Foreword NEWSLETTER, 2011

Newsletter 40 is issued in the late summer, early autumn 2011. This is a period where a good deal, but not yet all, of the yearly work-plan actions has been fulfilled. We may already now acknowledge the smooth transition from the MoU-3 to the MoU-4 period, which is reflected by a sustained volume of Aladin actions, visits, meetings, development works over 2011. The first quarters of 2011 have been especially busy with the yearly Aladin/Hirlam workshop in April, the COSP action in Brussels and the first MoU4-PAC in Brussels again.

Nevertheless, this apparently calm situation may be somewhat misleading, as a number of dimensioning meetings and projects are just ahead of us, at the time I’m writing this editorial text. On the side of the long term goals and efforts in the Consortium, the strategy workshop end of September, and the subsequent discussions at PAC and the General Assembly will lead to a revised 10 year strategy document giving the headlines of our ambitions, taking into account the border conditions of our NWP collaboration. As in the previous version, the Aladin strategy will cover not only the pure science, but also maintenance and hints on validation and applications.

Talking about “border conditions†: one important upcoming source of changes will be the OOPS project, driven by ECMWF. You should now all know about OOPS … if not so, please check with your local colleagues, or on the Norrköping workshop website, or on the Aladin website under the “software†index: http://www.cnrm.meteo.fr/aladin/spip.php?rubrique14 .
OOPS will become technically “visible†in the official common cycles with CY38, which includes the first, already impressive, package of Fortran code cleanings. More will come along with encapsulation in the next cycles. And eventually, there is now a strong hypothesis that Object-Oriented thinking will get a concrete expression in terms of C++ programming, besides the “good old Fortran†. This, no doubt about, represents one of the major evolutions of the IFS/Arpège/LAM NWP system from the past 20 years, and a number of years to come.

Enough for a change ? Not quite so … On the side of GMAP’s recognized “COOPE†cooperation team, several staff changes are taking place presently: after Gaëlle Kerdraon’s move back to Brittany, her home region, Olivier Rivière will take over a new position in the Bordeaux regional center. Jean-Marc Audoin will join the RETIC team, which acts as a link between Research and Operations (so he will leave international cooperation but he will remain busy with cooperation and coordination matters, certainly !). Jean-Daniel Gril joins the French Civil Aviation School (the “ENAC†) after a successful exam passed earlier this year. They all have been over various periods of time a competent support to cooperation in Aladin and other aspects of Météo-France’s NWP activities. The consequence of these moves is that you will progressively meet new “COOPE†staff in Toulouse. At first, we welcome Ghislain Faure who will be the pillar of the French Aladin/LAM operational suites (France, La Réunion, Outre-Mers applications) and Alexandre Mary who will progressively become active on support for maintenance and development in the LAM systems. Other new staff will follow later. No doubt that you, as Programme staff and readers of this newsletter, will give a warm welcome to our newcomers.

Pr Claude Fischer