February 3, 2008, Sunday

17:30 - 19:30 Dinner at Sally Borden Building Dining Room
20:00 - Informal Gathering in Corbett Hall Lounge

 

February 4, 2008, Monday

Themes of the Day: Atmospheric & Oceanic Data Assimilation, Variational Methods

7:00 - 8:45 Breakfast
8:45 - 9:15 Welcome to BIRS & Opening Remarks
9:15 - 10:15 Andrew Lorenc (UK Met Office)
"Research Issues in Data Assimilation for Operational NWP" [abs|talk]
10:15 - 10:45 Coffee Break
10:45 - 11:15 Mark Buehner (Environment Canada)
"Towards an Improved Use of Flow-Dependent Background Error Covariances in a Variational Data Assimilation System" [abs|talk]
11:15 - 11:45 Ricardo Todling (NASA GSFC, USA)
"Catching up to the World: The GMAO 4d-Var and its Adjoint-Based Tools" [abs|talk]
11:45 - 13:00 Lunch
13:00 - 14:15 Banff Centre Tour & Group Photo
14:15 - 14:45 Pierre Gauthier (UQAM, Canada)
"Mathematical Problems Associated with Atmospheric Data Assimilation and Weather Prediction" [abs|talk]
14:45 - 15:15 Robert N. Miller (Oregon State U., USA)
"Estimation of Representation Error in Ocean Models" [talk]
15:15 - 15:45 Coffee Break
15:45 - 16:15 Zhijin Li (NASA JPL, USA)
"Development of Data Assimilation Schemes in Support of Coastal Ocean Observing Systems" [abs|talk]
16:15 - 16:45 Keith Thompson (Dalhousie U., Canada)
"Predicting Mesoscale Variability of the North Atlantic Using a Simple Physically Motivated Scheme For Assimilating Altimeter and Argo Data" [abs|talk]
16:45 - 18:00 Discussion [Gauthier|Talagrand]
18:00 - 19:30 Dinner
20:00 - Spontaneous Discussion

 

February 5, 2008, Tuesday

Themes of the Day: Ensemble Methods, Lagrangian Aspects

7:00 - 9:00 Breakfast
9:00 - 10:00 Martin Ehrendorfer (U. Reading, UK)
"Ensemble-Based Data Assimilation" [abs|talk]
10:00 - 10:30 Zoltan Toth (NCEP, USA)
"Towards an Improved Use of Flow-Dependent Background Issues Related to the Use of Ensembles in Data Assimilation and Targeting" [abs|talk]
10:30 - 11:00 Coffee Break
11:00 - 11:30 Istvan Szunyogh (UMD, USA)
"Flow Dependence of the Performance of an Ensemble Based Analysis-Forecast System" [abs|talk]
11:30 - 12:00 Eric Kostelich (ASU, USA)
"Recent Results of the 4D Local Ensemble Transform Kalman Filter (4D-LETKF)" [abs|talk]
12:00 - 13:30 Lunch
13:30 - 14:00 Andrew Tangborn (NASA GSFC, USA)
"Assimilation of Vorcore Polar Balloons" [abs|talk]
14:00 - 14:30 Kayo Ide (UCLA, USA)
"Lagrangian Data Assimilation: Method and Mathematical Issues" [abs|talk]
14:30 - 15:00 Guillaume Vernieres (UNC-CH, USA)
"Lagrangian Data Assimilation: Application to Gulf of Mexico" [abs|talk]
15:00 - 15:30 Coffee Break
15:30 - 16:00 Marc Bocquet (Universite Paris-Est, France)
"Non-Gaussian Data Assimilation: Application to Inverse Modelling of Atmospheric Tracers" [abs|talk]
16:00 - 16:30 Fuqing Zhang (Texas A&M, USA)
"Coupling Ensemble Kalman Filter with Four-Dimensional Variational Data Assimilation" [abs|talk]
16:30 - 18:00 Discussion [Snyder]
18:00 - 19:30 Dinner
20:00 - Spontaneous Discussion

 

February 6, 2008, Wednesday

Themes of the Day: Observations & Winter in Banff

7:00 - 9:00 Breakfast
9:00 - 10:00 Gérald Desroziers (Météo-France)
"Use of Observations in Data Assimilation Schemes" [abs|talk]
10:00 - 10:30 Art Krener (NPS, USA)
"Eulerian and Lagrangian Observability of Point Vortex Flows" [abs|talk]
10:30 - 11:00 Coffee Break
11:00 - 11:30 Richard Menard (Environment Canada)
"Model Error as an Unobserved Variable: What Do We Know From Estimation Theory" [abs|talk]
11:30 - 12:00 N. Sri Namachchivaya (UIUC, USA)
"Target Detection in Multi-Sensor and Multi-Scale Environments" [talk]
12:00 - 13:30 Lunch
Free Afternoon
17:30 - 19:30 Dinner
20:00 - Spontaneous Discussion

 

February 7, 2008, Thursday

Themes of the Day: New Directions, Towards Mathematical Advancement

7:00 - 9:00 Breakfast
9:00 - 10:00 Peter Jan van Leeuwen (U. Utrecht, the Netherlands)
"Particle Filtering in Large-Scale Systems: Problems & Potential Solutions" [abs|talk]
10:00 - 10:30 Chris Snyder (NCAR, USA)
"Obstacles to Particle Filtering in High Dimensions" [abs|talk]
10:30 - 11:00 Coffee Break
11:00 - 11:30 Mike Dowd (Dalhousie U., Canada)
"Sequential Monte Carlo Approaches for Parameter and State Estimation" [abs|talk]
11:30 - 12:00 Christopher K.R.T. Jones (UNC-CH, USA & U. Warwick, UK)
"Bayesian Approach to Lagrangian Data Assimilation" [abs|talk]
12:00 - 13:30 Lunch
13:30 - 14:00 Youmin Tang (UNBC, Canada)
"Advanced Data Assimilation in Strongly Nonlinear Systems" [abs|talk]
14:00 - 14:30 Tomislava Vukicevic (U. Colorado Boulder, USA)
"Analysis of the Impact of Model Nonlinearities, Modeling Errors and Gaussian Prior in Inverse Problem Solving" [abs|talk]
14:30 - 15:00 Nancy Nichols (U. Reading, UK)
"Use of Reduced Order Models in incremental Four-Dimensional Variational Data Assimilation" [abs|talk]
15:00 - 15:30 Coffee Break
15:30 - 16:00 Olivier Pannekoucke (Météo-France)
"Background Error Correlation Modeling: Representation of the Local Length-Scale From (small) Ensemble" [abs|talk]
16:00 - 16:30 Milija Zupanski (CSU, USA)
"Dynamical Approach to Nonlinear Ensemble Data Assimilation" [abs|talk]
16:45 - 18:00 Discussion [topics]
18:00 - 19:30 Dinner
20:00 - 21:00 Olivier Talagrand (LMD ENS, France)
"A Few Future Perspectives for Assimilation" [abs|talk]

 

February 8, 2008, Friday

Themes of the Day: Spontaneous Discussion, Explore Banff