ECAM Plenary Discussion

Date: Wednesday, 14 September 2011

Plenary discussion on "Ensemble Forecast products – Optimal Use for the Market?"

Summary report of the discussion.

Focus of the Session

Research departments of the various weather services have invested a lot of money and effort over many years on the use of ensemble techniques and trying to use probability outcomes for decision makers etc. However, there has been a relatively poor take up by the media, customers and government of this type of information.

The session will discuss what needs to be done to present this information in a more meaningful way. In other words what is necessary to stimulate 'the market' (commercial or government) into exploiting this information more fully, as has been done over many years with deterministic output?

Moderator of the Session: Ewen McCallum (United Kingdom Met Office)

    14:45 – 15:45  Introduction and introductory statements by panel experts

    15:45 – 16:15 Coffee break

    16:15 – 17:15 Plenary discussion

The panel members will cover the following aspects

  • Communication;
  • Social science aspects;
  • Customer/user;
  • Operational forecasting;
  • Expertise on ensembles.

Panel Members & Presentations

Dee Cotgrove, Met Office, Head of Communications, United Kingdom (Presentation, PDF, 1.6 MB)
Sebastien Nobert, Department of Geography, King's College London, United Kingdom (Presentation, PDF, 1.7 MB)
Stefan Meulemans, Mercuria, Switzerland
Robert Mureau, Meteo Group, The Netherlands (Presentation, PDF, 900 KB)
Ken Mylne, Met Office, United Kingdom (Presentation, PDF, 400 KB)