#newfcsystem
IFS Cycle 45r1 is an upgrade with many scientific contributions, including changes in data assimilation (both in the EDA and the 4DVAR), in the use of observations, and in modelling. The new cycle only includes meteorological changes; there are no technical changes, e.g. new resolutions.
The page will be updated as required. It was last changed on 09.05.2018.
For a record of changes made to this page please refer to Document versions.
Further information and advice regarding the upgrade can be obtained from User Support.
The planned timetable for the implementation of the IFS Cycle 45r1 is as follows:
Date | Event |
---|---|
21.03.2018 | Initial Publication |
April 2018 | Initial announcement, with test data in MARS |
May 2018 | Availability of test data in dissemination |
5 June 2018 | Expected date of implementation |
The timetable represents current expectations and may change in light of actual progress made.
We have now entered the release candidate testing phase of IFS Cycle 45r1. HRES and ENS test data are available in dissemination.
Assimilation
Observations
Retuning of the radiosonde observation error, and introduction of a scheme to account for radiosonde drift;
Introduction of temperature bias correction of old-style AIREP observations; aircraft temperature varBC predictor upgraded to a three predictor model (cruise, ascent, descent); reduced thinning of aircraft data;
Assimilation of JASON-3 and Sentinel-3A altimeters, and use of new altimeters for wave data assimilation;
Model
The following evaluation of the new cycle is based on the alpha testing. Scorecards of the new cycle are now available.
The new cycle leads to improvements in HRES upper-air fields. Verified against the model analysis, a positive signal is seen throughout the troposphere for most parameters, except temperature in the lower troposphere at shorter ranges. The latter is mainly a result of changes to the analysis, as confirmed by corresponding neutral results against observations. Upper-air improvements are more pronounced in the tropics, especially for wind and temperature. Verified against observations, upper-air changes are overall positive in the tropics except for relative humidity, and neutral to slightly positive in the extratropics. Upper-air results for the ENS verified against analysis are mostly positive in the tropics but more neutral in the extratropics. The negative signal for temperature in the lower troposphere at shorter lead times is again mainly due to changes in the analysis. Against observations, results are mostly negative in the extratropics at early lead times and significantly positive in the tropics, with the exception of relative humidity at 700hPa. The negative impact in the extratropics is partly due to a slight reduction in ensemble spread associated with the transition to a physically more realistic SPPT scheme. Whether or not this reduced spread is genuinely detrimental depends on whether observation errors are taken into account in the verification which has not been done routinely so far. Experimental verification against radiosonde data that takes observation error into account indicates that a large fraction of the negative ENS results disappear or become statistically non-significant.
There is an overall improvement in 2m temperature both in the HRES and ENS, particularly for Europe. 2m humidity is largely neutral for HRES, but positive for ENS, particularly in the tropics. 10 m wind speed is largely neutral in the HRES and slightly negative in the ENS. Precipitation in the HRES is improved in terms of categorical verification (e.g. SEEPS), and near-coastal precipitation in warm-rain dominated situations is significantly improved due to changes in the cloud physics. However, these changes also lead to more activity at higher precipitation rates in active regions such as the East Asian monsoon, and as a result error measures such as RMSE or CRPS (for the ENS) are increased. The negative signal for significant wave height against analysis is a result of changes to the analysis from a large increase in observation usage, and verification against observations (buoys) shows the results are neutral for both HRES and ENS.
The implementation of the ocean-atmosphere coupling in the HRES removes the overall negative bias in tropical cyclone central pressure and thereby reduces the mean absolute intensity error by about 10% in the short range, and about 20% from day 5 onwards. Evaluations so far show statistically neutral results for the position error.
Changes in scores for the monthly system are generally positive across the range of parameters, with significance in week 1 for tropical winds. The only indication of a degradation is precipitation in the tropics with a consistent negative signal across all 4 weeks. There is an indication of a positive effect on skill across all parameters in the European domain. The MJO Index was significantly underspread, but changes in 45r1 to the SPPT scheme have brought the spread and error in close agreement throughout the 30 day forecast range. The underestimation of the MJO Index amplitude error has been significantly improved throughout the forecast.
The re-forecasts for the cycle 45r1 are computed from 3 May 2018. Therefore, the model climate used for the Extreme Forecast Index and other products is using a mixture of cycle 43r3 and cycle 45r1 re-forecast data. We will have a model climate fully based on cycle 45r1 date by 22 May 2018, in time before the implementation date of the new cycle. Users planning to build a model climate using the cycle 45r1 test re-forecasts will also need to include cycle 43r3 re-forecast data during the following two weeks.
The GRIB model identifiers (generating process identification number) for cycle 45r1 will be changed as follows:
GRIB 1 Section 1 Octets | GRIB 2 Section 4 Octets | grib_api key | Component | Model ID | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Old | New | ||||
6 | 14 | generatingProcessIdentifier | Atmospheric model | 148 | 149 |
Ocean wave model | 113 | 114 | |||
HRES stand-alone ocean wave model | 213 | 214 |
Extended output have been added in cycle 45r1, including precipitation rates, CAPE indices and a total lightning flash density.
paramId | Shortname | name | Description | units | GRIB edition | Component | Test data available | Dissemination | ecCharts | Proposed for Catalogue |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
228050 | litoti | Instantaneous total lightning flash density | Instantaneous value of total (cloud-to-cloud and cloud-to-ground) lightning flash density | flashes km-2 day-1 | 2 | HRES / ENS | ![]() | ![]() | TBC | ![]() |
228051 | litota1 | Averaged total lightning flash density in the last hour | Averaged total (cloud-to-cloud and cloud-to-ground) lightning flash density in the last hour | flashes km-2 day-1 | 2 | HRES / ENS | ![]() | ![]() | TBC | ![]() |
228057 | litota3 | Averaged total lightning flash density in the last 3 hours | Averaged total (cloud-to-cloud and cloud-to-ground) lightning flash density in the last 3 hours | flashes km-2 day-1 | 2 | HRES / ENS | ![]() | ![]() | TBC | ![]() |
228058 | litota6 | Averaged total lightning flash density in the last 6 hours | Averaged total (cloud-to-cloud and cloud-to-ground) lightning flash density in the last 6 hours | flashes km-2 day-1 | 2 | HRES / ENS | ![]() | ![]() | TBC | ![]() |
260048 | tprate | Total precipitation rate | Total precipitation rate (instantaneous) | kg m-2 s-1 | 2 | HRES / ENS | ![]() | ![]() | TBC | ![]() |
228035 | mxcape6 | maximum CAPE in the last 6 hours | Maximum CAPE in the last 6 hours | J kg-1 | 2 | HRES / ENS | ![]() | ![]() | TBC | ![]() |
228036 | mxcapes6 | maximum CAPES in the last 6 hours | Maximum CAPE-shear in the last 6 hours | m2 s-2 | 2 | HRES / ENS | ![]() | ![]() | TBC | ![]() |
162071 | viwve | Vertical integral of eastward water vapour flux | Vertical integral of eastward water vapour flux | kg m-1 s-1 | 1 | HRES / ENS | ![]() | ![]() | TBC | ![]() |
162072 | viwvn | Vertical integral of northward water vapour flux | Vertical integral of northward water vapour flux | kg m-1 s-1 | 1 | HRES / ENS | ![]() | ![]() | TBC | ![]() |
151131 | ocu | Ocean current zonal component | Ocean current zonal component | m s-1 | 1 | HRES / ENS | ![]() | ![]() | TBC | ![]() |
151132 | ocv | Ocean current meridional component | Ocean current meridional component | m s-1 | 1 | HRES / ENS | ![]() | ![]() | TBC | ![]() |
For more details on the new lightning parameters, please read the Newsletter article "Promising results for lightning predictions". |
We recommend the use of the following versions of ECMWF's software packages to manipulate the cycle 45r1 data.
These versions are available through the module tag 'may18' on the system at ECMWF, e.g. eccodes/may18, and will become the default ones on 22 May. |
ecCodes version 2.7.3 provides full support for the new model output parameters introduced in IFS Cycle 45r1.
GRIB API version 1.26.0 provides full support for the new model output parameters introduced in IFS Cycle 45r1.
GRIB API is no longer loaded in the default user environment on the ECMWF systems. We will discontinue support for GRIB API at the end of 2018 and recommend to use ecCodes. |
The version of EMOSLIB used to interpolate IFS Cycle 43r3 data is suitable to handle 45r1 data.
EMOSLIB is no longer loaded in the default user environment on the ECMWF systems. |
Magics version 3.0.3 and Metview version 5.0.2 provide full support for the new model output parameters introduced in IFS Cycle 45r1.
Test data from the IFS Cycle 45r1 test suites are available in MARS. The data are available with experiment version 0072 (MARS keyword EXPVER=0072) starting from 06 UTC on 18 March 2018.
The data can be accessed in MARS from:
Only registered users of ECMWF computing systems will be able to access the test data sets in MARS.
The data should not be used for operational forecasting. Please report any problems you find with this data to User Support.
IFS Cycle 45r1 test data from the release candidate testing stage are available through the test dissemination system. Users of ECMWF dissemination products can trigger transmission of test products by logging in to the test ECPDS system at https://ecpds-xmonitor.ecmwf.int/ (or https://msaccess.ecmwf.int:7443) in the usual manner. In order to receive the test products, users have to have their firewall open to the relevant ECPDS Data Movers:
Internet transfers: 193.61.196.104 ( ecpds-xma.ecmwf.int ), 193.61.196.105 ( ecpds-xmb.ecmwf.int ) and 193.61.196.113 ( ecpds-xmc.ecmwf.int )
RMDCN transfers: 136.156.8.132 ( mspds-dm4.ecmwf.int ) and 136.156.8.133 ( mspds-dm5.ecmwf.int )
The IFS Cycle 45r1 test products are available as version number 72 (file names ending with '72'). The test products are generated daily, shortly behind real-time from both the 00UTC and 12UTC runs and based on the operational dissemination requirements and the IFS Cycle 45r1 test data for HRES, HRES-WAM, HRES-SAW., ENS, ENS-WAM and ENS extended..
Should you require any assistance with IFS Cycle 45r1 test dissemination products, please contact Data Services.
The derived products from the ENS (files named with dissemination stream indicator Y and U) will be made available shortly in ECPDS. The Cycle 45r1 new model output parameters listed above will be available through the dissemination after the implementation date. Users wanting to test these parameters will need to access them through MARS. On the implementation date, we will freeze the access to the dissemination requirements interface for a few hours. |
IFS cycle 45r1 test data will shortly become available in ecCharts.
Web charts, including ENS meteograms, based on IFS cycle 45r1 test data will shortly become available.
Member State users of the "Simple time-critical jobs" framework can test that their scripts will work with the IFS Cycle 45r1 test data by using the limited ECaccess 'events' set up for this purpose:
Event ID | Event name | Description |
---|---|---|
1633 | e_ms090 | At this stage, the e-suite step 090 (HRES-BC) has been generated. |
1634 | e_ms144 | At this stage, the e-suite step 144 (ENS-BC) has been generated. |
1635 | e_ms240 | At this stage, the e-suite step 240 (HRES) has been generated. |
1636 | e_ms360 | At this stage, the e-suite step 360 (ENS) has been generated. |
1637 | e_mslaw | At this stage, the e-suite step law (HRES-SAW) has been generated. |
1638 | e_ms1104 | At this stage, the e-suite step 1104 (ENS-MOFC) has been generated. |
1639 | msrefc | At this stage, the e-suite step refc (REFORECAST) has been updated. |
For these events, MSJ_EXPVER environment variable is set to 0072 and can be used to specify the IFS Cycle 45r1 test data in any MARS retrievals.
These events are intended for testing technical aspects only and should not be used for operational forecasting.
Option 2 or 3 time-critical applications can be tested with the IFS Cycle 45r1 test data retrieved from MARS or received in Dissemination.
Date | Reason for update |
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21.03.2018 |
|
12.04.2018 |
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09.05.2018 |
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