Opportunity NOAA-NOS-IOOS-2010-2002258

The summary for the Opportunity NOAA-NOS-IOOS-2010-2002258 grant is detailed below. This summary states who is eligible for the grant, how much grant money will be awarded, current and past deadlines, Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) numbers, and a sampling of similar government grants. Verify the accuracy of the data FederalGrants.com provides by visiting the webpage noted in the Link to Full Announcement section or by contacting the appropriate person listed as the Grant Announcement Contact. If any section is incomplete, please visit the website for the Department of Commerce, which is the U.S. government agency offering this grant.

Opportunity NOAA-NOS-IOOS-2010-2002258: The Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) is working to link national and regional observations (observations subsystem), data management (data management and communications subsystem), and modeling and analysis subsystem to provide required data and information on local to global scales to address IOOS seven societal goals of: (1) Improve predictions of climate change and weather and their effects on coastal communities and the nation, (2) Improve the safety and efficiency of maritime operations, (3) More effectively mitigate the effects of natural hazards, (4) Improve national and homeland security, (5) Reduce public health risks, (6) More effectively protect and restore healthy coastal ecosystems, and (7) Enable the sustained use of ocean and coastal resources. The IOOS modeling and analysis (MA) subsystem supports the ocean, coastal and Great Lakes nowcasting/forecasting/hindcasting and decision making capabilities of IOOS that are needed to address these societal goals. IOOS observing subsystem and data management and communication subsystems are supporting elements for the MA system. Modeling expertise is available within the IOOS Regional Associations, other academic and research institutes, private sector entities, the Federal, local and state government. NOAA, along with other IOOS stakeholders, views the development of a community modeling environment that successfully demonstrates the capability for modeling scientists to share the use of a wide range of oceanic, coastal, atmospheric, hydrologic, and ecological models and associated data, tools and techniques that supports systematic testing, evaluation and transition as appropriate, into operations, as essential to a sustained and operational IOOS. This modeling environment should be designed with the potential to be used for a variety of different modeling problems and over different geographies. The program priorities for this funding opportunity are to conduct a super-regional test bed demonstration of the community modeling environment by transitioning models, tools, toolkits and other capabilities to a Federal operational facility to improve the understanding, prediction, and mitigation of the consequences of extreme events and chronic conditions affecting the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf Coasts. Of particular interest are phenomena that intersect the mission goals of NOAA, other operational agencies and the IOOS Regional Associations. This demonstration should also include estimates of the potential costs and benefits of improvements in the current modeling systems at Federal operational agencies. NOAA seeks proposals for a single cooperative agreement that will define and implement the community modeling environment and demonstration of a super-regional test bed. This test bed is a common environment in which identical variables, boundary conditions, initial conditions, parameterizations and other inputs used in various models to rigorously test and evaluate forecasting skill and the requirements needed for transition to a Federal operational facility or other entities as appropriate. The community environment and associated test bed must also enable data integration and dissemination, and enable scientists to share use of numerical models, observations, and tools; and in addition, provide an environment for identifying, prioritizing and resolving issues associated with interoperable coupling of a range of models such as coastal, oceanic, atmospheric, hydrologic and ecological. Such a test bed and community modeling environment should include no less than 20 academic partners and research institutions, and partnerships with appropriate Federal operational modeling groups to guarantee it is multi-disciplinary, inclusive of community-modeling, and able to address operational constraints inherent in transitioning models into an operational Federal environment. Submitted proposals should address the following: (1) In collaboration with Federal partners, development of metrics and a system to evaluate the potential feasibility, costs, and benefits of improvement to existing operational capabilities of transitioning current and emerging community-based ocean, coastal and Great Lakes models into Federal operational facilities. Cooperative development of strategies and specific steps needed to transition existing models or modeling systems into Federal operational facilities including addressing issues of transition costs, reliability, expanded coverage, etc. (2) Define and transition into a Federal operational facility one or more models, tools, toolkits or other capabilities to advance an operational capability to predict an environmental extreme event in the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf Coasts. The transition to a Federal operational agency is not intended to imply a model, tool or other capability is operational, but rather has been implemented by the agency under pre- operational conditions. (3) Use and build upon existing infrastructure, models and expertise to maximize the benefits to the modeling community and leverage existing resources, capacities and capabilities. (4) Define roles and responsibilities of academic, government and private sector modeling experts, infrastructure and capabilities in the community modeling environment and test bed demonstration. (5) Demonstrate engagement of customer or end users that define the requirements for modeling improvements and provide feedback and evaluation from beginning to end of the project. (6) Conduct the end-to-end modeling process of data access and assimilation, interoperable model coupling, model output delivery, model testing and evaluation, analysis, visualization, skill assessment and user evaluation. (7) Describe suggested strategies for sustaining the modeling test bed infrastructure and expanding to other areas, models or problems.