News

Photo of ocean waves

ECMWF to hold event on waves and wave-coupled processes in April

ECMWF will hold the fifth international workshop on waves and wave-coupled processes from 10 to 12 April 2024 in Reading (UK) after previous events were held in Melbourne (Australia), Qingdao (China), Guangzhou (China), and Uppsala (Sweden).
Passenger plane flying through clouds

ECMWF uses Mode-S aircraft observations again to improve forecasts

ECMWF has started to use Mode-S aircraft observations again to improve the quality of forecasts after this type of data was found to be used in too large numbers during the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.
ECMWF Newsletter 178 summary image

Winter 2023/24 Newsletter published

The winter 2023/24 issue of the ECMWF Newsletter is now available. As well as news about ECMWF staff and events, it features articles about new developments and the use that can be made of ECMWF products.
Extract from forecast from ECMWF's experimental AIFS machine learning model

European met services pool resources to intensify use of AI in weather prediction

ECMWF’s Member States have approved two major initiatives to intensify the development, testing and implementation of machine learning across their weather forecasting chains.
Surface air temperature anomaly for 2023

2023 was the hottest year on record, Copernicus data show

High temperatures from June onwards led to 2023 becoming the warmest year on record by a large margin, close to 1.5°C above the pre-industrial level, according to the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) implemented by ECMWF.
News highlights 2023

News highlights of 2023

ECMWF news highlights in 2023 include a major upgrade of the forecasting system; initiatives to drive forward weather science, including developments in machine learning; and news from the EU-funded services implemented by ECMWF.
Jean-Noël Thépaut

Data assimilation and climate specialist Jean-Noël Thépaut bows out

Jean-Noël Thépaut, who started his career at ECMWF in the early 1990s and rose to become the Director of the two EU Copernicus services run at the Centre, is leaving us at the end of this year on reaching retirement age.
Destination Earth observations-simulations image

Confirmation of phase two of Destination Earth

The second phase of the Destination Earth (DestinE) initiative was confirmed on 13 December 2023 by the European Union and unanimously endorsed by the Councils of the three implementing entities delivering DestinE.

CATRINE project logo

Project to improve transport modelling of atmospheric composition tracers

CATRINE, an EU-funded project coordinated by ECMWF, will improve the numerical aspects of the transport of atmospheric tracers, with an emphasis on long-lived greenhouse gases. It will support an operational anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions Monitoring and Verification Support Capacity.
Global map showing SOFF countries to receive forecasts from ECMWF

ECMWF supports global initiative to provide more weather observations

ECMWF supports the UN’s Systematic Observations Financing Facility (SOFF) to widen the provision of weather observations in some countries, notably by agreeing to supply its forecasts to SOFF participants.
Non-hydrostatic vs hydrostatic forecast

The current forecasting equations are still valid near km-scale resolution

Recent investigations suggest that the equations ECMWF uses to forecast the global weather may not have to be updated to much more computationally demanding ones as long as the weather model’s horizontal grid spacing is no smaller than 2.8 km.
Rebecca Emerton

Looking for aspects of ECMWF’s weather model that can be improved

Rebecca Emerton is part of a team that tries to improve ECMWF’s weather model by looking for the causes of errors. She is also helping the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, which is implemented by ECMWF, to draw up its yearly review of the climate.
Example of sea-ice analysis for IFS Cycle 49r1

How machine learning can support data assimilation

Data assimilation is the combination of the latest observations with a short-range forecast to obtain the best possible estimate of the current state of the Earth system. Machine learning can contribute to it by optimising the use of satellite observations.
HPC workshop graphic

Week-long high-performance computing event looks into ‘Diversifying HPC’

Over 140 people attended ECMWF’s 20th Workshop on High-Performance Computing in Meteorology in Bologna, Italy, from 9 to 13 October 2023, and nearly 170 registered online. The theme was ‘Diversifying HPC’.
ECMWF Newsletter image

Autumn 2023 Newsletter published

The autumn 2023 issue of the ECMWF Newsletter is now available. As well as news about ECMWF staff and events, it features articles about new developments and the use that can be made of ECMWF products.
Second Destination Earth User eXchange image

Destination Earth to hold second user event in November

The EU’s Destination Earth initiative, implemented by ECMWF, EUMETSAT and ESA, will hold its second User eXchange meeting on 13–14 November 2023 in Bonn, Germany.
Laleh Pouyan

How to optimise the cost and speed of high-performance computing

Laleh Pouyan tries to minimise the cost while maximising the speed of high-performance computing (HPC) used in weather forecasting. She will present a poster on her work at the ECMWF workshop on HPC in meteorology from 9 to 13 October 2023.
OpenIFS superimposed on forecast chart

OpenIFS to adopt latest version of the Integrated Forecasting System

OpenIFS, a supported and easily accessible version of ECMWF’s Integrated Forecasting System (IFS) provided for research and education, is to be upgraded to the latest IFS model cycle by the end of this year.
European Weather Cloud image

The European Weather Cloud is operational

The European Weather Cloud, a distributed cloud computing infrastructure of ECMWF and EUMETSAT providing access to data and other services from the two organisations, becomes operational on 26 September 2023.