Scientific and Technical Advancement

This team is responsible for establishing and maintaining the code management plan for the Gridpoint Statistical Interpolation (GSI) data assimilation (DA) system. GSI is a state-of-the-art DA system developed by numerous contributors throughout the U.S. It is currently the DA system used operationally within many of the weather forecasting systems run by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Air Force Weather Agency (AFWA). Given the distributed nature of the code development for GSI, as well as the need to ensure an effective transition from the research environment to the demands of 24x7 operations, NOAA and AFWA recognized the importance of rigorous code management for GSI. In 2009, they chose to work with staff at the Developmental Testbed Center (DTC), jointly operated by NCAR/RAL and NOAA/ESRL, to develop, maintain and support a code management framework for GSI. Since 2010, the nominated GSI Code Management Team (GSI CMT) has provided that framework for DA development, creating and managing a code repository for members of the research and operational communities working to advance the science of DA. The GSI team has facilitated and supported the release of five versions of GSI, each providing the community with the latest GSI capabilities, as well as complete documentation and user support. Use of the GSI system has grown dramatically in the past five years and there are now more than 800 registered users in 60 countries. The code management team has played a critical role in this success.