Annual Seminar 2026

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

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

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

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

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