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ALADIN
High Resolution Numerical Weather Prediction Project
Website of the ALADIN Consortium
ALADIN-HIRLAM cooperation
Article published on 10 April 2017
last modification on 6 May 2019

by Patricia

After the first contact of the Hirlam Management Group in autumn 2003, many ALADIN-HIRLAM mesoscale collaboration events took place in 2004 : training course, granted licence for research, full code cooperation ...

During the 9th Assembly of ALADIN Partners (Split, 29-30 0ctober 2004), an history of the collaboration events and a roadmap and a time-schedule for the cooperation were proposed (see Andras Horanyi and Per Unden presentations at this Assembly). Then, a resolution on ALADIN-HIRLAM cooperation was unanimously adopted.

The HIRLAM Council (Reading, 15 December 2004) gave a very positive answer to this resolution that was presented by Dr. Ivan Cacic.

On December 5, 2005, during the HIRLAM Council, a Cooperation Agreement between the ALADIN consortium and the HIRLAM consortium was signed with prime objective "to provide the ALADIN and the HIRLAM Members with a state-of-the-art NWP-model for Short and Very Short Range Forecasting including Nowcasting, for both Research and Development activities and Operational usage". This Agreement specifies the conditions for the collaboration between the ALADIN consortium and the HIRLAM consortium as mentioned in their Memorandums of Understanding.

This agreement was renewed on December 1st, 2010: the respective strengths and weaknesses of both consortia complement each other well and, in the recent years, ALADIN and HIRLAM have collaborated more and more closely, giving a new impulse to the European structuring of NWP activities.

In December 2012, the ALADIN General Assembly and the HIRLAM Council created a Task Force to analyse the pros and cons of a further merge. The task Force prepared a draft merger road map that was discussed during the first joint HAC/PAC meeting in May 2013.
Since then, a joint HAC/PAC meeting is yearly held.

In December 2014, the ALADIN General Assembly and the HIRLAM Council held their first joint meeting : the Council and the GA set, through a joint declaration, strong directions for the PMs to head towards with the aim of forming one single consortium by the end of the 2016-2020 MoUs. Since then, some activities have taken place on the areas of convergence and are regularly reported by the ALADIN and HIRLAM PMs.

In the HIRLAM-C MoU and the 5th ALADIN MoU, the ALADIN-HIRLAM cooperation agreement was removed from the MoU texts and remains as a stand alone document : this agreement was approved on December 8, 2016 by the ALADIN GA and HIRLAM Council at their 2nd joint meeting.

Matrix of ALADIN, Feb. 2019 Matrix of HIRLAM, May 2019
ALADIN matrix
HIRLAM-C matrix