PHYSICAL FACILITIES
NRL’s Marine Meteorology Division is located in Monterey, California, on the grounds of the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) Annex, which is about a mile from the NPS main campus. As a tenant activity of NPS, the NRL facility is collocated with the Navy’s operational Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center (FNMOC) and with the NOAA National Weather Service Forecast Office in Monterey. The NPS Annex campus, which covers approximately five acres, comprises four primary buildings – one occupied exclusively by NOAA, one that houses both the NRL and FNMOC supercomputer/ operational facilities, and two large buildings containing office space, computer laboratories, and conference facilities that are shared by FNMOC and NRL personnel. The site also provides recreational facilities.

DATA ARCHIVAL FACILITIES
The Bergen Data Center (BDC) provides a data archival capability for meteorological and oceanographic data. The facility includes an SGI server, two Sun servers, and StorageTek tape libraries handling archives and backup for the BDC, with a total storage capacity of 31 TB. Veritas Hierarchical Storage Manager (HSM), Netbackup, and First Watch software packages are used to manage data storage.

The BDC also operates as a resource site for the Master Environmental Library (MEL), a distributed repository system of environmental information with a single user access site. The MEL facilitates discovery, acess, subscription, and delivery of environmental information, products, and data wherever they are stored. It supports models and simulations for training, analysis, and acquisition through a single user interface to numerous DOD and non-DOD Resource Sites. MEL promotes interoperability among simulation users by facilitating reuse of environmental information, products, and data. MEL supports the warfighter as well as the non-DOD and commercial communities. At the BDC, data older than 30 days are physically archived within the HSM file systems but can also be retrieved logically on-line.

SATELLITE DATA PROCESSING FACILITY
The Marine Meteorology Division’s satellite data processing facility collects and processes one of the world’s most complete near real-time global digital data set from multiple satellite sensors. A suite of Unix workstations and software process these data streams and enable researchers to rapidly collocate multiple satellite sensors/channels for a wide range of meteorological applications anywhere on the globe. Hardware/software compatibility with the Fleet enhances rapid prototyping and transition to operations.
The facility includes two geostationary receiving systems to capture real-time GOES-West and GOES-East data. Digital data from three other geostationary satellites (GMS-5, Meteosat-7&5) are gathered from FNMOC to enable true global coverage with visible, infrared, and water vapor channel data using SeaSpace’s TeraScan hardware. An SMQ-11 polar orbiter antenna system collects data from NOAA and Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) satellites. Data from additional global polar orbiter satellites are obtained through collaborative agreements with other government agencies (NASA, NOAA, Air Force, Navy), significantly reducing on-site infrastructure needs and bringing the total number of polar orbiter satellites available for research at NRL Monterey to 13 (TMI, MODIS (2), SeaWIFS, SSM/I (3), AMSU-B (3), AMSR-E, AVHRR (2)).

CLASSIFIED RADAR AND SATELLITE DATA PROCESSING FACILITY
This facility offers a classified processing site for satellite data, weather radar level II and level III data, and AN/SPY1 radar data, and also provides a gateway for the movement of unclassified data and products from the unclassified processing facilities into the classified facility. This facility also contains the hardware/software suite needed to run the NRL on-scene mesoscale numerical weather prediction model COAMPS-OS™ using both classified and unclassified data. The facility also provides connectivity to the DOD SIPRNET (Secure Internet) for NRL scientists, who can use this connection to provide demonstration products to shipboard and other remote customers.

JOHN B. HOVERMALE LABORATORY
This laboratory provides computer facilities and expertise to support on-scene numerical weather predictions and nowcasting , including access to operational Navy databases and visualization tools. The laboratory provides efficient access to unclassified and classified networks, databases, and computational resources. Access to these assets aids in the development, integration, and testing of a wide range of end-user applications including on-scene data fusion, data assimilation, and prediction models, tactical environmental data servers, atmospheric analysis and nowcast systems, visualization applications and briefing tools, and web-based data and product dissemination capabilities. In addition to providing hardware resources and data for research projects and demonstrations, dedicated technical experts provide code examples and database consulting to on-site and off-site developers. A key to successfully demonstrating new and innovative capabilities to users and to sponsors is end-to-end data connectivity.