* Project NEWS *
2010 CARL-GUSTAF ROSSBY RESEARCH MEDAL held by THOR scientist
The Carl-Gustaf Rossby Research Medal is the highest award for atmospheric science of the American Meteorological Society. It is presented to individual scientists, who receive a medal. Named in honor of meteorology and oceanography pioneer Carl-Gustaf Rossby, who was also its second (1953) recipient. (wikipedia)
One of the leading scientists involved in THOR project, Timothy N. Palmer of ECMWF, UK, was just awarded the Medal for 2010 for his fundamental contribution to understanding the role of nonlinear processes in the predictability of weather and climate, and for developing tools for estimating such predictability.
More on List of 2010 Award Winners.
1st Annual Meeting held at UPMC, Paris
It has been a year since the Grant Contract 212643 was approved and signed by the Commission and 20 THOR participating institutes. Thanks to the hospitality and organization of the French colleagues, we had a compact meeting, as originally scheduled in DoW, on 25/26 November 2009 at UPMC-LOCEAN, Paris.
The first day was completely focused on the up-to-date scientific progress. 17 science talks were spread over 4 areas consisting of core themes from MOC variability to model uncertainty, observation and decadal predictions. The abstracts and the presentations are now available to download in the member only area.
During the second day, core thems reported on current status and future activities of individual work packages, made review of upcoming deliverables and discussed about the interaction between different core themes. Another key issue which was intensively discussed was the data management of the project, detailed information and suggestions made during the meeting can be viewed in the meeting minutes.
Workshop on EARTH-SYSTEM INITIALIZATION for DECADAL PREDICTIONS
held by THOR partner KNMI on 4-6 November in De Bilt, the Netherland
The workshop is aimed to exchange best practices and provide future directions for earth-system initialization of decadal predictions. Special goals include to make an inventory of initialization and perturbation techniques in earth system models; compare and contrast, where possible, forecast made with these different initialization strategies; to discuss the effectiveness of initilization and perturbation techniques and the review the observing system and available data for initialization: ocean, soil moisture, ice, snow, atmospheric composition (including aerosols). More about the workshop can be found at http://www.knmi.nl/samenw/easyinit/.
A combined THOR CT4 and COMBINE meeting was held one day prior to the workshop. Detailed output of the core theme meeting can be downloaded in the internal area.
CT 3 Workshop in Torshavn
It was almost the best season to visit Faroe Islands, the place where came out on top as the most appealing destination in the world in the National Geographic Traveler Survey 2007. A destination that is not only perfect for a peaceful vacation, but also for hard-working workshops. As a matter of fact the idea of holding the first CT workshop at Torshavn was inspired by the phonetic [tho:] of the project’s acronym THOR. Stephen Dye, the physical oceanographer and one of the project’s key researchers proposed to hold the THOR’s workshop on a Thor’s day and at a Thor’s place. The participating institute HAV (the Faroe Marine Research Institute) was pleased to accept the proposal and organized the workshop in Torshavn on 25th (Thursday) and 26th June 2009.
15 project members representing 9 institutes participated in the 2-days workshop on core them 3 “Observation of the North Atlantic THC”. The workshop was focused on the upcoming tasks and deliverables committed in the grant agreement that will be due in November 2009. After the detailed introduction by Svein Østerhus of University of Bergen (CT3 leader), five presentations on reference data set and the pre-existing data as well as the methodologies were given by scientists from Leibniz-Institute of Marine Science at the University of Kiel, University of Hamburg, Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, Natural Environment Research Council and Marine Research Institute of Iceland. Intensive and lively discussions on the project as well as further scientific cooperation took place during the workshop. Before closing session a team of the local television filmed the meeting for the production of a documentary movie about climate Research in Faroe Islands.
The workshop minutes as well as presentations are available to download for THOR members in the internal area.
THOR Meeting in Reading: Core Theme 4
The meeting of CT 4 (Predicability of the THC) will take place at the University of Reading, UK on 15 July 2009. The CT is led by the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI). If you wish you wish to know more about the CT meeting, please get in touch with the team leader of CT4.
Detailed information about this core them, work packages, tasks and participating institutions can be reviewed here.
THOR Meeting in Torshavn: Core Theme 3
The CT3 (Observations of the North Atlantic THC) workshop is going to be held at Fiskirannsóknarstovan on 25 and 26 June 2009 . The CT is led and co-led by the work group from University of Bergen and Marine Research Institute Iceland.
Detailed information about the three work packages and tasks can be downloaded here.
EU Funding distributed
2009-05-07 | Soon after THOR started in December 2008, the coordinating university UHAM has received the direct funding from EU for the first project period. So far the funding has been allocated to affected institutions, an overview of funding distribution can be downloaded here.
In case of feedback or questions, please contact the project team at THOR.EU@zmaw.de.
Project Kick-off in Hamburg
2009-01-12 | One month after take-off: THOR hosted the kick-off meeting at the Institute of Oceaology of University of Hamburg on January 12th and 13th 2009.
Objectives of the meeting were focused in four areas:
- Get to know each other
- Getting a closer view of the project, its tasks and targets
- Group work of core project teams. Establishment and fine tuning of work plan for the first 18 months project period
- Discussion and coordination of administrative issues
There were 45 participants attended the 2 days kick-off meeting. For more details, please contact THOR.EU@zmaw.de
Click here to review the Agenda of Kick-Off Meeting
