Guideline and Agenda*

DOE Internal Review of E3SM Phase II

Nov 9-10, 2020 

*The internal review will include focused overview presentations plus a discussion session in the end with main topics/questions provided.  Since the team members will have given overview presentations at the PI meeting held shortly before this meeting; presentations at the review should focus on the specific guidance below in blue font rather than being a general overview. The time in the agenda refers to Eastern Time (ET).

Day 1

Session 1: Overview of Phase II progress from Executive Committee (11:00am-11:40am; 30 minutes presentation + 10 minutes Q&A)

• Intro_bader_review_b.pdf

• Leung_overview_DOE_review_short.pdf

• review2020-taylor.pdf

In the overview, the presentation should elaborate on the specific progress that the project has made toward the goals in the Phase II proposal.  In particular, what specific progress has the E3SM Phase II project made to:

1. bridge the gap in scales and processes, quantify uncertainty (via ensemble modeling), and push the high-resolution frontier? 

2. address core science questions (water cycle, cryosphere and BGC) in understanding the response of water cycle and biogeochemistry in North America to global and regional forcings, as well as the role of atmosphere, ocean, and sea ice in mediating melting of the ice sheet?

3. make E3SM GPU capable?

4. make progress on the long-term goals articulated in the response to Phase II review (extreme storms, coastal inundation, spatial distribution of land use/land cover, carbon sources and sinks in the coastal zone, contribution of land ice to sea level, decadal trends in sea ice cover)?

Is the progress on track? What is going well? What is not? Any surprises? Any change of scope based on recent work? What are the strategies to address challenges if any?

Session 2:  Detailed presentation from each Core group lead (15 minutes presentation + 5 minute Q&A each).

(Presentations should focus on: progress towards Phase II goals, integration with E3SM core activities, contributions to v2 and v3, progress on actionable science metrics, coordination with DOE funded external projects)

2.3 BGC (1:10pm-1:30pm)  Calvin_Kate_BGC.pdf

Session 3: Detailed presentation from each NGD group lead (15 minutes presentation + 5 minute Q&A each). 

(Presentations should focus on: progress towards Phase II goals, integration with E3SM core activities, readiness for v3 and v4)

Session 4 Project Management (15 minutes presentation + 5 minute Q&A each)

(Project Management function well or not, room to improve? future plans)

Day 2

Session 5. Discussion session (11:00am-1:00pm)

BER and lab members will discuss around the following topics/questions. Slide presentation to address given questions is welcome. The presentation should be brief (i.e., <=50% of the time) to allow enough time for discussion. A written summary is required based on the discussion outcome.  

5.1 About E3SM project development and management (11:00am-12:00pm)

• Is there a good balance between efforts in achieving science goals and advancing computation capability to take full advantage of DOE computation capability?

• Is the E3SM budget/spending comparable to what’s proposed and/or does there need to be any reallocation of effort at different labs? 

• Staff challenges: any creative thinking (in addition to recruiting more postdocs) to entrain new talent to E3SM team with appropriate expertise (e.g., in scientific software development)? Has the team taken good advantage of DOE lab internship, fellowship programs?

Lunch/Coffee break (12:00pm-12:30pm)

5.2 E3SM coordination with BER funded research (12:30pm-1:30pm)

• Day2_Leung.pdf

• Any strategy to adapt E3SM to align with DOE BER priorities (e.g., Coastal, machine learning)?

• How much support should the project provide to the growing number of external users, funded by DOE/BER modeling programs to use the model or its output?

• What’s the status/plan for E3SM to collaborate with other BER programs?

Coffee break: 1:30pm-1:45pm

5.3 E3SM interaction with broader ESM efforts (1:45pm-2:45pm)

• Has E3SM taken advantage of interaction with the external advisory committee?

• Is E3SM in synergy with other comparable efforts, is E3SM leveraging the larger scientific community effort appropriately?

• The E3SM project's long-term goal is to “assert and maintain an international scientific leadership position in the development of Earth system models that address the grand challenge of actionable predictions of Earth system variability and change, with an emphasis on the most critical scientific questions facing the nation and DOE”, are there any measurable metrics for success toward this goal?