Transcript African THORPEX Status Aida Diongue-Niang ANACIM/Senegal Met. Service African THORPEX Regional Committee co-chair.

African THORPEX Status
Aida Diongue-Niang
ANACIM/Senegal Met. Service
African THORPEX Regional Committee co-chair
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Background
 First THORPEX Planning meeting, Ouagadougou, February
2007 (gather African Scientists and International Community)
 Present THORPEX programme
 Present the African Science and Implementation draft document
 Set up a Task Force to write-up the document
 THORPX TF meeting, Dakar, September 2007
 Complete the Science Plan
 Outline feasable tasks for Implementation
 Prepare the 2nd planning meeting
 2nd THORPEX planning meeting, Karlsruhe, November 2007
(gather African Scientists and International Community)
 Present the revised Science Plan
 Discuss the Implementation activities
 Propose the composition of the Regional Committe
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Background (2)
 RC meeting in Pretoria2008
 Review of the African Science Plan and Writing of
the African Implementation plan
 Production of the Science and
Implementation Plan
distribution to 52 African nations through PR;
 25 nominated national representative
Proposals submitted to seek for funding,
Canadian IDRC, EU,GEO, Karlsruhe
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THORPEX-Africa scientific questions
What is the available knowledge and understanding of the
MSGIR
dynamical and physical processes of high-impacts events in Africa?
02 August 2008 2 0h00UTC
What is the skill of prediction of HI events at short to extended
range?
How can we improve predictability of HI weather in Africa?
What is the optimum conventional observing network to improve
HIW monitoring and forecast?
What is the impact of « new observing systems » on predictabiliy of
HIW?
What managable telecom. systems can enhance exchange of data
through global regional and national centre?
What are the best ways and appropriate tools to dissemintate
information to end-users?
How to quantify and evaluate benefits of improved forecasts for
societies, economy and environment?
How do we build and maintain an information system on African
HIW?
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THORPEX-Africa Implementation, Plan, 2009
PDP1:
Predictive Skill of
high impact
weather
PDP2: Contributing
to the Development
of Seamless forecast
by filling the gap in
intraseasonnal
timescales
DAOS1:
Design of an
optimum
network in Africa
SERA1:
High-impact
weather database
Predictability
and
Dynamical
Processes
TIGGE
Societal and
Economic
Research
Application
observing
systems
DAOS2:
Use of non
conventional
observing
systems
SERA2:
Forecast
verification and
cost/benefit
assessments
DAOS3:
Improvement of
telecommunications
facilities
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THORPEX-Africa: context and motivation
Relatively poor performance on modeling systems over Africa
(particularly in Tropical Africa):
1. Misrepresentation of some key processes (NWP & Climate models )
2. Poor observing network (+ transmission failure )
+ An important Gap in NWP model development and use in Africa
Impact on forecast and service delivery for societal and economic needs
THORPEX-Africa aims at contributing to :
 Improve forecasts and reduce the adverse effects of hydro-meteorological
related natural disasters in Africa and
Promote multidisciplinary collaboration between research, operations,
applications and user communities through studies in line with societal and
economical needs in Africa.
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Implementation: THORPEX-Africa 1st Workshop,
5-8 October 2009, ICTP, Trieste
Sponsor (THORPEX Trust Fund, ICTP, GEO, RIPIECSA)
Attended by :
• Representatives of National Meteorological services
throughout the African continent (~20) and ACMAD
• Representatives of major forecasting centres (ECMWF, NCEP,
UK Met Office METEO-France, DWD)
• Research scientists (climate/meteorology, information
system, hydrology, socio-economic) from Africa, Europe and
North America,
• Representatives of relevant programmes (AMMA, GEO,
EUMETNET/GEONetCAst, JWGFR, SERA, THORPEX WG,
MEDEX, WIS, SDS-WAS, UCAR Africa Initiative, etc)
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THORPEX-Africa 1st Workshop,
5-8 October 2009, ICTP, Trieste
Objectives
 To have a better picture of HIW in Africa , their impact and the
warning process used.
 To identify tools and products available in/for African Met.
Services for predicting HIW.
 To give a momentum to THORPEX-Africa planned activities
regarding HIW Information system and predictability studies.
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Tools for Predicting HIW /Assessing predictability
Heterogeneous level across the continent:
1.
Use of few NWP global models products through EUMETCAST
distribution
2.
Use of more NWP products using also Internet for dedicated
Web page and/or through Retim distribution
3.
Additional diagnostics with regional/local models, researchdevelopment activities, e.g. SAWS, Morocco, Algeria, Kenya
Senegal
4.
Systematic verification and feedback: only in few centres or in a
framework pf projects (e.g. SWFDP)
5.
Use of ensemble prediction: very rare, few countries mostly in
Southern Africa with the SWFDP
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Implementation Activities
• Case studies at sub regional basis
• Prototype of information system
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Main
High-impact
Weather
In Africa
From NHMS
presentations
sS
sS
sS
Tg
Dry spells
Tropical cyclones
Cyclogenesis
Flooding and
Landslides
Strong winds
Sand & Dust Episodes,
Heat waves
Frost
T
T
Pre-CAS-XV , Incheon , 17-18 November
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Representatives of Met Services proposed to work at
sub-regional basis focussing first on flooding events
but also dust events & aerosols, dry spells, heat waves, marine
hazards
Case studies at regional level
2008
2009?
African RC
2009
Coordi.
West
Focal P.
NMHS1
Coordi.
East&
Centre
Focal P.
NMHS2
Coord.
South
Focal P.
NMHSn
Coordi.
North
1997
2007?
2008
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3 -year demonstration project with 3 phases
Phase 1
• High impact weather Event Description and
Database Design
• Forecast skill Assessement
Phase 2
• Modelling activities
Phase 3
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Why A High-Impact Weather Predictability
and Information System ?
The limitation of well documented cases of high impact events and
data exchange within African sub-regions: a severe impediment to
progress in reducing the adverse effects related to HIW
Need for a mechanism to collect and exchange high impact weather
data
facilitate processes/predictability studies, socio-economic research
applications, forecast improvement and mitigation of detrimental
effects of HIW.
.Requirement to establish a database of key high-impact African
weather events, consisting of observations, model outputs, eventdocumentation and associated predictability studies analyses,
(evaluation, modelling)
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Approach for implementation
While seeking for funding start the work in parallel with a few
selected case studies (on a sub-regional basis; north, west,
central, east, southern Africa) with
 data collection (both weather and impact data) to feed an
interim information system
 model assessment to predict high-impact weather on the
other hand will be performed
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Status of case studies
• Progress has been slow in 2010-2011
• Phase 1: i)synoptic analysis, ii)extremeness analysis,
iii)conceptual model still not completed
• Problems of resources: human for animation; funding for
networking, training
• Structural problems: poor operational environment, lack of
skill, limited human resources, poor interaction with
universities
• Low involvement and commitment at higher level in NHMSs
TO FOLLOW-UP
 Invite THORPEX working groups, PDP, TIGGE to be involved in
African THORPEX case studies.
 Need of minimum of resources to enable people interacting
focusing on few countries while seeking in parallel for more 16
resources
Status of the interim database
• Space Disk allocated by ICTP but there is the need to
design the database and frame the associated
metadata.
• ICTP can help build the database that can be
transferred to another African centre. This will
require a person dedicated for this purpose who can
go and work at ICTP as a visitor for a specified period
of time.
• To Follow-up and given minimum of resources
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Way forward: Implementation activities
 Linking THORPEX-Africa research to operations
• Design a template on (HIW) events and encourage and
promote reporting of HIW close to near real-time and near
real-time model verification using diagnostics derived from
deterministic and ensemble models
Feedback to be provided.
• Customized TIGGE products for validation & application in
Africa ? Working with the TIGGE WG and the SWFDPs in
Southern and Eastern Africa and with RSMCs in other
regions?
 Continue to seek for funding
 Training on NWP and ensembles forecasting and TIGGE
dataset.
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• Thanks for your attention
• Questions? Contributions?
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