Using ECMWF's Forecasts (UEF2019)

3 Jun 2019, 10:30 → 6 Jun 2019, 14:20 Europe/London

ECMWF

#UEF2019

“Using ECMWF’s Forecasts” provides a forum for exchanging ideas and experiences on the use of ECMWF data and products. It is open to all ECMWF forecast users around the world and provides an opportunity to give feedback to ECMWF on forecast performance and on the range of available products, and to learn about recent developments of ECMWF’s forecasting system.

2019 theme: “The strength of ensembles”

National weather services and private weather providers have recognised the importance of ensemble forecasts and that information about uncertainty improves the ability to make decisions based on weather forecasts. ‘Forecasts are not complete without information on uncertainty’ was one of the closing messages of a past UEF meeting. In 2019 we returned to the topic of ensembles and their strength.

Twenty-five years ago ECMWF was one of the first forecasting centres to start issuing operational ensemble forecasts. The implementation of these ensembles induced a paradigm shift in numerical weather prediction (NWP). Centres moved from providing a single forecast to issuing a range of forecasts that can be used to identify possible future scenarios, to compute the probability of events of interest, and in general to estimate forecast confidence levels. Today, ensembles are routinely used to provide estimates of the probability distributions of analyses and forecasts. Great progress has been made to aid their visualisation and communication to wider audiences. 

The UEF meeting offered an opportunity for participants to showcase the strength of ensembles. The meeting provided a framework where participants shared their experiences with ECMWF data and provided feedback on ECMWF products.

Monday, 3 June

13:00 → 14:00 Registration and coffee

14:00 → 14:15 Welcome and housekeeping

Speakers: Anna Ghelli (ECMWF), Florence Rabier (ECMWF)

Recording

14:15 → 15:15 Afternoon session

Convener: Anna Ghelli

14:15 ECMWF product development

The presentation will review forecast product development activities at ECMWF over the past year, in response to user requests and feedback. New forecast outputs include test products to help identify the risk of cold spells over Europe, and the experimental post-processed ‘point rainfall’ which accounts for sub-grid variability and situation- dependent bias. The next model upgrade will introduce several new forecast output fields, including wind at 200m above the ground, a new Extreme Forecast Index (EFI) for to highlight the large-scale water vapour transport in the atmosphere, together with new EFI-related products for extremes in the extended range. The new ERA5 reanalysis data is now available for 1979 onwards, and will be used as the initial conditions for the operational reforecasts. A new set of ocean forecast outputs will be introduced. Other changes, including the availability of products from the 06 and 18 UTC forecasts will also be addressed.

Speaker: David Richardson (ECMWF)

Recording

UEF2019-DRichardson.pdf

14:45 ECMWF strategic projects: an overview

This presentation will provide updates on strategic projects ECMWF is currently working on and their impact on users of the Centre’s data.
An overview will be given on the move of ECMWF’s computing facilities to Bologna (the BOND Programme). The building work has started, and the operating model is being finalised as well as the way in which the teams in the two locations will work seamlessly together to provide a quality service to the Centre’s data users.
Another important activity that will be covered is the European Weather Cloud project which will provide cloud computing in collaboration with EUMETSAT and, later, national entities. The selected approach is a federation of cloud computing infrastructures giving access to the resources of the different entities. A pilot project of 2 years has started with four key objectives: 1) to define the governance and test the overarching technical management layer; 2) to consolidate user requirements; 3) to harmonise data access models; 4) to agree upon the offering (hosted processing…). The world will be prominently based on the running of use case studies, as well as on dedicated experts working groups looking at the technical, legal and security aspects.
ECMWF currently has a fixed dissemination schedule which determines the exact time at which time individual products are released. This fixed schedule has served the Centre well and allowed the arrival time of ECMWF products to be reliably predicted. Over the years, requests have been made for the earlier release of products and ECMWF’s latest plans for this will also be presented.

Speaker: Florian Pappenberger (ECMWF)

UEF2019-Pappenberger.pdf

15:15 → 15:45 Coffee break

15:45 → 16:15 Afternoon session continued

15:45 ECMWF forecast performance

An update is given on the evolution of forecast skill of the IFS as seen in headline and supplementary scores, with emphasis on ensemble forecast performance. Comparison with ERA5 and with forecasts from other global models are made to distinguish the effect of model upgrades from changes in atmospheric predictability. The user-oriented supplementary headline score for 2-m temperature which measures the number of large ENS errors in the medium range is discussed, and a perspective on further reductions in 2-m temperature error is given. The increase in forecast skill expected from model cycle 46r1 is assessed, and new results on the inclusion of observation error in ensemble verification are presented.

Speaker: Thomas Haiden (ECMWF)

UEF2019-Haiden.pdf

16:15 → 18:15 Poster session and drinks reception

Tuesday, 4 June

09:30 → 10:30 Morning session - Chair: Andrea Montani

Scribe_Tues_4_June_UEF.pdf

09:30 Informing anticipatory humanitarian action: a framework for using ECMWF forecasts effectively

Some humanitarian crises are due to the effects of forecastable phenomena such as heatwaves or hurricanes. In principle, it is possible to take forecast-based action in advance of the event, that can reduce the impact or simply accelerate the response. Using ECMWF forecasts effectively in this context is a balance between the timescale of useful action (more can be done to reduce impact with longer lead times) and the timescale of useful predictability (the forecast is less confident at longer lead times). We set out a framework for achieving this balance based on evaluation of past ECMWF forecasts. For heatwave in Pakistan, we showed that there is an opportunity for confident humanitarian intervention before an event occurs, saving lives and money relative to the scenario of acting only after the crisis. This was tested last summer, activating a humanitarian response to an extreme heat event in Sindh province during Ramadan 2018. In other cases, it may not be possible to make a confident enough forecast at the required lead time; in this situation, humanitarian decision-makers can save time by taking forecast information off the table. Our framework illustrates how to embed ECMWF forecasts into real-time decision-making loops to support different forms of intervention (direct release of funding, insurance-based approaches, etc), while also exploring whether or not the practitioners might benefit from changing the parameters of their decision-making process to accommodate the weakness of the forecast system. The ultimate aim is to make ECMWF forecasts more useable and increase the anticipatory disaster risk reduction applications in which they are used.

Speaker: Erica Thompson (London School of Economics)

UEF2019-Thompson.pdf

10:00 GloFAS extended range flood forecast skill for the major river basins in Bangladesh

Flooding is the most common natural hazard in Bangladesh, occurring annually and causing huge economic losses. There are several reasons that cause flooding-geographical location, topography, monsoon climate etc. The country is located at the downstream of the three big river basins-the Ganges, the Brahmaputra and the Meghna; and during the monsoon period (June to September) transboundary flow from these basins comprises the main source of flood water. Flood Forecasting is an important flood management tool that can reduce flood damage. The short-term forecast is quite useful for the emergency management. However, extended range forecast plays more important role for agricultural planning. Therefore, for better flood preparedness extended range forecast is very useful for a flood vulnerable country like Bangladesh. The GloFAS forecast is run by ECMWF as part of the Copernicus Emergency Management Service and provides 30 days flood forecast for the major river basins in the world. The GloFAS extended range forecast is also available for the Ganges, the Brahmaputra and the Meghna river basins in Bangladesh. It is important to understand the forecast bias and uncertainty associated in the extended range forecast. Therefore, the aim of the research to evaluate the forecast skill of this extended range forecast. The study applies different statistical methods such as false alarm ratio, probability of detection and reliability diagram to evaluate forecast performance. The GloFAS forecast rerun data for the period 1997 to 2017 has been used in this study. The flood forecast information such as magnitude, time to peak and duration is key for the flood preparedness action. The present study shows that extended range forecast provided by GloFAS is very consistent capturing the peak flow of the major river basins in Bangladesh. The study will help to develop an effective extended range flood early warning system based on the available GloFAS forecast for Bangladesh.

Speaker: Sazzad Hossain (University of Reading)

UEF2019-Hossain.pdf

10:30 → 11:00 Coffee break

11:00 → 13:00 Morning session continued

11:00 Agricultural applications of ECMWF ensemble forecasts in Africa

Weather Impact is specialised in translating meteorological and climate data into user-friendly services. In several countries in Africa and Asia we have developed agricultural applications that use the ensemble forecasts of ECMWF as one of the inputs. One of our main challenges is to translate ensemble forecast data to actable information. Services include:
• Weather forecasts and extreme weather alerts
• Agricultural activity planning
• Pest and disease warnings

In Africa most small-scale agriculture is rain-fed. Reliable rainfall information can help farmers to better plan their agricultural activities and as a result they are supported in increasing their crop yield. As most of our forecasts are sent through SMS, the wealth of information from the ensemble forecast must be reduced to 160 characters. A number of case studies show the decisions we make for generating rainfall forecasts and extreme rainfall alerts.

To advise farmers on planning their agricultural activities, we combine agronomical and meteorological knowledge and warn them when the risk for plant pests and diseases is high. These advisories are based on the likelihood of different weather conditions that are important for farming activities or influence the risk for pest and diseases. Two case studies, one in Burundi and one in Ghana, show how ensemble forecast can be used for agricultural planning and migratory pest warnings.

Speaker: Ms Sippora Stellingwerf (Weather Impact)

UEF2019-Stellingwerf.pdf

11:30 Using ensemble weather forecasts in agronomy modelling

Since crop diseases and pests are highly dependent on weather conditions, various decision support systems are proposed to take into account these meteorological conditions in the modeling of epidemic dynamics and assist farmers in their decision-making. Nevertheless, the atmospheric flow is a chaotic phenomenon and weather forecasts remain uncertain. In recent years, several weather prediction centers have implemented probabilistic prediction systems that provide an estimate of the uncertainty of weather forecasts. We propose to demonstrate the potential of these probabilistic predictions for decision support tools regarding the protection of crops and applications for wheat.

For this work three ensemble prediction systems (EPS) have been used, that cover different time and length scales : the regional and global EPS operated at Météo France (the AROME-EPS and ARPEGE-EPS respectively) and the ECMWF-EPS. Since the agronomy sector makes decisions in advance about crop protection, the first step of the method consists in answering the scientific research question : " How to combine the three systems in order to provide an ensemble of « consistent » forecast scenarios from very short to intra-seasonal lead times ?"

For that purpose, we chose the high-resolution AROME-EPS for the first two days of simulation and then we extend each AROME-EPS member with an ARPEGE-EPS member up to four days and with an ECMWF-EPS member for longer lead times. We will present different strategies to perform the connection between EPS members, a key point being the metric used to measure the distance between forecasts over last two common days. We will also show how these ensembles can be used in practice to determine the processing date.

Speaker: Mrs Ivana Aleksovska (Météo-France)

UEF2019-Alekskovska.pdf

12:00 Strategies for optimising operational decisions using ensemble marine forecasts

Marine forecasts are essential to operational planning, with decisions able to be guided by a host of different weather products spanning a period of days, weeks and even months ahead. The correct selection and subsequent application of these different types of weather products has the potential to save many thousands of dollars per day in operational downtime, however this is only possible when the uncertainty information contained within the ensemble predictions are properly translated into actionable insight. In the current economic context, this is especially relevant to the offshore industry – whose use of forecasting technology is traditionally very conservative, and therefore whose planning is often more reactive – allowing large savings (e.g. mobilisation/demobilisation or vessel sequencing costs) if robust decisions are made as early as possible. Here, two methods for the interpretation of ensemble data, based on cost-loss and weather pattern analysis, respectively, are described and applied to ocean wave forecasting. The selection of methods is dependent on the lead time of interest, with cost-loss analysis optimised for supporting decisions days to weeks ahead, and weather pattern analysis optimised for supporting decisions weeks to months ahead. Based on the results of a research collaboration with Shell U.K. Ltd, the application of these techniques are illustrated from the point of view of a North Sea asset manager planning the deployment of equipment/personnel under conditions of calm weather, and the protection of equipment/personnel under conditions of severe weather. For such a user, it is shown that more efficient operational planning may be facilitated by properly-processed ensemble marine forecasts across all timescales, with their use enabling more informed decision-making, and helping reduce operational costs, by promoting increased confidence in longer-range forecasts than are typically used by the offshore oil & gas and marine renewable energy sector at present.

Speaker: Ken Mylne (Met Office)

UEF2019-Steele (presented by Ken Mylne).pdf

12:30 The strength of ensembles lies not in probability forecasting

"The Strength of Ensembles Lies not in Probability Forecasting"
Leonard A Smith, CATS at the London School of Economics @lynyrdsmyth
How can one best use an ensemble forecast system in making decisions in the real world that are influenced by the future weather? Several actual applications will be considered, and some real-time forecasting will be required (interactively) form the audience. It will be argued that it is costly to act as if ensembles gave us useful probabilities (in any of the Bayesian senses), but that ensemble can and do yield probabilistic information and can and has been used to advantage in weather sensitive decision making. Ensembles can provide early warning that our model is sensitive to the state of the atmosphere today, but that is a somewhat different from any claim regarding the predictability of the atmosphere itself today. The search for accountable ensembles (Smith, 1995) is, I now believe, wrong-headed, given that our dynamical models are imperfect. Rather than assuming calibration where it rarely exists, one can work with practitioners to identify useful questions which can be informed in a robust and useful manner. The Forecast Direction Error approach illustrates one successful application in the electricity sector (Smith, 2016). Our approach can never be as attractive as what one could achieve given “true” (or accountable) probability forecasts, but then we are not competing against such “fantastic objects.” Implications for other uses of ECMWF forecasts, and for model development, are touched on.
Smith, L.A. (1995) 'Accountability and error in ensemble forecasting', In 1995 ECMWF Seminar on Predictability. Vol. 1, 351-368. ECMWF, Reading.
Smith, L.A. (2016) 'Integrating information, misinformation and desire: improved weather-risk management for the energy sector', in Aston, P et al. (ed.) UK Success Stories in Industrial Mathematics, 289-296. Springer

Speaker: Prof. Leonard Smith (CATS at London School of Economics)

UEF2019-Smith.pdf

13:00 → 14:00 Lunch break

14:00 → 15:15 Put your skills to the test during our science and art activity - Louise Arnal, Jenny Rourke and Estibaliz Gascon (ECMWF)

15:15 → 15:45 Coffee break

15:45 → 17:15 Afternoon session - Chair: Ivan Tsonevsky

15:45 ECMWF research: near and distant future plans

The talk will highlight what steps have been taken to ‘develop an integrated global model of the Earth system to produce forecasts with increasing fidelity on time ranges up to one year ahead. This will tackle the most difficult problems in numerical weather prediction such as the currently low level of predictive skill of European weather for a month ahead.’, three years on since the approval of the 2016-2025 ECMWF strategy. The research behind the key changes introduced in the IFS model cycle 46r1 (which will be operational on the 11th June 2019) and the current plans for model cycle 47r1 and beyond will be highlighted.

Moreover, the relevance of Machine Learning on both operational workflow and research activities at ECMWF will be briefly discussed, as part of the more distant future directions of work.

Speaker: Andy Brown (ECMWF)

UEF2019-AndyBrown.pdf

16:15 The ECMWF Ensemble within the Copernicus European and Global Flood Awareness Systems (EFAS & GloFAS)

ECMWF is the computational centre for the European and Global Flood Awareness Systems [EFAS & GloFAS respectively], on behalf of the Copernicus Emergency Management Service. These produce flood forecasts across Europe and the globe with lead times of 10 and 30 days respectively. The aim is to provide flood forecasts at the medium range which are consistent across national boundaries.

Meteorological forecasts from the ECMWF ensemble of precipitation, temperature and wind speed are used as forcings for a hydrological model which produces ensemble estimates of river discharge. Using ensemble forecasts benefits the communication of flood risk uncertainty, especially beyond the short range. Within Europe the probabilistic information are used to decide when flood notifications are issued to EFAS partner institutions.

This presentation will explain the origin and setup of the EFAS and GloFAS systems. Use cases of how the probabilistic forecast information have been used to provide guidance on preparing and responding to flooding events will also be given.

Speaker: Ervin Zsoter (ECMWF)

UEF2019-Zsoter.pdf

16:45 Extended-range product and diagnostic developments

In line with its long-term Strategy, ECMWF has recently developed test products for the likelihood of regime transitions associated with the occurrence of severe cold spells, and for the probabilities of occurrence of sudden stratospheric warmings and weather regimes. The aim is to identify the main weather regimes in the Euro-Atlantic region and to predict the probability that future weather will be dominated by one or the other of these patterns. This information can provide insights into the likelihood of severe weather events often associated with specific flow circulations. Along with the new products, diagnostic and verification tools have been developed to monitor the performance. In this presentation the link between the products and evaluation will be discussed by using recent cases as examples.

Speaker: Linus Magnusson (ECMWF)

UEF2019-Magnusson.pdf

17:15 → 18:45 Poster session with drinks and canapés

Wednesday, 5 June

09:30 → 10:30 Morning session - Chair: Fatima Pillosu

09:30 Applications of ensemble prediction systems at Météo-France

In this presentation, different Météo-France applications based on the main operationnal ensemble prediction systems will be presented.

On the one hand it must be stressed that french forecaster use these operational ensembles every day, from very short- to medium-range.
On the other hand several ongoing studies investigate the feasibility of using ensemble weather forecasting for applications like agriculture management, hydrology, detection of extreme weather events, etc.

For instance, for the detection of intense precipitation or wind gust, the calculation of EFI/SOT indexes based on the french global ensemble prediction system known as "Prévision d'Ensemble ARPEGE" (PEARP) or on the high-resolution limited area ensemble forecast system known as "Prévision d'Ensemble AROME" (PEAROME) is examined. The use of an object-oriented approach to extract and track precipitation features, or to provide weather scenarios is also explored. Finally, a recent paper has also shown the benefits to using PEARP for the control of satellite-based communication systems.

Speakers: Mrs Marie Boisserie (Météo-France), Mrs Nicole Girardot (Météo-France)

UEF2019-Girardot_Boisserie.pdf

10:00 Ensemble based seven day high impact weather outlook

DWD is planning to launch a new product which provides warning information summarized in a graphical seven day outlook for high impact weather in Germany. The outlook comprises daily charts for the various hazard types – e.g. severe rainfall, wind gusts or snow fall. In the initial phase, forecasters will generate these maps by hand with the meteorological workstation system NinJo. In parallel an automatic product – the Daily Model Guidance (DMG) - is being developed that is supposed to support forecasters generating the charts or even to automate parts of the process. In the initial phase this is based on the ICON-EU ensemble as well as the IFS ensemble. This work shows how the DMG charts are generated automatically and how the uncertainty information of the ensemble is used.

The main features of DMG are smoothing algorithms that preserve the significant meteorological signal and take into account uncertainty increasing with lead time. A rough estimate of the timing is provided as well.

Preliminary verification results for wind gusts for December 2018/January 2019 show that the ICON ensemble performs similarly well as the IFS-Ensemble for the first few days, while for larger leadtimes the IFS ensemble is superior.

Speaker: Dr Guido Schroeder (DWD)

UEF2019-Schroeder.pdf

10:30 → 11:00 Coffee break

11:00 → 11:30 Morning session continued

11:00 Progressive warnings with conservative forecasting

Progressive warnings with conservative forecasting
Elín Björk Jónasdóttir, Group leader of Weather Services
Icelandic Meteorological Office

At the Icelandic Meteorological Office the use of Ensemble forecasts had a relatively slow start. The original resolution of the ENS system, along with limited resources was at first the main reason for IMO forecasters not to dive into the world of ensamble prediction. Within the past few years there has been a change in the way forecasters at IMO produce forecasts. We are still quite conservative in our day to day medium range forecasts, but when it comes to high impact weather forecasts and warnings, products such as SOT and EFI for precipitation or wind, the strike probability of cyclones and frontal systems have become a staple in our forecasting routine.
A new warning system, based on likelihood and societal impact was launched in 2017, and in the past year these products have become even more important as we learn to estimate predictability and communicate it to the public and stakeholders.
In this lecture I will briefly discuss the use of ENS products from the ECMWF in correlation with warnings issued by the Icelandic Meteorological Office and how the warnings have changed as forecasters learn to use new tools and visualization from the ECMWF.

Speaker: Mrs Elín Björk Jónasdóttir (Icelandic Met Office)

UEF2019-Jonasdottir.pdf

11:30 → 13:00 User voice corner

Recording

13:00 → 14:00 Lunch break

14:00 → 15:15 The Speakers' Corner - Fatima Pillosu : Customise ecPoint rainfall products, Cihan Sahin : ecCharts - faster and more responsive, Ivan Tsonevsky : New ECWMF model products explained

15:15 → 15:45 Coffee break

15:45 → 16:45 Afternoon session - Chair: Estibaliz Gascon

15:45 Challenges and Limits in Ensemble Weather Prediction

Some days, the atmosphere is less predictable than on average. This is partly because the rate of growth of certainty (the result of Chaos) is dependent on the atmospheric flow itself. For example, moist processes are almost always implicated during investigations of very poor forecasts for Europe (so-called "forecast busts"). These moist processes might be associated with, for example, warm conveyor-belts along the cold-fronts of a cyclonic systems, meso-scale convective situations, or the extra-tropical transition of tropical cyclones.

Such moist situations also present a particular challenge for data assimilation. For example, satellite observation operators are highly non-linear in cloudy situations. The result is that the ensemble distribution of initial conditions is less constrained by the available observations.

Furthermore, these moist situations present challenges for the model. For example, the model's parametrized "deterministic physics" is very active in these situations, and biases are likely to have a large impact on the forecast. In order to maintain the "spread-error" relationship of the ensemble, additional "stochastic physics" is required to adequately represent the effects of sub-grid-scale uncertainty associated with these moist processes.

Hence such moist and unstable situations represent, almost literally, a "perfect storm" for forecasting. Progress can be made on some aspects, but the inherent large uncertainty growth-rates will remain.

This talk will focus on how diagnostics can help improve our understanding of these challenges and limits.

Speaker: Mark Rodwell (ECMWF)

UEF2019-Rodwell.pdf

16:15 Users of ECMWF/Copernicus data in the spotlight – A user perspective on current and future cloud-based data systems (not live streamed)

ECMWF operates two Copernicus services, the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) and the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) and due to Copernicus’ open data policy, many datasets on climate, air quality, fire, or floods are available free of charge.

However, data accessibility is still one of the biggest obstacles for users of these data. Users face difficulties in downloading and processing these growing data volumes. On data services / providers side, many attempts are undertaken to make open environmental data better accessible for users, e.g. data cube technologies, standardised web services or data portals, such as the Copernicus Climate Data Store.

Future data services will probably be based on cloud services, but there are many open questions on how a reliable and scalable data service based on cloud services could be established. How much processing capacity would users need, is the geographic location of the cloud servers important for users and do users care whether the cloud is publicly-funded or the services are offered by a commercial provider?

A user requirements survey on Big Earth Data put users into the spotlight between November 2018 and January 2019. We were interested how users of large volumes of environmental data interact with the data and what challenges they currently face. One part aimed at finding out how users would like to work with future data services and what aspects of cloud services, e.g. geographic location or publicly-funded cloud vs. commercial cloud provider, play an important role for users. The presentation will provide a perspective on how users of open environmental data currently work with the data and what challenges they face. A specific focus will be put on user’s expectations of future data and cloud services.

Speaker: Julia Wagemann (ECMWF)

16:45 → 18:15 Knowledge Café - The impact of social media on weather related decision making processes

19:30 → 21:30 Workshop dinner in Reading town centre

Thursday, 6 June

09:30 → 10:30 Morning session - Chair: Julia Wagemann

09:30 Probabilistic fire spread prediction: The case of the deadly wildfire in Mati, Greece

On July 23 2018, Greece experienced the second deadliest natural disaster of its modern history. Early in the afternoon, a wildfire broke up in the region of Ntaou on Penteli Mountain, approximately 20 km northeast of the city of Athens and 5 km off the Eastern Attica coast. Assisted by the prevailing meteorological conditions, characterized by high temperature, very low humidity and locally gale force surface winds, the wildfire spread erratically and within a couple of hours it almost literally wiped out the coastal settlement of Mati. The aftermath of the event included a record-high 101 civilian fatalities and innumerable destroyed properties. Such tragedies urgently call for raising awareness and preparedness for the occurrence of extreme fire weather and behaviour, as was the case of the Mati wildfire. Focusing on the side of preparedness, this work presents the assessment of the potential usefulness of probabilistic fire spread predictions. For that purpose, we use the operational ensemble forecasts of ECMWF’s EPS to drive the advanced coupled fire-atmosphere WRF-SFIRE modelling system for retrospectively forecasting fire spread during the Mati wildfire. Two forecast horizons, covering the period of the wildfire, are considered, namely t0+36h (initialized July 22 at 12UTC), t0+24h (initialized July 23 at 00UTC). The set of forecasts used includes the control forecast of the EPS and the 50-member ensemble, all at 16 km spatial resolution. Actual fire perimeter data, provided by Copernicus Emergency Mapping Service, are used for assessing the added-value of the probabilistic fire spread predictions, focusing particularly on the provision of timely and accurate forecast guidance.

Speaker: Dr Theodore Giannaros (National Observatory of Athens)

UEF2019-Giannaros.pdf

10:00 Quantifying uncertainties and confidence level in ATM simulations

The Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) is an international organization located in Vienna, Austria. Its main task is to establish a global verification regime to monitor compliance with the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), which bans all nuclear explosions. The Commission has developed an atmospheric transport modelling (ATM) pipeline working with meteorological data in order to produce source-receptor-sensitivity (SRS) field data and plots to indicate possible source regions for potential releases of radionuclides (RN) related to hypothetical or actual detections at RN stations.

CTBTO mainly uses ATM guidance in backward mode to link a measurement from an IMS station to a possible source location. However, ATM is also used in forward mode to predict which of the IMS radionuclide stations are likely to be affected given a potential radioactive release.

Different ATM systems will generally produce different solutions because a) the input meteorological fields are different or processed differently, b) the transport and dispersion model are different or configured differently, and c) the source term is specified differently. CTBTO in collaboration with Zentralanstalt für Meteorologie und Geodynamik (ZAMG), under funding from European Union Council Decisions VII, has initiated a project to study the impact of different meteorological input coming from an EPS to better estimate the source location and to quantify the level of confidence. This presentation will describe the project and present initial results.

Speaker: Mr Christian Maurer (ZAMG)

UEF2019-Maurer.pdf

10:30 → 11:00 Coffee break

11:00 → 12:00 Morning session continued

11:00 Goodbye ERA-Interim, hello ERA5

As part of implementing the EU-funded Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), ECMWF is producing the ERA5 reanalysis of the global weather and climate. Production is complete for the period 1979 to the present, and an extension back to 1950 is currently in production. ERA5 replaces the highly successful ERA-Interim reanalysis that was started in 2006 and spans the period from 1979 to the present. ERA5 benefits from a decade of developments in model physics, core dynamics and data assimilation relative to ERA-Interim. In addition to a significantly enhanced horizontal resolution (31 km grid spacing compared to 79 km for ERA-Interim), ERA5 has a number of innovative features.
The time has now come to phase out ERA-Interim. New data covering the period to the end of August 2019 will continue to be made available with a delay of two to three months; after that, the production of ERA-Interim will stop. ERA5 on the other hand will be maintained as an operational product to at least the mid-2020s, when a replacement should be available.
This presentation will give an overview of the enhanced performance and innovative features of ERA5. It will also provide a walk-through of the available products and how to access them.

Speaker: Dr Hans Hersbach (ECMWF)

UEF2019-Hersbach.pdf

11:30 Seasonal forecasts from the Copernicus Climate Change Service

The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) operationally provides forecasts from state-of-the-art individual seasonal prediction systems, as well as multi-system combination products. Graphical and data products, covering a time period of six months, are free and fully available through the C3S website and Climate Data Store (CDS) on a monthly basis at 12 UTC on the 13th.
The centres currently providing forecasts to C3S are ECMWF, the UK Met Office, Météo-France, the German Weather Service (Deutscher Wetterdienst, DWD) and the Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change (Centro Euro-Mediterraneo sui Cambiamenti Climatici, CMCC). During 2019, it is planned to introduce additional contributions from other non-European centres, including NCEP and JMA (currently participating in the EUROSIP system), as well as Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC).
A general overview of the seasonal forecast activity within the C3S will be presented. This will include detailed information about the available graphical and data products and live demonstration on how to access them on the CDS. Plans for future functionalities will also be presented.

Speaker: Eduardo Penabad Ramos (ECMWF)

UEF2019-PenabadRamos.pdf

12:00 → 12:30 Prizes and concluding remarks