Nils Wedi describes the first ever 1 km seasonal timescale simulation of the atmosphere, run on the fastest computer in the world (as of November 2019). Modelling weather in such unprecedented detail is offering exciting opportunities to advance weather and climate prediction, and the testing of new satellite observations.
Jonny Day and Gabriele Arduini discuss how they are using Finnish Meteorological Institute observations at a snow-covered boreal site in Lapland to improve the ECMWF snow model and forecasts in Northern Europe.
ECMWF’s first science and art exhibition proved a great success. It demonstrated the importance of art as a way of engaging an audience, stimulating dialogue and encouraging the creativity which is at the heart of the Centre's scientific excellence.
David Lavers relates his experience on a research aircraft flight to observe atmospheric rivers and the benefits such observations can bring to forecasts of precipitation and flooding.
After spending a week at the ambitious EUREC4A observing campaign, Irina Sandu shares her excitement about how this major German-French led international effort can change our understanding of the coupling between clouds and circulation, and their representation in weather and climate models.
Polly Schmederer looks at how measurements from observational super-sites are helping to better understand errors in forecasts of near-surface temperature.
Exciting improvements in modelling convective precipitation are being achieved through the collaboration of visiting scientist Tobias Becker, from the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, with ECMWF’s Irina Sandu and Peter Bechtold.
To mark the UN International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction on 13 October, Linus Magnusson discusses ECMWF forecasts of tropical cyclones and the destructive floods that can result.
Following a recent workshop, Peter Dueben discusses recent progress and future possibilities in the application of machine learning to weather and climate prediction.
Stephen English explains why, in a world hungry for the use of radio frequencies in new applications, the meteorological community needs to be clear about their critical value for weather prediction.
As we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first Moon landing, Philippe Lopez investigates whether the ECMWF forecasting model can reproduce the detailed cloud patterns captured in those early, iconic images of planet Earth from space.
The Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility in the US is home to “Summit”, the world’s fastest computer. After his recent trip there, Nils Wedi discusses some of the latest advances in supercomputing and considers their application to numerical weather prediction.
PhD student Sam Hatfield discusses how he and colleagues built a table-top supercomputer and used it to produce demonstration weather forecasts with OpenIFS. It's a system that is proving fascinating to the public as well as benefiting Sam's research.
Peter Bauer discusses recent ground-breaking work with a high-resolution version of the IFS running on some of the most powerful computers in the world, to see what speed-up can be achieved. He also takes a look back at early experiments from the 1980s.
Angela Benedetti (ECMWF) and Peter Knippertz (KIT) explain how the EU-funded DACCIWA project collected new data in West Africa to investigate the causes and effects of air pollution, examining for the first time the entire chain of natural and human-made emissions.
In this blog, Dr Frédéric Vitart discusses a book on recent progress and challenges in extended-range forecasting, which he has co-edited with Andrew Robertson (IRI).
Louise Arnal is a scientist with a lifelong love of art. Here she explores the relationship between art and science and talks about her involvement in a number of SciArt projects.
The Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) and EUMETSAT have teamed up to produce a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) – Mark Parrington discusses its production and launch.
Irina Sandu from ECMWF and Annelize van Niekerk from the UK Met Office discuss their recent work in which kilometre-scale simulations are used to investigate the impact of complex orography on the atmosphere.