Implementation of Seasonal Forecast System 3

Operational Upgrades

Seasonal Forecast System 4 New cluster products Migration to GRIB 2 GRIB API in 36r2 Horizontal resolution increase Unified VarEPS-Monthly Prediction System Soil Hydrology Scheme in 32r3 Seasonal Forecast System 3

Related

User guide of ECMWF products History of ECMWF model's cycle changes Full scientific and technical documentation of the IFS

Printable

System3

ECMWF upgraded its operational seasonal forecasts from System 2 to System 3. The change to operational status took place in March 2007, when System 2 ceased to be operational, and System 3 became the new operational forecast system.

The page will be updated as required. It was last changed on 21.09.2007.

For a record of changes made to this page please refer to Document versions.

A printable versionof this page is available.

Further information and advice regarding the upgrade can be obtained from
User Support .

• News
• Timetable
• Technical description of System 3
• Test data sets from pre-operational e-suite
• System 3 products for dissemination
• Further reading
• Document versions

News

16 March 2007

The first operational forecast from System 3 was released on 15 March at 12 UTC.

9 February 2007

The upgrade of the operational seasonal forecasts from System 2 to System 3 will be implemented in March, when System 3 will become the operational seasonal forecast. All products, including dissemination, web plots and multi-model products will be based on System 3. The first operational forecast from System 3 will be released on 15 March at 12 UTC, following the normal operational schedule.

Pre-operational data from System 3 is available for test purposes, including test dissemination.

Note that these pre-operational products are considered as test products and will be disseminated as EXPVER=0011 both in GRIB headers and dissemination file names.

ECMWF can assist in setting up the test dissemination requests for the System 3 products: the contact point at ECMWF is Dragan Jokic .

7 November 2006

Initial announcement of the implementation of Seasonal Forecasting System 3 to Member State representatives.

 

Timetable

The planned timetable for implementation of Seasonal Forecasting System 3 is as follows.

The timetable given here represents our current expectations and may have to be reviewed in light of the actual progress made.

Technical description of System 3

A description of the technical aspects of System 3 is provided in the Technical description of Seasonal Forecasting System 3.

Test data sets from pre-operational e-suite

Production of the re-forecasts is now complete, and the data are available in MARS. Pre-operational real-time forecast data has been generated from September 2006 onwards, and the data are available in MARS.

All data are stored in MARS and can be retrieved from the new multi-model streams with ORIGIN=ECMWF:

• STREAM=MMSF: Multi-model Seasonal Forecast
  
• STREAM=MMSA: Multi-model Seasonal Forecast Monthly Anomalies.

For the real time forecasts only (2006 onwards):

• STREAM=MSMM: Multi-model seasonal forecast atmospheric monthly means.

Note that the multi-model streams contain data from Met Office and Météo-France seasonal forecasts, as well as ECMWF System 3. For the standard (up to month 7) forecasts, request METHOD=1. For the longer range forecasts (up to month 13) , request METHOD=3 (see the Technical description for details).

Data from the experimental 13-month long "ENSO outlook" (re-)forecasts, archived in MARS as method=3, will shortly be re-archived to correct a small bug affecting the last three months of the (re-)forecasts. This may lead to temporary disruption of access to the 13-month data, and once the re-archive is complete we recommend that the revised dataset is downloaded by anyone working with the 13-month data. This does not affect the main 7-month long seasonal forecasts.

Access to pre-operational data from System 3 is also available via test dissemination. Availability of System 3 products for dissemination can be found at:

• http://www.ecmwf.int/services/dissemination/3.1/

Note that these pre-operational products are considered as test products and will be disseminated as EXPVER=0011 both in GRIB headers and dissemination file names.

Only registered users of ECMWF computing systems will be able to access the test data sets in MARS.

The quality of these data sets is not guaranteed. Please report any problems you find with this data to User Support . The data sets are intended for testing technical aspects the System 3 implementation and to enable users to configure and test their processing and application software.

Availability of System 3 products for dissemination

Availability of System 3 products for dissemination can be found at:

• http://www.ecmwf.int/services/dissemination/3.1/

ECMWF can assist in setting up the test dissemination requests for the System 3 products: the contact point at ECMWF is Dragan Jokic .

Further reading

• Development of the ECMWF Seasonal Forecast System 3.
  ECMWF Technical Memorandum No. 503 (April 2007)
   
• The ECMWF System 3 ocean analysis system.
  ECMWF Technical Memorandum No. 508 (Februaryl 2007)
   
• Seasonal Forecast System 3.
  ECMWF Newsletter No. 110 (pp19-25) - Winter 2006/07
   
• New web products for the ECMWF Seasonal Forecast System 3.
  ECMWF Newsletter No. 111 (pp28-33) - Spring 2007
   
• Seasonal Forecast User Guide (System 3).
  http://www.ecmwf.int/products/forecasts/seasonal/documentation/
   
• Full information on the forecast skill, including the WMO SVS scores is available at:
  http://www.ecmwf.int/products/forecasts/d/charts/seasonal/verification/

Document versions