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5 November 2026
A cross-line-office team of atmospheric scientists and modelers is awarded the Department of Commerce Bronze Medal for developing Unified Forecast System with Chemistry (UFS-Chem), an accomplishment that delivers NOAA's first-ever global chemistry forecast capability integrated directly into the Unified Forecast System (UFS).
The Bronze Medal – the highest honor bestowed by the Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere, recognizing superior performance and the significant contributions that increase the efficiency and effectiveness of our operating units – recognizes the team for engineering a unified model that incorporates comprehensive gas-phase chemistry and aerosols into NOAA's core operational forecasting architecture. Supported by three years of funding under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) starting in FY23, the team successfully developed and evaluated UFS-Chem v1.0, turning fragmented legacy systems into a singular, modern codebase.
NOAA's atmospheric chemistry, emissions processing, and meteorological modeling historically operated in separate, non-unified software packages. This divided infrastructure made it difficult to link atmospheric chemistry with meteorological forecasts or quickly transition scientific discoveries from the laboratory into real-time operational use.
To resolve this challenge to enhance forecasting for high-impact environmental hazards, the team engineered two foundational components:
Evaluated against NOAA airborne and satellite observations, UFS-Chem reproduces observed atmospheric composition with high fidelity, marking the first time NOAA can simulate full ozone chemistry, aerosol transport, and their interactions with weather in one unified framework.
The achievement directly enhances public safety by delivering sharper air quality alerts and dynamic boundary conditions for tracking wildfire plumes and transcontinental pollution.
Bridging research efforts across five NOAA Research labs (ARL, CSL, GFDL, GML, GSL), NOAA's National Weather Service (NWS/EMC), and NOAA NESDIS/STAR, and integrating specialized chemistry modules from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Community Regional Atmospheric Chemistry Multiphase Mechanism (CRACMM), National Science Foundation / National Center for Atmospheric Research (NSF NCAR) Model-Independent Chemistry Module (MICM), and NASA Goddard Chemistry Aerosol Radiation and Transport (GOCART) model, the resulting framework drastically cuts software maintenance costs across agencies and accelerates how quickly new scientific discoveries transition into operational forecasts.
The UFS-Chem development team receives the Bronze Medal in scientific/engineering achievement "for engineering the first version of UFS-Chem, a model integrating comprehensive gas-phase chemistry and aerosols into the Unified Forecast System." The UFS-Chem team includes CSL's Rebecca Schwantes, Owen Cooper, Greg Frost, and Brian McDonald, along with Barry Baker (NWS), Ravan Ahmadov (GSL), Larry Horowitz (GFDL), Lori Bruhwiler (GML), Vaishali Naik (GFDL), Dustin Swales (GSL), Shan Sun (GSL), Ligia Bernardet (GSL), Georg Grell (GSL), Cory Martin (NWS), Fanglin Yang (NWS), Shobha Kondragunta (NESDIS), Satya Kalluri (NESDIS).
These esteemed award recipients will be honored at the hybrid NOAA OAR Awards Ceremony held in February 2027 from NOAA Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR) Headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland.
