Developer's Committee: 3 July 2018 (VC)

Last edition: Wikinfo(changed_ts)? by Wikinfo(changed_by)?



The usual mid-year videoconference meeting of Developer's Committee took place on 3 July afternoon. The expected participants to this meeting are the members of Developer’s Committee: Consortium and External experts, so as the leaders of each NEMO Working Group, and the NEMO System Team members as permanent invitees.

Minutes

Chair: Mike Bell

Introduction (C. Lévy) 5 mn

Changes in the Consortium, update the description of its organisation, request for advice of the Committee.

Changes in NEMO Consortium and organisation:

• INGV has announced in May intention to leave the NEMO Consortium. No news since then
• Consortium agreement needs to be updated
• Following the ideas which came out one year ago in Barcelona, Developer’s Committee is becoming more and more the NEMO Scientific Advisory Board. Indeed, the unique NEMO Scientific Leader role is now replaced by a distributed expertise through the leaders of Working Groups
• A document describing Consortium goals and organisation, the role of the different Committees, etc… requested by Steering Committee for Autumn 2018 (advices welcome to C. Lévy)
• ECMWF now hopes to contribute more to NEMO Working groups
• The idea of moving from a NEMO Users meeting organised by System Team every 2 years to a NEMO community EGU session increasing visibility of NEMO community and its scientific projects is in the air (proposal to be submitted to EGU before September 2018)

Status of the on going work: 2018 Work plan (System Team) 10 mn

Give information on where we are at this point, especially regarding the beta release of 4.0, which should be announced ...now
Slides available here​
Comments and discussion :

• more than 400 commits during last 6 months, but much less before : improvements needed in test & validation process, ongoing now through promoting test cases and trusting
• This beta release has been more tested than any previous release!
• Although INGV is in the process of leaving the NEMO Consortium, all the validation actions on wave coupling are taken over at CMCC

• Congratulations from Developers Committee to System team for work done those past 6 months

Air-sea interactions WG (S. Masson) 10 mn

Recent scientific results and possible questions to be addressed by WG
Slides available here​
Comments and discussion :

• Activity more or less on hold for this WG since actions are scheduled for 2019 (hopefully within IMMERSE WP5)
• New members from ECMWF are welcome in this WG to contribute, especially on wave coupling
• J. Staneva stresses the value of a direct link between NEMO System team and external developers, the actions on wave coupling can be seen as a successful example

Configuration Manager (C. Lévy in name of subgroup) 10 mn

Summary of answers to questionnaire, proposition from subgroup
Slides available here​

Comments and discussion :

• The subgroup has proposed (see attached slides for details) to : record that NEMO has now a set of basic tools to build new configurations; recognize that NEMO System Team is probably not the right group of experts to deal with this question; close the Configuration Manager Working group, so as the CONFIGMAN Stream of the workplan; ask Mercator if they could express recommendations on some future tasks of interest for CMEMS (maybe in the more focused context of MOI)
• A few participants still think that users will ask for tools to build a regional configuration. Aside from existing tools (see slides), J. Harle offers to provide a set of recipes on a wiki page : just a list of the different steps to follow, leaving each one to use its preferred tool. This documentation on recipes is the useful part to share within the community for now. Action : J. Harle
• A tool for training courses and students is also a need (through test cases, or SIREN is the answer for now)
• It is decided to build the wiki page as offered by J. Harle as a first step given the list of things to do in order to build a configuration. In a second phase, possibly make a coherent tool build on this list and on available existing tools (if a volunteer for this work can be found)

HPC WG (S. Mocavero) 10 mn

Brief report on agenda and objectives of WG proposition for new members
Sides available here ​ Comments and discussion :

• List of new members from ECMWF in WG is approved

Kernel WG (M. Bell) 10 mn

Brief report on actions
Slides available here ​

Robustness and Test cases WG (J. Le Sommer, 10 mn)

Results and discussion on transition period for this WG
Slides available here ​
Comments and discussion :

After successful simplification and implementation work, this WG enters a transition phase towards getting feedbacks and contributions from the whole NEMO Users community. Questions is raised to this Committee about possible volunteers for exploring and sending feedbacks and bringing in new test cases. Possible answers : one by D. Marshall (Julian Mak could contribute) and another from J. Hirschi saying that a contribution from NOC is feasible and would be beneficial.

Sea-ice WG (leaders of WG, 10 mn)

Brief report on agenda for next year, use of fundings, so as of the set up of the enlarged WG, and the perspectives of contribution to sustainable developments in 2019
Slides available here ​
Comments and discussion :

• Y. Aksenov’s action in 2018 workplan (ENHANCE-12_Yevgeny-Icewaves) is on introduction a coupling between waves, sea ice and ocean. It is indeed an action linked to SIWG and to the air-sea interaction’s one. It is noticed that it has not been scheduled in the work of any of those WGs. For now it should be kept since the work would be lost otherwise, but this kind of isolated initiative should be avoided in the future: discussion within the WGs should take place beforehand.
• The links between WGs (the actions which are linked to more than one WG) should be taken care of by the WGs leaders
• R. Benshila suggests the work of the WG could be linked or funded through the French ARCTIC or ANTARTIC initiatives
• Can SI3 be available in standalone mode? Answer is open for now

Summary for WGs: decisions, new members... (Chair , 5 mn)

The Committee welcomes all the proposed new members in the different working groups (list to add).

Summary of recommendations:

• All developments linked to a WG should discuss with the WG and get their agreement before adding action into the workplan
• Configuration Manager Working group is now closed, so as the CONFIGMAN Stream of the workplan;
• Ask Mercator if they could express recommendations on Configuration Manager tools on some future tasks of interest for CMEMS (maybe in the more focused context of MOI)
• Tests cases WG is now in a transition phase towards feedbacks and new test cases from community (answers expected from J. Mak and NOC)
• Question is raised on the eventuality of ECMWF, after the first stage of joining WGs, would eventually join the NEMO Consortium?

Next meeting will be in person in Paris or Grenoble, and contiguous to and in the same place as the IMMERSE quick off meeting (if IMMERSE is funded of course). To be organised by C. Lévy and J. Le Sommer. The WG who did not give a presentation this time will do it next time, and the meeting could last more than 2 hours if time is needed for more discussions.

Advices from this Committee on documents describing the Consortium organisation 10 mn)

In the context of the renewal of Consortium agreement, C. Lévy has been asked by SC to write a document describing actual organisation and Committees role for NEMO development. After discussion, preliminary Table of content will include:

• Role of Steering Committee
• Role of Developer's Committee and its move towards more of a Scientific Advisory board (this means more criticism, to be organised)
• Role of System Team
• Role of Working Groups
• More clear description of process the include in NEMO reference some developments coming from the community.
  

3. Lévy will draft a detailed table of content, discuss it within the Subgroup and will submit the document for review by this Committee after Summer.

Conclusions (Chair 10mn)

Proposed messages for Steering Committee (letter to be drafted by Subgroup):

• Congratulations to System Team for the work done and 4.0 beta release available in good shape and in time
• Approval of new members of WGs
• Conclusions on Configuration Manager WG and stream, so as request to Mercator
• Need to renew Consortium Agreement before starting of IMMERSE (i.e. before 2019) since for now out dated

List of participants

Name	Role	Connecting from
Claire Lévy	Project manager	Paris
Gurvan Madec	NEMO ST	NOC
Rachid Benshila	Consortium expert for CNRS	Mercator-Ocean
Emanuela Clementi	ST Member	CMCC
Andrew Coward	ST Member	NOC
Joel Hirschi	Consortium expert for NERC	NOC
David Marshall	External Expert	University of Oxford
Pierre Mathiot	ST member	Met office
Helene Hewitt	Consortium Expert for Met-Office	Met Office
Dave Storkey	ST Member	Met Office
Silvia Mocavero	ST and HPC-WG member	CMCC
Sebastien Masson	ST Member	Paris
Jean-Marc Molines	External Expert	IGE Grenoble
Clément Bricaud	ST member	Mercator Ocean
Miguel Castrillo	ST member	BSC-CNS
Oriol Tintó	ST member	BSC-CNS
Mario Acosta	ST member	BSC-CNS
Joanna Staneva	External Expert	HZG
Francesca Mele	ST member	CMCC
Mike Bell	ST and Kernel,HPC WG member	NOC
Dorotea Iovino	ST member	CMCC
Tomas Lovato	ST member	CMCC
Mike Bell	Consortium Expert for Met-Office	NOC
Dave Storkey	NEMO ST	Met Office
Ed Blockley	Leader Sea-ice WG	Met Office
Julien Le Sommer	Scientific coordinator NEMO-France	Grenoble
Martin Vancoppennolle	Leader Sea-ice WG	Paris
Clément Rousset	NEMO ST	Paris
Olivier Aumont	External expert	Paris