Page History

19/July/2024

C3S graphical and data products from July 2024 forecast

The issue reported on 10 July 2024 (below), related to errors in the July-start forecast data from ECCC's new operation system, CanSIPSv3.0, has now been resolved. Corrected data has been acquired, processed and archived, and ECCC graphical and data products have been published. Data with July starts from ECCC's systems 4 and 5 (in the CDS notation) can now be downloaded from the CDS. Any data from these systems  downloaded from ECMWF's MARS archive before 19 July 2024 may be flawed; data downloaded after this date is expected to be error-free.

Unfortunately, hindcast data with August start from these new systems have not yet been made available (in line with the usual practice of publishing hindcasts at least one month before the corresponding real-time forecasts). This data will be processed and published, at the latest at the same time as the August 2024 forecast. The advance publication of hindcast data will be resumed as soon as possible.

17/July/2024

C3S graphical and data products from July 2024 forecast

The corrected DWD July-initialised real-time forecast has now been published, both in the set of graphical products on the website (https://climate.copernicus.eu/charts/packages/c3s_seasonal/) and in the respective datasets of the CDS. Data downloaded from the CDS after 16 July 2024 13 UTC  is expected to be error-free. The original error only affected one member of the real-time DWD forecast ensemble; however, all ensemble members have now be re-archived. 

10/July/2024

C3S graphical and data products from July 2024 forecast

Due to potential data quality issues, the suite of graphical seasonal forecast products with July 2024 initial conditions (available at https://climate.copernicus.eu/charts/packages/c3s_seasonal/) do not include the contribution from DWD, at the time of publication. (They also do not include ECCC forecasts - see announcement below.) The DWD July real-time forecast data has been processed and archived, and it is downloadable from the CDS forms and API, but we do not endorse its use until further investigation is completed. Initial examination points to the 22nd member of the ensemble (in the order archived) having been started from wrong initial conditions; at present, there is no guarantee that the other members are 'correct'.

10/July/2024

Update on changes to ECCC operational forecasting systems:

Due to issues with the acquisition of data from the new Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) seasonal forecasting systems, the ECCC July 2024 forecast will not be available, at the usual publication time, as data or graphical products. Neither forecast nor hindcast data are available via the CDS forms of the CDS API; however hindcast and real-time forecast data have been archived in MARS, but should not be used until further notice, pending tests to ensure data quality and consistency. ECCC is not part of the multi-system combination this month. 

Products from ECCC's July 2024 forecast may be created and published by C3S at a later date, but the real-time multi-system combination will not be updated.

 A reminder that the previous ECCC systems (CanCM4i and GEM5-NEMO) have been discontinued.

28/June/2024

Planned changes to operational forecasting systems:

Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) will update its seasonal forecasting systems to new versions from July 2024. The new Canadian Seasonal to Interannual Prediction System version 3.0 (CanSIPSv3.0) is a multi-model ensemble composed of two individual forecast systems CanESM5 and GEM5.2-NEMO. ECCC's operational forecast system is one of the components of the C3S seasonal forecast multi-system. 

• With the introduction of the new systems, both contributions (to C3S) from the current ECCC CanSIPSv2.1 system (CanCM4i and GEM5-NEMO) will be discontinued
• Data availability
  • Real-time forecast data for July 2024 will be published on 10 July at 12UTC.
  • We are currently working on a tight schedule to process at C3S the July hindcast data for these new systems. Unfortunately, this means that for the next few months hindcast data will be made available much closer than usual to the release of the corresponding real-time forecast. Updated information on hindcast data availability will follow in the coming days.

22/March/2024

An issue potentially affecting C3S seasonal forecast data downloads from the CDS has been recently detected.

The source of the issue has been identified and the problem reverted, so CDS is now back to its correct behaviour. However, we strongly advise users which have requested data that matches the description below to repeat those downloads to ensure the data retrieved is correct.

The affected data downloads would have been those requesting data in netCDF format from one of the following seasonal forecast datasets (where the data is stored in GRIB) between Tuesday 19th of March and Thursday 21st of March (both included):

• Seasonal forecast daily and subdaily data on single levels
• Seasonal forecast subdaily data on pressure levels
• Seasonal forecast monthly statistics on single levels
• Seasonal forecast monthly statistics on pressure levels
• Seasonal forecast anomalies on single levels
• Seasonal forecast anomalies on pressure levels

CDS data requests matching that description have very likely received wrong data inside the netCDF files.

More details can be found in the complete issue description on the C3S User Forum: https://forum.ecmwf.int/t/check-your-recent-netcdf-files-downloaded-from-the-cds-and-ads-you-may-need-to-download-them-again/2280

11/December/2023

With the release of December 2023 forecasts (10th December 2023) a new view of the SST indices time series have been included for the ENSO regions in the C3S seasonal graphical products (https://climate.copernicus.eu/charts/packages/c3s_seasonal)

In addition to the plot showing individual ensemble members a new time series plot is now available showing some of the percentiles for each month's distribution. This was already available for the IOD indices and it has been now also extended to ENSO indices.

Image Added

22/November/2023

Please note that a "data gap" issue has been documented in our C3S Seasonal Forecast known issues page affecting availability of MetOffice system 602 hindcast data for December nominal start dates (see details for issue G10. in the "Data gaps" table)

10/November/2023

Please note that a "data gap" issue has been documented in our C3S Seasonal Forecast known issues page affecting availability of MetOffice system 602 hindcast data for November nominal start dates (see details for issue G10. in the "Data gaps" table)

8/September/2023

Please note that a "data gap" issue has been documented in our C3S Seasonal Forecast known issues page affecting availability of MetOffice system 602 data for 8/August/2023 (see details for issue G10. in the "Data gaps" table)

9/August/2023

Please note that a "data gap" issue has been documented in our C3S Seasonal Forecast known issues page affecting availability of MetOffice system 602 data for 15/July/2023 (see details for issue G9. in the "Data gaps" table)

20/July/2023

New C3S seasonal forecast products available: 10m wind speed and sea ice concentration plots; additional documentation and training materials

Soon after the release of our July 2023 seasonal forecasts new features have been made available to users of the C3S seasonal forecast service:

• New graphical products for 10m wind speed and sea ice concentration
  
  Image AddedImage Added
  
  
• A new Copernicus Knowledge Base (CKB) article describing the processing performed to create all C3S seasonal forecast products
  C3S seasonal forecast product descriptions
  
  
• A new Jupyter Notebook included in the "C3S Data Tutorials" training materials showing how to produce some verification metrics and scores equivalent to those currently provided in the CKB:
  https://ecmwf-projects.github.io/copernicus-training-c3s/sf-verification.html
  
  Image Added

9/June/2023

New C3S seasonal forecast products available: total column water quantities data and SST indices verification plots

With the release of our June 2023 seasonal forecasts a couple of additions have been made to the offering of the C3S seasonal forecast service:

• New variables for water quantities integrated over the whole atmospheric column (water vapour, cloud liquid water and cloud ice water) are available. Initially, in June 2023, these data variables are available from ECMWF SEAS5, CMCC SPS3.5 and DWD GCFS2.1.
  Image Added
• New verification plots have been added to our C3S seasonal forecasts verification plots page, including correlation for SST-based indices (NINO regions and Indian Ocean Dipole)
  Image Added

Please also note that a "data gap" issue has been documented in our C3S Seasonal Forecast known issues page affecting availability of NCEP CFS2 data for 22/May/2023 (see details for issue G8. in the "Data gaps" table)

10/March/2023

New C3S seasonal forecast dataset and earlier publication date

With the release of our March 2023 seasonal forecasts a new dataset has been included, containing global ocean monthly data for a set of variables in the upper part of the ocean. 

More details here: Seasonal forecast monthly averages of ocean variables

Image Added

Additionally, we would like to remind our users that starting today, 10th March 2023, all the products from the C3S seasonal forecast component are made publicly available on a slightly earlier schedules:

• 6th of the month at 12 UTC: ECMWF data will be available
• 10th of the month at 12 UTC: the remaining forecast systems data and all graphical products will be available

1/March/2023

Summary of new features in C3S seasonal forecast service

Around the release of our March forecast a few new features enhancing the service are being put in place, from changes in the publication date of the data and products, to the inclusion of new features in the web application displaying our graphical products, and including information about verification of the forecast systems. A new seasonal forecast dataset will be published in the CDS catalogue, as described below.

• Changes to publication dates: all graphical and data products are now published earlier than usual. Specifically:
  • 6th of the month at 12 UTC: ECMWF data will be available
  • 10th of the month at 12 UTC: the remaining forecast systems data and all graphical products will be available

• Change to the graphical products web page:
  • A new application using ECMWF's OpenCharts engine integrated in the C3S website will replace the current page from 1st March 2023 at 12UTC
  • WARNING: With this change the URL will be affected, and the URL for the new starting point through the graphical products will now be: http://climate.copernicus.eu/charts/packages/c3s_seasonal/ 
  • The new interface introduces some useful features, among others:
    • Chartsets: allowing users to show side-by-side graphical products belonging to the same "chartset group" (gray bubbles above the plot thumbnail title).
    • Share: this allows users to obtain a widget to be embedded in a web page or to share a given plot over social networks.
    • Export: with the enhancements in this feature, on top of being able to export the plot and save it as an image (PNG/PDF), users will have access to an API allowing them to programatically access the plots of their choice.

Image AddedImage AddedImage Added

• New contents in the graphical products:
  • Starting from the February 2022 real-time forecast, monthly plots will be now also available, in addition to the 3-month aggregations in the new web interface

Image Added

• Enhanced documentation with information about verification:
  • Some verification metrics and scores for all current forecast systems, and the multi-system combination, will be made available as part of the C3S seasonal forecast documentation: 
    C3S seasonal forecasts verification plots
  • A Jupyter Notebook will be also soon released (date yet to be confirmed) allowing users to reproduce those plots and giving them a starting point to create similar ones for the variables of their interest.

Image Added

• New CDS dataset with ocean variables:
  • A new dataset containing 1-month averages of 2-D fields for variables coming from the ocean component of the contributing forecast systems.
  • The dataset called "Seasonal forecast monthly averages of ocean variables" will be available here: http://cds.copernicus-climate.eu/cdsapp#!/dataset/seasonal-monthly-ocean
  •  The dataset will be published with the update of the March real-time forecast at 12UTC on the 10th March 2023

Image AddedImage Added

13/Jan/2023

Introduction of new features in plots and data

With the release of January 2023 C3S seasonal forecast the following changes have been introduced:

• New observational dataset in SST indices (NINO, IOD) plots: ERA5 SST has been introduced to substitute NCEP OIv2. This affects all new plots created from January 2023, specifically all new real-time forecast plots released but also the updates with new observations to previously released plots: from April/2022 for NINO indices (March/2022 in the case of C3S multi-model and ECCC multi-model) and May/2022 for IOD

Image AddedImage Added

• New pressure level (1000hPa) available from UK MetOffice GloSea6 data

14/November/2022

Completion of ECMWF Data Handling System (DHS) move.

At 18:41 on Friday 11/November/2022 the disruption to the ECMWF DHS, where C3S seasonal forecast data is hosted, was declared as finished marking the successful completion of the move from Reading headquarters to Bologna Data Centre.

30/October/2022

Data availability during ECMWF DHS move
(Announcement date: 31/August/2022. Update: 30/October/2022)

• The completion of the DHS move has been now delayed to the end of the week commencing on 7 November.
• In these last stages of the DHS move some of the data previously available (and listed in the table below) may be temporarily unavailable until the full move is completed.

(Announcement date: 31/August/2022. Update: 12/October/2022)

The data listed in the following table is expected to be available during the limited access period (5-6 weeks from 8/Sep/2022) caused by ECMWF move of its Data Handling System to Bologna.

Users are encouraged to download before 8/Sep/2022 any data not listed in the table they might need during that period. Any change to this schedule will be announced here.

NOTES:
(1) This is the list of all currently operational forecasting systems: ECMWF SEAS5, Météo-France System8, MetOffice GloSea6 (system=601), CMCC SPSv3.5, DWD GCFS2.1, NCEP CFSv2, JMA CPS3, ECCC CanCM4i and ECCC GEM5-NEMO

(2) Real-time forecast data won't be available until its usual release date (13th of the month at 12 UTC)

(3) This also includes the data used to compute the anomalies ("ensemble mean" and "hindcast climate mean") which are available via the "monthly" CDS datasets

12/October/2022

Changes to stratospheric (10hPa) zonal wind plots from the October 2022 real-time forecast release

A couple of bugs have been fixed which affected the plots shown here: https://climate.copernicus.eu/charts/c3s_seasonal/

• Up to October 2022 for all systems, all available members for each nominal start date were plotted and used to compute the forecast ensemble mean. From October 2022, for lagged start date systems (at the time of the announcement this affects the UK MetOffice GloSea6 and JMA CPS3) only a subset of the most recent members will be used (see details in the information about "nominal start date") so the ensemble mean computations are consistent across all C3S products.
• For all forecast systems a coding bug was fixed that caused one real-time forecast member to be plotted twice (usually showing it as a thicker/darker blue line).

12/July/2022

An error has been identified in "sea surface temperature" and"land surface temperature" (called 'soil temperature level 1' in the CDS) data fromCMCC SPSv3.5 forecasting system. The details can be found in the section "Not fixed errors" under the code E9 of our "Known issues" page

It affects the following data for those two variables:

• forecast data (daily data, monthly data and anomalies) for nominal start dates March, April, May, June and July 2022

According to CMCC report about the issue:

The problem only affects the points at the borders between the three realms (sea ice, ocean and land), and is due to a change in the land-sea or sea ice-sea mask interpolation algorithm, which was implemented in the forecasts (starting from March).
Therefore, the anomalies of the above mentioned variables show unrealistic patterns near the sea-land or sea-sea ice boundaries, because, in these grid points, the new interpolation algorithm has made the forecasts, from March onwards, inconsistent with the hindcasts.
Starting from the August 2022 real-time forecast, it will be restored the procedure used in the hindcasts.

9/May/2022

Reminder of impacts of ECMWF's Data Handling System (DHS) move to Bologna

As work to move ECMWF's DHS to Bologna progresses, the dates when users of C3S seasonal forecast data might experience disruptions are approaching.

• Two short dry-run tests successfully completed in April have paved the way for another, longer reduced service period in the coming weeks, lasting for 5 to 7 days; this will then be followed by the 4-week-long reduced service period during the actual move of the DHS infrastructure. The official announcements about the dates of these interruptions can be found in this link. This information will be updated as the work progresses so it is highly recommended you "watch" that page (see "Watch" button in the top right corner of the page).
• The expected impacts on the C3S seasonal forecast datasets are as follows:
  • Data available during both future reduced service periods: real-time forecasts with start dates after March 2022 from all providers and hindcast data from MetOffice system=601 (produced on-the-fly) with start dates from April.
  • Availability of other data is NOT guaranteed.
    • Please note this includes hindcast data relevant to the start dates around these periods of reduced service, from providers other than the MetOffice. The recommendation for users is to ensure they have downloaded all hindcast data they may need well in advance of the start of these periods of reduced service.

11/ February/2022

• As it happens every year, label "system" for the UK Met Office contribution to C3S seasonal forecast activity will be updated to a new value (system=601) starting from March 2022 real-time forecasts.
  • Please note that due to the production of hindcasts "on-the-fly", the CDS keyword 'system' does not have the same behaviour as for the other contributors. More info in the section "Versioning of forecasting systems contributing to C3S" of the Description of the C3S seasonal multi-system page.

3/January/2022

Changes to operational forecasting systems from Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA)

• A little later than previously announced,  CPS3 hindcasts for February start dates are now available at the CDS.
  • Description of this new forecasting system can be found here.
• Starting with February 2022 real-time forecast, JMA's contribution will be be from CPS3 forecasting system, while the contribution from CPS2 forecasting system will be discontinued.
• In this new system the horizontal resolution of the JMA data at C3S is upgraded to 1.25 x 1.25 degrees

  • NOTE:This is a different grid compared to the rest of C3S forecasting systems. You can retrieve a version of the data interpolated to the C3S 1-degree grid using the following CDS API keywords in your retrieval:

    Code Block
    language py title CDS API retrieval keywords for interpolation to C3S 1-degree grid
    "grid" : "1/1", "area" : "89.5/0.5/-89.5/359.5",

    
    

8/December/2021

Changes to operational forecasting systems from Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC)

• As previously announced,  GEM5-NEMO hindcasts for December start date are now available at the CDS.
  • NOTE: this hindcast data will be only available via CDS-API until the official release of December 2021 forecast (12 UTC on the 13th December). See details and updates here.
  • Description of this new forecasting system can be found here.
• Starting with the December 2021 real-time forecast, ECCC contribution will be changed to CanSIPSv2.1 composed of CanCM4i and GEM5-NEMO forecasting systems. More details here

...

• An upgrade to MetOffice contribution (change of forecasting system version to GloSea5-GC2-LI) has been introduced from May 2019 nominal start date.