Annual Report 2017
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Annual Report 2017 www.ecmwf.int Foreword 2 2017 At a glance 4 Advancing weather science 10 Delivering global predictions 16 Sustaining high-performance computing 22 Supporting ECMWF 26 Serving Member and Co-operating States 30 How we work 36 Member States as of January 2018 Austria Belgium Croatia Denmark Finland France Germany Greece Iceland Ireland Italy Luxembourg The Netherlands Norway Portugal Serbia Slovenia Spain Sweden Switzerland Turkey United Kingdom ecmwf.int ECMWF Annual Report 2017 1 AR-2018-ARTWORK.indd 1 08/06/2018 16:01 A year among years Florence Rabier Director-General There is a lot to say about 2017, and the following pages allow us to remember or discover some of the key moments. Possibly the most striking aspect that comes to mind is the way our past, present and future collided in that speci c year. 2017 was a rework of anniversaries. Trust is earned, and 2017 has allowed It marked 20 years of 4D-Var at ECMWF, us to pay our dues and serve our Member and of seasonal forecasts, and 25 years of States and other users with some noticeable ensemble prediction and wave forecasting. progress towards our Strategy to 2025. It was also the year when ECMWF’s Council Some good examples include the work approved the development of our future undertaken to assess the best ensemble data centre in Bologna, Italy, and voted con gurations to make a 5 km ensemble a budget allowing a substantial increase affordable; the more ef cient radiation in our computing capability. The end of the scheme, completely recoded to be more year saw the Government of the UK, our exible and delivering ef ciency gains up host nation, formally offering to relocate to 30-35%; the release of the new seasonal ECMWF’s headquarters to accommodate system, SEAS5, notably improving our requirements. El Niño prediction. A common denominator between all those Our partnership with the European Union events is that they illustrate the relationship is also thriving and delivering results that based on trust which connects ECMWF cut across the whole of ECMWF. The new and its Member States. The science behind climatology derived from aerosol data ensemble prediction or 4D-Var was not born developed by the EU-funded Copernicus in one day. It took years and years before Atmosphere Monitoring Service that we it even looked like something which could operate on behalf of the EU is contributing be adequately demonstrated. Developing to improving our forecasts. The latest a state-of-the-art data centre is also version of our reanalysis, ERA5, produced a substantial investment in the future. by our Copernicus Climate Change Service These are strong statements of support now provides a useful benchmark and from the Member States. reference for identifying interannual 2 ECMWF Annual Report 2017 ecmwf.int AR-2018-ARTWORK.indd 2 08/06/2018 16:01 Day Probabilistic skill 7.5 ECMWF’s duty to Member 7 States is to continue 6.5 improving medium-range forecast skill. Results for 6 the northern hemisphere 5.5 extratropics show that the skill of the ensemble 5 forecast in predicting 24-hour 4.5 precipitation totals continues 4 to increase. The computation of skill is based on the 3.5 continuous ranked probability 3 skill score (CRPSS). The chart shows 12-month running 2.5 average values of the forecast 2 range at which the CRPSS 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 drops below 0.1. variations in predictability; last but not Andy joined us one year into the least, this strong partnership with the EU implementation of the Strategy to 2025, is reinforced by the work they have selected with sizeable challenges to address … and us to deliver on re prediction and human an impressive scienti c team to support him. carbon emissions. Science in numerical weather prediction Our work with the WMO continued to could not function any more without ourish in 2017, with Nguyen Thanh Tung the support of computing sciences and from Vietnam nishing his fellowship in technology, so Council’s approval of our next September after 12 months of mutually HPC budget at its December session was bene cial exchanges. This year the a great outcome. Six months after approving WMO designated ECMWF as a World the building of our new state-of-the-art Meteorological Centre and endorsed data centre in Bologna, Council con rmed us as the Lead Centre for Wave its con dence in our teams by endorsing Forecast Veri cation. our request for a substantial increase in computing capability. As we continue to ECMWF is above all a scienti c organisation, push our science towards the goals of so the arrival of Dr Andy Brown as Director our Strategy to 2025, there could not of Research is also a milestone of 2017. have been a better way to end 2017. © Stephen Shepherd photography © Stephen Shepherd ecmwf.int ECMWF Annual Report 2017 3 AR-2018-ARTWORK.indd 3 08/06/2018 16:01 2017 At a glance Windstorm Doris January On 23 February, Storm Doris hit Ireland and Great Britain, causing disruptions CAMS model upgrade and at least one fatality. The risk of Changes to the aerosol model of the extreme gusts was predicted well Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring 6 –7 days in advance, but there were Service (CAMS) global forecasting still uncertainties in the details in the system operated by ECMWF on behalf forecast one day before. of the EU resulted in more accurate forecasts. The upgrade introduced two new satellite datasets: aerosol March observations from the Polar Multi- Earlier dissemination Sensor Aerosol Product (PMAp) Open data events of ensemble forecasts provided by EUMETSAT and ozone ECMWF marked International On 7 March, ECMWF started observations from the Ozone Mapping Open Data Day with a week of events disseminating medium-range Proler Suite (OMPS) provided by that included an open data hackathon probabilistic forecasts to its users 40 NOAA through EUMETSAT’s third-party and several workshops. The events minutes earlier than before. The move data programme. These will help to aimed to raise awareness of freely was made possible by an upgrade of dene the initial state on which available data from ECMWF and ECMWF’s supercomputers in 2016. forecasts are based. the EU Copernicus programme Forecasts are now available as early and of the socio-economic impacts as 0800 UTC. This can be benecial of numerical weather prediction to users who need to make weather- February (NWP) data. based decisions early in the day. Fire danger reanalysis goes online Copernicus re danger reanalysis products from the Global ECMWF Fire Forecast (GEFF) system became available online, providing historical records of global re danger conditions from 1980 to today. The products were developed at ECMWF over the last three years as part of the EU-funded Copernicus Emergency Management Service. They complement other Copernicus products related to re, such as the biomass-burning emissions made available by CAMS. © EUMETSAT 4 ECMWF Annual Report 2017 ecmwf.int AR-2018-ARTWORK.indd 4 08/06/2018 16:01 © Maria-Helena Ramos Predicting weather impacts Support for WMO Scientists, developers and emergency May Year of Polar Prediction managers from across Europe came ECMWF launches eLearning As the World Meteorological together at ECMWF to drive forward Organization (WMO) launched its To meet the training needs of its the three-year ANYWHERE project, Year of Polar Prediction (YOPP), Member and Co-operating States, funded under the EU Horizon 2020 ECMWF began work to generate ECMWF launched the rst of its Programme. The project aims to an extended two-year dataset publicly available eLearning modules, develop forecasts of weather impacts to support the programme. which give learners exibility in terms in Europe, such as damage from of when, where and how they want to windstorms, oods and heatwaves. learn. The new modules are enabling ECMWF’s key role in the project OPP D the Centre to shorten face-to-face F Y AT is to provide weather forecasts A training events and reduce costs W S in support of other partners’ M for Member States. E C modelling applications. T E Ten years of atmospheric E T C C E E M composition forecasts M S April S W W A A ECMWF’s rst forecast of atmospheric A T T T T T F F Y Y A A A A O D D P Support for Peru ood response composition in May 2007 paved the P ECMWF forecast data were rapidly way for the Copernicus Atmosphere made available to Peru’s national Monitoring Service (CAMS), which meteorological and hydrological held its second General Assembly service (SENAMHI) as heavy rainfall in Warsaw, Poland, in May this year. and ooding swept across the country during the early months of 2017. Forecasts, including our new point- rainfall product, helped SENAMHI forecasters to issue warnings of heavy rainfall and highlight events that might hinder rescue operations. ecmwf.int ECMWF Annual Report 2017 5 AR-2018-ARTWORK.indd 5 08/06/2018 16:01 2017 At a glance in Europe and further aeld. In hands- on sessions, they investigated what the weather would have been had the strong El Niño of 2015/16 been different. Bologna to host data centre At the 90th session of the ECMWF Council, Member States approved the proposal by the Italian Government and the Emilia-Romagna Region to host ECMWF’s new data centre in Bologna, Italy, by 2019. July Model upgrade improves Symposium on dynamical forecast quality June meteorology and NWP ECMWF’s Integrated Forecasting Leading WMO ofcials and experts in User meeting focuses on storms System (IFS) was upgraded to IFS NWP came together at ECMWF for a Cycle 43r3.