NNG17HP03C - Quarterly Technical Reports Redacted.pdf

NASA GSFC Goddard Institute for Space Studies

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PREPARED FOR

GODDARD INSTITUTE FOR SPACE STUDIES

CODE 611.0

GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER

BY

SciSpace

Contract #: NNG17HP03C

QUARTERLY REPORT

AUGUST-OCTOBER 2018

Table of Contents

CONTRACT OBJECTIVE

A: Scientific Programming and Analysis

A.1 Global Climate Modeling (GCM) Support [SOW 3.1.1.1]

A.1.1 GISS GCM Maintenance and Improvement A.1.2 GISS Climate Model Diagnostics A.1.3 Improved Parameterization of GCM Sub-grid scale Turbulence Transport A.1.4 Documentation of the Core GISS Climate Model A.1.5 Cumulus Cloud Studies A.1.6 GCM Deliverables A.1.7 GCM Problems, Issues, and Performance Risks

A.2 Earth Observations (EO) [SOW 3.1.1.2]

A.2.1 ISCCP

A.2.2 GISS Global Surface Air Temperature Time Series Support A.2.3 WWW Development Support A.2.4 Aerosol Polarimetry Sensor (APS) Algorithm Package Development A.2.5 Climate Model Simulation Diagnostic Dataset Generation A.2.6 EO Deliverables

A.3 Climate Impacts (CI) [SOW 3.1.1.3]

A.4 Planetary Atmospheres (PA) [SOW 3.1.1.4]

A.4.1 Mapping Saturn’s Northern and Southern Hemisphere Eddy Momentum Fluxes A.4.2 Development of Research Scanning Polarimeter data analysis techniques A.4.3 Adapt GISS GCM to other planets and exoplanet studies A.4.4 PA Deliverables

B: Computer Facility (CF) Operations [SOW 3.1.2]

B.1 GISS Computer Facility Maintenance and Monitoring B.2 User Support B.3 GISS Computer Facility Component Installation and Inventory B.4 Computer Facility Supply Maintenance B.5 GISS Computing Facility Planning and Evolution B.6 GISS Computer Facility Security B.7 CF Status

C: Library and Publication Services (LPS) [SOW 3.1.3]

C.1 GISS Technical Library Operations C.2 On-line Library System Participation C.3 LPS Deliverables C.4 LPS Problems, Issues, and Performance Risks LPS Deliverables C.5 LPS Recommendations C.6 LPS Work Planned for Next Quarter C.7 Library Expense and Projection Report C.8 Publication Services

D: Logistical and Utility Support (LUS) [SOW 3.1.4]

D.1 Property Inventory Support D.2 NASA Educational Programs

E: Program Management (PM) [SOW 3.1.5]

E.1 Staffing E.2 Task Management E.3 Contract Reporting E.4 Coordination with COR E.5 Logistical Support E.6 Contractor Safety Support

F: Electronic Information Technology Accessibility Compliance [SOW 3.2]

F.1 GISS Website Upgrade and Maintenance F.2 Development and Maintenance of Web Utilities

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CONTRACT OBJECTIVE

The basic objectives of this mission contract are to provide scientific programming and analysis in support of specific research programs and to perform computer facility operations, technical library operations and overall logistical support for the GISS research facility. The scientific programming and analysis functions are integral parts of the respective research programs, whereas the other support functions are required to maintain and operate the facilities used in said research.

To fulfill the mission support requirements, the Contractor shall furnish comprehensive support services that include management, operations, and coordination. The Contractor shall have full authority and responsibility to manage the support services in accordance with the specified performance requirements and to run the entire operation in a coordinated and responsible fashion. As a consequence, the Contractor is given responsibility for ordering and maintaining an inventory of supplies used in these various operations, and authority to perform travel necessary to render support at off-site locations and to obtain necessary professional information by attendance at professional meetings and conferences.

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A: Scientific Programming and Analysis

A.1 Global Climate Modeling (GCM) Support [SOW 3.1.1.1]

A.1.1 GISS GCM Maintenance and Improvement

The monthly tag-ups with the NCCS systems group were held in September and October. Items discussed included potential downtimes involving the main GSFC computer system discover, the status of the planned upgrades, data portal issues and CMIP6 requirements. A disk space repository from CMIP6 output was created after assessing out needs.

Changes in NCCS’s computing environment continued and the corresponding modifications of the production utilities were applied.

A frozen version E2.1 of the GISS climate model was created It is to be used for all CMIP6 experiments.

Two more branches were created for continuing development: E2.1_branch is to be used for minor enhancements that don’t affect model results; E2.2_merge is to be used for further developments towards the next frozen version E2.2.

A new treatment of ice particles in the E3 radiation scheme was introduced. Previously, cloud-size and precipitation-size particles were combined into one size for radiation purposes. This upgrade allows the radiation to see different scattering and absorption properties for each.

An analysis of errors in the ocean biogeochemistry module of GISS ModelE was performed.

Mechanisms other than cold pools and downdrafts were investigated for determining the fraction of weakly entraining updrafts in moist convection, taking the time for a survey of the relevant recent literature.

The dry deposition functionality within the ModelE GCM was further developed. Support for older input files was removed and coding was implemented to allow for more dynamic vegetation types.

The model emissions of gases and aerosols from nature (Megan) part of ModelE was updated to utilize information from the vegetation model in determining isoprene emissions values.

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The freshening trend over the high-latitude ocean in the coupled modelE-HYCOM remains to be an issue.

Both pre-calculated input fields including coupling weights and modified ocean fraction on atmospheric grid as well as the inline coupling between ocean and ice model were investigated. The sea ice area seems to be essentially stable, but they are almost twice as large as observed. Comparisons are being made between the current model and earlier versions to investigate individually the various changes that were introduced at different stages and might be incompatible with each other.

A bug in the coupled modelE-HYCOM was fixed, which was responsible for making the arctic extra fresh.

After that, a big bias on net heatflux showed up within a few days of integration near some coastal points where the ocean fraction is small but non-zero. That fact that the bias is negative suggests that it is more likely to be from latent/sensible heatflux, rather than radiation.

The investigation of the excess amount of sea ice in the GISS/HYCOM continues. A small bug was fixed and experiments were run with new ocean fraction and coupler weights. The sea ice area is stable in both hemispheres with slightly negative trend, but the ice extent is almost twice the observed value, and the model crashed after 350 years.

To cope with the excessive latent/sensible heatflux issue in partial-land coastline cells, the elevation was set to zero at all grid points with non-zero ocean fraction. Another mysterious bug was found possibly related to the global/local array gathering/scattering. Now the latest modelE-HYCOM coupled model produces a net surface heatflux of within 1 W/m2 globally in the first several decades of integration. The modeled sea ice coverage shown below is reasonable compared to observed climatology of seasonal maximum/minimum (dashed lines), except for a weaker seasonal cycle in the northern hemisphere and a low bias in the Southern Ocean. More diagnostics on the model output is on the way.

Figure A

After applying a fix shifting some statements from one subroutine to another and changing the time step for calculating the ocean ice mass, a new run was started. It seemed to have resolved the problem with the growing Arctic sea ice. The current sea ice extents are 6.1% for the Arctic, 5.1% for Antarctica, with a global mean of 5.4%; the observed values are a little lower (4.9%, 4.4%, 4.7%), but the surface air temperature of the model is still increasing, which will decrease the ice cover. The NINO index shows a weaker variability than the AR5 version.

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A.1.4 Documentation of the Core GISS Climate Model

Documentation is an ongoing project; any changes are documented by the programmer implementing the changes in two places:

• Marked and unmarked inline documentation in the code.

• Documentation requested by git when committing the changes to the modelE repository.

Documentation may be produced by running a program that processes the marked comments.

In addition, an extensive overhaul of the documentation provided on the web about how the basic ideas implemented in the climate model and how to set up and run model experiments has been initiated.

The discover-specific instructions are being completely revised in order to keep up with the changes in the environment and utilities used on that system. An early draft was distributed to some new users.

A.1.5 Cumulus Cloud Studies

The diagnostic for the anvil clouds obtained from cloud sandbox branch and master branch were compared to observations prepared by The cloud water (liquid and ice) data and total (cloud and precipitation) water data prepared by were converted from .nc4 to GISS format and were tested and copied to the directory OBS for general use.

Experiments were made in E2.1 with changes to the rain evaporation by use of a parameter Evap_mult.

This rain evaporation appears to have a significant effect on ITCZ and ENSO simulations.

The version of modelE E2.1 plus moist turbulence and pdf-cloud was used for a series of experiments aiming at identifying the contribution of each process on the improvement of the simulations of stratocumulus over the eastern oceans.

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A.2 Earth Observations (EO) [SOW 3.1.1.2]

A.2.1 ISCCP

The run time for clustering and Weather State map creation has been improved by a few orders of magnitude. As a result, the number of tests has increased commensurately.

Three such tests are shown in Figs. 1, 2, and 3 below. Each plot shows clustering done on data from 1984 to 1993 (10 years) with each version having a different set of initialization centroids. Eleven roughly equally-spaced centroids representing poles, mid latitudes, equatorial region, etc. were chosen. These three figures indicate that clustering is heavily dependent on centroid initialization.

Figure 1

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Figure 2

Figure 3

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From these sets of clusters, Weather State maps were produced and are shown in Figs. 4, 5, and 6.

The maps in each one of these plots match pretty well, especially considering that the raw data are in Equal-Area format and that a conversion to Equal-Angle format was made to plot the maps.

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Figure 5

Figure 6

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Quantitative criteria are needed to show the chosen clusters as objectively as possible. The Silhouette Test yields a silhouette score for each data vector used in clustering. This score is essentially a measure of how strongly a data vector is pulled to the cluster it has been associated with. Several different metrics will be tested.

Another metric is to measure how rapidly convergence occurs by measuring how much each centroid moves after each iteration. A plot should converge to zero because the centroids should eventually stop moving after many iterations. Fig. 7 shows three different scenarios. Red is the centroid movement using all data; green is all data except for the year 2005; and blue is movement for data from years 2004 to 2012. It seems the 2005 data have an extreme irregularity with centroid movement.

Figure 7

Figures 8, 9, and 10 show the clusters resulting, respectively, from: 2005, all years, and all years excepting 2005. Fig. 2 certainly displays some clusters with anomalous behavior. Since Figs. 9 and 10 appear reasonable, it seems that the data analysis technique is valid. Thus, an investigation of the 2005 data set is warranted; therefore, a request to ISCCP to re-acquire the 2005 data has been made.

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Figure 8

Figure 9

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Figure 10

In an effort to determine if the correct value of K in the K-means clustering is correct, clustering over time is being studied. The first half of the time period is being compared to the second half of the entire dataset.

For the entire dataset, clustering will be done with various K values ranging from six to 15. Only plots around K=11 are shown in Figs. 11-15. Each plot shows the resulting clusters after 75 iterations of clustering with their corresponding weather state map on the right. The last subplot in each of these figures is reserved for the cloudless weather state, which is always the same.

Observing these figures shows that the fair-weather state (second to last) is always present, which is a good sign clustering is being done properly: the fair-weather state should be the most abundant weather state. Also, the first and second weather states look similar and may have begun a process of splintering into other weather states – as can be seen in Fig. 15.

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Figure 11

Figure 12

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Figure 13

Figure 14

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Figure 15

Previously, nearly 400 iterations were used for clustering, but now only 75 iterations are needed as shown in Fig. 16 below. This shows the movement of each centroid for K=6-15 during clustering, and it shows that K=11 seems to converge the smoothest. Chaotic movement for the first few iterations was followed by each centroid quickly falling into place and becoming stable around 50 iterations.

Figure 16

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Figure 17 shows a clustering test known as the Elbow Test. For each value of K, the (Euclidean) distance of each vector to its closest centroid is added to obtain a total-distance metric for the entire clustering process. Larger total distances indicate less effective clustering. The Elbow connotation refers to the feature between the x-axis (K values) of 11 and 12. This drop, or “elbow,” implies the proper value of K is either 11 or 12. For K values greater than 12, the distance will eventually decay to zero as each vector becomes its own centroid. Cross-correlation of the centroids from each clustering group was also computed.

Figure 17

A.2.2 GISS Global Surface Air Temperature Time Series Support

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NOAA/NCEI made their documentation of GHCN version 4 public as an early on-line publication, indicating that this product will soon leave its beta-status. Hence, the GISTEMP analysis will soon switch from GHCN v3 to GHCN v4. In preparation for that move, the GISTEMP code was restructured, comments were added, and the documentation was improved.

The GHCN v4 data were incorporated into the analysis, and the results were compared to the ones based on version 3. Functionality was coded to determine the best location to place text in a matplotlib plot.

Since GHCN v4 contains reports from about 30,000 stations, whereas GHCN v3 only comprised about 6000 stations, the current display of those stations on a rotating globe is no longer feasible. Hence a transition to a leaflet map was developed – however all currently available products use Mercator projection with its infinite distortion at the poles. While there are no stations near the North Pole, the Amundsen-Scott station is located at the South Pole and special attention had to be brought to that situation.

The FAO project was transitioned over to PoDS ((Portable Distributed Scripts) to be able to run several independent tasks at once.

Requests for clarification by people interested in our web site and were answered to their satisfaction.

Responses were provided to inquiries by fact checking media sources.

Weekly SST anomalies were downloaded to study the potential for the onset or development of an El Nino/La Nina event.

A.2.3 WWW Development Support Work continued on the current update of the comprehensive thematic database of T-matrix publications classified into narrower subject categories.

The website https://www.giss.nasa.gov/staff/mmishchenko/ELS-XVIII of the NASA-sponsored 18th Electromagnetic and Light Scattering Conference (ELS-XVIII) was created and is being updated. The meeting will be held in China on June 10-14, 2019.

The following NASA-sponsored website on "Advancement of POLarimetric Observations: instruments, calibration, and improved aerosol and cloud retrievals" was created and is continuously updated:

https://www.giss.nasa.gov/staff/mmishchenko/APOLO-2 . This 2nd Conference on that topic APOLO- 2019 will be held in Lille, France, on November 4-8, 2019.

IDL software was developed to visualize the results of modeling polarimetric retrievals of stratospheric aerosols generated by volcano eruptions.

A.2.4 Aerosol Polarimetry Sensor (APS) Algorithm Package Development

RSP data is being restructured. Originally, it has been stored in NetCDF format, but it is now being upgraded to NetCDF4. Software that has been used to work with the original format is being modified to work with the new format as well.

SEAC4RS RSP files are being combined with ice-cloud retrievals and liquid-cloud retrievals.

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Software was written to compare GCAS data with RSP data.

The RSP Viewer was updated to overlay images from additional instruments to those already available for mapping.

A.2.5 Climate Model Simulation Diagnostic Dataset Generation

Output from various GCM runs was extracted from the GISS archive and analyzed in support of research work at GISS.

Data inquiries from users outside GISS were investigated, answered, and processed, as needed.

CMIP6 tables versions 01.00.27 were installed and tested.

NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS) has set up a new Earth Science Grid Federation (ESGF) download portal. CMIP6 results generated from CMOR3 programs are supplied for testing. Some CMIP6 files were processed and stored in the new partition.

NCCS has also established a new Earth Science Grid Federation (ESGF) download portal. Output from E200TA[a-e]F40oQ40 was processed, and CMIP6 files were made available for download from that portal.

Work on developing a web page to map and display CMIP5/CMIP6 data on-the-fly continues:

In order to generate plots with a graphics package other than Panoply, the program can write files that can be used by a different package. The array that was being written for the zonal-mean plot was not always producing a consistent value for grid points that had undefined (or fill) values. Modifications were made so that the program will now generate any desired value consistently for these cases.

Values being calculated by the program for a difference (between model runs) over the mean (of one model run) were confirmed to be correct. In addition, these tests revealed that there was something amiss with the quantity being described as sea ice thickness. It turns out that the quantity being saved is, in fact, sea + lake ice thickness. An appropriate ocean mask was downloaded and aligned properly so that the lake values could be removed from both the output files and displayed graphics.

Work was done with respect to transitioning ModelE flat html files to an interactive JS version that is more easily maintainable.

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A.3 Climate Impacts (CI) [SOW 3.1.1.3]

SciSpace is supporting a NASA/Microsoft Partnership together with CCSR (Center for Climate Systems Research at Columbia University) staff with the objective to develop tools that retrieve and process data generated by instruments mounted on NASA satellites into information that may be useful to various planning agencies. The following activities were pursued:

• SciSpace staff met with to update on project status. City Tech Collaborative shared a document providing a summary of previous discussion regarding 6 use cases that highlights the 2 use cases that were prioritized to move forward onto the next phase of solution development.

• SciSpace staff corresponded with City Tech Collaborative staff to schedule a two-hour meeting to launch the design phase of the .

• gave a brief presentation focused on the partnership for the SED Director’s seminar, hosted by the Earth Sciences Division on Friday, Oct 5th.

• SciSpace and NASA staff including met with Microsoft staff to discuss their interest in ECOSTRESS and NASA agriculture-related data products (e.g.

NASA HARVEST) more broadly.

Other climate impact activities included:

• SciSpace staff attended and presented at the Chongming World-class Eco-island Forum 2018 held 6-8 August 2018 at Chongming Island in Shanghai of China. The event was organized by East China Normal University, Columbia University, and Princeton University. These institutions plan to set up the Sino-US Joint Research Center for Chongming Eco-Island, as a part of the Institute of Eco-Chongming during the Forum. The aim of the Forum was to bring together world-class experts who are working on urban ecology, climate change, and urban security issues.

• SciSpace staff attended and presented at the NYC Urban Design Climate Workshop on Sat., August 11th.

• SciSpace staff met with and GISS collaborators to discuss seasonal yield forecasting research.

• SciSpace staff met with at Universities Space Research Association to discuss potential collaboration.

• SciSpace staff met with to discuss collaboration on a Science Policy Forum article.

• SciSpace staff met with CIESIN staff to discuss urban GIS database and platform.

• SciSpace staff, , and met with NYIT collaborators to discuss the next NYC Urban Design Climate Workshop and edits to the summary document associated with the first workshop.

• SciSpace staff met with and GISS collaborators to discuss seasonal yield forecasting research.

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• SciSpace staff and met with CIESIN staff to discuss urban GIS database and platform.

• SciSpace staff met with to discuss current and previous STEM outreach.

• SciSpace staff then had multiple meetings with as well as part of his role as a principal investigator for the NASA GISS Climate Change Research Initiative (CCRI). CCRI is a year-long STEM engagement opportunity allowing for STEM educators and graduate students to work directly with NASA scientists and lead research teams in a NASA research project.

• SciSpace staff met with to plan for the CCRI project taking place over the next year and for reviewing teacher applications.

• SciSpace staff developed a land surface temperature map for the Northwest Hiils Council of Governments in Connecticut.

• SciSpace staff met with to discuss collaboration on a heat wave focused case study for the Red Cross.

• SciSpace staff met with to discuss development of case studies focused on coastal flooding an small towns.

• SciSpace staff gave a presentation with other Climate Impacts Group members for during visit to GISS.

• SciSpace staff met with discuss a potential environmental engineering focused capstone project for undergraduate students at Columbia University.

• SciSpace staff attended a training facilitated by Stony Brook University on environmental measurements.

• SciSpace staff met with to discuss remote sensing and climate projection analysis that could support NASA's partnership with Mercy Corps.

• SciSpace staff met with to discuss collaboration on an Urban Design Climate Workshop (UDCW) focused on Gowanus, Brooklyn as well edits to the first UDCW summary document.

• SciSpace staff met with discuss preliminary Landsat based analysis of land surface temperature variability across several CT towns.

• SciSpace staff met with and World Wildlife Fund (WWF) staff to plan for a November workshop focused on the Mesoamerican reef that will take place in Belize City.

• SciSpace staff met with to discuss climate projections associated with the Mesoamerican reef in support of a collaborative project with WWF.

• SciSpace staff met with to discuss the Columbia University environmental engineering senior design course.

• SciSpace staff met with a team of senior environmental engineering students to discuss the scope of their senior design project and developed a project scope focused on using remote sensing data to assess urbanization and land surface temperature change in multiple cities.

• SciSpace staff met with to plan for Urban Design Climate Worskshops focused on sites in Durban, South Africa as well as Gowanus, Brooklyn.

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B: Computer Facility (CF) Operations [SOW 3.1.2]

B.1 GISS Computer Facility Maintenance and Monitoring

Server Maintenance Patching of servers was performed regularly.

Other Systems

• We continue to encourage users to utilize backup servers.

• We are looking into purchasing additional expansion slots for our remote backup server

• Puppet continues to run daily scans reporting on Wi-Fi, sshd and firewall.

• JAMF deployment to all ACES and non ACES machines continues and is being used to push most updates. Mac users are also able to do their own updates via Applications, Self Service.

• Regular patching continues per Nessus and BigFix vulnerability scans on Linux/Mac workstations.

NASA Network

• Consulted with our networking engineer at NICS about exploring complaints of very slow network file transfers, and monitor the recurring report delivered at 8am every day.

• Worked with the networking team at GSFC coordinating placement of new networking jacks on renovated floors.

• Machines were added/removed from the Active Directory domain as needed for NASA compliant machines.

• DNS entries continue to be made through DDI/QIP and all problems were addressed and resolved with HQ.

Communication

• Regular communication via the GISS-wide email listing were distributed regarding renovation updates.

• SciSpace staff participated in several ACES, non-ACES IT and System Administrator teleconference meetings.

• User support was provided for WebEx/Lync/uStream/Skype/Vidyo sessions.

• Regular communication via the GISS-wide email listing conducted regarding Agency and GISS security policies and procedures.

• IT FAQ is revised and updated to reflect changes as needed.

B.2 User Support

• As of 8 January 2018, Foreign Nationals on Division Science Collaborator agreements needing physical access may be authorized up to (and not exceeding) 29 days in a 365-day period. The Foreign National (FN) must be placed on a legitimate agreement for physical access exceeding 29 days in a 365-day period. This is a federal requirement. In light of this we have submitted requests for Visiting Research Agreement (VRA) agreements for three remote users which are still in their approval stages.

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• Continued working with Protective Services, OIIR, and Code 600 regarding new policies and procedures being implemented for foreign national Science Collaborators and US citizens.

• Continued to submit new and requests for VPN, EP, NCCS access, Vidyo, FN escort, Bastion and other IT-related accounts.

Assisted users with all issues that arose when using these accounts.

• Several user requests were submitted for IT use while traveling overseas. Established policy and procedures were followed and appropriate documentation provided.

• Continued to assist users with the install of the new VPN

• Requests were made to Code 700 to remove several user accounts in that did not require IT.

• Submitted several NCCS (NASA Center for Climate Simulation) applications and helped resolve issues with terminated NCCS users.

• Arranged/setup ViTS meetings and troubleshot problems with both ViTS and WebEx as needed.

• Continued management of the VoIP phone database, troubleshooting, making updates, and submitting user requests as needed.

• Continued to manage the and GISS tickets

(assigning, updating, resolving, and closing).

• Daily administrative work* continues to be conducted on our systems that pass through the ticketing system and GISS local .

• *Daily administrative work includes and is not limited to:

o Installing OS o Manually updating machines with patches when not completely automatically or when requested by users (Flash/Windows Updates/Adobe Reader/Pro/Java etc.)

o Software installation (e.g. Cygwin, Putty, Adobe Acrobat Pro, Matlab, IDL, Symantec, Python, Macports* (Fortran/NetCDF/TeX/Xquartz/Aquamacs/UV-CDAT/R), MS-Office, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Adobe Creative Suite, etc.)

o Hardware installation o Troubleshooting local/network printer errors o Troubleshooting hardware and software problems o Responding to end user inquiries and identifying workable solutions

• Communicated with NASA and ACES managers and attended meetings regarding deadlines, upgrades, encryptions, ticketing systems, accounts, and NASA policies.

• All utilities are upgraded to the newest available versions to help ensure machines secure; disk utilities to repair and verify permissions are run after each update as a preventive measure to minimize user tickets.

Training

• On-job mentoring of junior staff.

• One-on-one Vidyo training sessions conducted.

B.3 GISS Computer Facility Component Installation and Inventory

• Continued to update the IT equipment inventory via EQUIPMENT and “tag” items that are new.

Continued to submit items to be excessed.

• Users were reminded of the rules governing NASA tagged equipment (moves, reassignment, excess, lost, stolen) and their responsibilities as users.

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• Phase 2 was completed: managed the move and setup of approximately 55 plus users with computers, furniture and miscellaneous items to swing or new offices. Worked directly with GSFC personnel, movers, and recycling companies to store and/or excess furniture, storage boxes and equipment. Handed over the 7th floor to the contractors to begin Phase 3 two days ahead of schedule.

• Continued communication with individuals regarding their new office space/setup. Updated the move and furniture lists, and got approvals on them.

• Met with our networking team from GSFC and working with them on sorting out the cabling/switch requirements for the remaining floors to be renovated (7th, 3rd and 2nd).

• Funding for 7th floor conference room was secured.

• Attended GISS Outfitting (Renovations Planning Committee), Tag up Renovations, and GSA renovation meetings.

• Continued communication with individuals regarding their new office space/setup.

• Continued to encourage users to turn in RSA tokens that are not needed.

• Installation and testing of the latest PIV.Tokend software update continues on all Macs verifying that users can use their PIV smartcard.

• Installation and testing of PIV-SSH and PIV-PAM continues for all Linux machines.

• Mac 10.13 compliance script and FW rules continue to be updated and tested as need arises.

B.6 GISS Computer Facility Security

Network Security

• Worked with Code 700 in getting GISS’s metrics up for PIV-Mandatory and attended meetings.

• In an ongoing effort to ensure that users follow the proper rules and regulations regarding dual homing, users are reminded of the need to be vigilant when switching from wireless to LAN and vice versus.

• Users were reminded of NASA Security policy requiring that all personnel using NASA computers (desktop, laptop, workstation, and tablet and are using the NASA network) be cognizant of their organization's IT Rules of Behavior (NIST SP 800-53, control PL-04 Rules of Behavior).

• Skype waivers continue to be submitted on a “need to” basis.

• Administer of hard tokens to GISS users continues and all related issues resolved.

System Security and Monitoring

• Monitoring of our syslog server at GISS continues, .

• Continued to work with GISS’s Computer Security Official (CSO)/GSFC DCSC’s/System

Administrators (SAs), as well as the Code 700 Information Technology Security Group, to get the

Code 611 systems removed from the monthly block lists by fixing or waiving them and continue to work on Agency/Center initiatives and action items.

• Supported various Agency/Code 700 actions including expedited patches and BigFix compliances.

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• Continued to clean up DDI (DNS) and GSARS to ensure accurate reporting in BigFix and IT-SEC.

• Three-Day Waivers were requested through ESD in the event users forget their smartcards and for new users who did not receive their PIV card upon hire or will not due to their status in

• We continue to implement the new rules from Agency and Center that all elevated privilege (EP) requests must be processed through using the correct workflows: EP is now handled on the PIV card.

Incident Reporting Continued to report phishing/spam incidents to SOC and NASA Abuse team and work with users who clicked on phishing/spam links.

Virus/Adware/Etc.

Users were reminded of their responsibility to remain vigilant and to maintain a heightened level of awareness in identifying and reporting any phishing attempts.

Virus software is installed and kept updated on all machines as per NASA standards.

B.7 CF Status

Critical System/Services Uptime Nothing unusual.

Backups

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Clearances for all construction workers are in place and remodeling construction began on the 7th floor (Phase Three of the project). SciSpace systems department and utility staff have relocated all computers, phones, and office equipment from old offices into temporary swing spaces. Planning meetings continue among GISS personnel, GSFC architects/planners, GSA, and Columbia regarding the next phases of renovation.

Renovations are anticipated to continue for one-to-two years. Weekly teleconferences continue with GSFC to coordinate construction strategy, including swing space, storage, disposal, and furniture plans.

The move plan is being modified to accommodate changes in staffing in an effort to minimize the number of moves of each staff member.

The collection and redistribution of office keys continues as 5th floor renovations have completed and 7th floor construction began.

Maintenance was performed as needed throughout the building and proper communication was disseminated to all building occupants as required.

D.2 NASA Educational Programs

Climate Change Research Initiative (CCRI):

External GISS teams include members from Hostos Community College, LaGuardia Community College, Stevens Institute of Technology and City Tech College. External GISS teams will work on summer research projects at their internship institution and will meet with the GISS team for orientation and other enrichment activities.

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E: Program Management (PM) [SOW 3.1.5]

E.1 Staffing

The following staff changes were made for the period August 1 to October 31, 2018:

New Hires

Transfers

Terminations

The annual employee review process was completed. Supervisors met with staff individually to discuss reviews and performance expectations for the upcoming year.

E.2 Task Management

SciSpace updated the NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Locator and Information Services Tracking System (LISTS) personnel roster.

Coordination with was established to update all GISS entries in the NASA Enterprise Directory (NED) including addition of new hires and deletions of terminated employees, as required.

Smart cards continue to be issued to all GISS personnel in accordance with Goddard Space Flight Center’s security procedures.

Temp IDs are no longer valid and all personnel without a valid badge are signed in as visitors.

The following documents were reviewed, updated and redistributed as necessary:

6550 Rock Spring Dr., Suite 600, Bethesda, MD 20817 www.scispace-llc.com with regard to these individuals more broadly. In addition, the Administrator ordered a moratorium on granting any NEW access to NASA facilities to individuals from specific designated countries, including China (PRC), Burma, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Uzbekistan. In compliance with this directive, office space was provided at Columbia University for foreign nationals collaborating with GISS. Whereas foreign visitors from the eight countries mentioned above have to be escorted at all times, ALL foreign nationals (unless they have a green card) have to be approved before they can visit GISS. The approval process involves and has to be initiated by in the project management office at least 10 or 20 days before the visit to be sure that it gets granted in time. The 20-day limit applies to people from the 41 countries (including Israel) listed at:

http://oiir.hq.nasa.gov/nasaecp/DCList 11-28-12.pdf; the 10-day limit applies to all other foreigners.

Even escorted visits are prohibited before the approval has been granted.

LISTS & forms to new employees/foreign visitors and created NASA identities in for badge enrollment.

Submitted several US and foreign national identities in and included ACPs for the FNs as necessary.

The annual GISS directory was updated and distributed electronically. Hardcopies of the directory were also made available upon request.

Travel reservations and authorization are submitted via Concur Government Edition (CGE) system.

ntation provided by the traveler and, after final review by the traveler, are then submitted for approval.

In the month of October, travel reservations were prepared and vouchers completed. Between August 1 and October 31, a total of travel reservations were prepared and vouchers completed.

E.6 Contractor Safety Support

Project manager attended a training session titled “Suspicious Packages: A Brief Guide of What to Look For.”

Project manager attended Emergency Management Team (EMT) meetings on September 6th and October 4th to discuss Emergency Management Plans, SharPoint, BEP status, fire drill schedules, Risk Assessment Process, and Damage Assessment Teams.

The Safety Committee held monthly meetings. All managers are asked to continue to be alert to any potential health and safety hazards in their areas. A safety culture survey was conducted.

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SciSpace staff members participate in regular emergency management meetings including email communications about safety related issues. Discussions about safety and training procedures and processes for the NASA facilities, including GISS.

GISS’ annual Building Safety Audit was conducted on August 7th.

SciSpace PM attended an EMTG telecon meeting September 6th, 2018 with the Facility Operations Managers (and alternates) from all NASA facilities to discuss Emergency Management Plans, SharePoint, BEP status, Fire Drill status, Risk Assessment Process, and Damage Assessment Teams.

Renovation of the 7th floor stalled after asbestos was identified in and around the library area. Abatement began October 22nd and was completed successfully.

Please note that the ‘GISS Facility Management’ section can be found under the Logistical and Utility Support section of this report.

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F: Electronic Information Technology Accessibility Compliance [SOW 3.2]

F.1 GISS Website Upgrade and Maintenance

The system software and Apache server software were updated on public, staging, and internal web servers.

News and feature items were prepared for reposting to the GISS homepage.

The GISS publications website was updated and new entries were added.

Work on improving the web standards and accessibility compliance was continued on various sections of the GISS website.

Development work to redesign the GISTEMP web site is reported on in the Earth Observation section A.2.2.

F.2 Development and Maintenance of Web Utilities

Versions 4.9.4 – 4.9.5 of the Panoply data visualization software were released with minor feature enhancements and bug fixes.

Support was provided to users of the Panoply data visualization software in person at GISS and by email to researchers at NASA/GSFC, NASA/JPL, NOAA/NSIDC, NOAA/NWS/MDL, NOAA/NESDIS, NSIDC, Lawrence Livermore National Lab, OPeNDAP.org, JAMSTEC, and Pohang Univ. (Korea), Washington St. Univ., Utah St. Univ., Univ. Miami, Univ. Leeds (UK), Alfred Wegener Inst. (Germany), Max Planck Inst. for Chem. (Germany), Swiss Federal Labs for Materials Sci. & Technol., Univ. Miguel Hernandez de Elche (Spain), and Pusan Natl. Univ. (Korea).

Versions 2.3.1, and 2.3.2 of the G.Projector map projection software was released with added map projections, feature enhancements, and bug fixes.

The alternative Python plotting package Cartopy was installed on datadev. However, the mapping programs no longer worked; a plugin was developed to add Cartopy functionality and features.

SciSpace staff experimented with scikit-learn and python multiprocessing libraries on Discover. A virtual Python 3 environment on Discover was set up with public access for others who might want to use Python and multiprocessing features.

PREPARED FOR

GODDARD INSTITUTE FOR SPACE STUDIES

CODE 611.0

GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER

BY

SciSpace

Contract #: NNG17HP03C

QUARTERLY REPORT

FEBRUARY 2019 – APRIL 2019

Table of Contents

CONTRACT OBJECTIVE

A: Scientific Programming and Analysis

A.1 Global Climate Modeling (GCM) Support [SOW 3.1.1.1]

A.1.1 GISS GCM Maintenance and Improvement A.1.2 GISS Climate Model Diagnostics A.1.3 Improved Parameterization of GCM Sub-grid scale Turbulence Transport A.1.4 Documentation of the Core GISS Climate Model A.1.5 Cumulus Cloud Studies A.1.6 GCM Deliverables A.1.7 GCM Problems, Issues, and Performance Risks

A.2 Earth Observations (EO) [SOW 3.1.1.2]

A.2.1 ISCCP

A.2.2 GISS Global Surface Air Temperature Time Series Support A.2.3 WWW Development Support A.2.4 Aerosol Polarimetry Sensor (APS) Algorithm Package Development A.2.5 Climate Model Simulation Diagnostic Dataset Generation A.2.6 EO Deliverables

A.3 Climate Impacts (CI) [SOW 3.1.1.3]

A.4 Planetary Atmospheres (PA) [SOW 3.1.1.4]

A.4.1 Mapping Saturn’s Northern and Southern Hemisphere Eddy Momentum Fluxes A.4.2 Development of Research Scanning Polarimeter data analysis techniques A.4.3 Adapt GISS GCM to other planets and exoplanet studies A.4.4 PA Deliverables

B: Computer Facility (CF) Operations [SOW 3.1.2]

B.1 GISS Computer Facility Maintenance and Monitoring B.2 User Support B.3 GISS Computer Facility Component Installation and Inventory B.4 Computer Facility Supply Maintenance B.5 GISS Computing Facility Planning and Evolution B.6 GISS Computer Facility Security B.7 CF Status

C: Library and Publication Services (LPS) [SOW 3.1.3]

C.1 GISS Technical Library Operations C.2 On-line Library System Participation C.3 LPS Deliverables C.4 LPS Problems, Issues, and Performance Risks LPS Deliverables C.5 LPS Recommendations C.6 LPS Work Planned for Next Quarter C.7 Library Expense and Projection Report C.8 Publication Services

D: Logistical and Utility Support (LUS) [SOW 3.1.4]

D.1 Property Inventory Support D.2 NASA Educational Programs

E: Program Management (PM) [SOW 3.1.5]

E.1 Staffing E.2 Task Management E.3 Contract Reporting E.4 Coordination with COR E.5 Logistical Support E.6 Contractor Safety Support

F: Electronic Information Technology Accessibility Compliance [SOW 3.2]

F.1 GISS Website Upgrade and Maintenance F.2 Development and Maintenance of Web Utilities

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CONTRACT OBJECTIVE

The basic objectives of this mission contract are to provide scientific programming and analysis in support of specific research programs and to perform computer facility operations, technical library operations and overall logistical support for the GISS research facility. The scientific programming and analysis functions are integral parts of the respective research programs, whereas the other support functions are required to maintain and operate the facilities used in said research.

To fulfill the mission support requirements, the Contractor shall furnish comprehensive support services that include management, operations, and coordination. The Contractor shall have full authority and responsibility to manage the support services in accordance with the specified performance requirements and to run the entire operation in a coordinated and responsible fashion. As a consequence, the Contractor is given responsibility for ordering and maintaining an inventory of supplies used in these various operations, and authority to perform travel necessary to render support at off -site locations and to obtain necessary professional information by attendance at professional meetings and conferences.

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A: Scientific Programming and Analysis

A.1 Global Climate Modeling (GCM) Support [SOW 3.1.1.1]

A.1.1 GISS GCM Maintenance and Improvement

Monthly tag-ups with the NCCS systems group were held. Items discussed included potential downtimes involving the main GSFC computer system discover, the status of the planned upgrades, data portal issues and CMIP6 requirements, the transfer to SLES12 and the loss of MPT, the growing need for archival space. Alternatives to the Masstor silos are being considered, including cloud storage.

Changes in NCCS’s computing environment continued and the corresponding modifications of the production utilities were applied. New people were assisted in using the model and the utilities needed to run it efficiently on the NCCS machines.

The modelE3 codebase was finalized (in its non tracer-enabled configuration). This task entailed several elements. Firstly, bugfix updates and new functionality developed within other model configurations into the E3 code structure were imported. Examples included longwave radiation improvements, streamlining of mixed-layer ocean capabilities, and the treatment of gravity wave drag. Secondly, some minor last-minute changes were implemented to parameterizations, including (1) moist convection and (2) longwave radiation in the upper stratosphere and mesosphere.

The modularization of the GISS “radiation” scheme was continued, cleanly separating the aspects of the code having to do with input management (greenhouse gases, aerosols, etc.) from the parts of the code doing core radiative transfer calculations. This modularization is necessary to run the core radiative transfer scheme in new ways for the Radiative Forcing Model Intercomparison Project (RFMIP) and will be generally useful in future development activities.

A new sea ice dynamics scheme was incorporated into a test-bed standalone ocean model environment that was previously developed; it avoids the polar singularities of the latitude-longitude grid currently used by the GISS ocean model. This singularity is fatally inconvenient for the new solution technique of the ice dynamics equations. For maximum backward compatibility, this environment attempts to change as little as possible about the ocean model, and thus simply rotates the computational poles onto land areas, rather than fundamentally changing the grid geometry.

A proper working environment was set up for a new staff member; some surveys and discussions were conducted that led to laying out a concrete plan for possible improvements of the GISS radiation model with our new radiation expert scientist new code for true LW scattering for four new ice-cloud microphysical models (that the current ModelE2 doesn't have) was successfully integrated into the 2011-ModelE2 based code; this will be used for testing this new code and other improvements in the GISS radiation model.

Work was done diagnosing the model's output from modelE-HYCOM over a period of 800 years. Figure 1 shows the meridional overturning circulation (MOC) in each basin and globally averaged at years 500 to 510. The pattern and strength of MOC are in good agreement with observations.

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Figure 1

Figure 2 shows the maximum overturning rate at 45N, Drake Passage throughflow and the Indonesian throughflow, respectively. The maximum overturning rate remains mostly at low 20’s Sv, which is close to estimates from observations. The Drake Passage Throughflow starts in 140’s Sv, and ends in mid 150’s Sv, showing a ~10% increase during 800 yrs. Indonesian Throughflow is steady and stays at upper teens, which is in the range of observations. We are working on converting Figure 1 from latitude-density space to latitude-Z space.

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A corrected HYCOM ocean source code was committed to the git repository’s E2.1_branch, and 10 experiments were completed and 15 more started related to CMIP6 (6th Climate Model Intercomparison

Program); in particular:

• The control run simulated more than 2000 model years so far.

• An ensemble of 10 transient runs for the 1850-2014 period were completed. They started from points of the control run that were 20 years apart. The atmospheric data are being post-processed and submitted to the AR6 archive.

• The 4 requested CO2 runs completed more than 800 model years so far.

• The rundeck for the Tracers One-Moment Aerosol…