1. The Polar Prediction Project and the Year of Polar Prediction
Photo: G. Dieckmann, AWI
Francisco Doblas-Reyes
on behalf of the PPP steering group and ICO
ICREA, IC3, BSC
WGSIP17, Norrköping 14 September 2014

2. PPP mission statement
Promote cooperative international research enabling development of improved weather and environmental prediction services for the polar regions, on time scales from hourly to seasonal
- Two aspects that reflect a change of WWRP:
Environmental prediction, not just weather, e.g. sea ice
Beyond the medium range -> bridge to WCRP
Kind of legacy of both (i) the International Polar Year (IPY; 2007/2008) though more focussed on prediction and (ii) THe Observing system Research and Predictability Experiment (THORPEX)
Apart from carrying on momentum from IPY and THORPEX, why PPP? -> next slide
Suppl. info:
October 2009: CAS recommends the establishment of a THORPEX Polar Research project
November 2010: EC-PORS formulates plans for GIPPS, of which PPP is the component up to seasonal and PCPI is the component beyond seasonal

3. Synop, AIREP, DRIBU, TEMP and PILOT
Why?
1. Significant gaps in the polar observing systems
- Here only conventional data, but also true for satellite data and ocean data (Argo!)
- Obs. Difficulties: Harsh environment, sea ice prevents Argos, weak thermal and optical contrast between ice and clouds
Synop, AIREP, DRIBU, TEMP and PILOT
Polar data coverage of conventional observations in the ECMWF operational analysis on 1 January 2012
P. Bauer (ECMWF)

4. Why? 1. & 2. result in deficient forecasts
Potential versus realized seasonal sea-ice forecasting skill
SIPN Sea Ice Outlook
September
September sea-ice extent (106 km2)
The left figure shows that current forecasts of year-to-year fluctuations of the September sea-ice extent from 1st July have virtually no skill
The right figure, based on ensemble-simulations in the "perfect-model" framework, indicate that such predictions could in principle be much more skilful.
initialized 1st July
Tietsche et al (modified)
Stroeve et al. 2014

5. Photo by Chilean Navy/Reuters
Why?
3. Arctic opening
Some statements from the report:
The Arctic is likely to attract substantial investment over the coming decade ($100 bn)
The environmental consequen-ces of disasters in the Arctic are likely to be worse than in other regions
Significant knowledge gaps across the Arctic need to be closed urgently
With opportunities come risks!
Imagine oil spill
Show sinking ship (2007 off Antarctica)
Improved environmental predictions urgently needed to meet this growing demand.
Suppl. Info: LLOYDS is a think tank associated with big insurance companies
Photo by Chilean Navy/Reuters

6. 4. Antarctic Logistics and Safety
Why?
4. Antarctic Logistics and Safety
Antarctica is a harsh environment
Logistical support for research is expensive – more accurate predictions are needed
Typical cost is USD100k if a flight from NZ to McMurdo Station has to turn around because of unforecast poor weather at McMurdo
Tourist expeditions are vulnerable to weather and ice
With opportunities come risks!
Imagine oil spill
Show sinking ship (2007 off Antarctica)
Improved environmental predictions urgently needed to meet this growing demand.
Suppl. Info: LLOYDS is a think tank associated with big insurance companies
Photo: Andrew Peacock /

7. Why? 5. Potential for advanced predictions in middle latitudes Day 1-5
Jung et al. (2014), Geophys. Res. Lett.
In these experiments (atmosphere-only), the atmosphere was nudged towards the actual evolution (reanalysis) only around the North Pole (solid circle)
Colours show the percentage forecast error reduction
Error strongly reduced in the Arctic (which is trivial because of the nudging there), but error reductions are also found in mid latitudes, in particular over the continents
Note that this is a conceptual upper limit of the effect because actual improvement of polar forecasts will never be as good as nudging towards the actual evolution!

8. What? Source: PPP Implementation Plan
Most concise summary is the mission statement -> now more concrete: make substantial progress in these areas
Not very different from lower latitudes, but aspects within subjects quite different (as seen in previous slides):
sea ice one of main focusses (environmental forecasting!)
emphasis on COUPLED system (incl. data assimilation), ensemble methods: (sufficient spread? Pert. Methods focused on lower latitudes, e.g. moist convection, barocl. instability, ...)
Source: PPP Implementation Plan

9. How? ★ Develop Strong Linkages with Other Initiatives
★ Strengthen Linkages Between Academia,
Research Institutions and Operational Centres
★ Establish and Exploit Special Research Datasets
★ Link with Space Agencies
★ Promote Interaction and Communication Between Research
and Stakeholders
★ Foster Education and Outreach
★ Link with Funding Agencies
(already mentioned above)
Members from all realms on board of steering group; related to idea of "seemless prediction"
List compiled with existing data sets that need to be exploited; new (obs AND sim) shall be generated, GTS ...
Mainly via link to Polar Space Task Group (successor of IPY-Space Task Group)
Stakeholders = "parties interested in success of project"; e.g. northern communities, indigenous people, private sector, governments
Summer schools, webinars, collab. with APECS / website info, collab. with Polar Educators International
Europe, NSF/ONR/NOAA (Thomas Jung recently in Washington); maybe there will be calls which explicitly mention of PPP/YOPP

10. Year of Polar Prediction
MOSAiC
- Long year ; core period from mid-2017 to mid-2019
- Example 1: Intensive observing periods: (i) more observations needed in general, additional value having them in the same time
(ii) snapshot for higher-quality REANALYSIS (ERA-YOPP) -> useful for verification, process understanding, ...
(iii) enables judgement upon value of certain obs for forecasting (OSEs, ie data denial experiments)
(iv) aligned with planned MOSAiC campaign (where Polarstern drifts through Arctic)
Example 2: Dedicated model experiments: OSSEs / OSEs; in NWP context OSSEs are common practice for satellite planning; autonomous gliders under sea ice could be a target in the context of YOPP
Example 3: Verification effort: baseline skill comparison between current operational 7-day sea-ice forecasts (US Navy; Env. Can.; MyOcean (Europe)) currently being discussed

11. S2S and PPP ★ Joint meetings already took place
★ PPP requests for additional high-latitude variables in the
S2S archive
★ Possibility of intense reforecast period during the YOPP IOP
★ What role for WGSIP and DCPP?
(already mentioned above)
Members from all realms on board of steering group; related to idea of "seemless prediction"
List compiled with existing data sets that need to be exploited; new (obs AND sim) shall be generated, GTS ...
Mainly via link to Polar Space Task Group (successor of IPY-Space Task Group)
Stakeholders = "parties interested in success of project"; e.g. northern communities, indigenous people, private sector, governments
Summer schools, webinars, collab. with APECS / website info, collab. with Polar Educators International
Europe, NSF/ONR/NOAA (Thomas Jung recently in Washington); maybe there will be calls which explicitly mention of PPP/YOPP

12. Organization of PPP-related events
Expert meetings
Conferences and workshops
Workshop
"Polar-lower lat. linkages"
Barcelona
Dec. 2014
Panel discussions
Townhall meetings
+++ slides and audios available at polarprediction.net +++
Photos by N. Gordon