A hydrological ensemble prediction system, integrating a water balance model with ensemble precipitation forecasts from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) Ensemble Prediction System (EPS), is evaluated for two Belgian catchments using verification methods borrowed from meteorology. The skill of the probability forecast that the streamflow exceeds a given level is mea...

ENVISAT fast delivery RA-2 and ASAR wind and wave products are routinely received, monitored and validated at ECMWF. RA-2 wind speed product is of good quality. Although Ku-band significant wave height (SWH) product is slightly high, it is of high quality. The redundant side B of RA-2 produced SWH product of even better quality. The S-band wave height product is generally of good quality. The i...

Numerical experiments with the global model of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) were devoted to the sensitivity of the modelled evaporation and precipitation to the vegetation Leaf Area Index (LAI). The temporally static LAI-distribution was replaced with a seasonally varying LAI, derived from Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) archives. The seasonality ...

A method is proposed to increase the accuracy of satellite sensorderived near-surface humidity estimates. The method uses an operational atmospheric circulation model to correct the satellite sensor estimates of humidity from their regional bias. The method was applied to twelve orbits of the Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I) selected between 1997 and 1998. The SSM/I-derived humidity esti...

In this study, we compare specific humidity profiles derived from Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere, and Climate (COSMIC) radio occultation (RO) from August to November 2006 with those from different types of radiosonde and from ECMWF global analysis. Comparisons show that COSMIC specific humidity data agree well with ECMWF analysis over different regions of the world f...

The authors present a new, observationally based estimate of the atmospheric energy budget for the Antarctic polar cap (the region poleward of 708S). This energy budget is constructed using state-of-the-art reanalysis products from ECMWF [the ECMWF Interim Re-Analysis (ERA-Interim)] and Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES) top-of-atmosphere (TOA) radiative fluxes for the period ...

European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) ERA-Interim reanalysis total precipitation estimates are validated against ten years of in situ precipitation measurements onboard of ships over the Baltic Sea. A statistical analysis for binary forecasts and mean rain rates derived from all data show a good agreement with observations. However, a closer look reveals an underestimation ...

Despite domain-specific digital archives are growing in number and size, there is a lack of studies describing their architectures and runtime characteristics. This paper investigates the storage landscape of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) whose storage capacity has reached 100 PB and experiences an annual growth rate of about 45%. Out of this storage, we examine...

The wind and wave products from the ERS mission provide an invaluable data set. This paper provides an overview of the performance of both ERS-1 and ERS-2 products on the basis of surface winds from the consistent ECMWF 40-Year Reanalysis (ERA-40), and wave fields from a long term stand-alone wave model hindcast run forced by ERA-40 winds. Furthermore, buoy and other in-situ measurements are us...