Reliable and accurate Arctic weather forecasts
Climate change leads to increased activity in the Arctic, but rough weather conditions can lead to this activity being associated with high risks. The primary objective of the Alertness project is to develop world leading, reliable and accurate Arctic weather forecasts and warnings. These will benefit maritime operations, business and society.
Research from Alertness will result in tools and methods that increase our knowledge of weather conditions in the Arctic, which in turn provides better forecasts of potentially dangerous weather situations. The goal is to provide better warnings up to three days in the future.
We build on the science for service work required for MET Norway to fulfil its mandate, as well as established mechanisms between the service provider and the user community. Alertness will be embedded in an existing value chain structure for weather forecasting, which the project will both exploit and expand. We will identify and focus on weather situations that have major significance for users of the arctic region.
Background info
Alertness (Advanced models and weather prediction in the Arctic) is a 4-year (2018–2021) research project about Arctic weather prediction financed by the Norwegian Research Councils program for polar research POLARPROG.
Alertness is led by the Meteorological Institute of Norway (MET Norway) and is a cooperation between MET Norway, University of Bergen (UiB), Norwegian Research Centre (NORCE), University of Tromsø (UiT), The Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI), Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center (NERSC) and The University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS).
Alertness is endorsed by the Year of Polar Prediction (YOPP).
The alertness project summarized. click to Download pdf.
Project partners
Alertness is led by the Meteorological Institute of Norway (MET Norway) and is a cooperation between MET Norway, University of Bergen (UiB), NORCE, University of Tromsø (UiT), The Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI), Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center (NERSC) and The University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS).
International cooperation
Alertness cooperates with the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF).
Alertness has visiting research grants for scientists from the Swedish Meteorological Institute (SMHI) and from the Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI).
The Polar Prediction Project (PPP) and Year of Polar Prediction (YOPP)
The Polar Prediction Project (PPP) is a 10-year (2013–2022) endeavour of the World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO) World Weather Research Programme (WWRP) with the aim of promoting cooperative international research enabling development of improved weather and environmental prediction services for the polar regions, on time scales from hours to seasonal.
The Year of Polar Prediction (YOPP) is the flagship activity of the the Polar Prediction Project (PPP) with the aim of enabling a significant improvement in environmental prediction capabilities for the polar regions and beyond, by coordinating a period of intensive observing, modelling, verification, user-engagement and education activities.
Alertness is endorsed by YOPP, and MET Norway will play an active part in many areas during YOPP, including launching additional observations and operational weather, ocean and ice forecasting. For instance, MET Norway have at present one of the most sophisticated and detailed numerical weather prediction models dedicated to the Arctic, AROME-Arctic.
Publications
PhDs
Máté Mile:
Advanced assimilation of satellite observations in a limited-area numerical weather prediction model over the Arctic region. Doctoral thesis, University of Oslo, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Department of Geosciences, ISSN 1501-7710 No. 2650.
Marvin Kähnert:
Advancing the Capabilities of Numerical Weather Prediction - On the Utility of Individual Tendency Output
2023
Rafael Grote and Andrew Thomas Singleton:
A Comparison of Sea Surface Temperature Perturbation Methods for a Convection Permitting Ensemble Prediction System Over the European Arctic
2022
Marvin Kähnert, Harald Sodemann, Teresa M. Remes, Carl Fortelius, Eric Bazile, and Igor Esau:
Spatial Variability of Nocturnal Stability Regimes in an Operational Weather Prediction Model. Boundary-Layer Meteorol 186, 373–397 (2023).
Andrew Thomas Singleton:
Addressing predictability in the AROME-Arctic ensemble using Stochastically Pertrubed Parameters (SPP) and Ensemble Data Assimilation (EDA). ALERTNESS project deliverable.
Roohollah Azad, Roger Randriamampianina:
All-sky assimilation of MHS humidity microwave radiances in Arome-Arctic. ALERTNESS project deliverable.
Máté Mile, Roohollah Azad & Gert-Jan Marseille:
Assimilation of Aeolus Rayleigh-clear winds using a footprint operator in AROME-Arctic mesoscale model
Bjørg Jenny Kokkvold Engdahl, Tim Carlsen, Morten Køltzow & Trude Storelvmo:
The Ability of the ICE-T Microphysics Scheme in HARMONIE-AROME to Predict Aircraft Icing, Weather and Forecasting, 37(2), 205-217. DOI: 10.1175/WAF-D-21-0104.1
Morten Køltzow, Harald Schyberg, Eivind Støylen & Xiaohua Yang, X:
Value of the Copernicus Arctic Regional Reanalysis (CARRA) in representing near-surface temperature and wind speed in the north-east European Arctic. Polar Research, 41.
2021
Irina Sandu, François Massonnet, Guillian van Achter, Juan C. Acosta Navarro, Gabriele Arduini, Peter Bauer, Ed Blockley, Niels Bormann, Matthieu Chevallier, Jonathan Day, Mohamed Dahoui, Thierry Fichefet, Daniela Flocco, Thomas Jung, Ed Hawkins, Stephane Laroche, Heather Lawrence, Jørn Kristiansen, Eduardo Moreno-Chamarro, Pablo Ortega, Emmanuel Poan, Leandro Ponsoni & Roger Randriamampianina (2021):
The potential of numerical prediction systems to support the design of Arctic observing systems: Insights from the APPLICATE and YOPP projects. Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, 1–15. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1002/qj.4182
Marvin Kähnert, Harald Sodemann, Wim C. de Rooy & Teresa M. Valkonen:
On the Utility of Individual Tendency Output: Revealing Interactions between Parameterized Processes during a Marine Cold Air Outbreak. Weather and Forecasting 36, 6, 1985-2000
Morten Køltzow, Rafael Grote & Andrew Singleton:
On the configuration of a regional Arctic Numerical Weather Prediction system to maximize predictive capacity, Tellus A: Dynamic Meteorology and Oceanography, 73:1, 1-18, DOI: 10.1080/16000870.2021.1976093
Yurii Batrak:
Implementation of an Adaptive Bias-Aware Extended Kalman Filter for Sea-Ice Data Assimilation in the HARMONIE-AROME Numerical Weather Prediction System,
Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, Aug 4, 2021
Roger Randriamampianina, Niels Bormann, Morten Køltzow, Heather Lawrence, Irina Sandu, Zheng Qi Wang:
Relative impact of observations on a regional Arctic numerical weather prediction system, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, March 17, 2021
Máté Mile, Roger Randriamampianina, Gert-Jan Marseille & Ad Stoffelen:
Supermodding - a special footprint operator for mesoscale data assimilation using scatterometer winds.
Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, Jan 20, 2021
I. A. Renfrew et al.:
An evaluation of surface meteorology and fluxes over the Iceland and Greenland Seas in ERA5 reanalysis: The impact of sea ice distribution
Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, Jan 2021
2020
Emily Gleeson, Stephen Outten, Bjørg Jenny Kokkvoll Engdahl, Eoin Whelan, Ulf Andrae, and Laura Rontu:
HARMONIE-AROME single-column tools and experiments
Advances in Science and Research, Contributions in Applied Meteorology and Climatology, Nov 16, 2020
Teresa Valkonen, Patrick Stoll, Yurii Batrak, Morten Køltzow, Thea Maria Schneider, Emmy E. Stigter, Ola B. Aashamar, Eivind Støylen and Marius O. Jonassen:
Evaluation of a sub-kilometre NWP system in an Arctic fjord-valley system in winter
Tellus A: Dynamic Meteorology and Oceanography, Oct 28, 2020
Morten Køltzow, Barbara Casati, Thomas Haiden and Teresa Valkonen:
Verification of Solid Precipitation Forecasts from Numerical Weather Prediction Models in Norway
Weather and forecasting, Oct 15, 2020
Matilda Hallerstig, Linus Magnusson, Erik W. Kolstad and Stephanie Mayer:
How grid‐spacing and convection representation affected the wind speed forecasts of four polar lows
Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, Sep 20, 2020
de Rooy et al.:
Improved parametrization of the boundary layer in Harmonie- Arome (focusing on low clouds)
ALADIN-HIRLAM Newsletter nr 15, July 23, 2020
Andrew Singleton and Rafael Grote:
Verification of EPS forecasts using AROME-Arctic (Alertness project deliverable)
MET-report from The Norwegian Meteorological Institute, June 2020.
Stoll, Patrick J., Teresa Valkonen, Rune G. Graversen, and Gunnar Noer:
A well observed polar low analysed with a regional and a global weather‐prediction model.
Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, Feb 2020
Morten Køltzow, Matilda Hallerstig, Rune Graversen, Marius Jonassen, Stephanie Mayer:
Verification metrics and diagnostics appropriate for the (maritime) Arctic
Alertness project deliverable.
MET-report from The Norwegian Meteorological Institute, Feb 2020.
2019
Renfrew, I.A., R.S. Pickart, K. Våge, G.W. Moore, T.J. Bracegirdle, A.D. Elvidge, E. Jeansson, T. Lachlan-Cope, L. McRaven, L. Papritz, J. Reuder, H. Sodemann, A. Terpstra, S. Waterman, H. Valdimarsson, A. Weiss, M. Almansi, F. Bahr, A. Brakstad, C. Barrell, J.K. Brooke, B. Brooks, I.M. Brooks, M.E. Brooks, E.M. Bruvik, C. Duscha, I. Fer, H.M. Golid, M. Hallerstig, I. Hessevik, J. Huang, L. Houghton, S. Jónsson, M. Jonassen, K. Jackson, K. Kvalsund, E.W. Kolstad, K. Konstali, J. Kristiansen, R. Ladkin, P. Lin, A. Macrander, A. Mitchell, H. Olafsson, A. Pacini, C. Payne, B. Palmason, M.D. Pérez-Hernández, A.K. Peterson, G.N. Petersen, M.N. Pisareva, J.O. Pope, A. Seidl, S. Semper, D. Sergeev, S. Skjelsvik, H. Søiland, D. Smith, M.A. Spall, T. Spengler, A. Touzeau, G. Tupper, Y. Weng, K.D. Williams, X. Yang, and S. Zhou:
The Iceland Greenland Seas Project.
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Sep 2019
Køltzow, M., B. Casati, E. Bazile, T. Haiden, and T. Valkonen, 2019: An NWP Model Intercomparison of Surface Weather Parameters in the European Arctic during the Year of Polar Prediction Special Observing Period Northern Hemisphere
Weather and Forecasting, Aug 2019
An interview with the lead author of this paper can be found here.
2018
I. Esau, M. Tolstykh, R. Fadeev, V. Shashkin, S. Makhnorylova, V. Miles and V. Melnikov:
Systematic errors in northern Eurasian short-term weather forecasts induced by atmospheric boundary layer thickness,
Environmental Research Letters, Dec 2018.
L. Papritza and H. Sodemann:
Characterizing the Local and Intense Water Cycle during a Cold Air Outbreak in the Nordic Seas
Monthly Weather Review, Oct 2018.