Blog from July, 2017

ECMWF announces new upgrade of CAMS forecasting system
Umberto Modigliani posted on Jul 26, 2017
ECMWF is planning to introduce a new upgrade of the CAMS (Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service) real-time data assimilation and forecasting system on 26 September 2017.
This upgrade includes various improvements of the aerosol module as well as improvements to the UV forecasts. In addition, some interactions between the aerosol and chemistry schemes have been introduced. More information can be found at https://atmosphere.copernicus.eu/implementation-ifs-cycle-43r3cams.

The new system has been running for some months now and the CAMS Validation team has assessed the output to ensure the quality of the analyses and forecasts. The main conclusions are: the new model configuration is an improvement as far as aerosols are concerned. Tropospheric ozone results for the current operational system and the new system generally are very comparable, apart from a wintertime negative high-latitude bias (about 2-5 ppb) compared to the current operational version. In spring, ozone values in the operational system and the new system are very similar. The other trace gas concentrations (CO, NO2, HCHO) show minor differences. The validation report is available from the CAMS web site.

Users wanting to access the output from the current test system can find the data from 1 June 2017 onward directly in MARS or through our Web API service as described here: https://confluence.ecmwf.int/display/COPSRV/Accessing+CAMS+43r3+test+data.


For users, who are registered to our operational ftp server, we now also provide daily global test data in the CAMS_GLOBAL_TEST and CAMS_EUROPE_BC_TEST directories.

For any questions, please contact the CAMS Service Desk at copernicus-support@ecmwf.int.
ECMWF announces the next generation of its Seasonal Forecasting system
Umberto Modigliani posted on Jul 06, 2017

The fifth generation of the ECMWF seasonal forecasting system, in short SEAS5, will be introduced in the autumn of 2017, replacing System 4, which was released in 2011.

SEAS5 includes updated versions of the atmospheric (IFS) and interactive ocean (NEMO) models and adds the interactive sea ice model LIM2. The IFS uses a new grid and horizontal resolution has been increased (details below). Ocean horizontal and vertical resolution have also been increased.  Ocean and land initial conditions have been updated, and the re-forecast ensemble size has been increased from 15 to 25. While re-forecasts span 1981 to 2016, the re-forecast period used to calibrate the forecasts when creating products will use the more recent period 1993 to 2016. SEAS5 highlights include a marked improvement in SST drift, especially in the tropical Pacific, and improvements in the prediction skill of Arctic sea ice.

For more detailed information and timetable visit Implementation of Seasonal Forecast SEAS5