EUMETNET

C-SRNWP Programme

Rapport 2004/4: October - December

SRNWP Annual Meeting

The major event of the last quarter of 2004 has been the SRNWP Annual Meeting which took place the 6th of October in Oslo, organised by met.no. 21 NWS were represented.

A detailed report of this meeting, which defines for a very large part the work of the Programme Manager for the next 12 months, can be found under: http://srnwp.cscs.ch/Annual_Meetings/2004/2004-BusinessMeeting-Report.htm

The main points are:

- News from the Consortia

The main news is that the National Meteorological Administration of Romania is now also an associate Member of the COSMO Consortium. Its membership and collaboration with the ALADIN Consortium remains unchanged.

- State of the SRNWP web-site

Interesting to note is the fact that this site starts to be visited from outside Europe.

- SRNWP Proposal for an EU-Project

The Assembly decided that a proposal should be submitted (see below).

- The SRNWP PEPS Project (Ensemble Prediction System based on short-range operational NWP products)

The work is progressing very well at the DWD: first results can be disseminated.

A meeting dedicated to this project will take place the 6th of April 2005 in Bologna (Italy).

- Real time dissemination of observations

Efforts for improvements will be made for radar wind data (VAD and radial), GPS total zenital delays, hourly SYNOPs, non-GTS precipitation data, etc.

- Model inter-comparison

The feasibility of a comparison between the four basic LAM operational in Europe (Hirlam, Aladin, Local model and Unified model) will be discussed with the major operators of these models.

The 26th EWGLAM Meeting

The SRNWP Annual Meeting has been preceded, as each year, by the EWGLAM (European Working Group on Limited Area Modelling) Meeting. All the scientific contributions presented can be found under:

http://srnwp.cscs.ch/Annual_Meetings/2004/2004-Agenda.htm

SRNWP Proposal for a EU-Project

The Manager spent 3 days at Meteo-France in Toulouse (22-24 November) working with French colleagues on a proposal for a SRNWP Project in the frame of the "Human Resources and Mobility" instrument of the EU. Submitted has been a proposal for a "Research and Training Network" on "NWP at very high resolution". 19 European NWS have joint this action that will allow - if it is successful - the training of about 30 young scientists.

Conferences and Workshops

- The Programme Manager attended the Joint SRNWP/ Met Office/HIRLAM Workshop on Variational Data Assimilation (15-17 November) which took place in the new and superb building of the Met Office in Exeter.

This Workshop had a big success with an attendance of about 70 scientists, several from outside Europe. The main emphasis had been put on the variational data assimilation at very resolutions. It has been good to see so much work already being undertaken at resolutions of only a few km. A positive surprise was also the several presentations from our US colleagues on the EnKF (Ensemble Kalman Filter) method. Europe seems to be presently lagging behind in the use of this method.

The reports of the working groups will be made available on the Met Office web site as well as the scientific presentations.

The next meeting on Variational Data Assimilation should take place in 2006 and will be organised either by the HIRLAM Consortium or by the Met Office.

- The Programme Manager attended the "First THORPEX International Symposium" which took place in Montreal (Canada) during the week 6-10 December. This Symposium has been organised under the auspices of the WMO. About 200-250 delegates attended the meeting. The scientific presentations were first class. The strategies which have been defined for the future were, in my very personal view, somewhat disappointing: from such a large event attended by key people, we could have expected more. It has been proposed for Europe not to organise a new targeting observation campaign over the Atlantic Ocean, but to set-up an experiment on the use of maximum spatial and temporal satellite information, especially over the Atlantic Oceans. Next to this, it has been recommended to join or at least to coordinate the FDP (Forecast Demonstration Project) with the German COPS Experiment (COPS = Convective and Orographically-induced Precipitation Study). Both experiments should take place simultaneously in 2006 or 2007.

The Second THORPEX Symposium should be organised in 2006 in Europe.

Jean QUIBY

C-SRNWP Programme Manager

22 January 2005