Abstract
Abstract. The POSEIDON weather forecasting system became operational at the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research (HCMR) in October 1999. The system with its nesting capability provided 72-h forecasts in two different model domains, i.e. 25- and 10-km grid spacing. The lower-resolution domain covered an extended area that included most of Europe, Mediterranean Sea and N. Africa, while the higher resolution domain focused on the Eastern Mediterranean. A major upgrade of the system was recently implemented in the framework of the POSEIDON-II project (2005–2008). The aim was to enhance the forecasting skill of the system through improved model parameterization schemes and advanced numerical techniques for assimilating available observations to produce high resolution analysis fields. The configuration of the new system is applied on a horizontal resolution of 1/20°×1/20° (~5 km) covering the Mediterranean basin, Black Sea and part of North Atlantic providing up to 5-day forecasts. This paper reviews and compares the current with the previous weather forecasting systems at HCMR presenting quantitative verification statistics from the pre-operational period (from mid-November 2007 to October 2008). The statistics are based on verification against surface observations from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) network across the Eastern Mediterranean region. The results indicate that the use of the new system can significantly improve the weather forecasts.
Highlights
The POSEIDON project was established at the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research (HCMR) in 1997 aiming at the development and implementation of a real time monitoring and an operational forecasting system for the marine environmental conditions of the Greek Seas
This study focused on the performance assessment of the higher-resolution POSEIDON-I (10 km grid spacing; POS-1) and the POSEIDON-II (5 km grid spacing; POS-2) weather forecasts using as reference the surface measurements available from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) network
On the basis of traditional objective verification techniques preliminary results show within the 95% confidence level that the combined effect of the new model parameterization schemes and the advanced numerical techniques for assimilating available observations enhance the accuracy of POSEIDON forecasts
Summary
The POSEIDON project was established at the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research (HCMR) in 1997 aiming at the development and implementation of a real time monitoring and an operational forecasting system for the marine environmental conditions of the Greek Seas. The NWP model is based on the SKIRON/Eta model (Kallos et al, 1997), which is a modified version of the regional Eta Model of the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP). It is fully-coupled with a module for the simulation and the operational forecast of the major phases of the atmospheric dust cycle life such as production, up taking, diffusion, advection and removal (Nickovic et al, 2001), in which dust substance is treated as a passive tracer. The main products of the POSEIDON weather forecasting system are precipitation, snowfall, cloud coverage, near-surface air temperature and winds, sea level pressure, and dust concentration and deposition
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