Series① [Reporting File] Rain forecast that goes wrong... As mentioned in What is the performance of the Korean independent forecasting system?, a program called the numerical forecasting model occupies a large portion of the precipitation forecast of the Meteorological Administration. With the prolonged rainy season, such as the Japan Meteorological Agency, Norway Meteorological Agency, and Meteorological Exiles, people are looking for a lot of data besides the Korea Meteorological Agency. This is a phenomenon that occurs because the forecast of the Korea Meteorological Administration cannot be 100% correct. Both accuracy and reliability are problems. To increase the reliability, it is essential to improve the forecast accuracy, and to increase the forecast accuracy, it is essential to improve the performance of the numerical forecast model.
The Korean Integrated Model (KIM) is Korea's 9th independent system in the world and has excellent performance, but needs a lot of improvement. (Hereinafter, KIM-Korean Numerical Forecasting Model) The performance of the program can be improved through upgrades, and KIM was upgraded once in June of this year since it was put into the field at the end of April.
● Project team officials "Technology development may be slow"
KIM is an independent and creative technology developed by domestic experts for 9 years. Currently, the project team that developed this model has been disbanded, and the Meteorological Administration is managing the KIM. Of the 50 or so people who developed KIM in the project group, four are still managing KIM at the Meteorological Administration, but the rest are scattered. In this situation, an official from the project team argues that if experts other than KIM developers are in charge of KIM development and research, the performance improvement may be slow. This is because, due to the nature of complex numerical forecasting models, it is difficult for non-parents to know and handle better than their parents.
● The Meteorological Administration, "No model upgrade problem" The
Meteorological Administration's position is different. The Meteorological Administration upgraded the KIM, which was already put into the field, from version 3.5 to 3.5a in June. Of course, the performance has also improved. Of course, until June at that time, it was a collaboration period in which about 13 team leader-level members of the initial project team gave advice on KIM at the Meteorological Administration. However, the Meteorological Administration is in a position that even without them, KIM can be upgraded with only our expert personnel. The Korea Meteorological Administration has formed a KIM introduction group from May 2018 to December 2019, and received KIM technology transfer from the initial project group for more than a year, so there is no problem. In addition, for only four people from the project group, a large number of personnel were required in the early stages of development, but upgrades are possible with current personnel.
The Meteorological Agency's words are not wrong. In fact, there were members of the project team in the form of advisory, but the KIM was upgraded with the power of the Meteorological Administration, and the experts at the Meteorological Administration were sufficiently outstanding. However, as many experts predict, if only KIM is researched and developed by the Meteorological Administration, there are still concerns that the upgrade trend may not be as steep as it is now.
● Who will develop technology in the future?
Then, who will develop KIM in the future? First, a follow-up project group in charge of research and development of KIM is launched. After that, the Meteorological Administration and the follow-up project team will work together to conduct research and development of KIM. But there is a big problem here too. This follow-up project group is also temporary, like the initial project group. Early business could. At the time, they were thinking of remodeling the British model, but few people thought that their own technology would be developed. But now the situation is completely different. This is because the project team composed of the world's best experts created its own model, and the Meteorological Administration is actually using it in the field. Now is the time to grow this model well, but again, the project team is temporarily organized. The fundamental reason for this phenomenon is that there are no government-funded research institutes or independent research institutes to entrust this project.
The US invested more than 60 years and Japan and the UK over 50 years to develop the program. If only a short-term project group is formed for KIM's research and development, there will be an obstacle in the future. The temporary problem of the project team was that KIM gave KIM about 10 years of time to study for the next few decades. But there is also another problem. It is difficult for the existing experts who have raised KIM to unite again. Experts who were already in the initial project group are spending their second lives by serving as large corporations or university professors after the project group was disbanded. Most of the members of the project team were in their 30s at the time, but now there are many people in their 40s and 50s who have had families in between. In this situation, it is impractical to come to a temporary project group for which the future is not guaranteed to develop KIM. In other words, there are concerns from the beginning of how well KIM-savvy experts will start the follow-up project team.
● Government-funded organizations that do not have only meteorological fields… The tug of war
would have been a problem that would have been solved if there were government-funded research institutes or independent research institutes, but why is there no meteorological field? They are government-funded research institutes in a field that they have learned as earth science during their school days, such as the Korea Astronomical Research Institute, the Korea Aerospace Research Institute, the Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources, the Polar Research Institute, and the Korea Ocean Research Institute. However, strangely, there are still no government-funded research institutes in the meteorological field. It is only strange that there is not only one research institute that is contributing to the development and research of KIM, as well as the rapidly changing abnormal weather phenomenon like this rainy season. The Meteorological Society continuously promoted the establishment of a research institute, but it failed once. In 2017, based on the success of KIM's development, he pushed for another government appearance at the National Assembly public hearing, but failed. Listening to the participants at the time, it is said that the mother of the Meteorological Administration, who attended the public hearing, voiced opposition to the promotion of the show. In the end, since there are no research institutes in the meteorological field, all national expenses of more than 100 billion won related to the field fall to the Meteorological Agency. Then, the Meteorological Administration allocates this money back to affiliates or university research institutes, and acts as a manager. In a situation where the main department exists and must be managed, independent research and development of scientists is inevitably difficult. Even going to an international conference is possible only after obtaining approval from the Meteorological Administration.
The Meteorological Administration's vision is to'realize a meteorological service that satisfies the people by providing reliable information'. In other words, the main task is to produce and analyze forecasts and inform the public. It is not an institution that manages research funds. A follow-up project group for the Korean numerical forecast model will be launched soon. Due to the temporary launch, all the experts who previously served as parents of KIM will not be able to return. This time, as it enters the Meteorological Administration's subsidiary, the project team itself is not in a situation where it can focus only on model development and research. Since there is no government-funded research institute, temporary projects are constantly being organized for such development. Since the project team is temporary, there is no one who will remain in the long term and continue to research the field. In the invisible tug-of-war between the Meteorological Society and the Meteorological Administration, the meteorological field still has no common government contributions. All practitioners in the field of meteorology will know better what choices are right for the development of the meteorological field. We hope that our unique numerical forecasting model, which has made it difficult, can walk a smooth path in the future.
▶ [Report File] Miscellaneous rain forecast... How did the Korean independent forecasting system perform?
[Interview file] The key to the forecast, the Korea Meteorological Agency's Korean Numerical Forecast Model Is the future clear? vs cloudy?
2020-08-12T04:49:15.875Z
As mentioned above, a program called numerical forecasting model occupies a large portion of rainfall forecasting by the Meteorological Administration. With the prolonged rainy season, such as the Japan Meteorological Agency, Norway Meteorological Agency, and Meteorological Exiles, people are looking for a lot of data besides the Korea Meteorological Agency.
Source: sbskr