Visit to a DWD super-site helps understand sources of near-surface temperature biases 14 January 2020 Polly Schmederer looks at how measurements from observational super-sites are helping to better understand errors in forecasts of near-surface temperature.
Modelling convective precipitation – progress and challenges 12 November 2019 Exciting improvements in modelling convective precipitation are being achieved through the collaboration of visiting scientist Tobias Becker, from the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, with ECMWF’s Irina Sandu and Peter Bechtold.
Forecasting tropical cyclones and flooding 11 October 2019 To mark the UN International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction on 13 October, Linus Magnusson discusses ECMWF forecasts of tropical cyclones and the destructive floods that can result.
Will machine learning replace conventional weather prediction models? 17 September 2019 Following a recent workshop, Peter Dueben discusses recent progress and future possibilities in the application of machine learning to weather and climate prediction.
Why we need to protect weather prediction from radio frequency interference 15 August 2019 Stephen English explains why, in a world hungry for the use of radio frequencies in new applications, the meteorological community needs to be clear about their critical value for weather prediction.
ECMWF over the Moon 26 July 2019 As we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first Moon landing, Philippe Lopez investigates whether the ECMWF forecasting model can reproduce the detailed cloud patterns captured in those early, iconic images of planet Earth from space.
The Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility User Workshop 2019 10 June 2019 The Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility in the US is home to “Summit”, the world’s fastest computer. After his recent trip there, Nils Wedi discusses some of the latest advances in supercomputing and considers their application to numerical weather prediction.
Weather forecasts with OpenIFS on a home-made supercomputer 03 May 2019 PhD student Sam Hatfield discusses how he and colleagues built a table-top supercomputer and used it to produce demonstration weather forecasts with OpenIFS. It's a system that is proving fascinating to the public as well as benefiting Sam's research.
The air that West Africa breathes 12 March 2019 Angela Benedetti (ECMWF) and Peter Knippertz (KIT) explain how the EU-funded DACCIWA project collected new data in West Africa to investigate the causes and effects of air pollution, examining for the first time the entire chain of natural and human-made emissions.
A new book on the challenges of extended-range prediction 29 January 2019 In this blog, Dr Frédéric Vitart discusses a book on recent progress and challenges in extended-range forecasting, which he has co-edited with Andrew Robertson (IRI).
A journey through science and art 18 December 2018 Louise Arnal is a scientist with a lifelong love of art. Here she explores the relationship between art and science and talks about her involvement in a number of SciArt projects.
Monitoring Atmospheric Composition - a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) 21 November 2018 The Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) and EUMETSAT have teamed up to produce a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) – Mark Parrington discusses its production and launch.
Complex mountains and their effects on atmospheric flow 05 November 2018 Irina Sandu from ECMWF and Annelize van Niekerk from the UK Met Office discuss their recent work in which kilometre-scale simulations are used to investigate the impact of complex orography on the atmosphere.
Forty-one visions for high-performance computing in meteorology 10 October 2018 Sami Saarinen, one of the organisers of the 18th Workshop on High-Performance Computing in Meteorology at ECMWF from 24 to 28 September 2018, goes back over some of the highlights from 41 talks, two panel discussions and a vendors' exhibition.
The end of theory for Earth sciences? 24 September 2018 As ECMWF’s 18th workshop on high performance computing in meteorology gets under way in Reading, Wilco Hazeleger, Director of the Netherlands eScience Center and keynote speaker, shares his excitement about the computational and data challenges ahead for the Earth sciences.
ECMWF’s Summer of Weather Code 10 September 2018 As ECMWF's first Summer of Weather Code (ESoWC) comes to an end, Julia Wagemann describes how this online collaborative programme is helping ECMWF develop new and innovative software.
How can we make ensemble forecasts more skilful? 24 August 2018 Mark Rodwell discusses innovative diagnostics which are identifying atmospheric flow types that may lead to poor forecast performance. Such diagnostics can help to prioritise modelling efforts on aspects which might be expected to lead to the largest forecasting improvements.
Improving forecasts with new wind data from ESA's Aeolus mission 06 August 2018 At ECMWF we are very excited about the prospect of using the novel space-based wind profile information of Aeolus to improve our weather forecasts. We are proud to take a significant role in the operational Ground Segment processing and in the expert teams that will work on achieving a useful wind product.
New computer architectures and next-generation numerical weather forecasting 16 July 2018 The next few years will see a more diverse range of computer architectures and vendors than we’ve enjoyed for over a decade. Simon McIntosh-Smith, a Professor of High Performance Computing from the University of Bristol who collaborates with ECMWF, explains the challenges and opportunities this will bring to the numerical weather forecasting community.
