ECMWF weather data soon to be open to public [2th part]

Source : The Parliament Mag par Umberto Modigliani, ECMWF Deputy Director of Forecasts, responsible, with the department director, continuous production of forecasts and relations with users.

Early October, the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (CEPMMT) will take a big step forward by making hundreds of its forecast maps available to everyone free of charge.
These changes are part of a broader European initiative to make public sector data free and open, encourage innovation and support a thriving, data-driven digital economy.

So far, full access to these forecast maps was restricted to national meteorological and hydrological services of ECMWF Member States and Cooperating States, to members of the World Meteorological Organization and commercial customers. Access was subject to a series of personalized licenses and high fees.

Maps will cover the entire world, all types of weather situations, including extreme events, et, which is very important, will also include information based on probabilities, providing guidance on confidence in forecasts.

Precipitation and mean sea level pressure forecasts are just one example of hundreds of ECMWF maps that will be made available.

Forecast maps will be free and open, so users will be able to share, redistribute and adapt information according to their needs, even for commercial applications, provided that ECMWF is mentioned as a source. These changes also mean the move to an open data policy for historical information in the huge ECMWF stockpile., which contains billions of weather fields, including recent and past forecasts. It represents the largest archive of this type of data in the world.

Rolf Brennerfelt, Chairman of the ECMWF Political Advisory Committee explains :

“The societal benefits associated with free and open data are significant. We recognize that change comes with financial challenges, but the benefits outweigh these challenges. We are in a period of transition, and this first batch of data made freely accessible is a very good start and clearly illustrates our commitment to this principle”

Under the European Open Data Directive, EU member states will be required to make as much information available for reuse as possible. Weather forecasts are considered “high value” data, whose reuse is associated with particularly significant benefits for society and the economy.

The EU Copernicus Earth observation program (¹), several elements of which are implemented by the ECMWF, already apply, and this since its creation, a policy of free and open data. With several thousand users, the program offers a multitude of examples of the benefits that open data can bring.

This gradual evolution towards free and open data aims to support creativity and innovation in the field of scientific research as well as meteorological applications., and should enable scientific advances, social and economic more necessary and more critical.

What's next? ?

For now, Umberto Modigliani only talks about forecast maps, but Rolf Brennerfelt speaks of a period of transition, of a first batch of data being a good start. It is reasonable to hope that, following the Météo-France initiative, data in GRIB format will be freely accessible. We will finally be able to benefit from IFS models for free, Hirlam, and others who we know are among the best in the world.

–––
(¹) After having successfully coordinated European MyOcean projects since 2009, Mercator Ocean was officially appointed by the European Commission on 11 November 2014 to implement and operate the “Copernicus Marine Environmental Monitoring Service” as part of the European Earth Observation Program Copernicus.
–––

Share ...