Science blog

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The first ECMWF science and art exhibition

ECMWF’s first science and art exhibition proved a great success. It demonstrated the importance of art as a way of engaging an audience, stimulating dialogue and encouraging the creativity which is at the heart of the Centre's scientific excellence.
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Flying high with NOAA over the Pacific

David Lavers relates his experience on a research aircraft flight to observe atmospheric rivers and the benefits such observations can bring to forecasts of precipitation and flooding.
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Clouds in the Caribbean – un carnet de voyage around EUREC4A

After spending a week at the ambitious EUREC4A observing campaign, Irina Sandu shares her excitement about how this major German-French led international effort can change our understanding of the coupling between clouds and circulation, and their representation in weather and climate models.
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Visit to a DWD super-site helps understand sources of near-surface temperature biases

Polly Schmederer looks at how measurements from observational super-sites are helping to better understand errors in forecasts of near-surface temperature.
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Modelling convective precipitation – progress and challenges

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.
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Forecasting tropical cyclones and flooding

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.
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Will machine learning replace conventional weather prediction models?

Following a recent workshop, Peter Dueben discusses recent progress and future possibilities in the application of machine learning to weather and climate prediction.
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Why we need to protect weather prediction from radio frequency interference

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.
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ECMWF over the Moon

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.
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The Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility User Workshop 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.
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Weather forecasts with OpenIFS on a home-made supercomputer

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.
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The air that West Africa breathes

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.
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A new book on the challenges of extended-range prediction

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).
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A journey through science and art

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.
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Monitoring Atmospheric Composition - a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC)

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

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.
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Forty-one visions for high-performance computing in meteorology

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.
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The end of theory for Earth sciences?

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.
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ECMWF’s Summer of Weather Code

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.