The Next NCAR Strategic Plan

2020-2024

Working in Partnership with the Research Community

Scott W. McIntosh Interim NCAR Director

Members of the NCAR Executive Committee

8 January 2019

Discussion with AMS Community

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NCAR Strategic Plan 2020-2024

Overarching Theme: “Delivering Science with Impact”

Overarching Vision:

Predictive Earth-System Science and Delivery of Information Responsive to Societal Needs

Collaborative in Nature:

Community Partnerships to Advance Science

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“I have a very strong feeling that science exists to serve human welfare. It’s wonderful to have the opportunity given to us by society to do basic research but in return, we have a very important moral responsibility to apply that research to benefiting humanity.” Walter Orr Roberts

NCAR Strategic Plan 2020-2024

NCAR Strategic Plan

NCAR2024: What Do We Need From You?

•  Are the scientific priorities and grand challenges in the following slides the right ones?

•  What aspects of “convergent science” should NCAR pursue?

•  How should that be implemented? •  How can NCAR and the community partner with enhanced mutual

benefit? •  How to effectively cultivate the community-NCAR partnership? •  Joint Positions, Visitor Program, Post-Docs, Students,

Workshops?

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NCAR2024: A Focus on Earth-System Prediction

NCAR Strategic Plan

NCAR2024: The Scientific Grand Challenges

1. Understand the sources of error and uncertainty in the prediction of societally-relevant atmospheric and space weather conditions towards improved prediction capability.

2. Predictability of the Earth-system from sub-seasonal to-decadal time scales and application of new insights to improved predictions of extreme events from a unified weather-climate perspective.

3. Assess long-term Earth-system risks and tipping points.

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NCAR2024: “Delivering Science with Impact”

Drivers of Change •  Shaping our science around societal needs – contributing to a nation more

resilient to weather and climate risk •  Major advancements in science, modeling and prediction systems,

observational and computing technologies

Role of NCAR •  NCAR as a catalyst – a driver of change itself (intellectual leadership,

transformative technologies, etc.). •  Improving science infrastructure. •  Innovative approaches to collaborative science and service. •  Broader impacts – co-development of knowledge, community nexus, E&O,

active engagement with policymakers, etc.

NCAR Strategic Plan

●  Coupled Weather ●  Climate Extremes ●  Space Weather ●  Air Pollution ●  Coupled Polar

Next-Generation Unified Modeling System for Integrated Modeling-Atmosphere (SIMA)

 

●  Dynamical cores ●  Physics ●  Initialization ●  Diagnostics ●  Coupled System

SIMA Frontier Applications SIMA is composed of common atmospheric model components

& infrastructure

Climate Chemistry

Geospace Weather

Existing Applications

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Next-Generation Data & HPC  

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Planning for “Science At Scale”  

NCAR is working on plan to better

enable science on big data by

providing ability for both internal and external users to

analyze large datasets without

downloading.

NCAR Scientist

External User

NCAR Strategic Plan

Airborne Phased Array Radar (APAR)

Coronal Solar Magnetism

Observatory (COSMO)

Next-Generation Observing Systems  

NCAR Strategic Plan

Engaging the Social Science and Human Dimensions Research Communities:

Early-Career Faculty Innovator Program  

Complementing NCAR’s expertise by partnering with faculty in the social sciences and STEM not represented at NCAR to address complex research problems. Research opportunit ies, tuit ion support and professional development for early-career faculty and their graduate students to co-develop interdisciplinary research projects with NCAR scientists.  

First Cohort 2019-2020

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NCAR2024: A Convergence Hub?

1. Research driven by a specific and compelling problem. 2. Deep integration across disciplines.

NCAR Strategic Plan

NCAR2024: What Do We Need From You?

NCAR Strategic Plan

•  Are the scientific priorities and grand challenges in the following slides the right ones?

•  What aspects of “convergent science” should NCAR pursue?

•  How should that be implemented? •  How can NCAR and the community partner with enhanced mutual

benefit? •  How to effectively cultivate the community-NCAR partnership? •  Joint Positions, Visitor Program, Post-Docs, Students,

Workshops?

NCAR Strategic Plan

•  Internal Meetings at NCAR to develop the detail

behind the top-level strategy.

•  Onboarding of NCAR Director, Dr. Everette Joseph •  Everette will have a major say in the final form

of the Strategic Plan

•  Strategic Plan is due to NSF December 2019

Thank you for your time and participation.

Additional Questions, Comments? Contact: NCAR2024@ucar.edu

NCAR2024: Next Steps

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