The Sr. Physical Scientist/ Modeler will be expected to support services with specific expertise in coastal hydrodynamic modeling to fulfill CO­OPS’ role in this collaborative project. The individual shall perform this work in close coordination with Federal and non­Federal project managers and program office representatives. This work includes the NOS Coastal Ocean Modeling Framework and Operational Forecast Systems as well as data assimilation methods used with NOAA’s forecast systems and high performance computing environment.

The individual is required to work closely with the academic partners developing new 4DVAR data assimilation techniques specific for government applications to understand these government­ specific techniques fully. Doing so may require travel to and participation in seminars, workshops, or other knowledge­ sharing fora that enable collaboration with project partners. In support of CO­OPS, Lynker may also require the Contractor to develop, organize, and lead technical training and/or to prepare technical reports, standard operating procedures, or other documentation for the purpose of documenting model performance results and sharing knowledge with NOS and CO­OPS, and developing procedures for expanding 4DVAR data assimilation techniques to other coastal ocean models under development or in operations within the National Ocean Service’s ocean and coastal modeling program, including model development projects funded by U.S. IOOS and carried out by their academic partners.. The individual shall possess technical and scientific knowledge in disciplines such as physical and oceanographic sciences, numerical ocean modeling, computer programming/coding, technical analysis, project management, and technical writing.

In support of CO­OPS, Lynker requires skilled scientific support to test the 4DVAR data assimilation system within NOS’ operational forecast systems. The Sr. Physical Scientist/ Modeler will provide the expertise and scientific support necessary to test performance of the Marine JEDI implementation of ROMS 4DVAR in comparison with an NOS operational forecast system operated and maintained by CO­OPS (e.g. West Coast Ocean Forecast System, or WCOFS, which uses the community ROMS 4DVAR driver).

CO­OPS requires the Contractor to collaborate with other NOAA offices and external partners to accomplish the following specific tasks:

(1) Ensure that necessary data sources are available in the NCEP data tanks; if not, configure relevant convertors and implement new data sources into the Interface for Observational Data Access (IODA) as necessary;

(2) Adopt IODA quality assurance and quality control algorithms for coastal and Great Lakes applications;

external partners to accomplish the following specific tasks:

(1) Ensure that necessary data sources are available in the NCEP data tanks; if not, configure relevant convertors and implement new data sources into the Interface for Observational Data Access (IODA) as necessary;

(2) Adopt IODA quality assurance and quality control algorithms for coastal and Great Lakes applications;

(3) Configure and implement WCOFS data assimilation within the JEDI environment;

(4) Verify the data ingestion and 4DVAR results from JEDI; and

(5) Evaluate whether the various data sources and Marine JEDI 4DVAR performance improves the skill of WCOFS’s nowcast/forecast over what is realized in WCOFS using the ROMS 4DVAR standalone version.