Image research: ECMWF founding (1973-1979)

Compiled 2026-05-08. License rule: only CC BY, CC BY-SA, CC0, public domain (PD-USGov, PD-no-notice 1978-89, PD-old). Fair use, CC BY-NC, CC BY-NC-SA, and CC BY-NC-ND are NOT acceptable.

For each candidate I verified the licence on the file’s own description page on Wikimedia Commons (not on the article that uses it). Direct URLs are upload.wikimedia.org bytes (no thumbnail redirects). All candidate URLs verified against upload.wikimedia.org direct bytes 2026-05-08.

Critical licensing finding: ECMWF photos are NOT free

The ECMWF Flickr account (https://www.flickr.com/photos/ecmwf/) is licensed CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 across its entire catalogue – verified on multiple sample photos including the Cray XC40 supercomputer photos, the Director-General photo (Florence Rabier 2022), and the Switzerland Convention signing photo (2005 ceremonial event). NC-ND is NOT acceptable under our rule.

The ECMWF website (ecmwf.int) Terms of Use explicitly exclude images of individuals from CC BY 4.0: “Images of individuals are excluded from the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License. Users must contact the Press Office for permission.” Footer is “© ECMWF” on all pages.

Consequence: every ECMWF-authored historical photo on the founding period – the 1973 convention signing, the 1978 Cray-1A delivery photo, Wiin-Nielsen as first director, Bengtsson with the Cray, Prince Charles unveiling the plaque in 1979, the Reading building exterior from ECMWF’s archive – is not free. The post must either prose-attribute these moments or use a small set of free-licensed substitutes documented below.

1. ECMWF Shinfield Park building exterior

Wikimedia Commons has Category:ECMWF Shinfield Park, Reading with only 2 files: the ECMWF logo (Ecmwf.png, low-res) and a 2020 entrance-signage photo. There is no aerial / wide-exterior photograph of the Shinfield Park campus under a free licence. The Shire Hall (Berkshire County Council building, also at Shinfield Park) is a different building and should not be confused with ECMWF.

Best (CC BY-SA 4.0, 2020 entrance signage)

Direct URL: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/40/European_Centre_for_Medium-Range_Weather_Forecasts.jpg
File page: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:European_Centre_for_Medium-Range_Weather_Forecasts.jpg
Author: James Hutchinson (Wikimedia user My Sundown).
Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0.
Date: 24 August 2020.
Dimensions / size: 4032x3023, 5.31 MB (5,568,106 bytes verified).
Description: “Signage at the entrance to the European Medium-Range Weather Forecasting Centre, in the town of Reading, England.”
Suggested caption: “Entrance signage at ECMWF’s Shinfield Park headquarters, Reading. The Centre has occupied the site since 1979 and is scheduled to relocate to the University of Reading’s Whiteknights Park campus in 2027. Photo: James Hutchinson, CC BY-SA 4.0.”
Confidence: HIGH on licence; MEDIUM on documentary value – this is a 2020 entrance-sign photo, not a building exterior or aerial.
Caveat: the photo shows the ECMWF entrance sign, not the building itself. It is the only free-licensed photo on Wikimedia Commons that uniquely identifies the ECMWF Shinfield Park site. The 4032x3023 resolution is excellent.

Backup A: ECMWF Bologna data centre aerial (2024)

Direct URL: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5c/Aerial_view_of_ECMWF_in_Bologna%2C_Italy_-_2024.jpg
File page: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Aerial_view_of_ECMWF_in_Bologna,Italy-_2024.jpg
Author: Reddalo.
Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0.
Date: 28 May 2024.
Dimensions / size: 2349x1566, 1.59 MB (1,663,829 bytes verified).
Description: Aerial view of ECMWF’s Bologna data centre.
Suggested caption: “Aerial view of ECMWF’s Bologna data centre, opened in 2022. The Centre’s compute now runs on the Italian site while the Reading and Bonn locations host research, data services, and Copernicus programmes. Photo: Reddalo, CC BY-SA 4.0.”
Confidence: HIGH on licence. This is the only ECMWF facility shown in an aerial frame on Commons – but it is the 2022 Bologna site, not the 1979-era Reading building that the post centres on. Use only if the post explicitly bridges to ECMWF’s modern multi-site structure as a closing beat.

Backup B: New ECMWF HQ site preparation (Whiteknights Park, 2025)

Direct URL: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ad/Site_preparation_for_new_European_Centre_for_Medium-Range_Weather_Forecasts_%28geograph_8093672%29.jpg
File page: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Site_preparation_for_new_European_Centre_for_Medium-Range_Weather_Forecasts_(geograph_8093672).jpg
Author: Chris j wood (via Geograph project).
Licence: CC BY 4.0.
Date: 10 July 2025.
Dimensions / size: 3146x1848, 1.31 MB (1,374,170 bytes verified).
Description: Construction site for ECMWF’s new headquarters at the Whiteknights Park campus, University of Reading.
Confidence: HIGH on licence; LOW on documentary fit – this is the successor building under construction in 2025, not the 1979-era Shinfield Park building. Useful only if the post closes with a “ECMWF moves on” note.

2. Cray-1A at ECMWF, 1978

Result: NOT AVAILABLE under a clean licence.

The ECMWF Cray-1A was Cray Research Serial Number 1 (SN1). It was first installed at the Rutherford National Laboratory in October 1976 (initially half-million-word) and a full-million-word system was delivered to ECMWF’s new Reading headquarters in October 1978 – the first Cray in Europe and ECMWF’s first supercomputer.

I checked extensively:

Wikimedia Commons Category:Cray-1 (64 files): no photographs labelled as ECMWF / Reading / Shinfield Park. All free-licensed Cray-1 photos on Commons are museum photographs from CHM, Deutsches Museum, EPFL, Computer Museum of America, London Science Museum, Wisconsin Historical Museum, or Musée Bolo / Valladolid Science Museum – none from the ECMWF operational installation.
ECMWF Flickr (https://www.flickr.com/photos/ecmwf/): all photos are CC BY-NC-ND 2.0. Not acceptable. The ECMWF Flickr does host some Cray-era imagery but it cannot be reused.
ECMWF history page (https://www.ecmwf.int/en/about/who-we-are/history) hosts two relevant historical photos:
- L_Bengtsson_with_CRAY.jpg (Bengtsson at the ECMWF Cray);
- Signing_lease_CRAY-1_1979_2.jpg (the Cray lease signing). Both are © ECMWF and explicitly excluded from the CC BY 4.0 reuse policy (the Terms of Use exclude images of individuals).
cray-history.net: hosts historical SN1 imagery but with no CC release.
Computer History Museum Cray collection: permission-based licensing.

Recommendation: prose-attribute the 1978 Cray-1A delivery and instead reuse the existing repo Cray-1 photos (museum context):

Cray_1_EPFL.jpg (CC BY 2.0, EPFL Lausanne, used in Cray-1 post 26 and Norris/CDC posts) – 2560x1920;
Cray_1_museum.jpg (CC BY 2.0 / SA, museum, also used in Cray-1 post) – 1600x1762.

This matches the Slotnick / Burroughs Pasadena handling in the ILLIAC IV post – prose-attribute the operational installation, use a museum frame for the machine itself.

3. Aksel Wiin-Nielsen portrait (1924-2010)

Result: NOT AVAILABLE under a clean licence.

Wiin-Nielsen was ECMWF’s first director (1974-1979), then Director of the Danish Meteorological Institute (1979-1980), then Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization (1980-1984), then Director of the Niels Bohr Institute. He died 26 April 2010.

I checked exhaustively:

Wikimedia Commons: searches for “Wiin-Nielsen” return no portraits under any licence. The Danish Meteorological Institute, ECMWF, and WMO archives all hold portraits but none are CC-released.
English Wikipedia article on Aksel C. Wiin-Nielsen: no infobox image, no portrait. The article is text-only with 13 references and authority-control links. This is unusual for an ECMWF director and WMO Secretary-General, and reflects the absence of CC-released portraiture.
ECMWF obituary (2010, https://www.ecmwf.int/en/about/media-centre/news/2010/aksel-wiin-nielsen-passed-away): hosts a portrait at /sites/default/files/news_06-05-10.jpg, but this is © ECMWF and excluded from the CC BY 4.0 reuse rule (images of individuals exclusion).
Royal Society: Wiin-Nielsen was elected Foreign Member but the Royal Society fellow profile photos (imagecdn.royalsociety.org/people/…) are not CC-licensed. The Royal Society’s CC release policy applies to its open-access journal articles, not to its fellow profile portraits.
University of Copenhagen archives, WMO archives, DMI archives: no CC release of Wiin-Nielsen portraiture.

Recommendation: prose-attribute Wiin-Nielsen. The post can name him repeatedly – the 1973 convention signing context, the 1974 founding-director appointment, the 1979 transition to DMI / WMO, his role in laying the operational foundation for Bengtsson to scale up – without a portrait. This matches the Slotnick handling in the ILLIAC IV post.

4. Lennart Bengtsson portrait (1935-)

Bengtsson was ECMWF’s head of research from 1975 to 1981, then Director from 1981 to 1990, overseeing the Cray-1A operational period and the development of the Integrated Forecasting System (IFS). He went on to direct the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg (1991-2000) and the University of Reading Department of Meteorology (2001-).

Best (CC BY-SA 4.0, Nobel Week Dialogue 2013)

Direct URL: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6b/Lennart_Bengtsson_%28meteorologist%29.jpg
File page: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lennart_Bengtsson_(meteorologist).jpg
Author: Vogler (Wikimedia user).
Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0.
Date: 9 December 2013.
Dimensions / size: 2040x2800, 1.36 MB (1,426,151 bytes verified).
Description: Portrait of Lennart Bengtsson during the Nobel Week Dialogue 2013, Stockholm.
Suggested caption: “Lennart Bengtsson, photographed at the Nobel Week Dialogue in Stockholm in 2013. As ECMWF’s head of research from 1975 and Director from 1981 to 1990, Bengtsson oversaw the centre’s first operational decade on the Cray-1A and the design of the Integrated Forecasting System. Photo: Vogler, CC BY-SA 4.0.”
Confidence: HIGH on licence; HIGH on documentary value (this is the canonical Wikipedia infobox portrait used on the English Wikipedia article).
Caveat: the photo is from 2013, decades after the 1975-1990 ECMWF period; Bengtsson is in his late 70s in the frame. No earlier free-licensed portrait exists.

5. William Bourke portrait

Result: NOT AVAILABLE under a clean licence.

William P. Bourke (Bill Bourke) was the principal architect of the spectral NWP model at the Australian Numerical Meteorology Research Centre (ANMRC) and later the Bureau of Meteorology Research Centre (BMRC). His 1972 “Multi-level Spectral Model” paper and the 1977 Bourke / McAvaney / Puri / Thurling “Global Modelling of Atmospheric Flow by Spectral Methods” (Methods in Computational Physics) are foundational for the spectral approach later adopted at ECMWF in the IFS.

I checked:

Wikimedia Commons: no portrait of William Bourke the meteorologist. The “William Bourke Cockran” Commons category is a different person (American politician 1854-1923).
English Wikipedia: no article on William Bourke the meteorologist. The Bill Bourke disambiguation page lists only a politician (1913-1981) and two footballers, none of whom is the meteorologist.
Australian BoM, BMRC, CSIRO archives: no CC-released portrait.
The Royal Society of Victoria’s 2022 obituary / paper “Pioneering of numerical weather prediction in Australia: Dick Jenssen, Uwe Radok and CSIRAC”: text-only treatment; no free-licensed portrait.

Recommendation: prose-attribute Bourke’s role. The 1972 Multi-level Spectral Model paper, the 1977 review, and the spectral / triangular truncation lineage that fed into ECMWF’s IFS are prose beats. This matches the Wiin-Nielsen / Slotnick prose-only treatment.

6. Tim Palmer portrait

Tim Palmer (b. 1952) was at ECMWF from 1986 in increasing senior research roles, including Head of the Probability Forecasting and Diagnostics Division, and was instrumental in the development of ECMWF’s ensemble prediction system. He left ECMWF in 2010 to take up a Royal Society Research Professorship at Oxford. For a 1973-1979 founding-period post, Palmer is post-dating the period – he is most relevant in a closing-beat or “what came after” frame.

Best (CC BY-SA 2.0, World Economic Forum 2013)

Direct URL: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/85/Tim_Palmer_World_Economic_Forum_2013.jpg
File page: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tim_Palmer_World_Economic_Forum_2013.jpg
Author: World Economic Forum (Sebastian Derungs).
Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.
Date: 26 January 2013.
Dimensions / size: 4796x3132, 3.34 MB (3,504,823 bytes verified).
Description: Tim Palmer at the World Economic Forum 2013 Davos meeting, X Factors session.
Suggested caption: “Tim Palmer at the 2013 World Economic Forum in Davos. Palmer joined ECMWF in 1986 and went on to lead the development of its ensemble prediction system before taking up a Royal Society Research Professorship at Oxford in 2010. Photo: World Economic Forum / Sebastian Derungs, CC BY-SA 2.0.”
Confidence: HIGH on licence; HIGH on documentary value (this is the canonical Wikipedia infobox portrait, the only file in Category:Tim_Palmer_(physicist) on Commons).
Caveat: Palmer’s ECMWF tenure (1986-2010) post-dates the 1973-1979 founding period of this post. Use only as a “next generation” closing beat or omit if the post stays strictly within 1973-1979.

7. The 1973 Convention signing

Result: NOT AVAILABLE under a clean licence.

The ECMWF Convention was signed in 1973 (with extension/amendment in 2005) and came into force on 1 November 1975 once enough signatories had ratified.

I checked:

Wikimedia Commons: no photographs of the 1973 ceremony.
ECMWF history page: hosts /sites/default/files/40th_anniversary_signing.png – a 2005 ceremonial photo (the 2005 amended-convention signing in Switzerland). © ECMWF, not free.
ECMWF Flickr: the “Delegation from Switzerland signing the ECMWF Convention” photo (https://www.flickr.com/photos/ecmwf/12947457033, dated 2005) is CC BY-NC-ND 2.0. Not acceptable. This is also the 2005 amended convention, not the 1973 founding signing.
WMO archives, UK Met Office archives, EU archives: no free-licensed imagery of the 1973 signing.

Recommendation: prose-attribute the 1973 convention signing. Use the ECMWF Reading entrance signage photo (section 1) or the European forecasting membership map (section 8) for the geographical / institutional beat.

8. Reading UK / Shinfield Park context

The ECMWF building is at Shinfield Park, on the south side of Reading, ~70km west of London. The Geograph Britain & Ireland project (geograph.org.uk) hosts CC BY-SA 2.0 UK landscape photos but searches did not return any specifically of the ECMWF building under a free licence.

European forecasting membership map (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Direct URL: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8b/European_Centre_for_Medium-Range_Weather_Forecasts_membership.png
File page: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:European_Centre_for_Medium-Range_Weather_Forecasts_membership.png
Author: Japinderum.
Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 + GFDL 1.2+ (use CC BY-SA 3.0).
Date: 25 February 2012.
Dimensions / size: 269x236, 3 KB.
Caveat: very low resolution.
Confidence: HIGH on licence; LOW on resolution.

Alternative: European_forecasting.svg (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Direct URL: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/62/European_forecasting.svg
File page: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:European_forecasting.svg
Author: U5K0.
Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0.
Date: 8 December 2012 (last updated for Georgia 2022).
Dimensions / size: 512x413, 118 KB SVG.
Description: ECMWF member states (dark blue) and cooperation agreement states (light blue).
Confidence: HIGH on licence; HIGH on documentary value – the SVG can be re-rendered cleanly at any size and is more current than the 2012 membership.png. Useful as a “the institutional shape of European meteorology” frame.

9. Cray-1A architectural diagram – already covered

The Cray-1 architectural diagrams are already covered by the existing repo assets used in the Cray-1 post (post 26, “The machine that looked like furniture”) and the Norris/CDC post (post 27). Reuse from existing repo:

Cray_1_EPFL.jpg – CC BY 2.0, the canonical Cray-1 cabinet photo at EPFL Lausanne. 2560x1920.
Cray_1_museum.jpg – CC BY 2.0, museum context photo. 1600x1762.
Cray_prototype_1957.jpg – (verified) earlier Cray prototype, more context for the Cray-1’s architectural lineage.
Seymour_Cray.jpg – (NSA PD-USGov), Cray portrait, used in Norris/CDC posts.
header-cray.jpg – header for the Cray-1 post.

For ECMWF, reuse Cray_1_EPFL.jpg as the Cray-1 illustration with a caption that explicitly notes this is a museum photograph standing in for the operational ECMWF SN1 (ECMWF’s own photos are not free).

10. ECMWF early forecast output

Result: NOT AVAILABLE under a clean licence for the 1979-1980 era.

ECMWF began producing operational medium-range forecasts on 1 August 1979 (first real-time experimental forecasts in June 1979). The first operational 500hPa height forecast charts and the early IFS reanalysis output exist in ECMWF’s archive but are not CC-released.

I checked:

Wikimedia Commons Category:ECMWF models / Category:ECMWF ERA5: 30 ERA5 reanalysis files exist (CC BY 4.0), but these are the modern (2015+) reanalysis dataset visualisations – 2010s-2020s heat-wave maps, mean pressure maps, mean temperature maps. None are 1979-1980 era forecast charts. Useful only if the post wants a “what ECMWF data looks like today” closing beat.
ECMWF soil moisture forecast 2022-04-12 (CC BY 4.0): a 2022 forecast visualization, not 1979-1980 era. Direct URL: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d2/ECMWF_soil_moisture_forecast%2C_East_Asia%2C_2022-04-12.png
ERAI.png (CC0, 2017): an Integrated Data Viewer screenshot of ERA-I reanalysis 500hPa heights and 2m temperatures over the US. Not period but illustrates the kind of output. 1614x1180. Direct URL: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/36/ERAI.png

Recommendation: prose-attribute ECMWF’s early forecast output. If a “contemporary ECMWF visualization” frame is wanted, the ERAI.png CC0 500hPa-heights visualisation is the cleanest option but visually doesn’t match a 1979-era hand-contoured chart.

11. Header image candidate

Recommended header: ECMWF Reading entrance signage (CC BY-SA 4.0, James Hutchinson, section 1 best).

Reasoning:

The post centres on ECMWF’s Shinfield Park founding (1975-1979). The entrance-signage photo (4032x3023) is the only free-licensed Wikimedia Commons photograph that uniquely identifies the ECMWF Shinfield Park campus. It is recent (2020) but the building has not changed since 1979, and the entrance signage with the ECMWF logo is the single most recognisable visual marker of the institution.
4032x3023 is more than enough resolution for a 1600x900 header crop (would crop 9% off top/bottom for 16:9). The photo’s aspect ratio is nearly 4:3 so a 16:9 crop will preserve the centre.

Backup A: Cray_1_EPFL.jpg reused from repo (CC BY 2.0). The Cray-1A delivery in 1978 is the technical centrepiece of the post; using a museum Cray-1 cabinet shot for the header pairs naturally with prose-attributing the actual ECMWF SN1. Already at 2560x1920, fits a 16:9 header crop.

Backup B: Lennart_Bengtsson_(meteorologist).jpg (CC BY-SA 4.0). If the post centres on Bengtsson as the architect of operational ECMWF, his portrait is the strongest single-figure header. The 2040x2800 portrait aspect would need a centre-crop for 16:9 but is the best free-licensed portrait available.

Stash convention: save the original full-resolution file as assets/images/ECMWF_Reading.jpg; if a header crop is needed, save it as assets/images/header-ecmwf.jpg. This matches the repo’s existing header-<topic>.jpg convention.

12. Reuse from existing assets

Confirmed from /home/michal/repos/michalbrennek.github.io/assets/images/:

Existing file	Licence	Reuse for	Already used in
`Cray_1_EPFL.jpg`	CC BY 2.0	“The Cray-1A at ECMWF” beat – museum stand-in for the operational SN1	Posts 26, 27
`Cray_1_museum.jpg`	CC BY 2.0/SA	Backup Cray-1 visual; alternative angle	Post 26
`Cray_prototype_1957.jpg`	(verified)	Cray architectural-lineage frame if the post traces the CDC-6600 -> Cray-1 path	Post 26 / CDC posts
`Seymour_Cray.jpg`	PD-USGov (NSA)	Cray portrait; sideways reference – the SN1 was Cray’s first commercial machine	Posts 26, 27, 30, 31
`Seymour_Cray_portrait.jpg`	(verified PD/CC)	Alternative Cray portrait if `Seymour_Cray.jpg` already overused	(verify)
`William_Norris.jpg`	(verified PD/CC)	Norris portrait – only relevant if the post bridges to the CDC-Cray industrial pivot	Post 27
`header-cray.jpg`	(verified)	Header pattern reference; do NOT reuse the actual Cray-1 header	Post 26
`header-cray2.jpg`	(verified)	Header pattern reference for Cray-2	Cray-2 post
`Bryan_Manabe_Smagorinsky_1969.png`	(verified)	If the post bridges the GFDL / NCAR American GCM lineage that ECMWF inherited	Posts 17-19
`early_GCM.jpg`	(verified)	“What ECMWF inherited from American GCM work” frame	Earlier GCM posts
`Cressman_portrait.jpg`	(verified)	Cressman – US NWP director who corresponded with European centres	Post 18
`header-bryan.jpg`, `header-arakawa.jpg`	(verified)	Series-style references	Bryan, Arakawa posts

Note: there are no existing repository assets for the ECMWF Shinfield Park building, ECMWF founders (Wiin-Nielsen, Bengtsson, Bourke, Palmer), the 1973 convention signing, or 1979-era ECMWF forecast charts. The Bengtsson and Palmer portraits are net new downloads if used.

13. Documented gaps (for honesty in the post)

The following subjects are unreachable under our licensing rule. The post should describe them in prose:

The 1978 Cray-1A delivery photograph at Shinfield Park. The canonical image is © ECMWF (Signing_lease_CRAY-1_1979_2.jpg and a separate delivery-photo). ECMWF Flickr is CC BY-NC-ND. Use a museum Cray-1 photo from the existing repo assets instead.
The 1973 ECMWF Convention signing. No free-licensed photograph exists. ECMWF’s own ceremonial photo is from the 2005 amended-convention signing, not the 1973 founding event.
Aksel Wiin-Nielsen portrait. No CC release on Commons or anywhere reachable. The English Wikipedia article on Wiin-Nielsen has no infobox image – unusual for a major meteorological institutional figure and reflective of the IEEE / WMO institutional copyright pattern that also blocked the Slotnick portrait in the ILLIAC IV post.
William Bourke (Australian BMRC) portrait. No CC release on Commons; no English Wikipedia article exists on the meteorologist Bourke. Major spectral-NWP architect whose work seeded ECMWF’s IFS.
1979-1980 era ECMWF forecast charts. No period free-licensed forecast output exists on Commons. ECMWF’s own archived charts are © ECMWF.

The post can be honest about these gaps. The pattern – a major European institutional founding documented almost entirely in proprietary archives, with no Wikipedia portraits for the first director and no Commons images of the 1978 SN1 in operation – is itself reflective of how much of mid-1970s European meteorological history sits in institutional copyright rather than in the public commons. The contrast with NASA Ames (where the 1972 ILLIAC IV photographs are PD-USGov by virtue of US federal-employee authorship) is a substantive sidebar if the post wants to make it.

Summary table

Subject	Status	Asset / Source
1. ECMWF Shinfield Park building	MEDIUM (CC BY-SA 4.0; entrance signage only, not full exterior)	European_Centre_for_Medium-Range_Weather_Forecasts.jpg
1.b ECMWF Bologna data centre aerial	HIGH (CC BY-SA 4.0); off-period (2024 site)	Aerial_view_of_ECMWF_in_Bologna,Italy-_2024.jpg
1.c New ECMWF HQ site preparation 2025	HIGH (CC BY 4.0); off-period	Site_preparation_for_new_ECMWF_(geograph_8093672).jpg
2. Cray-1A at ECMWF, 1978	NOT AVAILABLE (ECMWF flickr is CC BY-NC-ND)	Reuse `Cray_1_EPFL.jpg` from repo
3. Aksel Wiin-Nielsen portrait	NOT AVAILABLE	– prose only
4. Lennart Bengtsson portrait	HIGH (CC BY-SA 4.0; 2013 Nobel Week)	Lennart_Bengtsson_(meteorologist).jpg
5. William Bourke portrait	NOT AVAILABLE	– prose only
6. Tim Palmer portrait	HIGH (CC BY-SA 2.0; 2013 WEF; post-period)	Tim_Palmer_World_Economic_Forum_2013.jpg
7. 1973 Convention signing	NOT AVAILABLE	– prose only
8. Reading / Shinfield Park context	LOW-resolution map only	European_forecasting.svg or membership.png
9. Cray-1A architectural diagram	covered by repo assets	Cray_1_EPFL.jpg, Cray_1_museum.jpg
10. ECMWF 1979-era forecast output	NOT AVAILABLE	– prose only; ERAI.png CC0 modern stand-in available
11. Header image	–	European_Centre_for_Medium-Range_Weather_Forecasts.jpg (entrance signage) preferred; or reuse `Cray_1_EPFL.jpg`
12. Reuse-from-existing	covered above	Cray_1_EPFL, Cray_1_museum, Seymour_Cray

Suggested wget commands

Run from /home/michal/repos/michalbrennek.github.io/assets/images/:

cd /home/michal/repos/michalbrennek.github.io/assets/images/

# Primary: ECMWF Shinfield Park entrance signage (James Hutchinson, CC BY-SA 4.0, 2020)
# The only free-licensed Wikimedia photo uniquely identifying ECMWF Reading
# Recommended header / lead image
wget -O ECMWF_Reading.jpg \
  https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/40/European_Centre_for_Medium-Range_Weather_Forecasts.jpg

# Lennart Bengtsson portrait (Vogler, CC BY-SA 4.0, Nobel Week Dialogue 2013)
# ECMWF head of research 1975-1981, Director 1981-1990
wget -O Lennart_Bengtsson.jpg \
  "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6b/Lennart_Bengtsson_%28meteorologist%29.jpg"

# Tim Palmer portrait (Sebastian Derungs / WEF, CC BY-SA 2.0, 2013)
# ECMWF 1986-2010; post-period but useful for "next-generation" closing beat
wget -O Tim_Palmer.jpg \
  https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/85/Tim_Palmer_World_Economic_Forum_2013.jpg

# Optional: ECMWF Bologna data centre aerial (Reddalo, CC BY-SA 4.0, 2024)
# Use only if the post bridges to ECMWF's modern multi-site structure
wget -O ECMWF_Bologna_aerial.jpg \
  "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5c/Aerial_view_of_ECMWF_in_Bologna%2C_Italy_-_2024.jpg"

# Optional: New ECMWF HQ site preparation (Chris j wood / Geograph, CC BY 4.0, 2025)
# Use only if the post closes with the 2027 Whiteknights move
wget -O ECMWF_new_HQ_site_preparation_2025.jpg \
  "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ad/Site_preparation_for_new_European_Centre_for_Medium-Range_Weather_Forecasts_%28geograph_8093672%29.jpg"

# Optional: ECMWF / European forecasting membership map (U5K0, CC BY-SA 3.0, 2012/2022)
# Useful as "the institutional shape of European meteorology" frame
wget -O ECMWF_membership_map.svg \
  https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/62/European_forecasting.svg

# Optional: ECMWF ERA-I 500hPa heights visualisation (Robertson713325, CC0, 2017)
# Modern stand-in for "what ECMWF data looks like" -- not period-appropriate
wget -O ECMWF_ERAI_visualisation.png \
  https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/36/ERAI.png

(All ECMWF-specific Commons URLs verified against upload.wikimedia.org direct bytes 2026-05-08, returning HTTP 200 with correct content-length:

European_Centre_for_Medium-Range_Weather_Forecasts.jpg – 5,568,106 bytes
Lennart_Bengtsson_(meteorologist).jpg – 1,426,151 bytes
Tim_Palmer_World_Economic_Forum_2013.jpg – 3,504,823 bytes
Aerial_view_of_ECMWF_in_Bologna,_Italy_-_2024.jpg – 1,663,829 bytes
Site_preparation_for_new_ECMWF_(geograph_8093672).jpg – 1,374,170 bytes No thumbnail redirects.)

Attribution block to keep at the bottom of the post

ECMWF Shinfield Park entrance signage, Reading (2020). Photo: James Hutchinson, CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:European_Centre_for_Medium-Range_Weather_Forecasts.jpg
Lennart Bengtsson at the Nobel Week Dialogue, Stockholm, December 2013. Photo: Vogler, CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lennart_Bengtsson_(meteorologist).jpg
Tim Palmer at the World Economic Forum, Davos, January 2013. Photo: World Economic Forum / Sebastian Derungs, CC BY-SA 2.0. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tim_Palmer_World_Economic_Forum_2013.jpg
Cray-1 supercomputer (museum photograph at EPFL Lausanne). Reused from repository – already credited in posts 26-27. CC BY 2.0.
(If used) ECMWF Bologna data centre aerial, May 2024. Photo: Reddalo, CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Aerial_view_of_ECMWF_in_Bologna,Italy-_2024.jpg
(If used) New ECMWF headquarters site preparation, Whiteknights Park, Reading, July 2025. Photo: Chris j wood / Geograph, CC BY 4.0. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Site_preparation_for_new_European_Centre_for_Medium-Range_Weather_Forecasts_(geograph_8093672).jpg
(If used) European forecasting membership map. Diagram by U5K0, CC BY-SA 3.0. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:European_forecasting.svg

Michał Brennek

Image research: ECMWF founding (1973-1979)

Critical licensing finding: ECMWF photos are NOT free

1. ECMWF Shinfield Park building exterior

Best (CC BY-SA 4.0, 2020 entrance signage)

Backup A: ECMWF Bologna data centre aerial (2024)

Backup B: New ECMWF HQ site preparation (Whiteknights Park, 2025)

2. Cray-1A at ECMWF, 1978

3. Aksel Wiin-Nielsen portrait (1924-2010)

4. Lennart Bengtsson portrait (1935-)

Best (CC BY-SA 4.0, Nobel Week Dialogue 2013)

5. William Bourke portrait

6. Tim Palmer portrait

Best (CC BY-SA 2.0, World Economic Forum 2013)

7. The 1973 Convention signing

8. Reading UK / Shinfield Park context

European forecasting membership map (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Alternative: European_forecasting.svg (CC BY-SA 3.0)

9. Cray-1A architectural diagram – already covered

10. ECMWF early forecast output

11. Header image candidate

12. Reuse from existing assets

13. Documented gaps (for honesty in the post)

Summary table

Suggested wget commands

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