The 8th EnKF Data Assimilation Workshop




Ensemble Data Assimilation at ECMWF: Past, Present and Future

Massimo Bonavita
ECMWF


Talk: MBonavita_8_ENKF_WS.pdf

The recent evolution of data assimilation systems in global NWP has been characterised by the increasing convergence and combination of Variational and Ensemble DA methods. This trend has been spurred by the desire to overcome their respective limitations; by current and foreseeable developments in supercomputer architectures; and by a broader appreciation of the fundamentally probabilistic nature of the estimation and forecasting problem. In this talk we describe the ECMWF experience in combining the two approaches; its impact on analysis and forecast skill for current NWP and in re-analysis applications; and we discuss some of the current challenges in light of the ambitious goals set in the ECMWF 2016-2025 Strategy.