Overview of Numerical Weather Prediction and Data Assimilation
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Date
25 Feb 2026
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Organiser
Department of Land Surveying and Geo-Informatics (LSGI), Research Institute for Land and Space (RILS) & Otto Poon Research Institute for Climate-Resilient Infrastructure (RICRI)
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Time
16:30 - 17:30
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Venue
Y302 Map
Speaker
Prof. Seon Ki PARK
Remarks
Moderator: Prof. George Zhizhao LIU, Professor, LSGI, member of RILS & RICRI
Summary
Numerical weather prediction (NWP) is a state-of-art technology in operational meteorology for objective forecast of weather systems. In a changing climate, we are confronting with extreme weather events; thus, accurate forecasts of such events are essential. Among the uncertainties of NWP that come from many sources, those in the initial and boundary conditions can be reduced by data assimilation while those in the subgrid-scale physical parameterizations can be alleviated by parameter optimization. As Part I of this lecture series on data assimilation (DA), it covers a general overview on NWP and DA, including history and major components of these advanced techniques and examples of applications. Fundamental framework and potential applications of NWP and DA will be introduced in this lecture. This lecture series is aimed at providing high-level undergraduate students as well as graduate students with scientific backgrounds on DA. Lectures on Part II (Basic Formulation of DA) and Part III (Tangent Linear and Adjoint Models) are planned in the future.
Keynote Speaker
Prof. Seon Ki PARK is Professor of Climate and Energy Systems Engineering at the Ewha Womans University (EWU), Seoul, Korea. He established and served as the Founding Directors of two research centers at EWU --- the Severe Storm Research Center (SSRC) and the Center for Climate/Environment Change Prediction Research (CCCPR). His research focuses on storm- and meso-scale meteorology, coupled modeling of land surface-atmosphere-chemistry, and numerical prediction of high-impact weather/climate/environment, including data assimilation and parameter optimization. He obtained a PhD in Meteorology from the University of Oklahoma (OU) in 1996, then worked as a research scientist at OU, University of Maryland and NASA/GSFC before he joined EWU in 2001. He has served the university administration as Director of Environmental Science and Engineering, Associate Dean of Engineering, and Vice President of University Planning and Coordination. He received several awards from EWU such as the Teaching Excellence Award, the Research Excellence Award, and the Research Grant Excellence Award, and from the Korean government such as the Administrator’s Award (Korea Meteorological Administration), the Minister’s Award (Ministry of Environment), and the Service Merit Medal and the Order of Service Merit (Government of Korea). He has also served as the President of Atmospheric Sciences Section of the Asia Oceania Geosciences Society (AOGS) in 2012-2014, and as the President of the Korean Meteorological Society (KMS) in 2024-2025. He co-edited a series of editorial volumes, Data Assimilation for Atmospheric, Oceanic and Hydrologic Applications (2009, 2013, 2017, 2022; Springer); he co-authored a textbook, Data Assimilation for Atmospheric, Oceanic and Hydrologic Applications (2022; Cambridge University Press); he also edited a book, Data Assimilation for Atmospheric, Oceanic and Hydrologic Applications (2023; Springer). He has been the main host and organizer of the Data Assimilation for Atmospheric, Oceanic and Hydrologic Applications (Data Assimilation for Atmospheric, Oceanic and Hydrologic Applications) since 2012.
