by Fabio L. R. Diniz    fabio.diniz@inpe.br

I attended the Workshop on Sensitivity Analysis and Data Assimilation in Meteorology and Oceanography, also known as Adjoint Workshop, which took place in Aveiro, Portugal between 1st and 6th July 2018. This opportunity was given to me due to funding for early career researchers from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Data Assimilation for the Resilient City (DARE) project in the UK. All recipients of this fund that were participating for the first time in the workshop were invited to attend the pre-workshop day of tutorials, presenting sensitivity analysis and data assimilation fundamentals geared to the early career researchers. I would like to thank to EPSRC DARE award committee and the organizers of the Adjoint Workshop for finding me worthy of this award.

Currently I’m a post graduate student at the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research (INPE) and have been visiting the Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO) of the American National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for almost one year as part of my PhD comparing two approaches to obtain what is known as the observation impact measure. This measure is obtained as a direct application of sensitivity in data assimilation and basically is a measure of how much each observation helps to improve the short-range forecasts. In Meteorology, specifically in numerical weather prediction, these observations are represented by the global observing system, which includes observations obtained from a number of in situ (e.g., radiosondes, and surface observations) and remote sensed observations (e.g., satellite sensors). During my visit, I’ve been working under the supervision of Ricardo Todling from NASA/GMAO comparing results from two strategies for assessing the impact of observations on forecasts using data assimilation system available at NASA/GMAO: one based on the traditional adjoint technique, another based on ensembles. Preliminary results from this comparison were presented during the Adjoint Workshop.

The Adjoint Workshop provided a perfect environment for early career researchers interact with experts in the field from all around the world. The attendance at the workshop has helped me engage healthy discussions about my work and data assimilation in general. The full programme with abstracts and presentations is available at the workshop web site: https://www.morgan.edu/adjoint_workshop

Thanks to everyone who contributed to this workshop.