Annual Seminar 2026

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Monday, 14 September 2026 Speaker(s)
Arrival and opening
13:00 – 13:30 Registration and coffee
13:30 – 13:45 Welcome and opening
Director of Science and Innovation (ECMWF)
13:45 – 14:00 Practicalities
Tony McNally (ECMWF)
Session 1
14:00 – 14:45 An overview of atmospheric Data Assimilation
Jean-François Caron (Environment and Climate Change Canada)
14:40 – 15:30 Developments in ocean data assimilation and coupling to the atmosphere
Philip Browne (ECMWF)
15:30 – 16:00 Coffee break
16:00 – 16:45 Overview of land data assimilation and land-atmosphere coupling options for NWP
Clara Draper (CIRES / NOAA ESRL PSD)
16:45 – 17:30 Coupling methodology approaches and the example of application to land / atmosphere interactions
Christoph Herbert
Sebastien Massart (ECMWF)
Posters and drinks reception
17:30 – 17:55 Express poster presentations
18:00 – 19:30 Poster session and drinks reception

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Tuesday, 15 September 2026 Speaker(s)
Session 2
09:00 – 09:45 Adapting Data Assimilation methods for Atmospheric Composition
Antje Inness (ECMWF)
09:45 – 10:30 Adapting Data Assimilation methods to reanalysis
Žiga Zaplotnik (European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts)
10:30 – 11:00 Coffee break
11:00 – 11:45 Uncertainty characterisation in Data Assimilation
Loïk Berre (Météo-France)
11:45 – 12:30 Approaches for diagnosing random and systematic errors in observations
Sarah Dance (University of Reading)
12:30 – 13:30 Lunch break
13:30 – 14:15 Accounting for systematic model error in Data Assimilation
Patrick Laloyaux (ECMWF)
14:15 – 15:00 The particular challenges of Data Assimilation for Tropical Cyclones
Giovanna De Chiara (ECMWF)
15:00 – 15:30 Coffee break
15:30 – 16:15 Operational Data Assimilation systems for time-critical applications
Emiliano Orlandi (ECMWF)
16:15 – 17:00 Audience discussion

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Wednesday, 16 September 2026 Speaker(s)
Session 1
09:00 – 09:45 MTG and EPS-SG, Europe’s most advanced operational satellites for Numerical Weather Prediction
Dorothee Coppens (EUMETSAT)
09:45 – 10:30 DANTEX: Advancing the exploitation of Europe's future satellite observations in coupled data assimilation
Philippe Goryl (ESA)
10:30 – 11:00 Coffee break
11:00 – 11:45 The forensics of CAL/VAL of new satellites observations
Chris Burrows (ECMWF)
David Duncan (ECMWF)
11:45 – 12:30 The assimilation of current and future in-situ observations
Magnus Lindskog (ECMWF)
12:30 – 13:30 Lunch break
13:30 – 14:15 Recovering historical observations for climate reanalysis
Bill Bell (ECMWF)
14:15 – 15:00 When observations confront highly nonlinear physical processes
Marta Janiskova (Former ECMWF)
15:00 – 15:30 Coffee break
15:30 – 16:15 Assessing the value and impact of the current observing system
Chiara Piccolo (UK Met Office)
16:15 – 17:00 Predicting the impact of future observing systems: guiding satellite deployment and SOFF
Katie Lean (ECMWF)
17:00 – 17:30 Audience discussion
Seminar dinner
17:30 – 18:00 Pre-dinner drinks
18:00 – 20:00 Dinner

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Thursday, 17 September 2026 Speaker(s)
Session 4
09:00 – 09:45 Emulating background errors for Data Assimilation with ML
Wei Pan (ECMWF)
09:45 – 10:30 Accelerating Data Assimilation systems with ML
Selime Gurol (CERFACS)
Vincent Chabot (Météo France)
10:30 – 11:00 Coffee break
11:00 – 11:45 Modelling interface observations with ML
Iris de Gélis (Estellus-MW and Observatoire de Paris)
11:45 – 12:30 Hybrid ML coupled Data Assimilation of interface observations
Alan Geer (ECMWF)
12:30 – 13:30 Lunch break
13:30 – 14:15 Latent space Data Assimilation
Boštjan Melinc (University of Ljubljana)
14:15 – 15:00 Using Data Assimilation and ML to correct forecast systems with observations
Alban Farchi (ECMWF)
Marcin Chrust (ECMWF)
15:00 – 15:30 Coffee break
15:30 – 16:15 Emulating the full Data Assimilation process with ML
Jan Keller (Deutscher Wetterdienst)
16:15 – 17:00 End-to-end real-time weather forecasting with ML
TBC

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Friday, 18 September 2026 Speaker(s)
Session 5
09:00 – 09:45 The prospects for future ML climate reanalysis directly from observations
Peter Lean (ECMWF)
09:45 – 10:30 The future of Data Assimilation in the AI-revolution
Steve Penny (Sofar Ocean)
10:30 – 11:00 Coffee break
11:00 – 11:45 Final audience discussion
11:45 – 12:30 Discussion and conclusion