Page History

...

Section 8 concentrates on making best use of the extensive range of products available.  The IFS produces a very wide range of products.  Many forecast products regarding the structure of the atmospheric conditions and weather conditions can be viewed on the ECMWF Web Charts (Open Access) or ecCharts (ECMWF Members and Co-operating States) accessed through the ECMWF Forecaster page.   An  Model climates  are an important product produced within the IFS are model climates (.  These are: M-climate for ENS, ER-M-climate for Extended Range ENS, S-M-climate for Seasonal forecasting) which .  They are a wholly model-based assessment of worldwide climatology based on analyses and re-forecasts over a period of years (currently 20 years, but 30 years for seasonal forecasting).  Model products may be deterministic, probabilistic, or in the form of anomalies from normal where normal is defined by  the model climates.  ENS output in the form of charts, plumes, meteograms (and wave meteograms), and charts showing the various evolutions of tropical cyclones and extratropical depressions all give an easy to use presentation of data.  Other charts give indication of the variability and uncertainty among the basic model forecasts or compare the latest model output with its predecessors.  The model climates are used extensively to highlight when occasions when weather conditions that have been forecast by the ENS are locally extreme for that time of year and for the given forecast lead time and the .  The Extreme Forecast Index (EFI), pioneered at ECMWF, compares the forecast probability distribution with the corresponding model climate distribution.  The Shift of Tails (SOT) index complements EFI by providing information about how extreme an event might be by comparing the tail of the ENS distribution with the tail of the M-climate.   The overall aim is to allow assessment of uncertainty to provide the customer with the best and most useful guidance possible. 

...