Science blog

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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.
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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.
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How can we make ensemble forecasts more skilful?

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.
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Improving forecasts with new wind data from ESA's Aeolus mission

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.
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New computer architectures and next-generation numerical weather forecasting

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.
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Extending forecasts of global river flow out to seasonal timescales

Rebecca Emerton discusses her work to develop new GloFAS seasonal forecasts of river flow which have the potential to give even earlier warnings of flood and drought risk around the globe.
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Improving prediction and climate monitoring of polar regions – challenges and priorities

As WMO's Year of Polar Prediction gets well under way, Irina Sandu and Peter Bauer discuss the challenges of forecasting in the polar regions and highlight the priorities for ECMWF.
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The 2018 ECMWF HPC workshop – making progress on scalability

The issue of scalability will feature as the headline topic at this year's ECMWF high-performance computing (HPC) workshop in September. Here Peter Bauer, head of ECMWF’s Scalability Programme, talks about what is perhaps the biggest revolution in numerical weather prediction since computer-based forecasts began.
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Reaching out to the Asian meteorology and hydrology community

Erik Andersson, Deputy Director of the Forecast Department, will be presenting ECMWF products and what they can deliver at InterMet Asia, the region's largest assembly of meteorology professionals.
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Earth surface processes, human impact and predictability

Gianpaolo Balsamo discusses the importance of two-way coupling between the atmosphere and Earth’s surface, and how humans are altering these interactions. He shares his drive and excitement about bringing recent research developments into operational use.
Wildfire

Wildfires – a hazard like no other

Francesca Di Giuseppe discusses some of the unique challenges involved in predicting wildfires and how ECMWF is contributing to European and global fire information systems.
Flooding in Europe

Improving forecasts of European flooding

David Lavers talks about his work on extreme precipitation and the development of effective flood forecasting tools.