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Research lab

European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts

Intergovernmental institute producing global medium-range weather forecasts and running the EU's Copernicus atmosphere and climate monitoring services.

Known aliases

  • ECMWF
  • European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting
  • European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts
  • European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts
  • European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts

Current stories

scienceConfirmed3 publishers

A learned correction layer doubles a gold-standard weather model's accuracy at weeks two to six

Researchers including a team at MIT report in Nature that a machine-learning layer doubled a gold-standard model's forecast accuracy at two to six weeks. Beyond two weeks, energy, farm and emergency planners have had little reliable forecast to use.

Publishers:nature.com news.mit.edu phys.org popsci.com

Perspective Coverage

4 publishers
Builder
Builder 43%
Operator
Operator 42%
Investor
Investor 15%

Reality

Evidence74
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+25
Incentives35
Confidence72
scienceOne report1 publisher

Barometers on drifting buoys improved forecasts of Mediterranean Storm Harry in a first assessment

Pressure data from drifting Mediterranean buoys improved forecasts of Storm Harry in January 2026, according to a new study of the M3E network. It rests on one storm, and the coverage does not say how large the gain was.

Publishers:phys.org

Reality

Evidence45
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+15
Incentives55
Confidence50
scienceOne report1 publisher

El NiΓ±o tops 2015 on a trend-adjusted index whose data starts in 2008

Australia's Bureau of Meteorology says weekly average sea-surface temperatures in the central Pacific are at a record weeks before El NiΓ±o's December peak. Planners in exposed sectors still have 1997-98 and 2015-16 as their closest guide, because the record describes ocean heat and no source yet counts this year's damage.

Publishers:bbc.co.uk

Reality

Evidence68
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+20
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence62
scienceConfirmed3 publishers

Every one of the eight hottest months ever measured has arrived since July 2023

Copernicus put August 2026 at 16.96C, a hundredth of a degree above July 2023 and inside its own uncertainty, so it calls the month a tie. The clustering of the record months is the firmer finding.

Perspective Coverage

3 publishers
Builder
Builder 18%
Operator
Operator 54%
Investor
Investor 28%

Reality

Evidence78
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+15
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence74
investOne report1 publisher

FAO's cereal index climbs 17.2% in a year despite a near-record grain harvest

FAO's September food price index rose to 136.0, its highest since November 2022, while its cereal index climbed 17.2% from a year earlier. With Gulf urea supply cut and El Nino's harvest boost due to fade, the larger cost risk sits with next year's planting.

Publishers:en.sedaily.com

Reality

Evidence55
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+20
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence50
scienceOne report1 publisher

Indonesia's fires quadruple in area as a record El NiΓ±o takes hold

Indonesia's fires grew roughly fourfold after June as the strongest El NiΓ±o on record began forming, with emissions on track to match 2015. The event is still strengthening on 1.4C of warming, and the year's outlook leans on a short record of past El NiΓ±os.

Publishers:newscientist.com

Reality

Evidence45
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+15
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence40
buildOne report1 publisher

Scanner authors find six exploitable GitHub workflows among 60 that use pull_request_target

Scanner authors writing on dev.to hand-checked 60 public pull_request_target workflows and judged 6 exploitable by anyone who can open a pull request. About as many looked dangerous and were safe, so an audit has to read what runs after the checkout.

Publishers:dev.to

Reality

Evidence40
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+5
Incentives60
Confidence40
scienceOne report1 publisher

EarthCARE's lidar helped Darwin forecasters confirm the height of Anak Krakatau's ash plume

Australia's Darwin ash-advisory centre used ESA's EarthCARE lidar to confirm that Anak Krakatau's westward plume sat near 15 km, as forecast. That check brought a satellite built to study clouds and Earth's energy balance into aviation advice in near-real time.

Publishers:phys.org

Reality

Evidence45
Adoption25
Hype gap+20
Incentives60
Confidence50
scienceConfirmed3 publishers

The ocean's hottest day on record landed in August, and that is the number that matters

Copernicus logged 21.10 C on Aug. 22, one hundredth of a degree above March 2024. The timing, not the margin, is what should move planning assumptions.

Perspective Coverage

3 publishers
Builder
Builder 18%
Operator
Operator 50%
Investor
Investor 32%

Reality

Evidence68
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+12
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence62
buildConfirmed3 publishers

WeatherNext 3 refreshes a 5 km global forecast every hour off live satellite mosaics

Google's new model trains on sparse station observations instead of six-hour-old physics output, which is what buys the 5 km surface grid. Wind aloft still comes out at 25 km, the same as WeatherNext 2.

Publishers:blog.google dev.to the-decoder.com

Perspective Coverage

3 publishers
Builder
Builder 37%
Operator
Operator 45%
Investor
Investor 18%

Reality

Evidence55
Adoption45
Hype gap+25
Incentives70
Confidence60
scienceOne report1 publisher

JPL's new tracking mix halves the estimated annual wander of Earth's center of mass

The last two international estimates of the annual motion disagreed by seven millimetres, nearly as much as the motion itself, so a JPL-led team rebuilt the measurement by adding GPS and low-orbit satellites to laser ranging.

Publishers:nasa.gov phys.org

Reality

Evidence45
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+10
Incentives50
Confidence55
scienceOne report1 publisher

Climate Impact Lab projects 451,000 extra El NiΓ±o heat deaths by February 2027

University of Chicago researchers project 451,000 extra heat deaths worldwide from El NiΓ±o by February 2027, with 31,400 of them in Nigeria. The estimate rests on a six-month forecast, so the Sahel has only this season to prepare.

Publishers:phys.org

Reality

Evidence45
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+10
Incentives35
Confidence40
scienceOne report1 publisher

Climate Impact Lab attributes 450,000 deaths to El Nino heat through February

The Climate Impact Lab ran a European seasonal temperature outlook through local mortality curves fitted for 24,000 regions, and the authors want health ministries to treat the result as a schedule for moving staff, water and cooling.

Publishers:newscientist.com

Reality

Evidence58
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+14
Incentives42
Confidence52
scienceOne report1 publisher

NOAA gives 75% odds that this El Nino outranks every event back to 1950

The eastern Pacific is running 2.1 C above average on weekly NOAA data, past the 2 C mark for a super event. The official strength category comes from three-month averages, and the regional outlook comes with a caveat attached.

Publishers:livescience.com

Reality

Evidence58
Adoption35
Hype gap+30
Incentives40
Confidence55
scienceOne report1 publisher

Richer countries get more accurate weather forecasts, 35 years of ECMWF data show

Two researchers scored 35 years of ECMWF forecasts against the observed weather and found accuracy rises with national income at every lead time out to a week. The reasons are mostly geographic and only partly a matter of spending.

Publishers:phys.org

Reality

Evidence64
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+14
Incentives58
Confidence62
scienceOne report1 publisher

Daily rain sampling in Manaus links the 2023-24 Amazon drought to shifted moisture sources

A UNESP-led team read 207 daily rain samples collected in Manaus between March 2023 and February 2025 and found two Atlantic systems taking turns at setting the isotope ratio. The early-warning use is still untested.

Publishers:phys.org

Reality

Evidence58
Adoption20
Hype gap+30
Incentives55
Confidence50
scienceOne report1 publisher

Extreme heat seasons stretched in opposite directions across half the world's land

A NASA Goddard team compared the 1980s with 2015 to 2024 and found extreme heat seasons growing at both ends, later in the western United States and earlier in western Europe, on schedules no summer calendar tracks.

Publishers:phys.org

Reality

Evidence70
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gapβˆ’10
Incentives40
Confidence62
scienceOne report1 publisher

A wet winter and a May flash drought pushed Europe's fires north into countries that plan for rain

Almost 650,000 hectares have burned across the EU in more than 1,913 large fires, close to double the long-term average, with the anomaly concentrated in the north and west rather than the fire-prone south.

Publishers:newscientist.com

Reality

Evidence58
Adoption34
Hype gapβˆ’12
Incentives42
Confidence60

Earlier coverage