COST Senior Officials Committee: agenda (weather forecasting) - Reading (UK), 22-24 November

Brussels, 17 November 2005

To mark the 30th Anniversary of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), the COST Committee of Senior Officials (CSO) will hold its 163rd meeting at the premises of the ECMWF. The meeting will be chaired by Professor Francesco Fedi. The Director of ECMWF, Dominique Marbouty, will give an academic lecture on the subject "The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts in the 21st Century - Result of a COST Action".

Established in 1971, COST is the oldest and widest European intergovernmental network for cooperation in research. One of the early COST Actions evolved to become an independent international organisation with its own headquarters: ECMWF was set up. The Convention came into force on 1 November 1975. At present, the Centre is supported by 26 European States.

ECMWF is widely acknowledged to be a successful European development. It is recognized as a world leader in the field of numerical weather prediction. Member States pool their resources to provide the most accurate medium-range global weather forecasts to 10 days and seasonal outlooks to six months ahead.

COST now includes 34 European countries. Since its creation, the General Secretariat of the Council has provided secretariat assistance, whereas a Brussels-based COST Office, set up under the aegis of the European Science Foundation (ESF), acts as the implementing agent on the basis of a support contract from the 6th RTD Framework Programme delivering scientific and technical support to the current 200 COST Actions.

For further information:

On COST: call the COST Secretariat at 285.68.96/79.14 or e-mail: cost@consilium.eu.int

On ECMWF: Manfred Kloeppel; Email: Manfred.kloeppel@ecmwf.int; www.ecmwf.int