NCAR Scientist Assembly

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NCAR Scientist Assembly Tim Killeen April 25,
2005
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Outline

• NCARs Strategic Plan update
• Federal outlook
• NCARs budget, organization and leadership
• Science, facilities and education
• NSAs role in defining NCARs future
• Discussion

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NCARs Strategic Plan Update
Beginning update process NCAR Executive
Committee leadership--represents all NCAR NSA -
critical inputs and reviews Community input
solicited (e.g., URC) Targeted to support NSFs
Review of NCARs Management, March 2006 Will
protect NCARs science and facilities programs
through competition process
October 2001
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Current Strategic Plan
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2006 Strategic Plan

• Goals
• Update science and facilities plan
• Reconfirm our priorities and commitment to
  science
• Articulate our unique strengths
• Demonstrate our role as a community facilitator
• To use as
• Basis for review of NCAR Management- March 06
• Basis for Laboratory implementation plans
• Roadmap for NCAR decisions
• Marketing tool
• Guidance for community collaborators
• Document for competition of management of NCAR

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Approach

• Guiding principle This is an opportunity
• Build on existing plan
• Base plan on set of goals and focus areas
• 10 year planning horizon
• Staff inputs
• NCAR Division Directors
• NSA -- SEA
• ECSA -- UOP Directors
• Iterative process
• Community input
• URC
• NCAR Advisory Council
• BOT
• Divisional Advisory Panels
• Invited University Participants

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Approach, cont.

• Forming a writing team
• Some NSA Members
• Detailed annotated outline (May 05)
• Co-locate Executive Committee in July 05
• Gather input welcome your ideas, July critical
• Reviews by NSA, UCAR BOT, NCAR Advisory
  Committee, URC, NSF
• Form a Red Team
• Some NSA Members

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Federal Budget Outlook
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Federal Outlook

• US budget had a record deficit last year of 412
  billion
• Congress supports the need for a strong research
  base, but face significant budget pressures
• NSF looking at inflationary or sub-inflationary
  growth over next 2-3 years.
• According to AAAS report of 4/12/05, for FY06
• Total federal research investment would fall 1.4
  to 55.2 billion.
• NSF would receive an average 1 percent boost for
  research programs.
• DOE Office of Science RD -4.5
• NASA 1.6
• RD 4.6
• Earth Sciences - 4
• Biological and physical research -22

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Presidents 2006 Budget Request for NCAR
Drop
Includes Mesa Lab refurbishment Includes
aircraft maintenance
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NSF Emphasis Areas

• Biocomplexity in the Environment
• Information Technology Research
• Collaborations in Mathematical Geosciences
• Nanoscale Science and Engineering
• Human and Social Dynamics

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Advocacy

• Testimony to House Science Committee on Earth
  Science at NASA, this Thursday
• Visits to Hill, OMB, OSTP, Presidents Science
  Advisor, NSF Director, GEO Director, etc.
• Killeen, co-chair of NASA Sun-Solar Connections
  Strategic Plan
• Anthes, co-chair of NRC Earth Science Decadal
  Review
• Testimony on FY06 budget for
• NSF NASA
• FAA FHWA
• NOAA
• NCAR/ATM Retreat, February 28, 2005

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NCARs Budget
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FY 2005 Annual Budget Review Assumptions

• Maintain progress towards implementing NCARs
  Strategic Plan.
• Honor several leveraged commitments to funding
  agencies.
• Support priorities consistent with NSF Review
  Criteria.
• Maintain Early Career Scientist Program.
• Support actions responsive to NSF review.
• Create budgetary and programmatic flexibility
  where feasible.

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How were decisions made?

• With difficulty and careful deliberation
• Base down -2 10 staff actions in areas deemed
  of lower priority based on FY05 ABRs
• 6 staff actions occurred earlier in Facilities
  divisions
• Extensive review in
• Divisions/programs/institutes,
• Laboratories, then
• NCAR Executive Committee
• Directors Fund reserves and FY05 Opportunity
  Fund applied to shortfalls where most needed
• Major fund-raising effort
• Every effort made to preserve priority programs
• NSA Science Advisor involved throughout

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Significant Adjustments

• 1M Biocomplexity funding secured for second year
  (no new hires)
• 1.5M new funding for EOL, matched by 100k from
  Directorate (next year additional 2.5M new
  funding)
• Directorate reserve and ESSL reserve combination
  to fund CCSM, UTLS, CSAC, MIRAGE, Visitor
  Programs for FY05
• Space Weather 250k new NSF funding, with 150k
  match from Directorate
• Inter-Laboratory transfers to relieve problems

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NCAR Strategic Initiative FundingFY 2001 through
Projected FY 2009
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Strategic Initiative Funding
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Budgetary Outlook

• Moving the ABR budget process for FY 2006 earlier
  (Spring time) for better planning
• FY 2006-08 core budgets likely to continue to be
  tight
• Negotiated agreement with NSF to ramp up EOL
  funding for HIAPER, and science linked to it with
  new funds (total of 4.5M over two years)
• Developing a multi-year strategy (similar to that
  successfully made for EOL) for funding
  next-generation NCAR Computing Facilities.
• NSF-ITR funding proposal presently under study.

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NCARs Reorganization
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Objectives of a realignmentBrant Foote, January
2004
Organize so as

• To show ourselves off in the best possible light
• Highlighting all the bright parts of our program,
  not just the initiatives
• To refine and to emphasize our mission and goals
• Understand our priorities more quantitatively
• Make our mission and our structure look more
  alike
• To make our management team as effective as
  possible
• To make the dreaded stovepipe term obsolete
• To manage effectively cross-divisional programs
  (the initiatives as well as others)

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Reorganization Goals

• Develop a structure that maps NCARs mission into
  its organization more clearly
• Facilitate internal and external collaborations,
  for both interdisciplinary and disciplinary
  research
• Deliver on the promise of our strategic plan
• Reduce the number of direct reports to NCAR
  Directors office to optimize
• Appropriate span of control
• Delegation of authority and responsibility
• Decisions to include needed perspectives
• Communication throughout the organization
• Greater external advocacy

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NCAR Reorganization

• Financial structure implemented in October, 2004.
• NCAR Executive Committee Implemented October,
  2004.
• FY 2006/07 Annual Budget Review at the Laboratory
  Level.

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NCAR Associate Directors

• CISL Al Kellie
• EOL Carbone/Cooper and in 7/05
• Roger Wakimoto (new)
• ESSL Annick Pouquet (acting, search underway)
• RAL Brant Foote
• SERE Diana Josephson (new)
• Addition of Science Advisor to Executive
  Committee
• Joe Tribbia

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Projected Net Cost of Reorganization in FY 2006
( in thousands)

• Savings in direct programs due to scientific
  staff moving to management positions e.g.
  Pouquet, Nychka, Carbone, Hagan
• Review of overhead functions underway to restrain
  upward pressure on rates (1,5)
• Net cost further reduced by UCAR, which is paying
  for roughly half of SERE AD position for 3 years

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NCARs Reorganization

• Science is central to the reorganized NCAR.
• One laboratory ESSL -- is all science.
• SERE, CISL, EOL, and RAL also have significant
  science components.
• 6 out of 8 NCAR executive committee members are
  NCAR Senior Scientists.
• NCAR Overhead rate FY05 51.5 FY06 50.6

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NCAR Investing for our Future
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Investment in ScienceACD Laboratory FL0
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HIAPER

• Six years in the making (20 in the planning!)
• 81.5 million NSF/NCAR aircraft largest community
  project in NCAR history
• Fly up to 51,000 feet with a range of 7,000 miles
• Can carry 5,600 pounds of sensors
• Arrived March 11, 2005 to new Jeffco hangar
• In testing phase
• Ready for deployment in 2006

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IBM Blue Gene
Supercomputer to simulate ocean, weather, and
climate phenomena Peak performance of 5.7
teraflops In collaboration with the University
of Colorado
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National Lambda Rail (NLR)
NCAR/SCD will serve Colorado School of Mines,
Colorado State University, University of Colorado
at Boulder, University of Colorado at Denver,
NOAA Boulder labs, University of Utah, and the
University of Wyoming. NLR provides 4 separate
10 gigabit-per-second pathways, extensible to 40
total
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Faculty Fellowship

• To provide opportunities and resources for
  faculty employed at universities, with an
  emphasis on UCAR member universities and academic
  affiliates and early career faculty, to work in
  residence at NCAR
• To enable NCAR Scientists (Staff, Project, and
  Associate Scientists including Senior Research
  Associates) to spend a period of time in
  residence at US universities, with the same
  emphasis on UCAR member universities and UCAR
  academic affiliates.
• URC recommended selection
• ASP announcement forthcoming

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ASP Post Docs

• 140 applicantshighly qualified
• Directors or representative provided top 2-3
  candidates
• 9 hires with 4 positions co-sponsored
• Wait list
• Announcements shortly

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Opportunity Fund

• For highly innovative science, to maintain
  scientific vitality
• 1 million available
• Maximum award 200K
• Proposals due April 27
• Decisions August 29
• Start date FY06
• Review recommendations by panel of NSA

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Strategic Initiatives

• Executive Committee recommended new Efforts for
  FY06 (initial funding in FY05)
• CSAC
• UTLS
• MIRAGE

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FY 04/05 Scientist I Hires

• Amik St-Cyr CISL, SCD
• Jochum Markus ESSL, CGD
• Matthias Rempel ESSL, HAO
• George Bryan ESSL, MMM
• Paul Field ESSL, MMMArlene Laing ESSL,
  MMMDavid Gochis RAL, RAPJosh Hacker RAL, RAP

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A Sampling of Projects and Points of Pride
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RICOs Real-time Display and Coordination Center
NSF C-130
GOES 1Km vis
UK BAE-146
R/V Seward Johnson
NSF KingAir
S-PolKa
one of the largest RDCC projects to date
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Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
Fourth Assessment Report (FAR)

• NCAR Community Climate System Model (CCSM-3).
• Open Source
• 8-member ensembles
• 11,000 model years simulated
• T85, 100 Terabytes

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Institution Rankings in the GeosciencesSorted by
Citations June 2004
NSF Reviewof UCAR and NCAR Proposal, December
2002

• Previous reviews, including the most recent NSF
  and SPEC reviews, have noted the excellence of
  NCAR research. The panel concurs in that
  assessment and is impressed with the quality and
  appropriateness of the proposed research agenda.
• NCAR research and facilities have contributed in
  a highly effective way to the nations
  atmospheric science research and education
  needs.
• Every recent review has asked NCAR to do more

Data courtesy of ISI Essential Science
Indicators Powered by ISI Web of Knowledge
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NSA

• NCARs new Strategic Plan participate in
  shaping our future
• Difficult budget timeshelp us make the hard
  decisions
• (Rhoten study participation voluntary, data
  needed)
• QA

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Discussion
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2001 Strategic Plan

• NCAR as an Integrator
• The integration of disciplinary knowledge to
  create interdisciplinary synthesis and develop
  new knowledge
• The integration of research and education
• The integration of different tools and methods to
  attack new problems
• The integration of different points of view and
  personal experiences to create teams

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Looking Ahead NCAR in the Next
Decade Traditional and New Modalities

• Enhance science/facility integrative activities,
  for example
• Community Climate System Model evolution into
  Earth System Model carbon, nitrogen cycles,
  chemistry, human processes
• Airborne, satellite, and ground observing
  systems instrument development, miniaturization,
  tele-science, data systems, field campaigns, etc.
• Define and implement new large scale integrative
  science activities in close cooperation with the
  community, for example
• Climate/clouds/water cycle/ecosystems
• Impacts/adaptation/vulnerability/sustainability

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NCAR in the next Decade (continued)

• Accelerate Scientific Progress with new
  cyberinfrastructure
• Tools Data Assimilation, Grids, Earth System
  Modeling Framework, GIS
• Services Capacity and capability computing,
  Community Data Portal
• Build Deeper Connections - for example
• With the Universities and other partners
• With the operational forecasting community
• With minority-serving universities colleges by
  exchanging visitors, hosting students, and
  providing technical assistance
• With business and government decision-makers
  through sustained dialogue, answering questions,
  and creating new information products
• With the international science community

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Challenges and Opportunities NCAR as an
Integrator

• The Overarching Challenge Service and
  leadership for the community
• Need to address complex, large-scale, important
  science problems. NCAR will play a leading
  role.
• Need to build and deploy enabling
  cyberinfrastructure and observing facilities.
  NCAR will play a leading role.
• Need to further define community model concept
  and process science. NCAR will play a leading
  role.
• Need community and capacity-building public,
  K-12, postdocs, grad students, faculty, teams,
  etc. NCAR will play a leading role.