29th EWGLAM and 14th SRNWP Meetings

8-11 October 2007, Dubrovnik-Croatia, organizer:Croatian Meteorological and Hydrological Service

See all meeting photographs

Participants

Avgoustoglou Euripides, Bajić Alica, Baldauf Michael, Banciu Doina, Barker Dale, Beare Sarah, Bélair Stéphane, Bölöni Gergely, Bonavita Massimo, Brožková Radmila, Bush Mike, Catry Bart, Cats Gerard, Chalon Jean-Pierre, Clark Peter, Dando Marie, Davies Terry, Di Giuseppe Francesca, Drvar Dunja, El Khatib Ryad, Fischer Claude, Fortelius Carl, Geleyn Jean-François, Gustafsson Nils, Hamilton James, Horányi András, Hortal Mariano, Horvath Kristian, Ivančan-Picek Branka, Ivatek-Šahdan Stjepan, Iversen Trond, Janoušek Martin, Jerczyński Marek, Kalin Lovro, Klarić Dijana, Kos Igor, Kovačić Tomislav, Kraljević Lukša, Küçükkaraca Ersin, Macpherson Bruce, Mahfouf Jean-François, Majewski Detlev, Marsigli Chiara, Mašek Ján, Maziejewski Jean-Antoine, Meuller Lars, Naylor Mark, Onvlee Jeanette, Orfila Bartolomé, Paccagnella Tiziana, Pottier Patricia, Pristov Neva, Quiby Jean, Raspanti Adriano, Riviere Olivier, Saito Kazuo, Sass Bent, Sasu Monica-Roxana, Seity Yann, Stanešić Antonio, Stanković Katarina, Steiner Philippe, Tijm Sander, Tudor Martina, Undén Per, Váňa Filip, Vanderborght Josette, Wang Yong, Yang Xiaohua and Žagar Mark.

1. Agenda and presentations
2. Report of the SRNWP session
3. Minutes of the EWGLAM final discussion
4. List of the operational models in Europe in 2006
5. the meeting NewsLetter

1. Presentations and Posters

2. Reports of the SRNWP Business Meeting

SRNWP Programme, Phase III, 2008-2011

Chair: Andras Horanyi

Andras has presented the Programme Proposal for the Phase III submitted to the EUMETNET Council and accepted by the latter at its 30th Meeting (12-13 April 2007 in Aberdeen).

Phase III will defer from Phase I (2000-2003) and Phase II (2004-2007) on two major points:

• the tasks of the Programme
• the governance of the Programme
• The tasks of the Programme

For its Phase III, it is foreseen that the Programme will have two main components instead of one, as it has been the case for the two previous phases.

Next to the present task of organizing and fostering the exchange of the scientific information on NWP between the NMS as well as between the Consortia, the Programme will be accompanied by Projects to develop deliverables to increase the efficiency in NWP of the NMS and of the Consortia. These developments, if successful, will significantly reinforce the collaboration between the Consortia.

Although the Programme has been significantly enlarged, the EUMETNET Council has decided that the Programme Manager position remains, for financial reasons, a 30% job.

The governance of the Programme

The enlargement of the tasks of the Programme had to be accompanied by a strengthening of its governance. Two new bodies have been created:

• An Advisory Committee (AC):
  Its main task will be to define and regularly review the strategy of the Programme and act as an advisory instance to the Programme Manager. It will also have as duty to identify the needs for new actions or Projects and to initiate their realization. The AC will be composed of the Consortium Programme Managers (five persons) and will be chaired by the SRNWP Programme Manager. It will meet twice a year, in autumn together with the Annual EWGLAM/SRNWP Meetings and in spring. The First AC Meeting will take place in April-May in Hungary at Andras' invitation.
• Expert Teams (ET):
  They main tasks will be to plan and organize the collaboration between NMS and between Consortia in the area of their respective scientific theme, in particular the planning and organization of the SRNWP Workshops. More information in the Report 'Definition and set-up of the Expert Teams (ET)'.

Relation between the SRNWP Core-Programme and the Projects

Chair: Andras Horanyi

Among the actions triggered by the document 'A Vision for NWP in Europe', one has been to accompany the third phase of the SRNWP Programme by Projects, whose aim is to develop concrete deliverables to augment the efficiency in NWP and to foster the collaboration in this field between the European NMS as between and their five Consortia.

In the EUMETNET organization, these Projects would be standard Programmes, each formally independent of the others as of all the other EUMETNET Programmes. Each of these Programme-Projects would have its own Responsible Member and Programme Manager.

At the difference of EUCOS, where the Programmes for observations (E-AMDAR, E-ASAP, E-SURFMAR and, from 2008, E-WINPROF) are all under the umbrella of the EUCOS Programme itself, which acts as a coordinating and monitoring Programme, it has not been planed for SRNWP to have a central Programme with coordination and monitoring duties.

Presently, only the Project 'Interoperability between the European NWP Systems' has been accepted by Council as EUMETNET Programme. It is hoped that the Projects 'Verification' and 'European Short-range EPS' will also become EUMETNET Programmes.

These Programmes - Interoperabiluty, Verification and European EPS - need coordination, at least for the data formats. It is out of question that each Project defines its own data formats.

Every participant agrees that some kind of coordination must exist between the Projects and that it should be taken over by the SRNWP Programme itself.

However, there are different opinions about the extension of that coordination. Fears have been expressed that the SRNWP Core Programme could coordinate everything and takes leadership and initiative away from the Project-Programmes. This must not happen because the Responsible Members of the Projects bear alone before Council, each for itself, the responsibility of their activities.

It has been proposed to the new SRNWP Programme Manager that he should discuss the problem of the relation between the SRNWP Programme and the Project-Programmes (presently between the SRNWP and the Interoperability Programmes) with the Executive Director of the EIG-EUMETNET, Mr. Steve Noyes, in spring 2008 in Brussels.

Definition and set-up of the Expert Teams (ET)

Chair: Jean-François Geleyn

Jean-François had very well prepared his session and came before the participants with a proposition that has been only marginally modified by the Assembly.

Thus, we can jump directly to the final list of the seven Expert Teams:

• ET on data assimilation and use of observations
• ET on diagnostics, validation and verification
• ET on dynamics and coupling
• ET on physical parameterization
• ET on predictability and EPS
• ET on surface and soil processes
• ET on system aspects and interoperability

Important complements have been made in the discussion concerning the:

• ET on dynamics and coupling: This ET is also the ET for the theme "Numerics"
• ET on physical parameterization: This ET deals only with the parameterization of the upper-air processes.
• ET on surface and soil processes: This ET cares also for the boundary layer parameterization and considers both the modeling aspects and the data assimilation aspects for surface and soil.

A discussion took place to decide whether the "socio-economical benefits" of the short-range NWP should be formally considered or not.

It has been decided to consider them because their importance will very probably increase in the future. It has been pointed out that they are already firmly established at the WMO, for example in the WMRP.

A long discussion took place to decide whether an "ET on Applications and Socio-economical Benefits" should be set up or not.

As it was not at all clear what would be the concrete tasks of such an ET concerning the socio-economical aspects, it has been decided not to create one, but to confide this theme to the Advisory Committee, which will follow the developments in this area.

It should also become a task of the Advisory Committee to consider the Applications: three have been explicitly put forward by the audience: hydrology, chemistry and aeronautics. It is sure that in the future the NWP community will have to work much more closely with these groups that it has been the case until today.

Next to the ET list, Jean-François presented a second list: the List of the Cross-Cutting Issues. They are:

• High resolution
• Data pre-processing
• Data assimilation with ensembles
• Numerics
• PBL - surface interaction
• Client-oriented verification

Each of these issues "touches" more than one ET, some of them - as "High resolution" - practically all the ET.

These issues will not be dealt with by dedicated working groups: it will be a duty for each ET to identify the issues relevant for their respective topic and to properly respond to their scientific challenge.

The future Programme Manager, Andras, will write down a first version of the Terms of Reference for each ET.

Each Consortium will have to announce to Andras a contact person for each of the seven ET until the end of November and each ET must choose its Chairperson till the end of the year.

Each ET should have ready for the end of February 2008 a first draft of their work programme and planed activities for 2008.

As already written in the Report "SRNWP Programme, Phase III, 2008-2011", the ET will have the duty to plan and organize SRNWP Workshops in the fields of their respective competences.

It has been agreed that the present rule of one workshop every two years for each theme will be principally maintained and applied with flexibility.

For the workshops in 2008, the future Programme Manager will look at the list of the past workshops in the Programme web site and contact the relevant Expert Teams that should plan and organize a workshop. At the question whether the Workshops on "Non-hydrostatic Modeling" could be maintained as SRNWP Workshops, the answer has been a very positive "yes".

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.

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.

3. EWGLAM final discussion

For the minutes: Jean Quiby, SRNWP Programme Manager

The Local Organiser (the Croatian Meteorological Service) will prepare a Newsletter under electronic form only.

All the participants of the EWGLAM/SRNWP Meetings are requested to send their contributions in electronic form to Alica Bajic (alica.bajic@cirus.dhz.hr) until November the 30th under any of the usual formats.

A maximum number of pages has not been fixed, but based on the experience of the last years it should not exceed 8 pages.

The 2008 EWGLAM/SRNWP Meeting

It has been decided to keep the new meeting format, which has been successfully used for this meeting as well as for the first time last year in Zurich.

However, from next year onwards, the SRNWP Programme will have a new governance with, among other novelties, 7 Expert Teams.

Should the Expert Teams be considered in the Programme? The answer was yes, but it remained unclear how this should be done.

Statements have expressed that it would be too much to have 7 review talks given by the Expert Team chairpersons.

The Local Organiser together with the Programme Manager will have to clear up this point.

Detlev's Proposition

Detlev Majewski (DWD) would like to hear at the beginning of each thematic session (DA, Physics, Verif, etc) a short talk summarising the state of the art in each of these fields. These reviews should not be restricted to the situation in Europe but should also inform about developments and problems in extra-European groups.

This proposition has clearly found a genuine interest among the participants.

The 2008 Local Organizer, with the help of the Expert Teams and of the Programme Manager, will consider the possibility of organising such reviews.

Place and Date of the next Meetings

2008

According to the rotation of our meeting places the 2008 EWGLAM/SRNWP Meetings should be organised by the INM. Bartolome Orfila has invited the EWGLAM/SRNWP Meetings to Spain. The Meetings will be hold in Central Spain from the 6th to the 9th of October. Thanks to Bartolome and to the INM!

2009

According to our rule, the 2009 Meetings should be organised by a 'new' SRNWP Member. We have two new Members:

• the NMS of Latvia, which has joint the SRNWP Programme last year
• the NMS of Estonia, which is now a HIRLAM Member.

However, the 2009 Meetings could also be organized by an 'old' SRNWP Member that has not yet organised these Meetings: Greece, Iceland, Luxembourg and Bulgaria. The Programme Manager will contact next years these NMS.

4. Operational NWP models in Europe Nov. 2007

EUMETNET-SRNWP Overview of Operational Numerical Weather Prediction Systems in Europe, Nov. 2007
(compiled by Detlev Majewski, Deutscher Wetterdienst, Germany)