Baltic+ course 2022 prepared forecasters for the cold season

Baltic+ training is the main annual training interaction between Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland with EUMETSAT. The course consists of a three-week online phase for a wider audience and a three-day on-site workshop. This year, the host was Lithuanian Hydro-Meteorological Service, and the course focused on refreshing the cold season forecasting skills.

Altogether 35 participants from the region participated in this course, and 15 of them continued further to the classroom course held in Vilnius. This event helps the operational meteorologists to discuss forecasting and learn about the newest updates relevant for their work. High amount of networking between regional offices and between countries takes place as a result of these courses. The Baltic+ course is becoming part of the Baltic training system: an event to exchange about the newest updates and learn about forecasting and organisatorical similarities and differences within the region.

The trainer team from the Lithuanian Hydro-meteorological Service was successfully leading this course this year. The organiser for the course in 2023 will be Latvian Environment, Geology and Meteorology Centre.

D-A-CH Training Course 2022

The D-A-CH course is a regional training course for participants from the national weather services from Austria, Switzerland and Germany. The course participants met after six weeks of intense online training for the classroom phase that took place from 21 to 25 November in ZAMG, Vienna. During this week, participants focused on cases with heavy precipitation that affected Central Europe. Time was used to exchange thoughts and discuss the forecasting of such major events. The mornings were filled with presentations while the afternoons were dedicated to group work. Topics were structured into satellite, radar, numerical models and warning strategies. The meeting was accompanied by social get-togethers in the evening with "Punsch" and food.

Next year's D-A-CH course will be organized by Meteo Swiss on the topic of low clouds and fog.

ESSL-EUMETSAT Testbeds on Severe Convective Storms

With a goal of training forecasters in Member States’ National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHS) on the use of products from MTG and EPS-SG missions for severe convective storm analysis, EUMETSAT has contracted the European Severe Storms Laboratory (ESSL) for a period of three years. In 2022, three operational forecaster testbeds were organised by ESSL, training in total ~45 forecasters.

In the realistic forecasting environment provided by ESSL at their facility in Wiener Neustadt, Austria, forecasters guided by ESSL trainers worked with Numerical Weather Prediction data and observation-based information, including satellite data. Data from MODIS and VIIRS sensors were used to mimic some of the images and RGBs that will be available with MTG. Forecasters were thrilled by the prospect of MTG FCI providing information every 10 minutes with much better spatial resolution and new channels, in the near future.

Four such training testbeds are scheduled also in 2023.

By 2025, the aim is to train 10-15% of operational meteorological forecasters in member states on the use of MTG and eventually EPS-SG products for better forecasting severe convective weather.

Supporting Marine Earth Observation Applications Course (SMA)

The second half of 2022 was an very busy time for the Copernicus marine training at EUMETSAT, with ocean colour training delivered for the ONWARD programme, the IOCCG Summer Lecture Series, and OCEAN OPTICS XXV, a short course on advances in Sentinel-6 altimetry and data access at OSTST 2022, and examples of sea-surface temperature data use as part of the ESA Advanced Ocean Synergy course.

The year culminated in the delivery of the 2022 Supporting Marine Earth Observation Applications workshop. This event, a collaboration between EUMETSAT and the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, featured a three-week self-paced phase and a one-week virtual classroom, hosted on Gather.town. During the course, participants learned how to access and use Copernicus marine and OSI SAF products from across the EUMETSAT catalogue, tailoring them to their use and incorporating them into mini-projects designed around their applications. Twenty five participants presented final projects, covering a broad range of applications from operational monitoring of water quality at seaweed farms, to sea surface temperature indicators for monitoring coral reef mortality, to assessment of local tide gauges in the Mediterranean sea.

This course runs annually. Applications for the 2023 event will open in the late summer.

2nd Workshop on Earth Observation Products for Wildfires Monitoring and Forecast

The second edition of the Earth Observation Products for Wildfires Monitoring and Forecast Workshop took place between 18 and 20 October and was co-organised by EUMETSAT, ECMWF, EC JRC, the two EUMETSAT Satellite Application Facilities on Atmosphere (AC SAF) and Land (LSA SAF), and Pyrolife. The workshop was a hybrid event, taking place online and at IPMA in Lisbon, Portugal.

This three-day workshop aimed to:

1. Cover and train users on using existing and new Earth Observation products.
2. Learn from national services' activities and users' networks.
3. Discuss needs and priorities for better user guidance and preparation.

The workshop also shared updates from users, data providers and services, and showcased new data and products from satellite missions and Copernicus services.

The attendees were from services in Europe with a mandate, or role, to monitor, forecast or mitigate fires, as well as interested participants from all European countries with focus on vulnerable regions. Twenty participants were present in-person and more than 100 joined online.

See the slides and the presentation recordings.

4th Joint AC training school with ESA/ECMWF/EUMETSAT

Between 28 September and 6 October 2022, the Fourth Joint School on Atmospheric Composition, took place as an online event. It was organised by EUMETSAT in collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA) and the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF).

The training school focused on atmospheric composition chemistry and climate, and had lectures, debates, and practical sessions. This event followed the third joint school that took place in December 2021.

The school had three days of lectures and three days of practical sessions, distributed over two weeks from 28 to 30 September and from 4 to 6 October 2022.

The school consisted of the following components:

1. Webinars with keynote speakers.
2. Open discussions.
3. Step-by-step interactive data discovery.
4. Team projects design and development.

The target audience for this training school were early-career scientists, researchers from academia and research institutes, young scientists from industry, and anyone interested in atmospheric composition monitoring and modelling. A total of 89 people took part in the lectures and 21 people were trained during the hands-on practical sessions.

The presentations and recordings are available.

Eumetcal Workshop 2022 #2

Bearing in mind our wish for more collaboration and online learning, it didn't need a lot of discussion within the Eumetcal programme team to define the topic of this year's hybrid Eumetcal Workshop: "Successful training through collaboration".

The goal was to provide an engaging learning experience for people who attend in person, as well as those joining online. We wanted to set an example where everyone would feel involved, and could benefit as much as possible. Quite a challenge, but we tried to overcome it by mixing best practice presentations by members, both on site and online, interactive group discussions, and interactive skills workshops.

The workshop was a success, with 13 people staying at De Bilt and 24 joining online. Everyone being able to share tips, suggestions, and constraints about collaboration and online learning, plus share new tools and ideas.

The feedback from the workshop participants also helped the Eumetcal team to improve its offerings to the members, and to rethink current collaboration strategies. Thanks to everyone who attended, it was a blast!

AC Training Activities during the EUMETSAT Meteorological Satellite Conference

During the EUMETSAT Meteorological Satellite Conference in Brussels in September, the atmospheric composition training team presented several talks and one workshop on the latest developments of Jupyter-based training materials.

Julia Wagemann gave two presentations:

1. Current and future needs of users of satellite-based atmospheric composition data — which gave a high-level overview of user engagement activities for atmospheric composition at EUMETSAT and the outcomes of a user consultation among atmospheric composition experts in 2020.
2. Using Jupyter Notebooks for Earth Observation data access, processing and visualisation — which summarised the published article Five Guiding Principles to Make Jupyter Notebooks Fit For Earth Observation Data Education.

Sabrina Szeto gave a talk and a practical workshop. In her talk, she spoke about Fire Applications with Next-Generation Satellites: Case Studies and Jupyter Notebooks. The presentation gave a general introduction on monitoring wildfires with the upcoming satellites MTG and EPS-SG. In addition, she led a workshop on wildfire monitoring and forecasting, which gave attendees a practical introduction to the Jupyterbook on FANGS - Fire Applications with Next-Generation Satellites.

RGB Developers and Users Workshop

The primary goal of this workshop was to share knowledge on RGB applications, and to prepare for the upcoming MTG FCI and EPS-SG METimage instruments. Participants were users, developers, and trainers, with RGB expertise from six continents. The fact that participation was from all corners of the Earth gave additional weight to this workshop, and the group had the opportunity to discuss global experiences and insights into the RGB utility.

Workshop objectives:

• Review and document RGB composite standards with the measurement capabilities of new-generation imagers.
• Share use cases and lessons learned of RGBs using new-generation imagers.
• Demonstrate the value of RGBs in applications (alongside products, NWP).
• Compile guidance documents.
• Compile demonstration and training material.

A workshop report is yet to be compiled, containing important recommendations on how to build, name, and use different RGB composites.

EUMETSAT hosted the WMO - CGMS VLab meeting

EUMETSAT hosted the WMO-CGMS VLab meeting during September. The VLab is a worldwide cooperation on training for application of satellite data in operations. They are the main authors of the satellite skills. The materials we produce in Europe are also used around the world, and we have an opportunity to learn from others on good practices relating to training the use of satellite data. That knowledge sharing really helps the training centres to be more effective. The VLab is interested to extend the satellite skill to climate and agriculture - get in touch with EUMETSAT if you are interested to help.

Coming back to Online Educa Berlin in 2022

This November Madalina Ungur (EUMETSAT) and her Eumetcal colleagues, Heleen ter Pelkwijk and Tomislav Marekovic, had the pleasure of participating in the 28th global conference and exhibition on digital learning and training. The annual conference brings thousands of learning professionals, from around the world, to Berlin.

Hot topics this year:

• Learning design and the human experience
• Making decisions with data
• Digital transformation
• The metaverse and the future of learning
• Upskilling/reskilling and competences in the workplace

Read about their experience.

SEEMET (Basic) Course 2022

The South-East Europe Meteorological training course (SEEMET) 2022 was hosted by the Israel Meteorological Service (IMS), and supported by EUMETSAT, EUMeTrain, EUMETCAL and ECMWF. It was the seventh in the series of courses aiming to regularly train operational staff of the south-east European meteorological and hydrological services.

The course focused on basic satellite imagery and product analysis and application. Additionally, ECMWF products, available as Open Charts, were introduced. The main focus was on the forecasting challenges in the south-east Europe region, with special emphasis on the use of satellite data and products. Some elements of the upcoming MTG mission data were introduced, which were well received by the audience.

The course comprised many practical exercises and associated lectures, with a very coherent group of students who showed a high level of interactivity and were very proactive throughout the course.

The basic and advanced versions of this course alternate every year, meaning that the next SEEMET course, in 2023, will be an advanced course. The location of the course is still to be decided.