Main event : ALATNET
Only one main event but it is really a main main main ... event from its
future impact on ALADIN in case of definite acceptation (with the new boost
ALATNET could give to ALADIN) and ... its current impact on the work of
the teams involved in the preparation of the contract with the European
Union.
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ALATNETis an acronym for ALAdin
Training NETwork.
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Since the 4th of June, it was only
a promising application for one of the horizontal programs of the European
Union Last spring, we took an opportunity to obtain significant funding
for the ALADIN project from the European Union, through the 5th Framework
Program for Research and Development. More precisely, we applied to one
of the 3 Horizontal Programs, entitled "Improving human research potential
and the socio-economic knowledge base", part A-1 "Research Training (RTN)
Networks", which aims to support the training of young researchers and
exchanges between teams (more details about our proposal could be found
in the previous Newsletter or in our server).
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Last October, it has been favorably
evaluated by the Commission services and the negotiations of the contract
could begin.
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A first version of the Contract Preparation
Forms was sent to Brussels on November the 3rd : 40 pages for the administrative
part with 900 numbers in many tables (but much more have been calculated
to obtain something reasonable) and 20 pages with the description of ALATNET
(technical annex).
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A few days later, the Commission asked
us to introduce some modifications both in the administrative part and
technical annex. It has been done and new documents were sent on November
the 10th.
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These new documents will be verified
soon by the Commission and, if ALATNET pass this second evaluation, the
contract could be signed before the end of the year or at the very beginning
of 2000. These final documents will be available on this server ... or
on an ALATNET server (if ALATNET is accepted, an ALATNET server will be
created).
Then, ALATNET will be able to begin its real life with less paperwork (unfortunately
probably not less paperwork but surely different ones) and new topics such
as ALATNET research stays in leading centers, ALATNET exchanges between
teams, ALATNET visits, ALATNET participations to workshop, ALATNET school,
ALATNET statistics, ... First of all, a call for ALATNET candidatures will
be published through the SRNWP network; young ALADIN researchers and young
researchers from outside the ALADIN community will have the opportunity
to work together on ALATNET. All details in the future ALATNET server if
... keep your fingers crossed ...
The year 2000 approaches ...
Your correspondents for this problem
:
claude.fischer++at++meteo.fr jean-francois.estrade++at++meteo.fr.
Météo-France operational service has made a proposal for
the forecast facilities on January 1st, 2000:
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In case there is a breakdown in transmissions,
there would be no possibilities to retrieve any coupling files from Toulouse
for the r00 run of January 1st.
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Thus, we propose to provide extra operational-like
coupling files produced on the basis of the ARPEGE run of December 31st,
r00. to be explicit, instead of files from 0 to 48 h, we can provide on
this run files until 96 h (January 4th, 0 UTC). this would enable you to
rerun forecasts locally on January 1st for longer periods, though the initial
conditions would of course be "old" ones.
-
We will prepare the extra coupling
files only for those centers which do explicitly ask for them , so Claude
Fischer is waiting for your replies. No reply to Claude is considered as
no demand.
Météo-France has tested the year-2000 move on cycle CY21T1/AL11.
Therefore, this is the only cycle we consider as safe, officially. However,
it makes sense for the dynamic adaptation to perform the tests on an older
cycle, since we have not found errors in the forecast mode. For the analysis,
this might not be true (see Jean-François Estrade on this point).
The tests for IAA connections are anyway independent of this issue. The
installation of AL11 is recommended before end of this year. This point
is also related to the cleaning of the Fortran 90 code, which implies a
more careful installation and potential not yet anticipated compiler problems
on some platforms.
Here are the general procedures for testing the move to January 1st,
2000 :
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further tests in Toulouse: a test ALADIN/France
forecast starting on December 31st, r12 and going to January 1st, 6 UTC
(18 h) has been made; this is to make sure that the coupling inside ALADIN
recognizes properly the sequence of dates of the ELSCF* files and passes
the 1/1/2000.
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test coupling files for deported validation:
Météo-France has run a test 24h operational suite (ARPEGE/ALADIN/France)
starting on January 1st, 2000 and produced a complete set of coupling files
for the Toulouse-dependent centers. If you wish some guidance on how to
proceed for your local tests, please contact directly Jean-François
Estrade.
Guessing game : are you a good ALADIN Newsletter reader
?
My first name is a famous cyclone; I share my name with a famous method
and its inventor; who am I ? ... (indication : I am an ALADINer).
