The end of the project is approaching and we are planning our final event for the project. This is planned to take place over two days and is structured around the main themes of CONFESS.

When: afternoon of 5^th of March and morning of 6^th of March

Where: ECMWF offices in Reading (UK)

The agenda is structure around two important themes of CONFESS:  Land (5^th afternoon) and Aerosols (6^th morning). The meeting will end with a panel discussion on the outcomes of CONFESS. The aim is to present a summary of project achievements, legacy, and discuss ways forward.

5th of March 13:00-17:30
Registration and Opening
13:00-13:30	Arrival and registration
13:30-13:45	Welcome and housekeeping	Tanya Warnaars
13:45-14:15	Overview of CONFESS	Magdalena Alonso Balmaseda
CONFESS LAND
14:15-14:35	Overview of CONFESS land developments	Andrea Alessandri
14:35-14:50	CONFESS land datasets and implementation on models	Souhail Boussetta
14:50-15:05	Effective vegetation cover parameterization and model effects	Fransje van Oorschot
15:05-15:20	Predicting the leaf area index with a dynamical seasonal forecast system	Constantin Ardilouze
15:20-15:40 Tea Break
15:40-15:55	Impact  of time-varying LCU and LAI on ECMWF seasonal forecasts	Retish Senan
15:55-16:10	Impact of time-varying LAI on decadal integrations	Andrea Alessandri /Emanuel Di Carlo
16:10-16:30	Multi-model assessment and Recommendations	Constantin Ardilouze
CONFESS LAND: legacy projects
16:30-16:50	Optimizing Fire Prediction through the Integration of CONFESS   Time-Variant LAI in a fuel model	Francesca Di Giuseppe
16:50-17:10	CERISE project synergies	Patricia de Rosnay
17:10-17:25	Questions and comments by advisory board (AB)
17:30-18:30 Ice break
19:00- Dinner (self-funded)
6th of March: 9:15-12:00
CONFESS AEROSOLS
9:15-9:45	Overview of CONFESS aerosols work + Volcanic aerosols	Roberto Bilbao
9:45-10:15	CONFESS Tropospheric Aerosols	Tim Stockdale
10:15-10:35 Coffee Break
10:35-10:50	CONFESS Biomass burning and way forward for prognostic aerosols	Angela Bennedetti
10:50-11:05	Empirical models for fire ignition	Etienne Tourigny
11:05-11:25	Impact of prognostic aerosols in S2S	Ariane Frassoni (invited)
11:25-11:35	Questions, comments by advisory board
CONFESS impact and ways forward
11:35-11:50	Reflecting on project impact. Introduction to panel discussion	Magdalena Alonso Balmaseda
11:50-12:30	Panel Discussion	Carlo Bountempo (AB, C3S) Gabi Hegerl (AB, University of Hamburg, WCRP LHA safe landing climates) Paul Dirmeyer (AB, George Mason University, Lead of S2S Land Focus group) Claire MacIntosh (ESA Climate Office, WCRP ESMO steering group)
12:00	Meeting Closure

CONFESS was actively present in the Sub-seasonal to Seasonal (S2S) Summit, which took place in Reading during the 3^rd -7^th of July 2023, to celebrate the success of 10 years of the S2S WWRP-WCRP program and look at the future.  200 people attended the meeting in person and about 50 attended the meeting online, although the meeting was not hybrid.

The activities of CONFESS are highly relevant for advancing the prediction capabilities at the sub-seasonal and seasonal time scales. Both land/vegetation processes and aerosols, which CONFESS deals with, feature as thematic topics of the S2S program. CONFESS contributed to the summit by inviting international experts on Land (Yongkang Xue, from University of California, Los Angels- UCLA) and Vegetation (Julia Green, from University of Berkley). Both gave invited keynote presentations, and took part on offline discussions and working groups.

The research within CONFESS was presented by Constantin Ardilouze (CNRM, CNRS, Meteo-France, University of Toulous), Angela Benedetti (ECMWF), Magdalena Balmaseda (ECMWF) and Retish Senan (ECMWF). Constantin Ardilouze presented CONFESS research in the land-process session on Tuesday afternoon (Predicting the Leaf Area Index in a dynamical S2S forecasting system). His presentation focused on advances with prognostic vegetation, which identified gaps and challenges ahead. Constantin also gave a poster on the flow-dependence of wintertime S2S prediction skill over Europe.  Angela Benedetti gave a poster on The impact of biomass burning emissions on seasonal prediction: a study using the ECMWF’s coupled Ensemble Prediction System the impact of biomass burning on S2S forecasts of temperature, with a collection of case studies. Magdalena Balmaseda gave an overview talk on the CONFESS project and achievements in the modelling session on Thursday afternoon, with the talk entitled Towards consistent representation of temporal variability of boundary forcings in S2S reforecasts and real-time forecasts. Retish Senan took part in a break-out group for coordinated experimentation on land processes. 

Yongkang Xue (University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)) gave a presentation on Tuesday afternoon on  Progress Towards for better Understanding of the Sources of Global S2S Precipitation Prediction using Land Temperatures Anomaly over high mountains: A brief overview from the GEWEX/LS4P Initiative . Julia Green (University of Berkley) gave a presentation on  An emergent Constraint to Improve the Representation of Biosphere-Atmosphere Feedbacks in Earth System Models

CONFESS work has progressed well. It has accomplished major developments with promising prospects for being implemented in next generation of C3S, and partners are fully engaged with the evaluation of results.  However, due to a variety of factors we have experienced some delay, which due to the interconnected nature of the CONFESS workflow. Because a thorough evaluation is critical for the transition of research developments into operational services, we have added 5 months to extend the duration of CONFESS.

This  extra time means we have the opportunity to ensure wider uptake of CONFESS outputs and results. For example we are working to deliver additional runs to ensure project outputs are relevant for operational implementation. This contributes to us achieving the objective of CONFESS to improve next generation of C3S system.

We are also working to facilitate the usability of CONFESS developments to other Horizon Europe projects such as ASPECT and CERISE, and also potentially for other programmes.

Featured Article titled: Updating land and aerosol properties to improve reanalyses and seasonal forecasts

Authors: Magdalena A. Balmaseda; Tim Stockdale; Souhail Boussetta; Retish Senan; Gianpaolo Balsamo; Angela Benedetti; Tanya Warnaars

Newsletter Number 174 – Winter 2023 (Published in January 2023)

To access the full article please visit:

https://www.ecmwf.int/en/elibrary/81330-newsletter-no-174-winter-202223

CONFESS hosted its second General Assembly with project partners on the Wednesday, 1st December 2021 from 09:00 UK Time.

All work package leaders and most of the project team members were present and presented the progress of the project.

Presentations from the meeting are available below.

Time	Item	Presenter
9:00-9:05	Welcome	Magdalena Alonso Balmaseda (ECMWF)
WP1
9:05-9:10	WP1 update	Constantin Ardilouze (MF)
9:10-9:25	Comparison of LAI trends	Gildas Dayon (MF)
9:25-9:40	Impacts of interannually varying LAI vs. evolving LULC	Souhail Boussetta (ECMWF)
9:40-9:50	Improved effective vegetation cover parameterization	Fransje van Oorschot (CNR-ISAC)
9:50-10:00	Multi-model study on the effect of inter-annually varying LAI	Fransje van Oorschot (CNR-ISAC)
WP2
10:00-10:05	WP2 update	Roberto Bilbao (BSC)
10:05-10:15	Tropospheric and volcanic aerosol developments	Tim Stockdale (ECMWF)
10:15-10:25	Preliminary evaluation of the CONFESS biomass burning experiments with the ECMWF ENS system.	Angela Benedetti (ECMWF)
10:25-10:35	An empirical model for predicting biomass emissions.	Pablo Ortega (BSC)
10:35-10:45	Comparison of CMIP6, EVA and EVA_H volcanic forcings and climate response in EC-Earth3.	Roberto Bilbao (BSC)
10:45-11:00  Coffee break
WP3
11:00-11:05	WP3 update	Lauriane Batté (MF)
11:05-11:20	Impact of interactive vegetation on seasonal prediction in the CNRM-CM model	Gildas Dayon (MF)
11:20-11:35	Effects of the realistic vegetation cover on predictions at seasonal and decadal time scales	Andrea Alessandri / Emanuele DiCarlo (CNR-ISAC)
11:35-11:50	Time-varying vegetation: Initial results from ECMWF seasonal hindcasts	Retish Senan (ECMWF)
11:50-12:05	Impact of volcanic eruptions on decadal predictions	Roberto Bilbao (BSC)
WP4 & closure
12:05 – 12:10	WP4 -Coordination and Dissemination	Tanya Warnaars (ECMWF)
12:10-12:15	Closure

The month of May will be a busy time for the CONFESS consortium who will be presenting at a number of prestigious international events. The end of May is when EGU will hold their Annual General Assembly meeting, which is the same week as the ESA-Living Planet Symposium. These events will see our consortium members travelling to Vienna, where A. Alessanndri (CNR-ISAC) will host a session at EGU where five presentations related to CONFESS will be given. A strong representation will also be in Bonn to present the work of CONFESS at the European Space Agency’s 2022 Living Planet Symposium, which is held every three years. This is an exiting time for the project as we are eager to share our results with the community who can benefit from our findings as well as feedback on our project achievements. These and future presentations over the summer of 2022 are listed in our presentation page.

CONFESS hosted its first public General Assembly online on the Wednesday, 1st December 2021 from 09:00 UK Time.

Over 70 participants from Europe and beyond heard about the objectives and progress of the project.

Presentations from the meeting are available below.

9:00 – 9:40 Welcome and Introduction to the GA

Time	Presenter	Presentation
9:00-9:10	Jean-Noel Thepaut (Director of Copernicus department at ECMWF)	Welcome
9:00-9:20	Magdalena A. Balmaseda (Project Leader)	Introduction to the GA and practicalities

9:20-10:20 CONFESS in the Copernicus Context

Time	Presenter	Presentation
9:20-9:50	Hans Hersbach (ECMWF, invited)	C3S Earth System Reanalyses: progress and planned evolution
9:50-10:20	Antje Innes (ECMWF, invited)	Updates to CAMS reanalyses activities and synergies with climate

10:30 – 12:00 WP1: Continental Surfaces Impact (soil & vegetation, land-use)

Time	Presenter	Presentation
10:30-10:45	Constantin Ardilouze (Meteo France)	Overview of progress in WP1
10:45-11:00	Souhail Boussetta (ECMWF)	Task 1.1 Harmonization of Copernicus observational records with focus on vegetation
11:00-11:15	Andrea Alessandri (CNR)	Task 1.2. Implementation in HTESSEL/SURFEX to assess interannual variability
11:15-11:30	Gildas Dayon (MeteoFrance)	Task 1.3: Sensitivity of land surface conditions to dynamic vegetation
11:30-11:40	Andrea Alessandri (CNR)	Outreach and dissemination. Links to other international projects
11:40-12:00	Questions and discussion

13:00 – 14:15 WP2  Aerosols in Troposphere and Stratosphere

Time	Presenter	Presentation
13:00-13:15	Roberto Bilbao (BSC)	Overview of Progress in WP2
13:15-13:30	Tim Stockdale (ECMWF)	Task 2.1 Harmonization of CMIP6 and C3S/CAMS data with IFS (decadal variations)
13:30-13:45	Angela Benedetti (ECMWF)	Task 2.2. Capability to react to hazardous events: Biomass burning.  PART A: Experimental set up and Biomass Climatology
13:45-14:00	Etienne Tourigny (BSC)	Task 2.2 Capability to react to hazardous events: Biomass burning. PART B:  Empirical model for biomass burning emissions
14:00-14:15	Tim Stockdale (ECMWF)	Task 2.3 Capability to react to volcanic eruptions events
14:15-14:30	Questions/Discussion
14:30-15:00	Joao Teixeira (UK MetOffice, Invited)	Coupling fire with vegetation  in the UK MetOffice Earth System Model
15:15-15:45	Julia Green (University of Berkeley, Invited)	Regional atmosphere-terrestrial biosphere feedbacks

15:45-16:15 WP3 Integration and testing in initialised forecast and multi-year integration and Final Discussion

Time	Presenter	Presentation
15:45-16:00	Lauriane Batte (Meteo France)	Overview and progress: Experimental protocol
16:00-16:15	Final discussion
16:15	Closure

CONFESS has completed its first nine months of its planned activities, resulting in 7 deliverables, of which 8 are publicly available.

CONFESS partners are busy preparing first data sets in the form of harmonized CAMS and CMIP6 datasets for aerosols that are due to be published in October 2021.

Regular meetings are taking place both within the consortium as well as with stakeholders from the Copernicus Climate Change Service to ensure the results of the project will add value,

If you want to learn more about the project, please do not hesitate to contact us.

The first set of deliverables have been published on the website. These include:

• D4.2 Project Website
• D4.3 Dissemination and Exploitation Plan
• D4.4 Media and Communication Plan

All deliverables can be downloaded from the results pages here.