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Momentum Partnership 

The Momentum Partnership consists of operational and research centres that use and develop a world leading seamless modelling framework – Momentum®, that underpins weather and climate science and services.

Aims and benefits 

The aim of the Momentum Partnership is to provide a framework for all Partners to effectively use and contribute to the development of a world leading seamless modelling framework – Momentum, that underpins weather & climate science and services. Contributions to the Partnership are in the form of funding and effort with a focus on scientific and technical developments that will lead to improvements of the modelling system and associated infrastructure. 

The Momentum Partnership aims to foster collaborative working environments through which all Partners can benefit, delivering joint science and technical developments with improvements feeding through to earth system prediction services. Examples include cloud-based tools, standard processes to share experiments and code, and the ongoing support and development of staff through tutorials and workshops. 

The Partnership benefits from the diverse strengths and specializations of each core Partner, as well as their contributions to the Momentum framework. It focuses on three priority areas. These are the pillars of the Momentum Partnership: 

  • Global and regional prediction and projections 

  • Applications of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning 

  • Technical Infrastructure development Structure 

There are three tiers of Partner to reflect their different contributions. Core partners make the largest commitment and lead activities contributing to joint science and technical programmes. Associate Partners commit less effort than core Partners, are invited to make contributions to joint science and technical programmes and are consulted by the Momentum Partner Board. Research Partners are collaborators of core or associate Partners who are recognised as able to make an effective contribution to the Partnership. They are users without the need for significant central support who don’t need to run the model in real-time or have the intention of delivering real-time operational services now or in the future. A key principle is that the more a Partner invests in the model and framework, the more representation it has in the direction of development. 

Governance 

The Momentum Partnership Board sets the direction of the Partnership through discussion of key activities and the investment of Momentum Partnership funds, as well as agreeing and having oversight of Partner activities contributing to Momentum. Views and suggestions for the Board are gathered from Associates. In addition, the Board is guided and responds to scientific and technical coordinating groups and leads, which recommend and plan work to improve the science and technical aspects of Momentum, as well as the collaboration infrastructure. These groups consist of relevant people across core, associate, and research Partners. 

Core Partners 

  • NIWA (New Zealand) 

Associate Partners 

  • ICM (Poland) 

  • KMA (Republic of Korea) 

  • SAWS (South Africa) 

This Partnership has evolved from the Unified Model (UM) Partnership, a collaboration involving several research organisations and national meteorological services that produced our existing numerical model of the atmosphere used for both weather and climate applications. 

Get involved/Contact us 

Get in touch with the Science Partnerships Team at the Met Office.