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Each re-forecast consists of an 11-member ensemble (1 control and 10 perturbed members).  Therefore altogether 20 years x 3 runs x 11 ENS members = 660 re-forecast values are available to define the ER-M-climate for each forecast parameter, forecast lead-time, calendar start date and location.  These are used to define the ER-M-climate.  

based on Mondays and Thursdays (is it still this with daily extended range forecasts?)

ER-M-climate is updated twice a week, every Monday and Thursday, and based on 00UTC runs only (there are no 12UTC re-forecast sets). 

Values evaluated in ER-M-climate

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Different reference periods for M-Climate and ER-M-Climate

ECMWF uses different reference periods but essentially the same re-forecast runs to build the M-Climate and the ER-M-Climate.   The key difference is that those runs are grouped and used in different ways. This is because they are used in different ways. 

• For shorter ranges, the priority is the best possible capture of the climatological distribution of the tails.  It has been shown that using 1980 realisations (spanning 4 weeks) achieves this much better than using 660 (spanning 1 week). 
• For longer ranges, the priority is the correct representation of seasonal cycles.  This can be better achieved by spanning 1 week rather than 4.  The extended range uses week-long averaging and the tails should not be so prone to having a reduced sample size.

ER-M-climate is updated twice a week, every Monday and Thursday, and is based on 00UTC runs only (there are no 12UTC re-forecast sets).  The new files start to be used from the 00UTC run the next day.

If for the same lead-time, one compares, the ER-M-climate quantile plots (e.g. for a Thursday 00UTC run), and a run 24hrs later, they will be slightly different.  This limitation of twice weekly updates to the M-climate can be significant.  It can be particularly evident in spring and autumn when mean temperatures are changing most rapidly day by day.  The same ER-M-climate set is used for 00UTC and 12UTC ENS runs in order to avoid inconsistencies between the validity period of the ENS and M-climate (e.g. day1 ER-M-climate and day2 ER-M-climate distributions are used with respectively, the T+0 to 24h and T+24 to 48h forecasts from 00UTC runs, and the T+12 to 36h and T+36 to 60h forecasts from 12UTC runs).