ASP Executive Summary

The overarching objectives of the Advanced Study Program (ASP) are to support and complement the full NCAR program, and to help NCAR and the scientific communities that it serves to prepare for the future. The ASP encourages the development of young scientists in atmospheric and related research, directs attention to timely scientific areas needing special emphasis, helps to organize new science initiatives, supports interactions with universities, and promotes continuing education at NCAR. The postdoctoral fellowship program continues to be the most important component of the ASP. The fellows conduct their research in collaboration with NCAR scientists throughout the institution and have access to diverse advanced training opportunities to enhance their professional development. The ASP also promotes the examination of research areas that are in need of special emphasis, either because they are particularly timely or they deserve exacting attention. The ASP convenes workshops and colloquia, and supports appropriate visitors to accomplish these objectives. Additionally, the ASP provides organizational support for a research program that spans most divisions at NCAR. The ASP support of the Geophysical Turbulence Program (GTP) includes the administration of the annual GTP workshops, seminar series, and visitor program. Other ASP activities include support for NCAR visitors, particularly those with interdisciplinary interests and related to NCAR educational activities. The ASP also promotes visits to universities through a Visiting Scholars Program. Some of the more notable ASP accomplishments during the past year are summarized in the following paragraphs.

Scientist I Search

As a result of the third recent NCAR-wide search for entry-level scientists, seven new Scientist I appointments were made in FY-2004. The three searches have led to the appointment of 29 new early-career scientists since 2001, resulting in a pronounced change in the demographic distribution of the NCAR scientific staff and a significant infusion of youthful vigor into the NCAR scientific program.

The ASP Postdoctoral Fellowships

During FY-2004, 31 postdoctoral fellows conducted research at NCAR in the Advanced Study Program. These fellows work in all divisions and programs at NCAR, so many of the details of their scientific achievements appear in the reports from those divisions and programs. We include brief examples of contributions to NCAR science in our section on Postdoctoral Research Summaries. A description of the fellowship program can also be found in the ASP Postdoctoral Fellowship Announcement.

The NCAR Graduate Fellowship Program

Following a modest re-instatement of the NCAR Graduate Fellowship Program in the previous year, ASP supported the work of four graduate fellows at NCAR in FY-2004. These graduate students now constitute a cohort who share interests in aerosols and so can interact with and support each other as they pursue their graduate research at NCAR. Examples of the research begun by these Fellows are included in the section on Graduate Research Summaries, and more information about this program can be found in the ASP NCAR Graduate Fellowship Announcement.

Summer Colloquia

ASP co-hosted two summer colloquia in 2004. The first, on atmospheric remote sensing using the global positioning system (GPS), was co-hosted with the UCAR Office of Program’s COSMIC program and organized by Y.-H. Kuo (NCAR/UCAR), C. Rocken (UCAR), S. Sokolovskiy (UCAR), E.R. Kursinski (University of Arizona), and G. Hajj (Jet Propulsion Laboratory). This two-week colloquium brought together 51 student participants and 31 lecturers for tutorials and discussion sessions. Fifty-one students from 36 universities and institutions and from 11 countries attended, so the colloquium had a strong international character. As the COSMIC array of GPS satellites approaches operational status, the training received by these students should place them in prime position to exploit the new scientific opportunities that array will offer.

GPS field trip participants at National Central University, Chung-Li City, Taiwan

The second colloquium was held 21-28 July on climate and health and was coordinated by Linda Mearns of the Environmental and Societal Impacts Group, Doug Nychka of the Geophysical Statistics Project and Jonathan Patz of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Thirty-one lecturers from 16 organizations and universities of the U.S. and the United Kingdom presented talks and hands-on interactive exercises to the 43 participants representing 26 universities and institutions of the U.S., Canada, Germany, Austria, Kenya, Israel, Spain, the West Indies and the United Kingdom.

Climate and Health Colloquium participants and lecturers

Scientists Assembly Support

The ASP also provides organizational support for the Early Career Scientists Assembly (ECSA) and their activities, including the Junior Faculty Forum. The second annual ECSA Junior Faculty Forum was held at NCAR on 23-25 June 2004. Participants included 40 early career researchers from 19 universities and institutions in the U.S., Switzerland, Canada, and the United Kingdom. They discussed two topics: the sun-climate connection and the role of coastal zones in global biogeochemistry. For the first time, this year the ECSA invited National Science Foundation and NASA representatives to participate in the fora, wherein they discussed issues surrounding funding opportunities, grants and ethics.

The NCAR Scientists Assembly (NSA) is also supported by ASP and assumed a more active role in the NCAR reorganization process. Joe Tribbia was appointed the NCAR Science Advisor and will work closely with the two sciantist assemblies in FY05.

Geophysical Turbulence Program (GTP) Highlights

In February 2004 the Geophysical Turbulence Program (GTP) held a three-day workshop on The Cumulus Parameterization Problem in the Context of Turbulence Studies. The 44 participants, representing 18 universities or institutions of the US, England, France and Germany, discussed cumulus convective dynamics as an example of turbulent fluid flow. This interdisciplinary workshop was coordinated by Jun-Ichi Yano (Meteo France), Joe Tribbia and Mitch Moncrief (CGD/MMM of NCAR), Leo Donner (NOAA, Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory), and Wojciech Grabowski (MMM, NCAR). GTP also sponsored a two-day symposium in honor of Douglas K. Lilly’s contributions to Atmospheric Turbulence and Mesoscale Meteorology [link], a seminar series [link], and an active visitor program in addition to the fundamental research activities summarized in the GTP section [link] of this report.

Annick Pouquet, as Principal Investigator on a CMG grant through NSF hired postdoctoral fellow Pablo Mininni (University of Buenos Aires) and graduate fellow Jonathan Graham (University of Colorado) to work on modeling of MHD turbulence. A set of comparisons for 2D MHD has been made between the DNS code, which solves the primitive unmodified MHD equations, and the so-called alpha model developed by Holm and his collaborators. The comparisons are favorable for the evolution of the long-wavelength parts of the spectra.

Dynamo action in the regime of low ratio of kinematic viscosity to magnetic diffusivity, or low magnetic Prandtl number PM as in the molten part of the interior of the earth is being presently investigated. The critical magnetic Reynolds number for dynamo action has an abrupt eightfold increase for lower values of PM when compared to PM=1, and then reaches a plateau. The problem is linked to turbulence which renders the dynamo difficult to start by blurring so to speak magnetic field lines.

GTP members made substantial progress with the Geophysical and Astrophysical Spectral element Adaptive Refinement (GASPAR) code development. It is now about 62,000 lines, and is in beta-phase for its two-dimensional version. FY-2004 work focused on completing the testing of the adaptive refinement, implementing several new time-stepping schemes, and writing a memory manager for (dynamic allocation of) temporary space. Results from these efforts were presented at three scientific conferences in FY-2004. As a first step in validation of GASpAR for turbulent flows, a series of computations using standard accurate pseudo-spectral methods will be performed as a base data set against which to compare GASpAR results. It is anticipated that the 2-d code will enter production in calendar 2004 (early FY-2005).

In addition, a part-time graduate student, Wilfred Thompson, completed work on a server-client-based tool, GProbe, which provides a GASpAR user with on-the-fly diagnostics, enabling the user to monitor run performance. The monitor is written in Java with a MySQL database on the server enabling the client to perform playback and display. This student also modified the GBin I/O software within GASpAR to accommodate proper output synchronization on multiprocessors, when the number of finite elements on each processor may differ (even substantially).