The Thirteenth Workshop on Meteorological Operational Systems took place at ECMWF from 31 October to 4 November 2011.
Description
The biennial Workshop on Meteorological Operational Systems was the thirteenth in the series. The workshop reviewed recent developments in the use and interpretation of medium and extended range weather forecasts and addressed the data management and visualisation requirements.
This year there was an additional focus on the use of meteorological data in multi-disciplinary applications. The workshop reviewed international initiatives aiming at making meteorological data readily accessible to wider user communities. These initiatives influence the development of meteorological operational systems, data management and archive systems, meteorological visualisation on workstations and associated web services.
Use and interpretation of medium and extended range forecast guidance
The ECMWF forecasting system provides users with operational forecast guidance twice daily for the medium range, including a high-resolution deterministic forecast run at 16 km resolution (T1279) and an Ensemble Prediction System (EPS) run at 32 km (T639). A coupled atmosphere-ocean system is used from day 10 onwards, extending the EPS range to 30 days twice a week. The portion beyond 10 days is run at 60 km resolution (T319), to 15 days twice daily and to 30 days from 00 UTC each Monday and Thursday. The Monday run is due to become fully operational later in 2011. ECMWF also provides longer-range predictions, providing operational forecasts once a month out to seven months. A new version of the seasonal forecasting system (System 4) is currently being tested for implementation later this year.
In June 2010, ECMWF implemented an ensemble of data assimilation (EDA) which provides estimates of analysis accuracy used in the creation of initial-time perturbations for the EPS. This important new development and other recent changes to the forecasting systems will be presented at the workshop, together with developments in the range of products provided by the Centre. There will be a special focus on the development of tools and products suitable for exchange of meteorological data for use in other disciplines.
It is expected that users of the ECMWF forecasts will report on their approach to medium and extended range weather forecasting, including the use and application of ECMWF products. It is planned to address the issues affecting accessibility of meteorological data, whether gridded or graphical, in a working group and contributions from other operational NWP centres addressing, in particular, experience in this area will be welcome.
Operational data management and visualisation systems
To exchange meteorological data and maps between different disciplines requires adherence to common standards and conventions. The meteorological community can choose from an already large set of commonly accepted standards. There are those defined and used by the web community (W3C – HTTP, HTML, XML/JSON) and in the GIS community, such as the standards of the OGC and recommendations from the EU INSPIRE directive; these have already been accepted and are in wide use by the end users in several communities.
Environmental and geographical data are heterogeneous by nature. Different applications require very different handling of datasets as well as different data formats and organisation.
This workshop provides an opportunity to share experiences of the management and exchange of meteorological data beyond the meteorological community using the mechanisms being established within INSPIRE, OGC and SRNWP. Discussions could cover, but should not be limited to the following topics:
- Exchange and distribution of environmental and geographical data
- Cataloguing and discovery
- Data models and formats
- Quality control, metadata and annotations
- Databases and archives, retrieval facilities
- Processing software and data mining tools
- Review of available techniques, such as sampling, clustering and hierarchical presentation, to reduce the size of the data while maintaining the level of visual information
- Impact of the graphics format used for the end-user
- Visualisation on a limited-size screen display (hand-held devices)
New meteorological data processing visualisation systems and updates to existing applications was presented and demonstrated at an exhibition.
Programme
Presentations
| Monday 31 October | |
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Session 1: Use and interpretation of medium and extended range forecast guidance |
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Development of the ECMWF forecasting systems Erik Andersson (ECMWF) |
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Progress and the future directions of the Canadian weather and environmental prediction systems Michel Jean (Meteorological Service of Canada) |
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Introduction of medium and extended range forecast system and their applications in CMA Xueshun Shen (China Meteorological Administration) |
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Use of ECMWF products at Meteo-France Mireille Mayoka (Meteo-France) |
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Use of ECMWF products at MeteoGroup - focus on Road Engineering Ingeborg Smeding (Meteo Consult) |
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| Tuesday 1 November | |
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Session 2: operational data management and visualisation systems |
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Mapping meteorological data beyond the meteorological domain Sylvie Lamy-Thepaut (ECMWF) |
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Metview 4: Enhanced functionalities for observation monitoring Iain Russell (ECMWF) |
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Diana - Ideas on standards and future directions David Boddie (Norwegian Meteorological Institute) |
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Visual Weather web services Jozef Matula (IBL Software Engineering) |
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Recent developments of the meteorological workstation NinJo Gerhard Eymann (Deutscher Wetterdienst) |
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Synopsis project: from Synergie to Synergie-next Antoine Lasserre-Bigorry (Meteo-France) |
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Session 1: Use and interpretation of medium and extended range forecast guidance |
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The NCEP application of ensemble information across multiple scales and user groups David Bright (NOAA/NWS/NCEP/Aviation Weather Centre) |
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Emerging trends in the role of the forecaster David Novak (National Centers for Environmental Prediction / Hydrometeorological Prediction Center) |
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Application of NWP products and meteorological information processing system in Hong Kong Yuet Sim Li (Hong Kong Observatory) |
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The new ECMWF seasonal forecasting system 4 Laura Ferranti (ECMWF) |
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First impressions of System 4 seasonal forecasts Warwick Norton and Dan Rowlands (Cumulus/PCE Investors) |
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Customized daily to seasonal predictions for the energy sector using ECMWF forecasts James Belanger and Violeta Toma (School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences) |
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| Wednesday 2 November | |
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Session 2: operational data management and visualisation systems |
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GRIB data handling with SKY at Deutscher Wetterdienst Harald Lemmin (Deutscher Wetterdienst) |
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Spatial data architecture operational management in Romania Gheorghe Stancalie (National Meteorological Administration of Romania) |
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The use of SMS at CPTEC's suites alongside the supercomputer's replacement Jose Aravequia (CPTEC/INPE) |
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The CEDA web processing service for rapid deployment of earth system data services Stephen Pascoe (Rutherford Appleton Laboratory) |
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Session 1: Use and interpretation of medium and extended range forecast guidance |
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Towards operational GMES atmosphere services: MACC/MACC-II global production at ECMWF Richard Engelen (ECMWF) |
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Forecasting for Emergency Preparedness and Response Rashid Kashif (World Food Programme) |
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The WMO Severe Weather Forecast Demonstration Project David Richardson (ECMWF) |
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Using ECMWF products in support of mobile weather alert pilot project over Lake Victoria in Uganda Khalid Muwembe (Uganda Meteorological Department) |
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| Thursday 3 November | |
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Session 1: Use and interpretation of medium and extended range forecast guidance |
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JMA Coupled Ensemble Prediction System for seasonal forecast Akira Ito (Japan Meteorological Agency) |
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Extended weather forecast and seasonal climate prediction at INPE-CPTEC Paulo Nobre (INPE/CPTEC) |
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GLOSEA4 - the Met Office's new integrated monthly/seasonal forecast system Tim Hewson (Met Office) |
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Ensemble applications: TIGGE archive and the multi-disciplinary GEOWOW project David Richardson (ECMWF) |
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ecCharts Cihan Sahin (ECMWF) |
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Recent developments and plans for the COSMO-LEPS system Andrea Montani (HydroMeteoClimate Regional Service ARPA-SIMC) |
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Generating boundary values for the COSMO-DE-EPS Helmut Frank (Deutscher Wetterdienst) |
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Session 2: operational data management and visualisation systems |
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Making information accessible - WMO Information Systems Steve Foreman (World Meteorological Organization) |
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The ERA-CLIM data server Cristian Codorean (ECMWF) |
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The work of the MetOcean Domain working group of the OGC Marie-Francoise Voidrot (Meteo-France) |
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Metview 4 - bringing OGC services to the desktop Sandor Kertesz (ECMWF) |
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OGC web services showcase - how they can help forecasters Stephan Siemen (ECMWF) |
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| Friday 4 November | |
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Session 1: Use and interpretation of medium and extended range forecast guidance |
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Ensemble applications and integration with deterministic post-processing Ken Mylne (Met Office) |
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Developments toward multi model-based forecast product generation Ervin Zsoter (Hungarian Met Service) |
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Floods, droughts and fires: Demonstrating the value of ECMWF forecasts in hydrology Florian Pappenberger (ECMWF) |
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Proceedings