NOAA’s National Weather Service 

Building a Weather-Ready Nation and managing the nation’s weather, water, and climate data, forecasts and warnings requires a diversified organization. From the National Weather Service (NWS) Headquarters in Silver Spring, MD to six Regional Headquarters: Eastern, Southern, Central, Western, Alaska, and Pacific; to local Weather Forecast Offices (WFOs), River Forecast Centers (RFCs), Center Weather Service Units (CWSUs), and National Centers nationwide, NWS employees are working to support all aspects of keeping the public safe from weather, water, and climate hazards and meeting the NWS mission to protect lives and property, and enhance the national economy.

NWS Headquarters is responsible for managing the functions of the entire NWS. Headquarters coordinates programs directly related to weather warnings and forecasting to ensure the compatibility and effectiveness of weather services and ensures climate, water, and weather warnings, forecasts, and data products are provided to government, industry, and the general public. The NWS Headquarters also ensures funding is available to support field needs, manages information technology resources, and ensures a coordinated NOAA program of weather-related activities across NOAA line offices.

NOAA’s Global Systems Laboratory 

The Global Systems Laboratory (GSL) of the Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) conducts world-class applied research and directed development resulting in technology transfer of environmental data, models, products, and services that enhance environmental understanding with the outcome of supporting commerce, supporting NWS in protecting life and property, and promoting a scientifically literate public.

Science Themes and Research Areas:

• Perform research and development of regional and global Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) models and data assimilation techniques for research applications and operational forecasting using convection allowing models including the FV3 dynamic core. Perform evaluations of existing and new observations and assimilate new data into weather prediction models.
• Develop environmental information systems with tools for collecting, processing, displaying, sharing, and disseminating environmental data for use by forecasters, analysts, and researchers.
• Develop decision-support systems to provide information needed to enable decision makers to utilize and improve high-impact weather and water forecasts, in order to mitigate aviation hazards, recognize and advise the public on potential adverse health impacts due to air quality, support the renewable energy industry, and reduce loss of life and property. Integrate social science into the development process.
• Explore new hardware and software technologies to run high-resolution weather models more quickly and accurately on High-Performance Computing systems (HPC). Research includes working with modelers during development to ensure that software is designed to take advantage of the latest developments in HPC system architectures.

Assimilation and Verification Innovation Division

Making Forecasts Better

The Assimilation Development Branch of the Assimilation and Verification Innovation Division (AVID) works on techniques to assimilate all types of weather observations, including radar and satellite data, into weather prediction models. These assimilation techniques are applied to regional models, but some applications are moving towards global model data assimilation.

The Assimilation Development Branch (ADB) is divided into two sections: 

The Assimilation Section develops advanced observational data assimilation techniques, including radar and satellite data but also for all observational data. These assimilation techniques are applied in particular for regional models but with some applications working towards global model data assimilation.

The Model Assessment Section develops integrated, common verification applications for model and assimilation research and development, and for observation sensitivity experiments.

Earth Prediction Advancement Division 

The Earth Prediction Advancement Division works on combined suites of regional and global models to link atmospheric modeling with atmospheric chemistry, the ocean, and biosphere. This group works extensively with different community groups and has a leadership role with the community WRF-Chem model.

The Earth Prediction Advancement Division is divided into two sections

The Model Physics Section works on suites of physical parameterizations such as the boundary layer, cloud microphysics, land surface, radiation, and convection appropriate for atmospheric models, including scale-aware and aerosol-aware versions. These schemes and combined suites are applied to both regional and global models. This section works extensively with different community groups including the WRF model community.

The Global Earth/Chem Modeling Section works to couple inline chemistry into global and regional atmospheric models, a key component of earth-system models. The work of this Section includes a leadership role with the community WRF-Chem model.