WORLD METEOROLOGICAL ORGANIZATION________________________COMMISSION FOR ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES
THORPEX ICSC
GIFS-TIGGE Working Group
Fourth Meeting

CAS/THORPEX ICSC
GIFS-TIGGE-04/
Doc.2.1(1)(17.I.2007)__________
Item: 2.1

CMA, Beijing, China
21-22 March 2007

Original: ENGLISH

GIFS-TIGGE DEVELOPMENTS(Summary of the Third Meeting of the TIGGE Working Group, held in Landshut)

Present

1.

Philippe Bougeault, Zoltan Toth, David Parson, Chen De Hui,Ken Mylne, Yoshiaki Takeuchi, Sang-Ok Han, Rolf Langland (forCraig Bishop), Kamal Puri (for Beth Ebert), Martin Ehrendorfer, JeffWhitaker (for Tom Hamill), Richard Swinbank, Laurie Wilson, JimCaughey, Warren Tennant, Barbara Brown
Survey of current and planned data provision to the TIGGE data bases

i. The ECMWF is providing most of the fields request up to Day 15 (since thestart of its variable resolution system, Days 1-10 are at T399 resolution, days
11-15 at T255.
ii. The Met Office is providing all requested fields except 10 single level fields
which are difficult to compute.
iii. The JMA is providing a large number of fields and the remaining fields areexpected for March or April 2007.
iv. The CMA has sent its metadata, and is now running a 15 member ensemble.
They expect to provide all fields (except CAPE and sunshine duration) by end
2006. In addition, MARS has been installed at CMA and will be used for theCMA TIGGE database. The links with ECMWF and NCAR have been
established and the transmission speeds have been tested.
v. The BMRC has now taken GRIB2 well in hand. They expect to deliver mostTIGGE fields by first quarter 2007.
vi. The KMA is ready to send TIGGE data including the first 9 surface fields. Dueto a misunderstanding, discussions with ECMWF have started only recently.
vii. The FNMOC will contribute through the NAEFS.
concerning TIGGE has not yet started.

Discussion with NCAR

viii. The MSC expects to contribute all fields by March 2007.

CAS/THORPEX ICSC GIFS-TIGGE-04/Doc.2.1 (1), p. 2

ix. The NCEP is sending 41 fields now to NCAR and will send 30 surface fields
by September 07 and all fields by September 08.
x. The NCAR confirmed that NCEP data currently received at NCAR can beformatted with correct TIGGE headers, and retransmitted to ECMWF
immediately. This concerns 41 upper level fields. NCAR and NCEP willconsider adding as rapidly as possible the easier surface fields. The NCAR
also mentioned that their data portal is ready for distribution of global fields(as archived) and that they want to start distributing data to beta-users assoon as possible.
2.

Discussion on the opening of the initial service to users

The group agreed that it will be useful for NCAR and ECMWF to test data distributionto beta-users as quickly as possible. This will be arranged by the archiving centres.
It was considered necessary to reach certain criteria before the official
announcement of the opening of the service to general users can be made. The
criteria agreed by the group are the following:i. Data from at least 5 providers available in at least 2 archiving centres.
ii. At least the 41 upper air fields plus the 8 following single level fields: meansea level pressure, surface pressure, orography, surface wind (u and vcomponents), surface air temperature, surface air dew point, total precipitation.
iii. Occasional data gaps inferior to 5% for each data provider on at least onemonth.
iv. Minimum functionality for user access: Interpolation on global lat-lon grids
specified by the users, and sub-setting in space, time and parameter.
It was also agreed that all data received in the archive centres before the opening of
the service would be kept. So the datasets from various providers will not start at thesame date, but this will allow early research on some aspects.
3.

Discussion on metadata

It was agreed that Ken Mylne (chair ET-EPS) will circulate a refined version of themetadata list for discussion within one month. Then the WG will be given one monthfor comments, and then the general THORPEX community will be offered thepossibility to comment as well. After this initial contribution, the role of ET-EPS will
evolve into one of monitoring and advising on metadata needs. The metadatashould be organized in such a way that each data provider can update its own
metadata without intermediary. The location of the metadata files will be agreed
between NCAR and ECMWF.

CAS/THORPEX ICSC GIFS-TIGGE-04/Doc.2.1 (1), p. 3

The proposal, made by Richard Swinbank, to have one more parameter in the GRIB
files to store information on possible anomalies of execution was not carried forward.
4.

Terms of reference of TIGGE-LAM panel

Revisions will be made to include reference to cooperation with THORPEX regional
committees and the invitation to the chair of the TIGGE-LAM panel to attend
meetings of the GIFS-TIGGE WG.
Items 4 and 5 will be merged in a single item.
5.

Agenda and date of the next meeting

This should cover the following items:
i.
ii.
iii.
iv.
v.

Phase 2
Observations and verification
Links to SERA
Preparations of the User Workshop
Provision of data to the BeiJing08 RDP

The group agreed that this next meeting should be held relatively quickly. The
second half of March 2007 was agreed as the target date, subject to confirmationthat the meetings of the THORPEX SAB and TAB are postponed, and pending
confirmation of an invitation of GIFS-TIGGE to meet in China.
6.

AOB - Provision of data to BeiJing 08 RDPThis item was proposed by Chen De Hui, unfortunately this item could not be treatedbecause of insufficient of time. It was agreed to have it as an item of the agenda of
the next meeting.