EPIC as a Catalyst for NOAA’s Future Earth Prediction System

NOAA has launched the Earth Prediction Innovation Center (EPIC) in partnership with the Weather Enterprise (academia, government, and industry) to bring the power of distributed innovation to bear on one of the greatest challenges of our time. EPIC provides a collaborative framework building upon the community-driven Unified Forecast System (UFS) to accelerate innovative improvements to the nation’s forecast system in order to save lives, protect property, and enhance the economy. This article describes NOAA’s strategic, tactical, and organizational approaches to utilize EPIC to transform the world-leading U.S. national forecast systems into an even stronger and more effective community-based, computationally advanced Earth prediction system to meet the expanding and pressing needs of national and international societies.