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Minutes
IOOS COMT Puerto Rico/USVI bi-weekly call
Thursday, Feb 28, 1-3 pm ET
Present: Andre van der Westhuysen (PI, minutes), Julio Morell, Aurelio Mercado, Juan Gonzalez,
Joannes Westerink, Jamie Rhome, Cristina Forbes, Jane Smith, Carlos Anselmi, Elizabeth Smith
(SURA)
Absent: James Brinkley, Jesse Feyen, Ernesto Rodriques, Jay Veeramony
1. Household items
a) Subcontracting for UPR still needs to be finalized. Some minor items are still being taken
care of. (Liz mentioned previously that funds received late in the FY could be carried over to
the next FY, by means of a “no cost extension”.)
b) The budget for FY15 has been set. It will be at approximately the same level as FY14. IOOS
needs the final FY15 budget and work description by March 17. Action: Andre.
c) It seems likely that the COMT project will be extended from 2 to 3 years.
d) IOOS/SURA is encouraging us to submit an abstract on our project to the NOAA
Testbeds/Proving Grounds Workshop, April 16-18. [Update 03/10/14: Abstract submitted on
March 5.]
2. CyberInfrastructure
a) Computing infrastructure is in place at all of our “Numerical modeling” team members,
except for NHC. Christina can start on her local workstation, but will need a large machine in
time. To check whether she has access to NOAA’s Zeus research machine and discuss.
[Update 03/10/14: NHC does have access to Zeus, but has been allocated 0 compute hours by
the NCEP HPC allocation committee. Need to explore different options.]
b) Additional computing could be made available through NSF’s XSEDE project. For the
allocation period starting Jul 1, the application window is Mar 15 thru Apr 15.
c) Rich Signell to give UPR and NHC a tutorial on how to set up a THREDDS server on their
machine. [Update 03/10/14: Tutorial was held on 03/07/14 with Harry Justiniano (UPR) and
Cristina, and a THREDDS server was set up at UPR.]
d) Action: Andre to compile a list of questions on how to get started on the COMT
CyberInfrastructure, to be answered by Rich.
3. Test case selection
Discussion on regional test case selection of Feb 13:

In reviewing the shortlist of cases discussed on Feb 13, Jamie explained that NHC has to be
very mindful of (i) the time it has available to participate in the testbed and (ii) that it should
restrict itself to its tropical mission. NHC/SSU cannot involve itself in extra-tropical cases –
that is the mission of WFOs and NHC/TAFB. He recalled that the first testbed studied only
two cases (Rita and Ike). On that basis, he supported selecting the tropical cases H. Hugo and
H. George.
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
Juan mentioned that the wind forcing for Hugo and George were not that good, and that the
CariCOOS observational network was not operational prior to 2011, so that less data is
available for model evaluation.

Joannes added that offshore/onshore winds affect the currents and that that in turn affects the
water levels, something that is traditionally not considered. So wind products should account
for both the tropical events and the phenomena that happen during the rest of the year.

Jamie suggested a compromise: Select two tropical cases that all modeling teams (incl.
NHC/SSU) would run, and one extra-tropical case for which WFO San Juan and NHC/TAFB
would be the operational partners. He suggested to involve Hugh Cobb at TAFB. Suggested
cases (see details in Feb 13 minutes):
o
o
Tropical: H. George (1998) and H. Isaac (2012)
Extra-tropical: S. Sandy (2012)

Asked whether detailed cross-reef test cases would be useful to HNC/SSU, Jamie responded
that perhaps they would in 5 years. (These are more important to WFO SJU at present.)

Joannes suggested to consider the work that Don Slinn has already done with SLOSH-SWAN
to get us started.
Juan prepared a summary of 1-D transect cases from the St. Croix USACE PILOT study to consider:

St. Croix cases will be a good addition to Rincon cases discussed on Feb 13 because lowfrequency components were captured better (due to longer measurement records).

Proposed to add a fourth case from the Rincon experiment to capture low-period swells.

Suggested cases:
o
o
o
o
o

Rincon:
St. Croix:
01/14 2013
01/27 2013
02/08-02/10 2013
09/28 2008
10/14 2008.
These cases will be mainly of operation interest to WFO SJU.
Next meeting: Thursday, Mar 13, 1-3 pm ET.
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