Registration for ECMWF’s Annual Seminar on ‘Ensemble prediction: past, present and future’ from 11 to 14 September 2017 remains open until 1 September.
Twenty-eight speakers from ECMWF as well as universities and meteorological services in Europe, Australia, Canada and the United States will talk about the theory and practice of ensemble forecasts.
They will discuss whether the existing ensemble designs can continue to deliver improvements or whether we need to reconsider their configurations. In their talks they will revisit the main assumptions behind the different strategies used to simulate initial and model uncertainties and assess whether one approach should be preferred to another.
The speakers will also look at how global and regional ensembles can complement each other and discuss sources and sinks of forecast skill.
Ensemble forecasts describe the range of possible scenarios and their likelihood of occurrence. ECMWF started producing such forecasts in November 1992. Today ensemble forecasting is a cornerstone of the Centre’s Strategy 2016–2025.
This video marks 25 years of ensemble forecasting at ECMWF. Lead Scientist Roberto Buizza, Director-General Florence Rabier and NOAA meteorologist Tom Hamill explain the rationale behind ensemble forecasting and set out what the future holds.
Panel discussion
The Annual Seminar will include a panel discussion entitled ‘Future directions for ensemble systems’.
The four panellists will talk about issues such as what factors need to be considered in decisions on ensemble member numbers and resolution; whether there is a role for an unperturbed forecast; and how the tails of ensemble distributions can best be represented. Seminar participants will have a chance to join in the discussion from the floor.
The Annual Seminar has a long tradition at ECMWF and is a well-known event in the European meteorological calendar. It is part of ECMWF’s educational programme and always covers a topic related to numerical modelling and forecasting.
The purpose is to give an overview of a particular research area to mainly young scientists. This year’s Annual Seminar is also aimed at more established scientists who want to engage more with ensemble prediction.
For more information, visit the Annual Seminar 2017 page.
To register, go to the Registration page.