World Weather Research Programme

WWRP advances society's ability to cope with high impact weather through research focused on improving the accuracy, lead time and utilization of weather prediction. The WWRP includes working groups, experts teams and the THORPEX programme.

• An agreement between the State Meteorological Agency for Spain (AEMET) and the National Supercomputing Center-Barcelona (BCS-CNS) was signed  making Barcelona the official home of the Sand and Dust Storm Warning, Advisory, and Assessment System (SDS-WAS)'s Regional Centre for Northern Africa, Middle East and Europe. SDS-WAS is a WMO project jointly under the WWRP and the Global Atmospheric Watch. Sand and dust storms impact the environment, health, agriculture, marine ecosystems and fisheries. This centre will provide access to observations and research and semi-operational predictions of sand and dust events by models that incorporation these aerosol into numerical weather prediction models. In addition to the model predictions, a reanalysis product also provides a long-term record of sand and dust events that is critical to studies of health impacts. The WWRP gratefully acknowledges the participants in this project and the Spanish government for their continued support.

• Establishment of the INCA-CE (Integrated Nowcasting for Central Europe Area) Project: INCA-CE is a major international project implemented and primarily funded through the Central European Programme under the intervention area of “Reducing Risks and Impacts of Natural and Man-made Hazards”.  INCA-CE specifically aims to reduce the adverse effects of weather-related natural disasters (e.g., wind storms, flooding, icing, drought, and mud/land-slides) through developing and implementing a transnational web-based nowcasting information system. The kick-off meeting for INCA-CE was held during 5-7 May 2010 in Vienna, Austria and was hosted by the Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics (ZAMG). INCA-CE includes 16 partners from 8 countries, including seven national and regional meteorological services, one research institute and 8 regional authorities. The application areas for INCA-CE include operational hydrology, civil protection and road safety. The project coordinator, Dr. Yong Wang of ZAMG, has participated in several past projects of the WWRP (e.g., Beijing 08, SNOW V-10). INCA-CE also seeks to establish strong links to the WWRP.
  

• The e-print of the March 2010 review article in Nature Geoscience entitled "Tropical Cyclones and Climate Change" is now available. The article is an assessment on this subject by the WWRP Expert Team on Climate Impacts on Tropical Cyclones. Note that you will be downloading an executable (.exe) file which you will need to run on your system to access the e-print (article + supplemental information).  The executable file will be available at this site for a period of one year (27Apr2010-27Apr2011).

• The 15th Session of the WMO Commission for the Atmospheric Sciences (CAS-XV) was held in Icheon, Korea from 18-25 November 2009.  CAS is responsible for overseeing WWRP (Open Programme Area of the World Weather Research Programme) including THORPEX. A provisional electronic version of the Abridged Final Report of CAS XV with Resolutions and Recommendations is now available. The report includes changes in the terms of reference of the Joint Science Committee of the WWRP and guidance on new and existing efforts of the WWRP (e.g., broadening of mesoscale research, changes in the focus of nowcasting research, guidance on future projects for tropical cyclone, transition of research to operations, and societal and economic application research, collaboration with the WCRP on monthly and seasonal prediction).

• Projects of the WWRP: WWRP projects can befield campaigns, modeling and data assimilation intercomparisons activities, data impact studies to guide the structure of the global observing systems, real-time forecast demonstration projects that bringresearch advances to operations, investigations into societal and economic impacts, coordinated research on a particular topic or archives of data sets valuable for research to advance prediction.Many of the projects are initiated by WMO Expert Bodies or are established at WWRP efforts are seeking the endorsement of the WWRP Joint Scientific Committee. Projects seek endorsement for a number of reasons: i) Within some nations the WMO, WWRP or WWRP-THORPEX affiliation helps obtain greater operational contributions and/or research funding support;ii) Projects wishtoincrease theinternational involvement through the contacts made through the WWRP; iii) Projects wish to gain access to the expertise and efforts of the WWRP and WWRP THORPEX working groups and committees.
  Projects of WWRP.

• The Center for Monsoon Field Campaign Data Sets is now established. One of the difficulties in tropical and monsoon research is the lack of in-situ observations in the tropical and subtropical regions. A number of field experiments have taken place over the past several decades, which have provided some of the main observational data bases utilized for advancing tropical and monsoon research. Researchers who wish to access these data often have to contact a variety of places to obtain the data and, with the passing of time, there is always the danger that some of the data will be difficult or impossible to find or retrieve. This archive centre provides access to the conventional sounding data for many of these major field campaigns. The WWRP thanks the Johnson Research Group and Professor Richard Johnson (Department of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University) for establishing and maintaining this archive site.

• National THORPEX programmes: THORPEX is an international programme within the WWRP. In addition to the international scientific projects, THORPEX has also developed strong national contributions.

• Call for abstract deadline for HYMEX: 4th HyMeX Workshop was held on 8-10 June 2010 in Bologna (Italy) at the Congress Centre of the CNR Research Area. See the HYMEX web page for further information.
  
  
• WWRP featured in four articles the January 2010 Bulletin of the American Meteorology Society (BAMS): Two of the BAMS articles deal with nowcasting. One article is entitled “Nowcasting Convective Storms for the Beijing Olympics: Future Implications”, which describes the successes and implications drawn from this WWRP Forecast Demonstration Project. The second article on nowcasting is “Weather Services, Science Advances, and the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games”. This Vancouver 2010 effort includes the WWRP/Nowcasting Research Working Group Project called SNOW V-10, which is designed to advance the science of winter nowcasting in complex terrain.  The other two articles focus on polar research with the cover article of this issue describing the “Storm Studies in the Arctic (STARS)” Project including collaborations with the THORPEX cluster of experiments during the International Polar Year (IPY-THORPEX). The 2nd polar article is entitled “The CONCORDIASI Project in Antarctica”, which is IPY-THORPEX’s contribution to Antarctic IPY research.

• The Seventh International Workshop on Tropical Cyclones (IWTC-VII) will be held in La Réunion, France from 15 to 20 November 2010. Co-Chaired by Dr Chris Velden (UW-CIMSS) and Dr Jeff Kepert (BoM Australia), the workshop is one of WMO's major quadrennial workshop series.The first IWTC was held in Bangkok in 1985 and since then it has been held at various places once every four years. Jointly organized by WMO's World Weather Research Programme (WWRP) and Tropical Cyclone Programme (TCP), the workshop is a special and unique gathering of tropical cyclone researchers and warning specialists from all regions affected by tropical cyclones.This is the first time that an IWTC will be held in RA I (Africa).

• The Third International Conference on Quantitative Precipitation Estimation /Quantitative Precipitation Forecasting and Hydrology (QPE/QPF III) will be held at WMO Regional Training Centre in Nanjing, China from 18 to 22 October 2010. The overarching objective of this conference series is to improve the QPE and QPF capabilities of weather prediction. One of the foci of this year's conference is on QPF for tropical cyclones and monsoons. The conference will include keynote addresses as well as contributed presentations on new QPE/QPF techniques and research issues related to precipitation forecasting.
  
  
• Summer colloquium on Forecast Verification: Several members of the Joint Working Group on Forecast Verification Research of the WWRP and WGNE were leading a summer colloquium at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, CO, USA. The colloquium is for graduate students and was held 6-28 June 2010.
  Further information can be found here.
  
  
• Improving the treatment of physical processes in numerical weather prediction models: The WWRP, including THORPEX, is placin an increased emphasis on research to improve the numerical models used in weather prediction. The efforts, which are often focused on improving model parameterizations of subgrid scale processes, will often be done in partnership with the WMO’s Working Group on Numerical Experimentation (WGNE). More information on WGNE can be found here.

• Summer colloquium on Advanced Mathematical Methods to Study Atmospheric Dynamical Processes and Predictability will be held at the Banff International Research Station in 2011. The colloquium, which is led by members of the THORPEX Working Group on Predictability and Dynamical Processes will be limited to approximately 42 students. Further information will follow on this web site.

• Preparations underway for CONCORDIASI Project in Antarctica: Concordiasi is an international project with the participation of multiple institutions in France and in the U.S. along with the Met Office of the UK and ECMWF. Its main goals are to provide validation data to improve the usage of polar-orbiting satellite data over Antarctica, in particular IASI radiances, in order to establish a sustainable observing system over Antarctica. A number of additional goals address weather, climate and atmospheric chemistry of the region and its effect on global circulations. CONCORDIASI is part of the THORPEX-IPY cluster within the International Polar Year effort. Two field experiments are part of Concordiasi, one which has occurred during the autumn 2008 (Austral spring) in Antarctica and a second one planned in Austral spring 2010. A test of the stratospheric ballooning and accompanying instrumentation will take place in April 2010 from Mahé (Seychelles Islands). Further information on CONCORDIASI can be found at http://www.cnrm.meteo.fr/concordiasi/. The agenda for the upcoming CONCORDASI science meeting can be found here.

• Tropical cyclones and climate change: The World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO) Expert Team on Climate Change Impacts on Tropical Cyclones published an assessment on this subject in the March 2010 issue of Nature Geoscience. This WWRP Expert Team concluded that, if twenty-first century warming occurs as projected, there will likely be an increase, on average worldwide, in the maximum wind speed of tropical cyclones of +2 to +11 % and in rainfall rates of approximately 20% within 100 km of the storm centre. The experts concluded that the total number of tropical cyclones worldwide will likely either decrease or remain unchanged. However, a likely increase in tropical cyclone intensity means that the frequency of the strongest tropical cyclones will more likely than not increase under the projected warming scenarios. For further information please see WMO Info Note 62. We are working with Nature to have electronic reprints of the article available from this WWRP web site.

• Weather research and the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games: The WWRP continues to play a role in weather prediction for the Olympic Games. Following successful WWRP Projects at the Sydney 2000 and Beijing 2008 Games, a WWRP called SNOW V-10 the Science and Nowcasting of Olympic Weather for Vancouver 2010 or simply SNOW-V10. This effort by an international team of scientists from nine countries concentrated on research to improving the prediction of winter weather conditions up to 6 hours in advance typically over distance scales from tens to hundreds of kilometers. SNOW V-10 was the first WWRP project conducted during the Winter Games and since the science of winter nowcasting in mountainous terrain is in its infancy, SNOW-V10 focused on research and development.
  For further information please see WMO INFO Note 61
  
  
  

• THORPEX Ensemble Prediction Research: The TIGGE (THORPEX Interactive Grand Global Ensemble) is a research archive consisting of data from all the ensemble members form ten global ensemble forecast systems. TIGGE has become a focal point for ensemble research as evidenced by the over 500 registered users of TIGGE data. We encourage researchers using TIGGE to inform THORPEX of their research progress, particularly when papers are published. Further information on the TIGGE archive can be found at http://tigge.ecmwf.int/
  

• Year of Tropical Convection: The realistic representation of tropical convection in our global atmospheric models is a long-standing grand challenge for numerical weather forecasts and global climate predictions. Our lack of fundamental knowledge and practical capabilities in this area leaves us disadvantaged in modeling and predicting prominent phenomena of the tropical atmosphere such as the ITCZ, ENSO, monsoons and their active/break periods, the MJO, subtropical stratus decks, near-surface ocean properties, tropical cyclones, and even the diurnal cycle. To address the challenge of tropical convection, WCRP and WWRP/THORPEX have initiated a project called the Year of Tropical Convection (YOTC), a nearly two year period of coordinated observing, modeling and forecasting of organized tropical convection. During this period, researchers will have access to satellite remote sensing data and special high resolution modeling output from the operational forecast centres that include a wide variety of diagnostics. For further information please see the YOTC Project Office web site at http://www.ucar.edu/yotc/
  
  
• Sand and Dust Storm Warning Advisory and Assessment System (SDS-WAS): This joint project has been established by WWRP and GAW within the WMO create an international project to enhance the ability of countries to deliver timely and quality sand and dust storm forecasts, observations, information and knowledge to users. SDS-WAS is an international partnership of research and operational communities with modeling and observational expertise. The project is organized into regional nodes and we are pleased to announce that the Asia Node, hosted by China Meteorological Administration, and the Northern Africa-Middle East-Europe (NA-ME-E) Node, at the Barcelona Super Computer Centre are beginning to provide access to observations and forecast products.
  
  
• New monsoon archive centres: The Joint Science Committee of the WWRP has approved three new monsoon data archive centres at its last meeting. These archive centres are being set up to support monsoon research and include: i) Monsoon Radar Meteorology Data Information Center at the Hydrospheric Atmospheric Research Center of Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan; ii) Center for Monsoon Field Campaign Legacy Data at the Department of Atmospheric Sciences, University of Colorado, USA, iii) Monitoring and Assessment System and Data Center on Extreme Weather and Climate Events in Asia at the Beijing Climate Center, China Meteorological Administration.

  Information on the archive on the Beijing Climate Center can be found here. Please watch this web site for further details on the development of these archive centres.
  

• The HyMeX (HYdrological cycle in the Mediterranean EXperiment) Project becomes a WWRP project: HyMEX received an endorsement at the last meeting of the WWRP Joint Science Committee. HyMex aims at a better understanding and quantification of the hydrological cycle and related processes in the Mediterranean, with emphasis on high-impact weather events, inter-annual to decadal variability of the Mediterranean coupled system, and associated trends in the context of global change. The hydrological cycle in the Mediterranean is a key environmental and socio-economic question for a wide region encompassing southern Europe, northern Africa and the Middle East. Further information on HyMEX can be found at http://www.hymex.org/

• Special collection of papers for the Monthly Weather Review on Intercomparisons of 4D-Variational Assimilation and the Ensemble Kalman Filter is now available for early release from the American Meteorological Society web site.
  This special collection of papers. The papers were associated with an international WWRP-THORPEX workshop was held in Buenos Aires in November to consider the two methods, intercompare them both theoretically and in various practical contexts, and hopefully lead to a better understanding of the potential of both methods. There was special emphasis on atmospheric data assimilation with the aim of providing a solid scientific basis for supporting practical decisions eventually to be taken by meteorological agencies. We thank the authors and lecturers at this workshop as well as the Ministry of Science and Technology (Argentina) and the dedicated efforts of many volunteers from the Center for Research on the Ocean and Atmosphere (CIMA), the School of Exact and Natural Sciences (FCEyN), both at the University of Buenos Aires, the Argentine Center for Meteorologists (CAM), and from the Argentine National Weather Service (SMN).
  All the workshop presentations and posters are now posted, as well as the lectures and computer exercises for the two-week Intensive Course on Data Assimilation that preceded the workshop.

• TIGGE overview article will be published in the Feb 2010 issue of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society and is also available for early release. The TIGGE archive has become an international focal point for ensemble research with over 750 registered users. Coincidentally, an article that uses TIGGE data entitled “TIGGE: Comparison of the Prediction of Northern Hemisphere Extratropical Cyclones by Different Ensemble Prediction Systems” by  Lizzie S. R. Froude of the  Environmental Systems Science Centre (ESSC), University of Reading also appears as an early release.

• Forecast verification method intercomparison project (ICP): Several members of the Joint Working Group on Forecast Verification Reserch have participated in the ICP, which is an effort to provide useful information on new verification approaches that have been developed in the last few years. The initial focus has been on spatial verification approaches, including object-based methods, scale separation approaches, neighborhood methods, and field morphing approaches. The methods were all applied to the same datasets, including some artificial cases that allow easy interpretation, as well as some high resolution model forecasts from the central U.S. The results of these studies are now available for early release as a special collection in the journal Weather and Forecasting. At a recent informal workshop for this project plans were developed to extend the project to new datasets and variables. This project is a significant step toward development of a verification method testbed, which would be supported by this Joint Working Group.

• The final version of the report of the 3rd session of the OPAG-WWRP Joint Scientific Committee (JSC) held in Monterey, CA, USA, from 9 to 11 September 2009 is now available on the web

• Final version of the Strategic Plan for the Implementation of WMO's World Weather Research Programme (WWRP): 2009-2017