Gertrud Husch, BMDV Director General, and Gerhard Adrian, DWD and WMO President, addressed the guests with opening remarks. Florence Rabier, ECMWF Director-General, took the opportunity to thank the ECMWF member states and staff as well as the German hosts for this first successful year in Bonn, explaining that a number of obstacles had to be overcome while moving here in the middle of the pandemic and expressing her appreciation to all parties for their willingness to make things work.

Ms. Rabier outlined the impressive ECMWF activities from Bonn, which include monthly climate bulletins, the annual State of the Climate publication, the first General Assembly of the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service and a range of activities in the context of Destination Earth, where the formal agreement with the European Union was signed in December 2021.

ECMWF, in partnership with its member states, has also issued and awarded the first tenders for the development of a digital twin of planet Earth to provide capabilities for the assessment and prediction of environmental extremes in support of risk assessment and management. In a second step, a digital twin will be developed in the field of climate change adaptation.

The Director-General emphasized that the success of ECMWF has always relied on building synergies between the various scientific streams, explaining that some areas of ECMWF’s numerical weather prediction also had to relocate to Bonn in this context.

After its first year in Bonn, ECMWF has 108 staff members, expecting a total number of around 150 in the near future.