2018 NOAA General Modeling Meeting and Fair Brings Together Modeling Community

by Nicholas Komisarjevsky, NOAA Climate Program Office

Nearly 200 scientists and managers from government, academia, and private industry gathered Sept. 10-12 at the NOAA Center for Weather and Climate Prediction in College Park, Maryland from September 10-12, 2018.  This inaugural event brought the NOAA modeling community together to share ideas on how to advance modeling and network with other professionals.

First proposed by the NOAA Unified Modeling Committee, this event brought together many different modeling disciplines to share lessons learned, identify opportunities for synergy, and build closer working relationships across different domains of modeling expertise that exist across NOAA line offices and their external partners. “It was ambitious to invite such a diverse group of participants with wide ranging interests and objectives to this one meeting,” said Dr. Annarita Mariotti, Director of the NOAA Research Climate Program Office MAPP Program and Chair of the meeting’s Organizing Committee. The theme for this year’s fair was “interdisciplinary modeling and partnerships,” with the main goal of enhancing modeling communication and networking. Representatives from NOAA Research, other NOAA Line Offices, federal agencies and academic institutions participated in presentations, networking events, tutorials and the Modeling Fair, which included over 60 exhibits from the NOAA modeling enterprise.

NOAA General Modeling Meeting and Fair Engagement

In the fair session, meeting participants engaged with one another about their modeling posters

Dr. Christa Peters-Lidard, Deputy Director for Hydrosphere, Biosphere, and Geophysics in the Earth Sciences Division at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, feels there is definitely a momentum shift towards community modeling, and that coming together presents “an opportunity to re-emphasize the connections we have and discuss common challenges and approaches to solving them.”

Participants emphasized this need to move towards an increasingly more collaborative modeling culture that builds on purposeful investments in the modeling workforce including training, a proactive career reward system, sharing of best modeling practices and external community engagement and partnerships critical to fostering innovation. Meeting discussions highlighted several factors that could help enhance NOAA modeling. These included optimal use of observations, high performance computing availability and access as well as a framework for model coupling with more integration across NOAA modeling disciplines.

Modeling Fair conveners also recognized the need for purposeful opportunities for career advancement, enhanced diversity and inclusion as well as engaging early career scientists. To achieve these goals, the meeting engaged early career professionals in 5-minute “Lightning Round” talks on their research, and an evening “Early Career Scientists” event allowed for networking and career-oriented discussions with senior NOAA staff. Participants were optimistic about emerging NOAA modeling capabilities resulting from efforts to better integrate the NOAA modeling enterprise by bridging physical and biological disciplines, NOAA’s internal and external modeling, and research and operations.  Overall there was excitement for continued NOAA modeling community engagement in efforts such as the NOAA General Modeling Meeting and Fair.

To learn more about the 2018 NOAA General Modeling Meeting and Fair, view the exhibit award winners, and learn more about the long-term goals for future Modeling Fairs, visit the modeling fair homepage.