Interoperability between the European Short-range NWP Systems

Chair: Terry Davies

One of the Projects accompanying the SRNWP Programme will be the Programme Interoperability. Council at its 30th Meeting (12-13 April 2007) has accepted this Project as EUMETNET Programme.

No NMS responded to the call for Responsible Member. After the time foreseen for candidatures had passed, the Met Office volunteered to be the Responsible Member and started drafting a revised, less ambitious, version of the Proposal. It also expressed the need to further discuss with the NWP community the deliverables D5 and D6 foreseen in the Proposal accepted by Council.

The Met Office Proposal for an Interoperability Programme can be found under

http://srnwp.met.hu/Documents/UK-Interoperability.htm

At its 31st Meeting (20-21 September 2007 in Lisbon), Council agreed that a more detailed proposal should be presented by the Met Office in spring 2008. The SRNWP Programme would like to be more specific and see the Met Office Proposal discussed at the spring 2008 EIG General Assembly that will take place in Iceland.

Most of the discussion concerning this item turned around the proposition to use most of the funding already allocated by Council for the Interoperability Programme for the Project "European Short-range EPS" (EurEPS), whose financing as EUMETNET Programme has been postponed by Council for an indefinite period of time.

The idea behind this proposition is that the Consortia will have anyway to be active in the Programme Interoperability for the development of the interfaces between the global models and the LAMs and, maybe, between the LAMs themselves.

These developments cannot be done efficiently by the Responsible Member only: it is best done for each model by the Consortium, which has developed it and maintains it.

After a lively discussion, it has been decided that we shall not ask Council for permission to use Interoperability money for other Projects.