12th Europe - USA data exchange meeting
Washington, 7-9 June 1999

Météo-France status report

Bruno Lacroix
Météo-France
SCEM/PREVI/COMPAS
42, av. Coriolis
F-31057 TOULOUSE Cedex

Supercomputer and models, main events since last meeting:

	migration of ARPEGE/ALADIN to VPP700E:	the global and regional models have been running on Fujitsu VPP700E (26 processors with 2Gb memory each) since 29th June 1998. A new supercomputer is expected at the end 1999 (VPP-5000, 31 processors 4 times more powerfull than present ones). 

	Increase of model resolution:			the ARPEGE model resolution has been switched from 149C3.5L27 to 199C3.5L31 on 1st september 1999, and ALADIN equivalent mesh from 12 to 10km. The 3D-VAR analysis configuration is now T127C1L31

	New global model stretched over Indian Ocean: 	a T127C3.5L31 configuration of ARPEGE with its own assimilation cycle (T95C1L31) has been running once a day since 1st december 1998 for La Réunion Island forecasters.

	Use of TOVS radiances:				the ARPEGE assimilation uses now TOVS 120 km radiances instead of SATEM 500km retrievals.
Progress in telecoms:

Raw radiances from NOAA14 (HIRS and MSU), NOAA15 (HIRS, AMSU-A, AMSU-B), and DMSP F13 are transmitted on the Toulouse-Bracknell 128 kbit/s link. The geostationary satellites imagery received at Bracknell (3-hourly Visible and Infra-Red imagery for GMS from Melbourne, and GOES from Dorval) are transmitted to Meteosat via Lannion (Toulouse-Lannion 384 kbit/s dedicated link) for redistribution among EUMETSAT countries  (GOES-E being already received directly at Lannion and retransmitted to Meteosat). 
Use of US data:

	SATEM 500km: 	Monitored and used for verification in the NWP system. 

	TOVS 120km: 		The radiances from TOVS120 km have been assimilated since 8 march 1999, as replacement to SATEM retrievals in the 3D-Var analysis. The coefficient to unbias the calcullated and observed radiances are updated each 6 hour. We use the same scheme as ECMWF, but the coefficients are differents (like our two models). It is a new activity that will enable us to use and monitor TOVS and ATOVS channels.

	Level 1b HIRS:		Ozone computations and comparison to other sources (ground stations, TOMS/Earth Probe and GOME/ERS-2) are performed  globally on research mode. One  goal is to compute a global ozone climatology. Another product is partial column ozone (between  600 and 30hPa) to be used in model assimilation. To test SAF-ozone operational suite, an experimental product of HTO=Hirs/4 Total Ozone, which will be derived from Metop 1 and 2, is copied daily on cnrm-ftp.meteo.fr:/pub-eram/o3saf.

	RHIRS: 		Since we well receive global data, there is no more use of RHIRS radiances, and therefore no further requirements for those data. Many thanks for having provided us with RHIRS data.

	GOES SATOB winds: 	SATOBs (InfraRed and Water Vapour) monitored and used with a thinning (1 over 5, since 8 march 1999) to cope with high resolution data in ARPEGE analysis. We use the same procedure as ECMWF to select and thin the data.

	SSM/I: 			A map is produced twice a day for forecasters (sea-ice and flag of rain). The tests on orbit-by-orbit BTs reception is going on. Since the data are transmitted on the dedicated link, there is no more problem to receive the data (13.54 orbit per day received on average). It is plan to use ice limits to improve the SST analysis in the polar areas, and to use integrated water vapour next year

	ACARS:		Used operationally (wind and temperature) in the NWP assimilation, but with a thining (1 over 5, since 8 mars 1999). All phases (cruise, ascent and descent) are now used. They are monitored by identifier (more than 850 ACARS systems registred), just a few ones are in the blacklist (about 40 for wind or temperature). The thinning is the the same as ECMWF one.

	Profilers:		Their usefulness is linked to the capacity of NWP system to assimilate frequent observations. This is related to the transition to a 4D-Var system, which is expected at Météo-France by 2000; for the time being the work on wind profilers has a relatively low priority: all the main actions on data assimilation at Météo-France have delay so the wind profiler usage also.

	SST analysis:		The SST field is received once a day and archive in GRIB data base. In the next months, it will be used by forecasters and tested with ARPEGE model. There are some problems on the transmission for this product, since about 3 days a month are not received at Toulouse. It may be due to the late hour of transmission (2200UTC for a product dated on 00UTC) which is very close to the limit of 24H after which the data are too old to be processed.

French data

Air France aircrafts:	AMDAR messages on the GTS coming from13 units based on ACARS. Daily more than 1500 observations, corresponding to 40 to 50 ascending phases. No cruise phase data are produced. There are sometimes some bias in temperature, which are communicated to the Air France company. More aircrafts (40) will be equiped for an EUCOS experiment at the end of 1999.

Profiler:			The VHF 52.05 MHz profiler installed end 1995 at La Ferté-Vidame (110km SW from Paris), has been declared non operational in 1997. The problems  mentionned last year where corrected. A new validation period is planned later this year. In case of success, then the data will be sent on GTS in BUFR, using the european sequence of descriptors.