Catalyzing Innovation in Weather Science: the World Weather Research Programme

This presentation will describe how the World Meteorological Organization, through its World Weather Research Programme, will develop a research strategy towards the seamless prediction of the Earth system from minutes to months. The World Weather Research Programme was established in 1998, inspired by a similar US initiative, for addressing the growing societal impacts of a range of high-impact weather events over various time- and space scales, such as landfalling tropical cyclones and heavy rainfall. Since its foundation the World Weather Research Programme initiated, endorsed, and facilitated various international research activities that required an especially large critical mass of effort, and that achieved immense progress in Weather Science. As the science is advancing critical questions are arising such as about the potential sources of predictability on weekly, monthly and longer time-scales which are poorly understood up to now; seamless prediction from minutes to months; optimal use of local and global observing capabilities and the effective utilization of massively-parallel supercomputers. In addition, communication for forecasts, warnings and their uncertainty, prediction of impacts and novel demands emerging from a diversification of user needs raise new challenges for weather related research. All of these challenges can only be met through strong interdisciplinary and international collaborations.