‘Korea’s weather forecasting still immature’

Eugenia Kalnay, professor of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science at the University of Maryland

Korea’s weather forecasting system has greatly improved in recent years but it still has a long way to go to catch up with leading countries, according to an American weather expert.

Eugenia Kalnay, who participated in the 2012 KIAPS International Symposium on Global NWP System Modeling from Monday to Wednesday, said Korea has many challenges and opportunities ahead as it is seeking to improve weather forecasting.

The symposium was organized by the Korea Institute of Atmospheric Prediction Systems (KIAPS).

“Korea’s system is younger compared to others. The best centers right now are the European, British, Japanese, and the American meteorological centers. Korea lies in the second tier,” said Kalnay, a professor of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science at the University of Maryland, during an interview with the Korea Times.

“But that’s good because there are many challenges and opportunities. Science is evolving so it’s an opportunity to develop.”

Kalnay is an expert in predictability and ensemble forecasting, numerical weather prediction, and data assimilation. She worked at NASA for 8 years and served for 10 years as the first female director at the Environmental Modeling Center within the U.S. National Weather Service.

Kalnay said Korea has a bright future in developing the numerical weather prediction (NWP) system.

“Korea has decided to do serious investment in developing the NWP system. I think it’s a difficult challenge to do it quickly in a few years but I have no doubt that it will succeed,” she said.

The NWP system, which was the main topic of discussion during the three-day conference last week, is a system that predicts the weather with computer models through data assimilation.

“The science of numerical weather prediction is one of the scientific successes in the history of humankind. The more we improve the models, use of data and the observation system, the more we improve the prediction and help humankind,” said Kalnay.

“The NWP works with three components — observation, model, and data assimilation. It observes how the atmosphere is right now and the model will calculate. Data assimilation is satellite observation. We include the observations in the model so that we represent the atmosphere well,” she said.

New models to improve prediction are being developed by Weather and Chaos, a numerical weather forecasting project led by Kalnay at the University of Maryland.

The system reduces errors by observing chaos. Chaos is a small error that can become large and create a butterfly effect. Kalnay said it’s impossible to make a perfect forecast forever because the errors grow. She, however, was positive about the prospects of the NWP system.

“I think we’re going to continue improving forecasts and simulations. Weather patterns are going to be more chaotic but the NWP system will make it easier to predict,” said Kalnay.

To improve the accuracy of the weather prediction system, she advised opening up to other researches and accessing global forecasts.

“The U.S. was pioneer in weather prediction but was left behind when it got stuck in the idea that it was the best and failed to see what others were doing. It eventually caught up as it tried to be more open to the outside research. It’s now in the top four but it’s not the first,” she said.

“I hope the Korea Meteorological Administration is accessing more global forecasts than just their own. They should check how different centers like NCEP, JMA are doing. In the long term, I think the improvement will come from development of advanced models and data assimilation of KIAPS.” <The Korea Times/Yun Suh-young>