms. The project is focused on the very hard problem of thunderstorm initiation, propagation and evolution. The effect of this investment in more accurate and timely forecast of thunderstorms can have a potentially transformative impact on hazard analysis and management.

Intellectual Merit

This project investigates ensemble Kalman filter based data assimilation methods to predict severe weather phenomena at finer resolutions at scale. A software toolkit that eases the development of sophisticated numerical methods for such weather forecasting applications will be developed.

Broader Impacts

Severe weather (such storms and tornados) affects our life and society. This project is positioned to leverage petascale computing facilities to tackle such long-lasting problems at accurate weather forecasting for narrow-region localized weather events (e.g. storms and tornados) at finer grains (< 1 km). Through the interdisciplinary projects, graduate and undergraduate students will be well trained. Education outreach is under plan too.

Project Contact

Project Lead
Andy Li (andyli) 
Project Manager
Andy Li (andyli) 
Project Members
Min Li, Xin Yang, Han Zhao, Rui Yang, Ze Yu, Yuhui Wang, Cairong Yan, Shivam Tiwari  

Resource Requirements

Hardware Systems
  • alamo (Dell optiplex at TACC)
  • foxtrot (IBM iDataPlex at UF)
  • hotel (IBM iDataPlex at U Chicago)
  • india (IBM iDataPlex at IU)
  • sierra (IBM iDataPlex at SDSC)
  • Network Impairment Device
 
Use of FutureGrid

We will use FutureGrid for experiments and performance evaluation across sites.

Scale of Use

We will start with small scales (tens to 128 cores), and will request for hundreds of cores when we pass the preliminary stage.

Project Timeline

Submitted
08/02/2011 - 12:21 
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