Our annual Using ECMWF’s Forecasts (UEF) meeting will focus on visualising meteorological data, running as an in-person and virtual event from 7 to 10 June. Registration and abstract submission are open until 8 April. The format of the event will be adapted if the COVID-19 situation requires it.
The meeting attracts ECMWF users from across the world to discuss the use and performance of ECMWF’s forecasts and related products.
Through oral and poster presentations and interactive workshops, we will explore how the rapidly expanding amount of weather, atmosphere and climate data can be made useable and useful to users through effective visualisation.
UEF2022 will be a hybrid event, running in-person at ECMWF’s headquarters in Reading, UK, and offering virtual attendance for the majority of sessions.
Vast data volumes
The meteorological community produces and uses a vast amount of data every day, an amount that is set to keep on growing.
ECMWF’s new Atos supercomputing facility will enable increases in model resolution, which will significantly increase the amount of forecast data produced.
In addition, as more national meteorological and hydrological services (NMHSs) implement open data initiatives, there is a need to make the raw data accessible and to develop products that use the open data, like ECMWF's OpenCharts. The opening of such data benefits the worldwide meteorological community, but products need to be well visualised to be understood and have maximum impact.
OpenCharts provide access to ECMWF’s current forecasts in graphical form.
Climate and atmospheric composition models are also increasing in complexity as our scientific understanding improves, resulting in more data. This affects the EU-funded Copernicus services implemented by ECMWF: the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) and the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS).
A key theme at UEF2022 will be how to make this growing amount of data available to as many users as possible.
Effective visualisation for effective use
Effective visualisation of data is vital to ensure users can understand and effectively use forecasts and meteorological data. UEF2022 focuses on the following thematic areas, for which we invite oral and poster presentation submissions and workshop proposals:
- Presenting and visualising meteorological data: exploring novel and current ways of visualising weather, atmosphere and climate data, including what works and what doesn't
- Communicating forecast and climate data: looking at how meteorological, atmosphere and climate data is communicated to different users, including using storytelling and different media
- Technology to display and process meteorological data: delving into the platforms used to display data and their functionality and the challenges of making vast volumes of data disseminable and useable
- Data visualisation and understanding in other fields: what meteorology can learn from visualisation examples in other fields, including studies on information and data interpretation by different users.
UEF meetings are open to all ECMWF forecast users around the world. They provide an opportunity to give feedback to ECMWF on forecast performance and the range of available products, to learn about ECMWF forecasting system developments, and to share experiences and network with ECMWF and other users. Last year’s fully virtual meeting attracted over 220 registrants from 51 countries.
Abstract submission and registration
The deadline to register and submit abstracts is 8 April 2022. Forms are available on the Using ECMWF's Forecasts (UEF2022) web page.