SRNWP Annual Meeting 2001

11-12 October, Cracow (Poland)

 
                                      
Report of the Business Meeting

 
Short Report of the Coordinator
Present status of the SRNWP Network

The Coordinator showed quickly the lists of the Members and of the
Consortia: no change happened in the year under review.

Concerning the Lead Centres, the LC for Mesoscale Verification organised
its first workshop. It took place the 23-24 April at the KNMI Headquarters
in De Bilt (The Netherlands).
Brief review of the past activities

Prominent during the year under review have been the scientific discussions
and the exchange of information between our five Consortia (ALADIN, COSMO,
HIRLAM, LACE and UKMO) mainly in our Workshops and to a lesser extend also
in the Consortia meetings.

The following SRNWP Workshops took place:

23-24 April in De Bilt:                   
First Workshop on Meso-scale Verification

2-3 July in Bratislava:                    
Third Mini-workshop on Numerical Techniques

24-26 September in Bad-Orb:       Fourth
Workshop on Nonhydrostatic Modelling

22-24 October in Madrid:              
Workshop on soil processes, turbulence and mountain effects

Other activities are reported below.
Lead-Centres
As at each Annual Meeting, the Workshops foreseen for the next 12 months
have been finalised and a first outlook for the following year has been
given.

The following change has been decided:

As we have 4 LC organising their workshops in the odd years and only
2 in the even years, it has been decided to move the Mini-workshops of
the LC for Numerical Techniques to the even years. This is also justified
by the fact that this LC deals with topics whose some of them are also
on the agenda of the Workshops of the LC for Nonhydrostatic Modelling.
From 2002, the workshops of these two LC should no longer take place in
the same years.

The amended list of the LC Workshops will be put into our web-site
(http://srnwp.cscs.ch  - LC Workshops).
Scientific Meetings of the Consortia
For most of the Consortia, the dates when they hold their scientific
meetings had not yet been decided.

The informations that the Coordinator will receive will be put into
our web-site (http://srnwp.cscs.ch  - Consortia/Scientific Meetings).

New: the Coordinator will also put on our web-site the Courses organised
by ALADIN in the frame of the ALATNET EU Project) and also the COSMO LM-Seminars
organised annually by the DWD. These events will be on a new page called
"Education".
New SRNWP web site:      http://srnwp.cscs.ch
The Coordinator had to find a new provider: where the SRNWP web site
was implemented, it has not been possible to receive the "write permission".
This made any change in the site - even the smallest one - very tedious.
Now the Coordinator has the "write permission".

The site is not yet what it should be. But there has been an improvement
since last summer.
Rules for software exchange
A 2001 mile stone is the document "NWP Software Exchange between the
NWS participating in the EUMETNET C-SRNWP Programme". At its 12th Meeting
(6th of April 2001), the EUMETNET Council has accepted our proposal. Now,
we have for our SRNWP Network a solid basis and a clear procedure when
a Member wishes to acquire NWP software from another Member. The rules
will be put on our web site under "Documents".
Hourly ECMWF frames for LAMs (instead of 3-hourly ones)
Switzerland has decided to ask the ECMWF to put at the disposal of its
Members the frames not with a 3-hourly interval, by with a period of one
hour (In COSMO, the boundary refresh frequency from the GME is one hour).
The Coordinator asked whether other Members would be interested to join
this action. DMI showed great interest and the HIRLAM Project-Leader would
support this initiative.
Hourly SYNOPs for Data Assimilation and Verification
At the First Workshop on Mesoscale Verification (23-24 April in De Bilt),
a recommendation has been made for the dissemination in Europe of the hourly
SYNOP messages. It is suspected that only a part of the SYNOP made hourly
at many stations in Europe circulate on the GTS. With the rise of continuous
data assimilation methods (nudging and 4D-Var) as well as for the validation
of the daily cycle of our NWP models, it would be an advantage to have
at our disposal all the SYNOP, not only the 3-hourly ones. The Coordinator
will investigate how many SYNOP of non-synoptic times are circulating on
the GTS and will ask the EUMETNET CO what should be undertaken in order
to improve the situation. He will report on this matter at the next annual
meeting.
More on Verification
The report on the First Workshop on Mesoscale Verification (23-24 April
in De Bilt) has triggered a general discussion on verification.

There was a general consensus that we should compare our models with
each other. SMHI has offered to verify the MSL surface pressure and the
500 hPa geopotential. UKMO has offered to compare the precipitations between

- the HIRLAM reference version

- the LM reference version

- the ALADIN France

- the meso-scale UM

It has been decided that the precipitations should be verified according
the "EWGLAM Station List" of Chris Hall (UKMO) and Ulrich Damrath (DWD).
This list and - if feasible - also the accompanying "Guidelines" should
be put on a new page "Verification" of our web-site.
Test cases
Unfortunately the Coordinator - and I think not only the Coordinator
- found no time to organise the test cases, although the major points have
been defined.

The contact persons are Jürgen (COSMO/DWD), Terry (UKMO), Aidan
(HIRLAM / Met Éireann) and Pierre (ALADIN/M-F).

The cases: Scania, orographic spurious circulations, bubbles and gravity
currents.
Form of future meetings
This matter has formally be discussed in the EWGLAM final discussion,
but as it is of direct concern for the SRNWP Annual Meeting, it will also
be reported here.

The idea of the Coordinator was to have at each SRNWP Annual Meeting
two special sessions:

- one where a large European project involving in a strong way NWP
would be presented

- one where a EUMETNET Programme linked to or having a strong impact
on the short-range NWP would be presented.

For the meeting under review, the BALTEX Project has been presented
(by Prof. Hantel) together with the EUMETNET AMDAR Programme.

For the Annual Meeting 2002, the Coordinator had in mind a presentation
of THORpex by Alan Thorpe and a review of the EUMETNET ASAP Programme by
his Manager.

But the Assembly expressed in a very clear way its feeling that the
EWGLAM/SRNWP Meetings are too long!

It has been decided to shorten this meeting by dropping the computer
vendor session from the EWGLAM part and by withdrawing the two special
sessions of the SRNWP part.
Next meeting
7-10 October 2002

At the KNMI Headquarters, De Bilt, The Netherlands

 
For the report:

Jean QUIBY

SRNWP Network Coordinator