PREMIAGRID
Webportal for Meteorological and Climate Applications
Contact
Marino Marrocu, valorisation@crs4.it
Challenge
Meteorology is a fundamental discipline for everyday life in society: it directly or indirectly intervenes in several aspects related to the use and management of environmental resources. Many economic fields need efficient, flexible and very precise weather forecast: from the estimation of renewable energy potential (wind and solar power) to the meteorological risk assessment related to industrial activities.
Overview
PREMIAGRID is a meteorology and climate modelling Web service supported by the CRS4 high-performance-computing centre. The application offers the opportunity to access a suite of forecasting services organized as follows:
- probabilistic forecasting (MUSE system). It allows to run one or more parallel regional meteorological models initialized with one or two different initial and boundary conditions (ECMWF and NCEP). The available models are BOLAM (Buzzi et al., 1994), MM5 (Grell et al., 1994) and WRF (Seaman et al., 2006). The input parameters for the models such as the starting date of the simulation (when initial and boundary conditions are available), the centre of geographic domain of integration and the duration of the forecast (from 0 to 72 hours) are easily selected using the Web interface;
- post processing. It allows to post-process and visualize MUSE system outputs for a testing period (winter 2002) based on pre-elaborated data;
- deterministic forecasting. It enables the run of a deterministic forecasting chain based on the most recent version of the hydrostatic and non hydrostatic limited areas models BOLAM and MOLOCH developed by ISAC-CNR (Bologna);
- BolamERA. It runs the "Deterministic forecasting" chain using as initial and boundary conditions the ECMWF re-analysis data, based on the ERA40 data assimilation scheme. This service is useful for in-depth studying of extreme events because it allows to keep initial and boundary conditions as close as possible to the real state of the atmosphere;
- climatogram. It creates a climatogram for a generic position in the globe. Data come from a global covering database released from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) of University of East England;
- meteogram. It creates a meteogram for a generic position in the globe. Forecasting data come from the global circulation model of the American National Meteorological Service;
- stored forecasting. It allows to visualize and consult model outputs already produced and stored by the Deterministic Forecasting service.
Innovative features
- Web access to high-performance-computing platform based on state-of-the-art software and hardware which guarantees best possible performance for a given budget;
- Web-enabled visualization of model outputs;
- easy and user-friendly Web interface;
- support for collaborative work providing shared data and models.
Potential users
The service is designed for various users with different degrees of expertise: public institutions (primarily civil protection), mass-media and broadcasting networks, tour operators, etc. The user-friendly Web interface enables non-expert users to carry out meteorological forecasting in a simplified way.
Impact sectors
Meteorology and climate services – Renewable energy industry (wind power, solar power, etc.) – Financial and insurance services related to meteorological risk assessment (transport/shipping companies, energy delivering companies, large sports and entertainment events etc.).
Other resources
- http://grida3.crs4.it/
- Marino Marrocu, Meteorologia numerica e supercalcolo (Workshop Simulazione di Incendi Boschivi). Collana Seminari per la valorizzazione dei risultati della ricerca al CRS4, Cagliari, 22 Marzo 2012.