Mark your calendar for the ADCIRC Users Group Meeting and ADCIRC Boot Camp!

Every year, the ADCIRC Community comes together to share experiences, teach, learn, discuss, plan, and build capacity for coastal ocean modelling with ADCIRC. These activities are organized into two distinct but mutually supportive events: the ADCIRC Boot Camp and the ADCIRC Users Group Meeting. This year, these two events will be held back-to-back at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineer's Coastal and Hydraulics Laboratory in Vicksburg, Mississippi, USA.

The ADCIRC Boot Camp is a three day training event running from Monday, May 2 until Wednesday May 4 that is designed to welcome new users to the ADCIRC community by getting them up to speed quickly. The ADCIRC Users’ Group Meeting will start on Thursday, May 5 and end on Friday, May 6 and will consist of informal presentations of ADCIRC projects along with highly interactive discussions to advance the state of the art in ADCIRC modelling and to edify the ADCIRC Community as a whole.

In addition, a new element has been added to the ADCIRC Users Group Meeting this year: the ADCIRC Career Fair. In addition to the usual professional networking opportunities at the Users Group Meeting, we will highlight and evaluate presenters who are available for employment opportunities or graduate school admission. Career inquiry status will be also be highlighted in the Meeting program and promotional materials. Employers and faculty who are unable to attend the Meeting will be able to evaluate candidates during their presentations via dial-in webinar. 

ADCIRC Users Group Meeting

The ADCIRC Users’ Group Meeting is informal with a commitment to open discussion of shared experiences, allowing the user community to advance their knowledge and skill in developing, implementing, and applying the ADCIRC family of models. Student attendance and participation are strongly encouraged. Presentations are invited and the agenda is presently being planned with an emphasis on having short presentations intended to spawn discussions about selected topics. Some possible general topics for the meeting include the following; suggestions for other topic areas are welcome.

• model development (coupling, 3D, DG, winds, waves, etc.)
• model applications (focusing on ADCIRC model capabilities and performance)
• real-time forecasting using the ADCIRC models & operational issues
• pre/post processing issues

Chris Massey and Mary Cialone of the ERDC CHL are pleased to host the ADCIRC Users Group Meeting.The registration fee is $50.00 per person which includes morning and afternoon coffee breaks and lunches during the meeting. When purchasing your ticket for the ADCIRC Users Group Meeting using this site, you'll be asked if you are giving a presentation; if you answer yes, you'll be asked for the title of your presentation. Please provide this information for use in developing the Users Group Meeting agenda.

Security Procedures

For foreign national participants, the host site, the Engineering Research and Development Center (ERDC) requires the following information about each foreign national participant before 8 April 2016:

1. Name
2. Nationality (home country)
3. Job Title
4. Affiliated organization (company, university, etc.)
5. Date(s) of visit (May 2-6, 2016)
6. Purpose of visit (brief explanation): Attend the ADCIRC Users Group Meeting and ADCIRC "Boot Camp" training seminar.
7. Lab(s) visiting: Coastal and Hydraulics Laboratory
8. Lab Points of Contact (POC) with work phone: Dr. Chris Massey, 601-634-2406 and Ms. Mary Cialone, 601-634-2139.
9. Level of classification: Unclassified
10. A copy of a passport with a photo ID is also required.

The site host has produced a standard form in Word format that foreign national participants should use to record this information. The completed form must be emailed to Chris.Massey@usace.army.mil.

Get Up to Speed at the ADCIRC Boot Camp

The 2016 ADCIRC Boot Camp is a three day training event (2 May to 4 May) organized by Jason Fleming of Seahorse Coastal Consulting. The Boot Camp is an intense information and training session for new ADCIRC users. It could be considered a "forced march" of knowledge transfer, hence the name "Boot Camp".

The Boot Camp will provide the full spectrum of knowledge required to create, run, and analyze a coastal regional model using ADCIRC; this includes the ADCIRC model itself as well as pre- and post-processing tools. Dr. Jason Fleming (Seahorse Coastal Consulting) will be teaching the ADCIRC Track of the Boot Camp, and in a separate and simultaneous parallel track, Dr. Alan Zundel (Aquaveo) will demonstrate and discuss the most commonly used meshing and analysis software in the ADCIRC Community: the Surface-water Modeling Solution (or SMS) from Aquaveo.

 SMS Track from Alan Zundel of Aquaveo includes:

1. The modeling process within SMS (overview)
2. Background data (images, surveys/LIDAR/DEM)
3. Conceptual model (vector coastline databases, features, GIS)
4. Mesh generation for ADCIRC
5. Mesh editing
6. ADCIRC parameter specification

ADCIRC Track from Jason Fleming of Seahorse Coastal Consulting:

1. Comprehensive coverage of ADCIRC's fort.15 (control) file, each parameter, line-by-line
2. Nodal attributes file (fort.13)
3. Output files, including hotstart files
4. Use of parametric vortex wind models for tropical cyclones
5. Discussion of boundaries and boundary conditions, including tidal B.C.s
   and levee B.C.s
6. The ADCIRC Surge Guidance System (ASGS)

The SMS software is used to visually create and modify input files for ADCIRC and is widely used in the ADCIRC community for this purpose, as well as visualization of results. For these reasons, knowledge of the SMS software is practically required for new ADCIRC users.

The 2016 training regimen will also include the ADCIRC Surge Guidance System (ASGS), a system for automating the execution of ADCIRC, either in real time or for an engineering design study. Real time applications of the ASGS have included the Deepwater Horizon event in 2010, as well as hurricanes Irene, Isaac, and Sandy.

Jason Fleming of Seahorse Coastal Consulting has led the development of the ASGS since 2006 and will conduct a session called ASGS Up and Running on Monday, 2 May. This training session will cover the installation and operation of the ASGS, and is intended to enable trainees to run their own scenarios and finish the day with an ASGS system that is ready for production.

Training Schedule

• Monday, 2 May 2016
• 9am to 5pm, ASGS Up and Running, or
• 9am to 5pm, SMS Introduction (trainee's choice that day)
• Tuesday, 3 May 2016
• 9am to 5pm, ADCIRC, or
• 9am to 5pm, SMS In Depth (trainee's choice that day)
• Wednesday, 4 May 2016: 9am to 5:00pm ADCIRC Applications (plenary)
  

 Boot Camp Event Includes

• Boxed lunches
• Printed manuals
• Morning and afternoon snacks with coffee and water

Engaging Format

The presentation style will be a mix of lecture, demonstration, and interactive discussion. The instructors will also specify hands-on work for those trainees that have a laptop with them. Experience has shown that an engaging format with lively interaction is the most effective approach for building skills and retaining them in the long term.

Value

The three days that a new ADCIRC user invests in this training event could save weeks of project time spent in guesswork and trial-and-error. The Boot Camp also provides value for more experienced users, because the discussion includes the underlying rationale behind various features, as well as highlighting time-saving tips and tricks that are not especially prominent in the documentation.

The registration fee includes light lunches and morning and afternoon coffee breaks and snacks for all three days of the Boot Camp. Break times present great opportunities for professional networking as well as knowledge transfer and sharing of ideas among ADCIRC users at all levels of experience. 

Some representative feedback from past attendees:

"I liked the format of the adcirc portion of going through each parameter. Thanks again, I think we all got a lot out of it."

"I thought the Boot Camp was awesome.  For researchers like me, it was extremely beneficial to get into the guts of the mechanisms behind the scenes of the fort files. ... [the] format was engaging."

Be There

We are looking forward to working with you this year at the 2016 ADCIRC Boot Camp!

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