Find out about us: who are we?

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We are an intergovernmental organisation supported by 31 States.

Our Member States are:

Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Spain, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Austria, Portugal, Switzerland, Finland, Sweden, Turkey, United Kingdom .

We have concluded co-operation agreements with:

Czech Republic, Montenegro, Estonia, Croatia, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Morocco, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia and Slovakia.

Co-operation agreements have also been concluded with:

• World Meteorological Organisation (WMO)
• European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT)
• African Centre of Meteorological Applications for Development (ACMAD)
• Joint Research Centre (JRC)
• Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty Organisation (CTBTO)
• Executive Body of the Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (CLRTAP)
• European Space Agency (ESA)

Summary of our strategy for 2006-2015

Note: The full ECMWF Strategy document is available in Programmatic Documents.

A Strategy for ECMWF for the period 2006 to 2015 was adopted unanimously by the ECMWF Council in December 2005. In summary:

Goals

The principal goal of ECMWF in the coming ten years will be to maintain the current, rapid rate of improvement of its global, medium-range weather forecasting products, with particular effort on early warnings of severe weather.

Complementary goals are:

• To improve the quality and scope of monthly and seasonal-to-interannual forecasts
• To enhance support to Member States’ national forecasting activities by providing suitable boundary conditions for limited-area models
• To deliver real-time analyses and forecasts of atmospheric composition
• To carry out climate monitoring through regular re-analyses of the Earth-system
• To contribute towards the optimization of the Global Observing System

Targets

Specific forecast skill targets for this strategy are:

• Improve the deterministic skill at the rate of one day per decade;
• Improve the probabilistic skill at a rate of one and a half day per decade;
• Introduce a reliable scoring system for early warnings of severe weather as a matter of priority, in full cooperation with the Member States
• Develop objective performance measures for the monthly and seasonal forecasting systems

Strategy

ECMWF will sustain effort on consolidating its existing tools, improving the Integrated Forecasting System (IFS) and making optimal use of observations, particularly from satellite systems. It will continue developing a fully coupled, modular Earth-system model, comprising all components relevant for the time scales of its missions (from medium-range to seasonal time scale).

The strategy to achieve those goals flows naturally from the Centre's responsibilities, capabilities and opportunities, and entails

• The resolution of all forecasting systems will be increased regularly (pending available computing power).
• The calibration of probabilistic forecasts from the ensemble prediction system will be pursued through a programme of systematic re-forecasts.
• The representation of initial and model uncertainty in ensemble prediction will be improved through extensive research programmes on ensemble data assimilation and stochastic physics.
• The added value of multi-model systems for severe weather forecasting will be assessed.
• New products such as a global extreme forecast index, or the probability of freak ocean waves, will be developed.
• Verification techniques focused on severe weather events will be developed.
• Finally, the needs of Member States regarding timeliness and frequency of global forecasts and boundary conditions for limited area, high-resolution models will be regularly reviewed and addressed.

Benefits

In addition to the benefits already provided by the Centre's activities, the projected improvements in forecast accuracy and forecast products will bring substantial further benefits to European governments, economies and civil society. These benefits will be realised by drawing on extensive collaboration across Europe in which the National Meteorological Services will play a prominent and expanding role.

The vision guiding this strategy is that European citizens will continue to receive the very best meteorological forecasting services at all ranges, particularly regarding severe weather. The superiority already achieved in global and local numerical weather prediction will be maintained and extended to other aspects of the environment. This will guarantee optimal return on the large investment made in observing systems, particularly in meteorological and environmental satellites. Benefits will accrue to all sectors of European economy and society and to the entire Earth-observation community.

Background and funding

• The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) is an independent international organisation, supported by 31 States.
• Its basic document is its Convention, which defines its objectives and the functions of its Council and Director.
• The objectives of the Centre include the provision of medium-range forecasts to the meteorological offices of its Member States and Co-operating States, maintaining a data archive, assistance in advanced education, and assistance to the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) in implementing its programmes.