Research and development services and related consultancy services

Tender description

Development of post-processing methods and tools for the CAMS regional air quality ensemble. This ITT is about activities to develop post-processing methods and tools for the CAMS Regional Products, which are based upon a distributed ensemble of seven individual operational regional air quality systems (the number of systems will be extended to 9 in the course of 2019). The successful Tenderer will be expected to deliver (essentially) computer scripts, routines and pieces of numerical code as well as reports. The ITT targets Tenderers with relevant experience, who will be able to provide the abovementioned contributions for supporting the continuous upgrade of the post-processing of CAMS regional outputs. The ITT does not include daily operational production but may include routine experimental processing (without guaranteed level of service). The bids shall not involve actually running regional air quality system(s). The successful tenderer shall provide some studies and developments, which build on top of the raw outputs from the operational ensemble of CAMS Regional Systems. The focus of these developments shall be: — to assess the relationship between the spread between ensemble members and the skill of the analyses or forecasts according to a range of metrics, in view of being able to provide calibrated uncertainty estimates, — to develop post-processing methods using latest or past forecasts, past analyses and/or past observations to propose ensemble products that outperform significantly the median, while being compatible with operational time-critical implementation, — to develop and test Model Output Statistics methods that could be used for providing forecasts on sites where timeseries of observations are available even if the raw model outputs are biased, — to develop innovative ways of conveying uncertainty information associated with the Regional Products in graphical form (maps, charts…) for presentation on the web and targeting non-expert audiences. The Framework Agreement will run for a duration of 2 years. The Tenderer shall provide a detailed implementation plan of proposed activities for the period. However, note that by Q4 2019 the level and duration of activities for 2021 will be communicated by ECMWF to the successful Tenderer based on the Copernicus programme review by the European Commission.