News

ECMWF news highlights in 2019 include an upgrade of ECMWF’s Integrated Forecasting System that greatly improved forecasts; tests showing the substantial impact of ground-breaking new wind data; a series of events to drive forward numerical weather prediction; and the appointment of a new Director of Copernicus Services.

Registration is open for the 2020 Annual Seminar and a workshop on the forecasting challenges associated with warm conveyor belts. Other events in 2020 include the Using ECMWF’s Forecasts meeting (UEF) and our biennial workshop on high-performance computing in meteorology.

The use of machine learning in numerical weather prediction is on the rise. In a lecture on 10 December 2019, ECMWF scientist Peter Düben set out the main use cases and charted the way ahead.

More than a hundred modellers and satellite data specialists in the field of hydrology came together at ECMWF from 25 to 28 November to debate new ideas and deepen collaborations.

Six years ago, ECMWF launched a major programme to prepare all its systems for future supercomputer architectures. On 10 December, ECMWF Deputy Director of Research Peter Bauer will set out the main results and plans to implement them.

What impact does the stratosphere have on the weather below, and how can we harness our knowledge of that impact to improve weather forecasts? About 90 scientists came together at ECMWF from 18 to 21 November to review the state of the art.

The outcome of the ITU's World Radiocommunication Conference 2019 (WRC-19) in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, from 28 October to 22 November regarding the important 24 GHz observations is a big disappointment for ECMWF.

Sixty-nine scientists came together at ECMWF from 5 to 7 November 2019 to explore the scope for widening the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in Earth system applications.

Tests carried out at ECMWF have demonstrated that new wind profile observations from the European Space Agency's ground-breaking Aeolus satellite significantly improve weather forecasts, particularly in the southern hemisphere and the tropics.

ECMWF has increased the amount of weather prediction products it makes available free of charge to Members of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).