ECMWF scientists shared their insights and gave a series of well-attended talks at the 2015 EUMETSAT Meteorological Satellite Conference.
The event, held in the French city of Toulouse from 21 to 25 September, was jointly organised by EUMETSAT (European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites) and Météo-France.
Height errors
For Kirsti Salonen, a member of the Microwave Sounders and AMV Group in ECMWF’s Data Division, this was the fourth EUMETSAT conference she has attended in as many years. In her presentation, she updated fellow scientists on her research into systematic errors in the heights assigned to atmospheric motion vectors (AMVs) obtained from satellite instruments.
AMVs provide information on wind speed and direction and have been proven to be very valuable for numerical weather prediction. They can be derived by tracking clouds in consecutive satellite images, but the information is useless unless we also know the height of those clouds – hence the importance of estimating height errors.
Dr Salonen’s work illustrates the close collaboration between providers of meteorological data and their users. “My work is funded under the EUMETSAT Fellowship Programme and there is a lot of collaboration with EUMETSAT,” she says.
Scatterometer data
Giovanna De Chiara from the Wind and Waves Group in ECMWF’s Predictability Division presented her work on optimising the use of scatterometer data, which is also part of a EUMETSAT project.
Scatterometers can be used to measure ocean near-surface wind speed and direction by sending pulses of microwave energy to the surface and measuring the reflected signal. That signal varies depending on the roughness of the ocean surface, which in turn depends on the wind.
The raw satellite instrument data thus need to be processed to obtain useful information for numerical weather prediction. “The impact of the data has been found to be sensitive to how we use it,” Dr De Chiara says.
Both scientists stress the importance of EUMETSAT data for their work. “A big part of the collaboration is for us to provide feedback to EUMETSAT whenever they make changes or provide new data,” Dr Salonen observes.
The conference was attended by more than 400 scientists from 40 countries. (Photo: EUMETSAT)
Atmospheric composition
Antje Inness from the Chemical Aspects Section used her keynote presentation to introduce fellow scientists to the EU-funded Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS), which is being implemented by ECMWF.
Dr Inness points out that monitoring and forecasting atmospheric composition at ECMWF relies heavily on satellite data. “EUMETSAT are already providing a lot of the data we use in CAMS, and they will provide even more in the future,” she says.
For her, one of the conference highlights was a well-attended session on volcanic ash forecasting, which is relevant to air traffic routing.
But what all three scientists valued most was the opportunity for face-to-face exchanges with colleagues working at other centres. “The most important reason for me to go to this conference is to get a chance to talk to people, including from EUMETSAT,” says Dr Inness. “We can give feedback about our use of the data and mention any problems, and so can they.”
Top photo: EUMETSAT