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.

The first deliverable has officially been submitted to the EU. D4.1 Risk and Quality Management Plan sets out the baseline of internal quality management including the identification of Key Performance Indicators and related metrics that will help the project to measure its progress.