An article describing the ECMWF strategy for climate reanalysis development has been published in the August 2014 issue of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (BAMS). “Toward a consistent reanalysis of the climate system” reviews past and current reanalysis activities at ECMWF and discusses plans for developing consistent climate reanalyses of the coupled Earth-system.
Global reanalyses of the atmosphere, ocean, land surface, and atmospheric composition have played an important role in improving and extending the capabilities of ECMWF's operational forecasting systems. The potential role of reanalysis in support of climate change services in Europe is driving several interesting new developments. These include the production of reanalyses that span a century or more and the implementation of a coupled data assimilation capability suitable for climate reanalysis. Although based largely on ECMWF’s achievements, capabilities, and plans, the article serves more generally to provide a review of pertinent issues affecting past and current reanalyses and a discussion of the major challenges in moving to more fully coupled systems.
Authored by ECMWF’s Dick Dee, Magdalena Balmaseda, Gianpaulo Balsamo, Richard Engelen, Adrian Simmons and Jean-Noël Thépaut, the article is based on a “special topic paper” on reanalysis strategy that was presented to ECMWF’s Scientific Advisory Committee in 2012.
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