3D Weather Demos to Research and Innovation Minister Posted on 25 October 2011

JC Desplat, Associate Director at ICHEC, explains the Harmonie model using a 3D visualisation to Minister Sean Sherlock TD (Minister of State with responsiblity for Research & Innovation). The Harmonie model is used by many Northern European MET organisations including Spain, Finland, the Netherlands as well as Ireland. The ICHEC visualisations highlight the improvements to forecasting by moving to a finer grain resolution. High resolutions allow for extreme events such as high winds or heavy rain downpours to be more easily detected in advance.

ICHEC are working in conjunction with MET Éireann to optimise and research various aspects of this model. Harmonie is a weather code based on HIRLAM and ALADIN. ALADIN is a spectral limited-area model developed at Meteo-France based on the ARPEGE/IFS model, and HARMONIE uses a combination of ALADINs non-hydrostatic dynamics and HIRLAM physics to create mesoscale model with a horizontal grid-scale of 2.5km. Harmonie is currently under evaluation as a next-generation replacement for HIRLAM, and is run daily at ICHEC for the MET Éireann operational weather forecast.

These demos were presented at Royal Dublin Society in Ballsbridge, Dublin as part of the European Science Foundation's book launch for "European Success Stories in Industrial Mathematics" on the 19th October 2011. ICHEC contributed to this book in the form of two of the eleven Irish success stories and showcased work in analytics with application to real business problems.