Transcript Outlook from the Intensive Course on Data Assimilation : An example of a unique academic-operational partnership on education and training Celeste Saulo Director of the.

Outlook from the Intensive Course
on Data Assimilation : An example of
a unique academic-operational
partnership on education and training
Celeste Saulo
Director of the Dept. of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences –
Faculty of Sciences- University of Buenos Aires
Researcher at CIMA (UBA/CONICET)
Local applications
Specific developments
NWS Scientists focused
on regional issues
Training at
different levels!!!
Large global
NWP centers
Model developers
Weather/climate
forecast systems
development
The story
 There was an idea of having a Workshop to discuss and
gather two assimilation communities: 4D-Var and EnKF
(born before march 2007)
 There was a possibility to hold this meeting in Buenos
Aires, given local support offered by the University of
Buenos Aires (UBA) and the Research Center for the sea
and the atmosphere (CIMA)
 Some colleagues at the Dept. of Atmospheric and
Oceanic Sciences (UBA), in touch with Prof. Eugenia
Kalnay, considered that it would be a great opportunity to
train people from the region in Data Assimilation (april
2007)
 From that moment, Prof. Kalnay became the alma mater
of the initiative
The intensive course on Data
Assimilation
 Held in Buenos Aires between October 27 and
November 7, 2008, before the WWRP/THORPEX
Workshop on 4D-VAR and Ensemble Kalman Filter
Inter-Comparisons
 Sponsored by:
 WMO
 NSF - USA
 The Argentine Ministry of Science and Technology
 The University of Buenos Aires
 The Research Center for the Sea and the Atmospere
(CIMA)
 The Argentine National Weather Service
 The Centro Argentino de Meteorólogos
http://4dvarenkf.cima.fcen.uba.ar/course/
The intensive course on DA:
applicants
 The need for such a course was reflected in the
fact that more than 140 applications were
received, generally of well qualified students or
young researchers
 Of these 100 were accepted, many of them with
modest but essential support from the WMO
and the Argentine Ministry of Science and
Technology
 At least 1 participant from each South American
NWSs, was fully supported
Countries
Non South America; 10
Intensive course on DA
Venezuela; 2
Uruguay; 2
Perú; 1
Argentina
Paraguay; 1
Brazil
México; 4
Argentina; 32
Bolivia
Chile
Ecuador; 1
Colombia
Colombia; 1
Ecuador
Chile; 5
México
Bolivia; 2
Paraguay
Perú
Uruguay
Venezuela
Brazil; 39
Non South America
Institutions
Army/Navy WS;
5
Private; 1
NWS; 11
University; 42
Research
Institutes; 17
Army/Navy WS
NWS
Research
Institutes
Research and
Service Inst.
University
Private
Research and
Service Inst.; 24
The intensive course on DA:
organization
 The University of Buenos Aires (Facultad de
Ciencias Exactas) provided their facilities
including the Aula Magna for the lectures, and
two computer laboratories for the computer
exercises.
 We had 4 full time trainers (Kalnay, Saulo,
Miyoshi and Ruiz)
 We had 10 lecturers who kindly offered to
participate during the second week
The intensive course on DA: contents
and participants
 1st week:
an introduction to data assimilation, including 4D-Var and EnKF,
radiative transfer and forward observational models by (E. Kalnay,
USA, Velasco, Argentina and Saulo, Argentina)
 computational exercises with a Lorenz toy model (Miyoshi, Japan
and Ruiz, Argentina)
 2nd week:
 a review of data assimilation at ECMWF and JMA (Cardinali,
ECMWF and Miyoshi, Japan), objective validation (Talagrand,
France), information content (Cardinali, ECMWF), data impacts
(Herdies, Brazil), hybrid DA (Barker, USA), coupled oceanatmosphere data assimilation (Yang, Taiwan), adjoint models
(Talagrand, France and Hanea, Nederland), nonlinearity and
Gaussianity (Snyder, USA), balance (Polavarapu, Canada),
Bayesian DA and Quality Control (Lorenc, UK)
 computational exercises with the Speedy model (Miyoshi, Japan
and Ruiz, Argentina)

Keys for success
 Prof. Kalnay enthusiasm, commitment, effort, generosity,





perseverance…
The Workshop on 4D-VAR and EnKF Inter-Comparisons
(following the course)
The strong need of the regional community (including
operational and research components) to gain
understanding of Data Assimilation and related topics
The combination of support from different Institutions (at
national and international levels)
The involvement of the National Weather Service and the
University of Buenos Aires
The bilingual character of the Intensive Course
The intensive course on DA: outcomes
 The students were able to acquire a remarkably solid
understanding of data assimilation theory and
practice during the two week course.
 Collaborative work started among small groups that
could identify themselves as having common
interests related with DA
 Brazil was identified as the country leading these
issues in South America. Still, it has been also noted
the lack of human resources effectively trained in DA.
 New tools and knowledge acquired during the DA
intensive course, are now incorporated into specific
courses at the University of Buenos Aires
The intensive course on DA: outcomes
 Other international courses are being (or have been)
organized following similar characteristics:


Summer School on Land Cover Change and Hydroclimate
of the La Plata Basin 2-13 November 2009, Foz do
Iguaçu, Paraná State, Brazil
(closely related with VAMOS – WCRP)
Training Course on the use of seasonal predictions for
applications in Latin America (August, 2010), University of
Buenos Aires, Argentina (sponsored by IAI –Interamerican
Institute for Global Change Resarch-)
 Endorsed by WGSIP (WGSIP panel meeting will be held
just before the course, to provide experts to the course)
Proposal to increase capacity building in South
America, related with THORPEX program
(following ideas discussed with D. Parsons)
 To organize a training session as a means to increase
involvement of South American countries. The topic
should be ensemble prediction with a focus on GIFSTIGGE.
 Instructors need to include examples from the Southern
Hemisphere and South America prediction problems
 Heavy rainfall is an area of strong interest within the
region and thus the instruction should include the use of
heavy rainfall prediction using ensembles.
 Training also needs to include training on verification
techniques for ensemble prediction.
Focused project for South America:
La Plata Basin –LPBArea:
3.100.000 km2
Inhabitants:
101.656.965
A proposed project is
precipitation prediction for
the La Plata Basin, which
is formed by the discharge
of waters from five
countries - Argentina,
Brazil, Uruguay, Bolivia
and Paraguay-.
Mega-cities:
Sao Paulo-Buenos Aires
Other large cities: Asunción-Sucre-Montevideo
La Plata Basin –LPBThis kind of project would
be of interest for VAMOS
(WCRP) and for
THORPEX (WWRP).
LPB is an ongoing
Regional Hydroclimate
Project
http://www.eol.ucar.edu/projects/lpb/
Most extreme 1% PFs in each
category for each 2-degree
latitude-longitude box (after
Zipser et al, BAMS, 2006)
 The project could make use of a real-time demonstration of
GIFS-TIGGE, which would require real-time exchange of
surface precipitation forecasts.
 Data exchange rather than products are required for the
bias correction of the ensembles. The project could also
make use of the extensive limited area modeling expertise
in Brazil and Argentina.
 Efforts could be made to also link to hydrological
prediction.
 The planning for this project could take place in conjunction
with the training workshop.
Thank you very much!!
Questions?
One day at the UBA “Aula Magna”
The lecturers