AROME-ALADIN special workshop, April 11-12, 2003, Prague

Main conclusions of the AROME-ALADIN special workshop, Prague, 11-12^th of April 2003

The summing up just below partly tries to address the extensive list of questions of Appendix 2. The main executive conclusion is the one described in Appendix 1.

• Name : For the time being the convergence between the ALADIN and AROME projects keeps the ALADIN name in its second acronym as proposed by Claude Fischer (AROME Limited Area Decentralised International Network), ALADIN-2 in slang to avoid confusion. AROME remains the name of the 2.5km target project and any ‘ALADIN-2’ declination around the two roots will have to choose its own specific name. In any case the ‘Consortium’ should still be named ALADIN.

• Performances : It was agreed to include the question of the compromise level of optimisation in the ones to be treated in the ’basic’ document (see Appendix 1). Independently of this more evolutive aspect, the basic cost of the 10-km version, mainly linked to its time-stepping length will be part of its design specification, be it only because it could become a convenient vehicle for forthcoming LAM-EPS applications, if cheap enough.

• Capacities : Only the manpower aspect was treated at that stage. It was evaluated that the first transition period could be of the order of 3 years if an additional ‘hill’ could be afforded before a return to the current level, at ‘unchanged use’. If the additional possibilities offered by the AROME side of the programme would then lead to new ambitions in several of the Partners home effort, this would lead to another more permanent increase, but this was considered to be off the ‘convergence’ issue. The level of the hill was estimated not to exceed 15% of the current effort, if well coordinated. The length of the second transition period (before everyone could afford using the nominal AROME version) was not mentioned again, but for the fact that it would fluctuate from Partner to Partner, while it was essential that the first length would be homogeneous at +/- 3 months. Météo-France indicated that Jean-François Geleyn would be made available for a three year period in Prague to work on the convergence issue, as seen from the side of Météo-France’s Partners.

• MoU : Given the welcome coincidence between the end of the ALADIN and RC LACE MoUs at a time when the convergence ought to be achieved if ever, it appeared very logical not to touch the current legal structures, but simply to use them as such to mobilise the additional networking forces needed for a success around the turn of 2005-2006. Since the matter is however of long-term crucial importance, it was anticipated that the Krakow Assembly of Partners of October 2003 would create a task force in charge of all the relevant MoU issues and that the Assembly of 2004, to be hosted by Croatia, would rather take the form of a 3 days gathering at political level to anchor all the legal and economic aspects of ‘ALADIN-2’. In particular the questions of possibly setting a secretariat and/or a light legal structure were mentioned. Dijana Klaric was tentatively put in charge of coordinating the whole process.

• Plan for the transition : A resolution tasked Jean-Francois Geleyn with preparing for the end of June a complete draft document about all but the legal and economical aspects of ‘ALADIN-2’ (see Appendix 1). Joze Roskar will be his correspondent for gathering and synthesising the response of all Directors to this draft, so that a more elaborated version can be put on the table of the Krakow Assembly. It was therefore stressed that a representation of all Partners at the directorial level in Krakow was of utmost importance. In case of important difficulties an intermediate meeting would have to be conveyed during summer. Jean-Francois Geleyn asked and got permission to already partly anticipate a success of the process and to start mobilising the networking means that a ‘seeding budget’ made available by Météo-France would allow. It was however expected that other sources would eventually come from other Partners and/or the usual external channels on which the ALADIN financing was based up to now. A first response was brought by an RC LACE proposal to finance additional stays in Toulouse this year to help the physics interfacing work of Sylvie Malardel and Yann Seity.

• The long-term scientific strategy : It was decided to create a group in charge of the long-term scientific watch, of the selection of themes that are vital either because representing our strengths or because too important to be neglected in such a prospective effort. The group will combine the forces of the AROME project leader (François Bouttier), of the CSSI and of the LSMG in their present composition (12 people on total, see nominative list below=> (*)). Andras Horanyi was tentatively charged with the coordination of this new action, on time scales comparable with those of the MoU issue.

• Other aspects : Defence (at NATO level?) and training aspects were added to the scope of the possible ALADIN-2 ambitions and, for the latter, it was stressed that the publicising effort should start as early as possible. The need for a bit of specialisation of the demo and beta testing was emphasised, since this could help having a shortened and more successful period of additional efforts.

(*) Doina Banciu, Gergely Bölöni, Francois Bouttier, Radmila Brozkova, Claude Fischer, Luc Gérard, Dominique Giard, Thomas Haiden, Andras Horanyi, Dijana Klaric, Abdallah Mokssit, Petra Smolikova.