European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts
ECMWF has been a leading operational centre for global medium-range weather forecasts since the late 1970s. It has pioneered developments in numerical modelling of the general circulation, ensemble prediction, variational data assimilation and in re-analysis of long-term observational records as a tool for climate diagnosis.
ECMWF experience in the use of ensemble forecasts for probabilistic prediction, for both medium and extended range, dates back to the mid 1980’s. Operational ensemble forecasting for the medium-range started in 1992, while seasonal ensemble predictions with a coupled model became operational in 1997. From 2002, ECMWF also developed an operational monthly forecast capability based on a coupled ocean-atmosphere system. With the recent unification of its medium-range and monthly ensemble systems in March 2008, ECMWF has been at the forefront of developing seamless prediction techniques and exploring their potential for unifying weather and climate prediction.
ECMWF are involved in the following work packages:- WP1.2,WP3.1, WP3.2
Address: ECMWF – Shinfield Park – Reading RG2 9AX, United Kingdom
Web site: http://www.ecmwf.int
Key People
Dr Franco Molteni is Head of the ECMWF Seasonal Forecast Section. With a long experience in research on weather and climate predictability, F. Molteni has been involved in both experimentation and operational implementation of ECMWF ensemble prediction systems since their very early stages. Before re-joining ECMWF in his current position, F. Molteni was a group leader at the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, where he developed extensive contacts with scientists from developing countries.
Dr. Frederic Vitart is a senior scientist in the Seasonal Forecast section of ECMWF. An expert in the prediction of tropical cyclones and tropical intraseasonal variability with active international collaborations (e.g. US CLIVAR MJO working group), F. Vitart has been the main person responsible for the development, upgrade and validation of the monthly forecasting system at ECMWF. He is also in charge of the tools to provide probabilistic predictions of tropical storms from the ECMWF monthly and seasonal forecasts.
Dr. Francesca Di Giuseppe has been appointed as a scientific consultant in the Seasonal Forecast section of ECMWF from January 2011. After graduating in Physics in Bologna (Italy), she got a PhD from the University on Reading, with a thesis on cloud physics and its parametrization in GCMs. Her interest in radiation and cloud physics led to a number of international publications, some of them made in collaboration with ECMWF staff. In recent years, F. Di Giuseppe has been working at the Regional Meteorological Service of Emilia-Romagna, where she has been in charge of diagnostics and data assimilation projects related to the COSMO limited area model and forecasting system.