1. World Weather Research Programme
Paolo Ruti, Chief World Weather Research Division
Sarah Jones, Chair Scientific Steering Committee

2. Historical background
1950 63
1967
1985
1985
1998
2004
2014
WGNE, Working Group on Numerical Experimentation
THORPEX (Observing System and Predictability Experiment) established as a WWRP Working Group
GARP (Global Atmospheric Research Programme) established by WMO (World Meteorological Organization)
WMO the specialized agency of the United Nations for meteorology
Conduct of GARP Regional Experiments:
GATE:GARPAtlanticTropicalExperiment
MONEX:MonsoonExperiment
ALPEX:AlpineExperiment
AMEX:AirMassTransformationExperiment
WWRP (World Weather Research Programme) established in cooperation with GEWEX.
MAP & Sidney2000
GARP 15 years programme
WCRP first agreement in 1980 WMO-ICSU, new agreement in 1993 WMO-ICSU-ICO … it is time to have a new one in 2020 …
World Weather Watch
WCRP, World Climate Research Programme
(WMO, ICSU)
1st World Weather Research Open Science Conference, Canada

3. Improving the skill – big resources
ECMWF’s forecast Z500hPa extra-tropical error growth over the last two decades
WMO, 2015: Seamless Prediction of the Earth System: from Minutes to Months, (G Brunet, S Jones, PM Ruti Eds.), (WMO-No. 1156), (ISBN ), Geneva.
RMS (m)
In the last twenty years, progress in Numerical Weather Prediction has been tremendous, as illustrated for example in Figure 3 for the ECMWF model. As mentioned earlier, this progress was driven by various factors. Improvements in models (resolution and description of physical processes) and in significant initial condition error reductions via progress in data assimilation methods are documented to be the main factors (Magnusson and Kallen, 2013).

4. WWRP Mission
The World Weather Research Programme (WWRP) is WMO’s programme that promotes international and interdisciplinary research for more accurate and reliable forecasts from minutes to seasons,
expanding the frontiers of weather science to enhance society’s resilience to high-impact weather and the value of weather information for users.   
WWRP aims at Seamless Prediction by increasing convergence between weather, climate and environmental approaches and strengthening interdisciplinary collaborations.

5. Around 4 societal challenges
URBANIZATION
HIGH IMPACT WEATHER
WATER
NEW TECHNOLOGIES
With its new implementation plan, WWRP will ensure the realization of a research strategy towards the seamless prediction of the Earth system from minutes to months. This research strategy is developed to face four scientific and societal challenges identified by the Commission for Atmospheric Sciences : High-Impact Weather, Water, Urbanization and Evolving Technologies.

6. WWRP Implementation Plan Structure

7. WWRP Structure Research Development/
WWRP Working Groups
WWRP Core Projects
Sand&Dust
Storm
Research Development/
Forecasting Demonstration Projects

8. High Impact Weather
Co-chairs: Frédéric Vitart (ECMWF), Andrew Robertson (IRI)
Evaluate potential predictability of sub-seasonal events through a multi-model approach.
Understand systematic errors and biases in the sub-seasonal to seasonal forecast range
Focus on specific extreme event case studies increasing resilience and improving adapting capacity.
Project Office:
KMA/NIMR

9. WWRP Implementation Plan 2016-2023
Booklet 1: Introduction and broader vision – eight years plan
Booklet 2: Concrete actions proposed by WGs and projects for each selected activity – 2 year rolling basis
Societal Challenges
HIGH IMPACT WEATHER
WATER
URBANIZATION
NEW TECHNOLOGIES
Action Areas
Address Limitations
Uncertainty
Fully Coupled
Applications
Verification
Attribution
Integrated Water Cycle
New Observations
Precipitation Processes
Hydrological Uncertainty
Understand Needs
Observations & Processes
Urban Prediction
Advanced Methods
Support Facilities
Tools
New Observations
Future GOS
Selected Activities
For each Action Area the WWRP Working Groups and Projects proposed Selected Activities, which also offer points for collaborations

10. WWRP Implementation Plan Structure

11. Next 2 year concrete actions
Booklet 2 provides activities that are planned by Projects and Working Groups to help achieving the overall WWRP programmatic goals for each of the four Themes and 18 Action Areas, based on last year’s round of contributions
Working groups and projects were now asked to update this information by listing concrete activities along with a time frame

12. Preliminary evaluation of WG /Project Feedback
Feedback received from all WGs and Projects, despite: ETWM, SDS-WAS and SERA. Few info only from DAOS
Feedback overall quite comprehensive, covering most of the topics to a good extent
Only few suggestions for concrete activities so far in the following action areas: (activities listed in current version of IP 2 versus new feedback provided by the WGs/Projects, not counting missing feedback)
AA 7: Water – Integrated water
AA 10: Water – Hydrological Uncertainty
AA 12: Urbanization – Observations & Processes (chemical aspects)
Feedback files from all WG / Projects, as well as compilation of all in one file are available at

13. Preliminary evaluation of WG /Project Feedback
Suggested activities cover
Contributions to many ongoing or approaching initiaitives, e.g. NAWDEX, MesoVICT, HIGHWAY, ICE-POP, UPDRAFT
Suggestions for workshops on particular topics, or symposia along with major conferences 2017 (Cape Town, EMS, …)
Several workshops already held successfully
Members attending relevant conferences, are members or contribute to panels etc.
Facilitation of data sets and their usage
Feedback partly vague, how concrete can/should it be?
Some activities “only” covered by workshops. OK for workshop activities, but enough for others? More concrete actions needed?

14. High Impact Weather Action Area 1: ADDRESS LIMITATIONS
Increase knowledge of the factors limiting the capability to predict, communicate
and mitigate the impacts of high-impact weather events; identify how these
limitations can be overcome; demonstrate the resulting improvements for specific
high-impact weather events from minutes to months, from global to local, for
different users in different parts of the world
PROGRAMMATIC GOAL: Use diagnostic and verification information to identify capabilities and limitations in predictions of high-impact weather on time scales out to seasonal
SELECTED ACTIVITY: Continue to develop the S2S database and use it to assess state-of-the art models and their skill at predicting high-impact weather events such as tropical cyclones, heat/cold waves and their socio-economic impacts [S2S, WGTMR]

16. Next Steps
Preparation of next two-year priorities in terms of programmatic goals and activities - Review
Agreeing review process for S2S
Long term priorities for possible second phase
Science for Operationalization
Data Assimilation & Observations
Coordinated experiments

17. What successful people read before bed?
Google: seamless prediction WMO

18. Thank you
Merci