Conferences / Workshops / Announcements

1. EWGLAM/SRNWP held in Copenhagen on October 5-9th, 1998, next meeting, next workshops

   Organized by the Danish Meteorological Institute, the 1998 combined EWGLAM/SRNWP meetings took place in Copenhagen.

   As usual, during the EWGLAM meeting (5-7th October), the participants could attend international projects presentations (ALADIN, DWD, HIRLAM, UKMO, ECMWF), national presentations and scientific presentations. The special topic was "Experiences with very high resolution models using a grid point distance below 10 km".

   Then, during the SRNWP meeting (8-9th October), reports from the Lead centres were presented :

   • Variational data-assimilation (UKMO),
   • Surface processes and assimilation (HIRLAM, Spain/Sweden/Norway),
   • Non-hydrostatic models (DWD),
   • Semi-Lagrangian schemes (Météo-France),

   Decision was taken to transform the topic "Semi-Lagrangian schemes" into "Numerical methods", a more general topic including problems of dynamical/physical discretization and representation, interaction between dynamics and physics, etc ...

   During the SRNWP issues, J. Quiby has been designated as SRNWP coordinator.

   The next EWGLAM/SRNWP meetings will take place in Bratislava on October 11-15th, 1999.

   Two SRNWP workshops are planned within this year :

   • a SRNWP Workshop on "Numerical methods" in Prague (26-27th of April, 1999).
   • he third International SRNWP Workshop on Non-Hydrostatic modelling in Offenbach (25-27th of October, 1999) focusing on "Data assimilation for fine mesh models". Please contact jsteppeler++at++dwd.d400.de.
2. The 3rd Assembly of ALADIN Partners held in Prague on November 6th, 1999, next Assembly

   The participants to this Assembly attended some lectures on :

   • the history, the current status and the prospect for ALADIN-LACE application,
   • presentation of the status of the new telecommunication network RMDCN,
   • and on scientific topics :
   • high-resolution dynamics,
   • how to trigger and harmonize ALADIN-based applications,
   • data assimilation.

   Discussions were mainly about :

   • assessment of the 1998 scientific program,
   • draft ECMWF/Météo-France agreement for the IFS/ARPEGE/ALADIN software protection,
   • amendments to ALADIN Memorandum of Understanding,
   • technical overview of the project at the end of 1998 and 1999 perspective,
   • the scientific plan and its implications (Second medium-term (1999-2001) research plan for ALADIN).

   Discussions about maintenance and training problems were delayed to the next Assembly.

   The representative of Portugal kindly offered that the next Assembly would take place in the end of November or beginning of December 1999 in Lisbon.

   The Minutes of the Assembly are available here .The production of printed proceeding is under way.

3. IFS/ARPEGE coordination meeting for cycle 20 held at Météo-France on January 18th, 1999

   The preparation of ARPEGE cycle 20 took longer than expected. ALADIN code has been phased with a pre-cycle 20 prepared by Météo-France. After full validation at Météo-France this pre-cycle will be sent to ECMWF where the recently written adjoint of the semi-Lagrangian code will be included in order to release cycle 20. This is expected to be completed by the end of February.

   Cycle 21 will be made automatically about 2 weeks after cycle 20 is ready : It will include some cleaning, free source code format, and the implicit none statement everywhere.

   The Minutes of this IFS/ARPEGE coordination meeting are available on our public ftp (minutes_ifsarp.ps).

   Progress and plans at Météo-France, at ECMWF, and about the observational data base and general code issues are summarized in the Minutes. ALADIN partners are mainly concerned by the conclusions about the "Free source format" and the agreement between ECMWF and Météo-France on the access and the use of the IFS/ARPEGE software.

   The observational database (ODB) will replace CMAFOC files from ARPEGE cyle 23 (planned for spring 2000). A tool will be developed to transform ODB into CMAFOC data. One could go on using CMAFOC. For ALADIN models, this change will only have an impact for those using CANARI, verif.pack, diag.pack or 3D-VAR. For more details, please contact vincent.casse++at++meteo.fr.

4. Sixth ALADIN Workshop held in Bucarest on February 15-17th, 1999

This Sixth ALADIN Workshop took place at the National Institute of Meteorology and Hydrology in Bucarest and was entitled "Scientific development and new applications of the numerical weather prediction model ALADIN". More details in Newsletter 14 .

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