Summary of the MAP Committee Meetings

Peter Binder, MeteoSwiss, 8044 Zurich, Switzerland

• MAP Steering Committee (MSC, 16-18 May 2001), 
• International Governing Panel (IGP, 16/17 May 2001), and 
• MAP-NWS Board (17 May 2001)

is given in the following.

Tailored to the challenges of managing MAP during the evaluation phase the MAP Steering Committee (MSC) was officially formed at the Schliersee meeting. Philippe Bougeault was elected as chairman, Peter Binder and Ron B. Smith as co-vice-chairmen of the committee. These votes were taken unanimously. A list of members is given in . The composition is to assure a reasonable bal­ance and representation of all scientific MAP projects, na­tions and institutions by experienced and highly committed MAP scientists. Membership was approved by the IGP.

As to the leadership of the IGP, Thomas Gutermann was re-elected chairman of the IGP for his third term of office, while Roberto Sorani, who recently changed position to the director of the Italian National Weather Service, resigned from his IGP vice-chairmanship. This position has been taken by Peter Steinhauser, director of the Austrian Na­tional Weather Service.

The MSC expressed a strong request that the MDC should continue its service at the same level of user support for at least another 5 years. The current EUMETNET contract MAP-NWS provides funding until the end of 2002. Positive signals have been received from EUMETNET to nego­tiate a solution for a follow-up of MAP-NWS. Details are under investigation. 

The MAP-NWS budget allows to maintain staffing of the MDC at the current level until the end of 2001, i.e. Hans Hirter supported by Esther Häller, Felix Baum and Claudia Schmengler (amounting to 2.3 additional full positions). In 2002 funding is guaranteed for Hans Hirter and one additional full position.

During March the MDC monitoring, feedback and advi­sory group has provided more than 50 suggestions, major and minor, to improve the structure and contents of the MDC. MDC staff has already realized a substantial part of these amendments (e.g. MDC News Sheet).

The effort for Data Quality Control of MAP surface data will be continued in 2002 (MAP-NWS funded). DAQUA­

It was reported that Väisälä radio soundings may suffer from a dry bias of up to 1g/kg at low levels. This can lead to an error in CAPE of a factor of two. Given the outstand­ing role of radio soundings for NWP initial conditions, the MSC decided to investigate this issue. If it turns out that something can be done about it, DAQUAMAP will be ex­tended to correct the radio soundings.

The MSC decided to open an announcement of opportunity for a reanalysis of the MAP SOP. Invited to tender will be weather centres which run a proven data assimilation suite. The idea is to produce a high-resolution “reference analy­sis” for the SOP, which includes as many special MAP observations as possible.

In addition, the MSC encourages research in data assimila­tion at small scales, and WG-NM to take an expert on data assimilation on board.  

Given the limited budget available from MAP-NWS, the MSC defined the following priorities of projects: 1. user service at MDC, 2. DAQUAMAP, 3. possible extension of DAQUAMAP to radio soundings and the moisture bias problem, 4. re-analysis. The financial situation until the end of the contract was seriously considered by the MAP- NWS board. The very positive conclusion was that all pro­posed projects can be supported.

MAP spin-offs:

The two projects that grew out from MAP initiatives under their working titles FACT (Forecasting in the Alps and Complex Terrain) and MAC (Mesoscale Al­pine Climate) are strongly supported by the MSC, the IGP and the MAP-NWS board. For more information about these projects see the MAP Newsletter #14.

Future MAP Meetings

As decided at the Innsbruck meeting in autumn 2000, the MAP Meeting 2002 will be joint with the Mountain Meteorology Conference of the AMS in Park City, Utah (17-21 June 2002). The MSC also accepted the invitation by the responsibles of ICAM (Inter­national Conference on Alpine Meteorology) to jointly or­ganize the MAP Meeting and the ICAM in 2003 in Swit­zerland.

MAP publications

It was decided to go for a special issue about MAP results in a high-level scientific journal. Inves­tigations about the condition offered by a selection of jour­nals are underway. An official announcement will be pub­lished in due course.

MAP Working Groups

There are 12 active MAP Work­ing Groups (see ). They gather scientists interested in the various topics, initiate and coordinate common re­search and foster exchange of experience and results. Eve­rybody is invited to join the working group of his own in­terest by getting into contact through the chairperson or a member of the working group (see also the home pages at the MDC).

n       List of Members of the MAP Steering Committee (MSC).