Satellite inspired hydrology in an uncertain future: a H SAF and HEPEX workshop

The number of precipitation-related observations that are used in ECMWF’s operational 4D-Var data assimilation system has been steadily increasing over the past two decades, bringing a significant improvement in the quality of atmospheric analyses and subsequent forecasts. This presentation will review the status of ECMWF’s operational assimilation of all-sky satellite microwave brightness...

The UKV is the Met Office operational modelling system for the UK area. An hourly cycling 4DVAR algorithm provides atmospheric initial conditions; meanwhile the initial land state is provided by interpolating a global soil moisture analysis at a daily frequency. The forecast step uses the Unified Model for the atmosphere coupled to JULES for the land state at 1.5km.

The Met Office has...

Many global initiatives launched in recent years by the international community, such as the SDG (especially SDG-6 water and sanitation) and WMO’s WHOS, HydroSOS and others have highlighted the growing need for reliable hydrological data. However the outcomes of recent survey carried out by WMO and WB indicate that particularly in low and middle-income countries, Hydrological Services are...

The performance of numerical weather prediction (NWP) can be improved significantly by assimilating remotely sensed soil moisture in the included land surface model. In our study, we investigate the improvement of the NWP in the Austrian domain by assimilating the multi-layer fused data product SCATSAR-SWI (Soil Water Index) with the surface model SURFEX. The SURFEX assimilation employs a...

An accurate representation of snow extent and depth is of great importance in Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) models for calculations of surface fluxes which provide the lower boundary conditions for the atmosphere. In the UK the model representation of snow is itself of great interest to forecasters, who must provide current information on and predictions of snow positioning, depths and...