Previsão Numérica em Portugal 2021

Surface-Atmosphere Interactions

Dear colleagues,

Along with Numerical Weather Prediction progress in the past couple of decades, challenges remain as a result of the increasing complexity of today’s models. For instance, the representation of the Land Surface has evolved tremendously. An accurate representation of the exchanges of energy, mass (including water, desert dust, carbon and other greenhouse gases) and momentum is essential for better quality forecasts, especially for processes in the lower levels of the atmosphere. These exchanges involve a thorough description of processes linked to turbulence, vegetation dynamics and physiological processes, precipitation and snow, surface energy balance, orographic processes, river discharge and runoff, anthropogenic forcing, etc.

Surface modelling (including land, ocean, inland water, urban areas, ice and snow) is crucial for accurate numerical weather predictions, but also for understanding and modelling of climate change. The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports are clear regarding the effects of climate change over the Mediterranean, in particular over Iberia, and considers this region a hotspot for climate change. The effects include increased risk of droughts, wildfires, extreme events (such as floods and heat waves), and coastal flooding due to increased mean sea level and storm severity.

Accurate observations (in situ, satellite and others) are crucial to improve these models. In the 2018 Statement of Guidance for High-Resolution Numerical Weather Prediction, the World Meteorological Organization recommends that planning of future conventional networks should focus on boundary layer, as this is where the NWP vertical resolution is highest. In particular, the density and frequency of observations available from the Mediterranean Sea should be expanded. A number of new satellite sensors and products have been allowing better diagnostics of model biases. For instance, the Satellite Application Facility on Land Surface Analysis (which is part of the ground segment of the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites - EUMETSAT -, and is based at IPMA, Portugal), provides a portfolio of satellite-derived land surface variables, related to the surface energy balance and vegetation state.

Data Assimilation systems combine modelling and observational techniques to provide more realistic products. These techniques are in use by several international agencies such as NASA, ECMWF, ESA, Météo-France and so on. For instance, ECMWF used this capacity to produce ERA5-Land, a global reanalysis with relatively high resolution (~9 km) with data every hour, available from 1981 onwards. Regarding the Ocean, surface wind and sea state information are assimilated into atmospheric and ocean models (waves, currents, sea surface temperature and height and others), to produce accurate forecasts and reanalysis data sets. Finally, all major global and limited area models represent surface processes using a dedicated scheme. There have been many contributions to schemes such as H-TESSEL (ECMWF) and SURFEX (Météo-France) by Portuguese teams, namely improved representation of lakes, snow, river discharge, among others.

This workshop will broadly address these topics, focusing on (but not limiting to) recent developments of the modelling of Surface-Atmosphere interactions. A special issue of MDPI Atmosphere will compile the main outcomes of this workshop.

Invited Speakers:
Clément Albergel (ESA Climate Applications Scientist, https://climate.esa.int/en/esa-climate/esa-climate-office/)
Tânia Casal (ESA/ESTEC, https://www.esa.int/About_Us/ESTEC)
Gianpaolo Balsamo (ECMWF, https://www.ecmwf.int/en/about/who-we-are/staff-profiles/gianpaolo-balsamo)
Patrick Samuelsson (SMHI, project leader for surface model and assimilation, http://www.umr-cnrm.fr/accord/)

In this second workshop on Numerical Weather Prediction in Portugal, abstract submission should focus primarily on the main topic, but other relevant contributions will be considered. Each presenter should indicate his/her preference regarding oral or poster communication.

Submissions are now open from this link.

We are looking forward to your contribution and we hope we can count on you to spread the workshop announcement by everyone who could have an interest. The participation of young scientists is more than welcome!

The organizing committee,

Maria José Monteiro (IPMA/IST/CENTEC)

João Paulo Martins (IPMA/IDL)

Rui Salgado, Flávio Couto (U Évora/ICT)

Rita Cardoso (FCUL/IDL)

Mariana Bernardino (IST/CENTEC)

José Castanheira, David Carvalho (UA/CESAM)

João Santos (UTAD/CITAB)

José Luis Argaín (UAlg)