Case Study: Digital Engineering and Data Analytics

INNOVIM supports NOAA’s largest environmental data repository, the Comprehensive Large Array-data Stewardship System (CLASS).  Our staff is distributed across multiple sites to support the CLASS Government Program Office to sustain, develop, maintain, and operate IT security support activities necessary for each of the CLASS environments and sub-systems.  

Our scientists have also developed numerical analysis models for predictive analysis and forecasting for NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center (CPC). Our activities include:

• Supporting modification, enhancement, and development of experimental techniques with methodologies, targeting trends, and blocking
• Contributing to the integrated analysis of dynamical models from leading meteorological centers
• Applying advanced statistical methods and composites to study the characteristics of Blocking, Madden–Julian Oscillations (MJO), Arctic Oscillations (AO), North America Oscillation (NAO), sudden stratospheric warming, El Niño/La Niña/ENSO Cycle, Quasi-Biennial Oscillation, and the Pacific North American Pattern
• Using long-history re-analysis, operational observations, and meteorological analysis for statistical analysis 

As part of the NOAA Attribution and Reanalysis project, we perform historical runs using simulation with large ensemble members.  These datasets allow us to examine long-term climate processes.  Our work includes:

• Maintaining and updating Consolidated Forecast Tools using the experimental North American Multi-Model Ensemble (NMME) multi-model ensembles for seasonal forecasts 
• Developing an ensemble regression method to apply to NMME for intra-seasonal forecast analysis to improve NMME probabilistic forecasts
• Using satellite observations to build a global salinity analysis for verification and improvement of the model output
• Analyzing the impact of surface fluxes on ocean models and evaluate the effects of injecting ocean observation data
• Conducting numerical experiments to investigate the weak skills of recent El Niño predictions and monitor and simulate the current strong case 
• Running and generating models using sea ice thickness conditions and analyzing the output to assess the benefit of using different datasets
• Producing Sea Ice outlooks each month and implementing them for experimental operation for the winter
• Investigating tropical Pacific biases by exploring impacts of coupling on tropical preferences using unconstrained historical simulations with sea surface salinity (SSS)

INNOVIM assisted NOAA in delivering decision support services to stakeholders with authoritative science and effective communication. We conducted outreach through the ENSO Blog and engaged frequently and effectively with the media while backed with comprehensive monitoring and insightful analysis of the oceanic-atmospheric states. The NOAA CPC team (including INNOVIM support personnel) won the NOAA Administrator’s Award “For extensive cutting edge and comprehensive decision support services associated with the near-record 2015–2016 El-Niño.”