SFS Application Team co-Leads:

The SFS Application Team comprises of scientists with subject matter expertise spanning operational model development, subseasonal and seasonal (S2S) forecasting, and cutting edge Earth System research and are from the various agencies and organizations across the S2S community including NWS/NCEP Centers, OAR laboratories, Developmental Testbed Center (DTC), Earth Prediction Innovation Center (EPIC), and universities. With support and coordination from the NWS OSTI Modeling Program and the OAR Weather Program Office, the NWS/NCEP Environmental Modeling Center (EMC) and OAR Physical Sciences Laboratory (PSL) are leading the essential activities within the SFS Development Project and spearheading collaboration with community partners to ensure that model development is both adaptive and receptive to the evolving needs and requirements of stakeholders and recent advancements in the underlying research. 

The SFS Application Team will improve physical descriptions and representation of slowly changing processes on the land, in the oceans, and for sea ice. Data assimilation will be improved to provide accurate initial states for the land, ocean, and sea ice in the SFS component models that provide the long-term memory of the Earth System. A historical reanalysis and reforecast will also be generated and maintained for model calibration and to further improve seasonal forecast outlooks along with post-processing methods.

The SFSv1 development has been divided into seven focus areas, with various milestones to advance all components of the SFS system:

1. Configuration and Design Development
2. Atmosphere and Land Development 
3. Marine and Sea Ice Development
4. Product Development 
5. Infrastructure Development
6. SFS Evaluations and Development of Evaluation Tools  
7. SFS Reanalysis and Data Assimilation