The Evolution of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) Data Services

The evolution of meteorological sciences, the weather market and cloud services bring new opportunities and challenges to the way meteorological data are accessed, used and re-used. Vast amounts of observational, model and post-processed data are increasingly available, also thanks to the rapid expansion of the private sector, including in areas traditionally occupied by governmental and intergovernmental meteorological organisations. Cloud technology offers ways to ingest and process these data and facilitate the creation of decision support systems based on many different sources, however there is mounting awareness of the barriers posed by high volumes of data that still need to be transferred across different platforms using different technologies and often subject to different policies.

ECMWF proposes an approach aiming at favouring the creation of an eco-system of meteorological data and services where European national meteorological services, international organisations and the industry can co-operate, as producers and consumers of weather data and services in a less fragmented environment. Such environment, based on cloud technology, is designed to minimize and optimize data transfers, building on experiences led by the European Commission’s Copernicus Programme.