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ECMWF's immediate priority is completion of the three production streams
to provide a continuous record of analyses from September 1957 to December
2001. The target for this is the end of March 2003.
Validation studies have shown that the quality of ERA-40 products is
in most respects as high or higher than expected. Some deficiencies in
the analyses have nevertheless been identified, as discussed here.
In the light of these studies and of ongoing diagnosis and short experimental
reruns, ECMWF will carry out a longer rerun covering the latter part of
the ERA-40 period. This rerun will use the same basic analysis method
and model resolution as the initial ERA-40 production, but will use an
updated version of the forecasting system suitable for running on ECMWF's
new IBM high-performance computing systems. It will be run from 1991 onwards
as a minimum, but could cover either from 1987 onwards or from 1979 onwards.
It will offer the possibility of providing analyses beyond 2001. Production
should begin in late 2003 or early 2004. The availability of resources
will be a determining factor in deciding the extent of the rerun.
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