The work reports validation of numerical weather forecasts (NWF), QuikSCAT-based wind speed and AMSR-E sea surface temperature (SST) for the surface atmospheric boundary layer in the Indian sector of the Southern Ocean under the International Polar Year. The database consists of wind speed, air temperature, relative humidity, sea level pressure collected along the ship route from Durban (32.4°S...

Figure 6: Density map of blocking events extracted from the UCLA AGCM model data (1985-1989). impact of sea surface temperature anomalies on the rainfall over northeast brazil. Changes in Baroclinic Wave Activity during the Life Cycles of Low-Frequency Circulation Anomalies. Figure 3: Density map of cyclopresence during the northern winter from the ECMWF Advanced Analyses dataset. Figure 4: Den...

We argue that financial analysts can be viewed as participants of two tournaments (the “All-star” tournament and the intrafirm tournament) and examine whether analysts are incentivized by the tournament compensation structure. Using data from 1991 to 2007, we find that interim losers are more likely to increase the boldness of their forecasts in the remainder of the tournament period than inter...

Since the beginning of the ERS-1 mission, ECMWF is involved in the global validation and long-term performance monitoring of the wind and wave Fast Delivery products that are retrieved from the Radar Altimeter (RA), the Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and the Active Microwave Instrument (AMI), on-board the ERS spacecrafts. Their geophysical content is compared with corresponding parameters from ...

Available rawinsonde, automatic weather station (AWS), ship, and synthesized long-term observations are used to evaluate the Antarctic numerical analyses of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) and the U.S. National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) from 1985 to 1994. Twice-daily variations in the ECMWF surface pressure analyses compare closely with AWS units...

Little is known about the effects of revealing information on relative performance during a dynamic tournament. We empirically study the impact of interim rank on risk taking and performance using data on professionals competing in tournaments for large rewards. As our data allows us to observe both the intended action and the performance of each participant, we can thus measure risk taking and...

Clinical trials incorporating treatment selection at pre-specified interim analyses allow to integrate two clinical studies into a single, confirmatory study. In an adaptive interim analysis, treatment arms are selected based on interim data as well as external information. The specific selection rule does not need to be pre-specified in advance in order to control the multiple type I error rat...

Editorial ECMWF regularly reviews the impact that various observing system data has on the forecast. A recent series of such observing system experiments are reported in the first article (page 2). In January 1997, there were severe floods in Greece due to torrential rainfalls over 12/13 J a n u a r y. The ECMWF forecast for that period is discussed on page 9. Three more reports in the ECMWF Te...