Now is your chance to tell us how we are doing! We would greatly appreciate you completing the following “Safety Perception Survey”, all responses will remain anonymous.  To begin click on the following link: 

http://www.surveymethods.com/EndUser.aspx?AC88E4FDA8EFFCF7AD

Thank you,

Health Environment & Safety Services
&
UCAR’s Safety and Security Team

IEDA and Elsevier have launched the 2013 International Data Rescue Award in the Geosciences challenge. The award has been established to improve the preservation and access of research data in the Geosciences, particularly of dark data, and to share the varied ways that these data are being processed, stored, and used. The winner of the challenge will receive a $5000 prize at the American Geophysical Union meeting in December 2013.  For additional details refer to the NCAR Library Blog. You can subscribe to the blog and/or join us on Twitter @NCAR Library.

Don Morton, University of Alaska will give a seminar to the Software Engineering Assembly titled "Building Python-Based Operational Systems for Prediction of Atmospheric Processes"

When: Thursday, June 20, 2013
Where: FL2 1022 (Large Auditorium)

Abstract:
In the context of atmospheric models, operational systems are those that dependably provide important, time-critical forecasts for use in decision-support systems.  They are characterized by the need for rapid data acquisition and model setup, reliable execution of the model, and post-processing activities that sometimes require delivery of model output timesteps as soon as they are completed.  In Alaska, reliable and timely weather forecasts are essential for a variety of commercial, recreational, and simple day-to-day living activities.  In addition to routine operational forecasting, Alaskans need to be prepared for surprise events.  Volcanic eruptions occur with some regularity in Alaska and Russia, affecting air transport and sometimes shutting down urban areas.  Uncontrolled wildfires in unpopulated regions are a fact of life, and Alaskans are sometimes subject to huge smoke emissions during the summer.   Additionally, Alaska is affected by non-predictable anthropogenic events such as toxic emissions and nuclear fallout.

 In addition to providing the tools for decision support, operational products from Alaska are also useful in a number of "downstream" research endeavors including road weather prediction systems, aviation icing products and greenhouse gas studies.  

 With a decade of experience in provision of operational products, often for large areas at high resolutions, we have gained a fair amount of experience and wisdom, and still have much to learn.  In this presentation we discuss some of the systems we have deployed, lessons learned, and the many exciting ambitions we have.

Additional information about the speaker and the seminar can be found at the link below.

Take advantage of all the Boulder businesses offering free breakfast on Wednesday, June 26th!  Within biking distance of the Foothills and Center Green campuses are stations at Whole Foods, Moe’s Bagels, Pekoe Sip House, Vitamin Cottage and Community Cycles.  Nearby the Mesa Lab, enjoy food from Elevations Credit Union and the South Side Walnut Cafe.  For more information on bike routes, safe riding tips and (of course) where you can enjoy some breakfast on Bike-to-Work day, please visit the 2013 Bike-to-Work day website.

Out of town on June 26th?  No problem!  Register and plan on biking another day during that same week.  We will still count you as being one of the growing number of people who choose to commute by bike!

Please contact the Sustainability Program with any questions.

We are pleased to announce the implementation of the UCAR Online Travel Authorization Application.  Scheduled deployment is set for July 27th.  The new application will allow Travelers, Travel Arrangers and Approvers to:

Create travelers

Create and track events

Obtain TA#s

Submit Travel Authorizations with encumbrance creation upon electronic approval

Allow approvers to approve via email or dashboard

24/7 access (except for scheduled maintenance)

View trip status

More information regarding training for Travelers, Travel Arrangers and Approvers to follow this week.

We are planning to train by divisional groups. Coordinating of training schedule will be done by your program administrators.

The annual limits for TIAA-CREF additional contributions changed for 2013. Employees under age 50 may contribute up to $17,500. Employees over age 50 in 2013 may contribute up to an additional catch-up amount of $5,500 for a total maximum contribution of $23,000.  Please note that these amounts do not include the contributions made into your Mandatory Retirement Annuity (MRA) Account.

If you would like to open a Supplemental Retirement Annuity account, you can do so at the link below. From there, just click on the “Enroll Now” tab at the top of the page. After completing the enrollment on the website, please complete the TIAA-CREF Election Change Form with your requested contributions and forward to Human Resources.  

http://www1.tiaa-cref.org/tcm/ucar/ 

https://www.fin.ucar.edu/forms/HR/tiaachg_form/tiaachg_form.shtml

For more information about your TIAA-CREF benefits, contact Cyd Perrone, x8710, or Irena Haimsky, x8706. If you need investment advice, please contact TIAA-CREF directly at 1-800-842-2776.

GTP Seminar
Ian Grooms
Center for Atmosphere Ocean Science
Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University

Monday, June 24, 2013
NCAR - Mesa Laboratory, Main Seminar Room
Lecture at 2:30pm

Efficient modeling of unresolved small-scale turbulence is of primary importance in simulations of large-scale geophysical fluid dynamics. In many geophysical and astrophysical settings the unresolved turbulence is not homogeneous/isotropic, being affected by rotation, stratification, moist processes, magnetism, etc., and the multiscale interactions with the resolved large scales are complex and consist of more than inertial-range energy transfer. Furthermore, small-scale feedback to the resolved scales is not completely determined by the resolved large scales. The random nature of the small scales requires stochastic models, which in turn can improve the robustness of ensemble-based prediction and state estimation algorithms.

Superparameterization is a multiscale framework that models unresolved scales by PDEs evolving on pseudo-physical domains embedded into the coarse grid of a general circulation model. Although the small-scale PDEs are deterministic, their chaotic/turbulent dynamics generate an effectively stochastic feedback to the large scales. Though successful in modeling tropical atmospheric moist convection, superparameterization remains computationally costly, and of limited generality.

We develop an improved framework for superparameterization that models the small-scale turbulent dynamics by stochastic, quasilinear PDEs rather than nonlinear, deterministic ones. This greatly improves the efficiency of the algorithm, and our mathematical framework for developing the large- and small-scale PDEs increases the generality of superparameterization. The resulting algorithm is developed and tested in two idealized turbulent models: the one-dimensional complex-scalar MMT equation, and two-layer quasigeostrophic turbulence. In both settings the algorithm achieves several orders of magnitude of reduction in computational cost compared to direct simulation of all scales, and produces qualitatively accurate results. This is particularly impressive in the quasigeostrophic tests where the algorithm successfully parameterizes the inverse cascade of kinetic energy from unresolved to resolved scales. Future directions include more realistic applications, and optimization of the numerical algorithm."

I'm recently back from Europe, where I met with some of our peer institutions to discuss ways to strengthen and expand our collaborations with them, and from Washington, where I had the opportunity to meet with the presidential science advisor. The Weather Coalition has issued a declaration from senior leaders of the weather community, and the HAO seminar series is starting to webcast. You'll find details on all this and more in my latest blog post.

Find the latest post here. (Use your UCAS password to log in.)

Between Light and Shadow
Photographs by John Weller
Gallery III
May 15- September 30, 2013

For one week out of every month over a three-year span, John Weller backpacked into the Great San Dunes of southren Colorado---the continent's highest sand dunes and one of the world's most fragile dune systems.

The photographs in this exhibit reflect Weller's growing awareness of the beauty of the dunes and the interconnectedness of all things. 

The WRF Users' Workshop will take place at NCAR on June 24–28.  Papers focusing on development and testing in all areas of model applications are especially encouraged. Authors may request either a poster or oral presentation, although posters are encouraged due to time constraints for oral sessions. The workshop will open on June 24 with a half-day session on atmospheric radiation and effects of clouds, ozone and aerosols and will close on June 28 with six tutorials:

---WRF-Hydro
---NCAR Command Language (NCL)
---Visualization and Analysis Platform for Ocean, Atmosphere, and Solar Researchers (VAPOR)
---SKEBS
---Topics in Advanced Verification Methods
---Integrated Data Viewer (IDV)

Contact: Kris Marwitz, NCAR/NESL/MMM
303-497-8198, workshop@ucar.edu

WRF Users’ Workshop:
http://www.mmm.ucar.edu/events/2013_wrfusers/index.php
---Early registration deadline for workshop: June 10
---Deadline for submitting short abstracts: May 3
---Deadline for submitting extended abstracts: June 17