The 8th ACCORD Newsletter is the first one under phase 2 of the consortium. Quite some management activity has been undertaken since January in order to get ACCORD up and rolling with the new compositions of its several bodies. PAC already had its first meeting devoted to the topic of open sourcing part of the codes. It is intended that STAC meets for its first phase 2 meeting in spring. The first phase 2 Assembly meeting is scheduled for the 3rd of July.
At the scientific and technical planning level, the new Management Group (MG) has started its regular weekly online meetings (usually on Friday mornings), complemented by an in-person kick-off two-day meeting in Toulouse. The new MG has among other things taken up the continued preparation and the monitoring of the ACCORD-funded actions from the Detailed Action Plan (DAP-2026). In the next weeks and months, the MG will organize the updates of the DAP with the additional actions to take place this year and start preparing the draft RWP-2027. The new MG members will thus take their full role in organizing the R&D activities, building their links with the teams, the scientists and the LTMs. A caveat regarding the management tasks is the missing two Area Leader positions (Physics, MQA). The Programme Management is currently exploring solutions for filling these two empty MG functions. In the meanwhile, activity in connection with the physics parameterizations and meteorological quality assurance will be organized by the existing MG in close collaboration with a few key scientists and with an emphasis on across-ACCORD priority directions.
This Newsletter 8 has several contributions related to data assimilation (4) and algorithmic or modelling-related topics (3). Our Area Leader for EPS in phase 1, Henrik Feddersen, is contributing with a summary of the Working Week hosted by GeoSphere Austria in October 2025. Patricia is sending her own greetings by a personal contribution at the end of the newsletter.
The Newsletter remains an essential tool for communicating results across ACCORD, in a fairly brief (yet clearly structured) manner enabling scientists and teams to rather promptly present their achievements. For future newsletter contributors, please check the editorial information important to read and available on the ACCORD website.