The ELMASIFA project


The objective of ELMASIFA is to undertake work and research in order to achieve "Monthly and Seasonal Forecasts of Rainfall Cycles over the Mediterranean Basin".

This project has been set up by the Research Centres of the Meteorological Services of Algeria, France, Morocco and Tunisia under the coordination of MEDIAS-FRANCE, within the framework of the European AVICENNA programme.

The innovative nature of the ELMASIFA project is mainly due to:

  • the choice of region : the Mediterranean Basin - which is rarely given priority as a region in other experiments such as those of the American forecasting centres or ECMWF*, which deal in particular with temperature fields over Europe and the United States or the forecasting of rainfall for equatorial regions.

  • in the aforementioned parameter for this region : rainfall - which has only rarely been taken into account outside of equatorial regions, and which is particularly important due to the critical water management problems of this zone.

    The project has been divided into three phases with each of the participants undertaking specific work towards a final result.

    For phases A and B :

    The Algerian ONM is to study the behaviour of sea surface temperature fields (SST), to select dry and wet years, to look for analogs, to study correlations between monthly and seasonal rains and the SST and to produce statistical forecasts: it will then evaluate a posteriori for the whole of the country, on the basis of archives of in situ observations, the quality of results from forecasting models, as provided by METEO-FRANCE.

    The Moroccan DMN is to create a data base, to study the statistical relationships between SST and various meteorological fields (rainfall, pressure at sea level) and between the North Atlantic Oscillation and rainfall in Morocco, in order to develop statistical methods for long term forecasts and to ascertain the potential of the ARPEGE* - Climate model for forecasting meteorological fields (Rainfall, Z500 and T850).

    The Tunisian INM is to collect climatological data, to look for dry and wet years and classify them, to further the statistical study of correlations between rainfall and meteorological fields for the purpose of producing statistical forecasts, to calculate statistical verification scores in order to evaluate the predictability of rainfall using the ARPEGE numerical model.

    METEO-FRANCE is to participate in the analyses of correlation between the tropical Atlantic SST and rainfall over the Mediterranean Basin, to provide test results from past forecasts (summer and winter), and to study the predictability of rainfall using the perfect model experiment.

    For phase C :

    METEO-FRANCE will be using output from the ARPEGE model, adapted and completed for real-time monthly and seasonal forecasting of rainfall. The participating countries will evaluate in real-time the quality of the model's forecasts as well as the forecast results achieved by statistical analysis. A global evaluation will then be undertaken to determine the operational feasibility of ELMASIFA.