Meteorologist, oceanographer, Python solvem probler, experimenter, Raspberry Pi tinkerer, geek dad, manager, space enthusiast, ham radio lover, science columnist, ADHDer, synthetic intellect curious, linux admin cosplayer.

Image Research: Tim Palmer and the ECMWF Ensemble Prediction System (24 November 1992)

For the blog post on the launch of EPS at ECMWF, 24 November 1992. CC BY / CC BY-SA / CC0 / PD only. No fair-use.

Status: STUB – in progress.

A. Already in repo (verified)

These files exist in /home/michal/repos/michalbrennek.github.io/assets/images/:

File Notes
Tim_Palmer.jpg 1200x784. Canon EOS-1D Mark IV, 2013-01-26. Same WEF 2013 portrait.
Tim_Palmer_WEF2013.jpg 1600x1045. Canon EOS-1D Mark IV, 2013-01-26. Higher-res variant.
Lennart_Bengtsson.jpg 874x1200. Canon PowerShot SX40 HS, 2013-12-09.
ECMWF_Reading.jpg 1600x1200. Reading HQ exterior.
Cray_Y-MP_NASA_Goddard_1993.jpg Used in Post 41/42; 1993 photo, contemporary with EPS-era ECMWF computing.
Lorenz_system_r28.png Lorenz attractor for sensitivity-to-IC visualization.
Error_growth_Lorenz_attractor.jpg Direct EPS pedagogical visual.
TwoLorenzOrbits.jpg Two-trajectory divergence – ideal for ensemble-spread analogy.
EdwardLorenz_portrait.jpg Intellectual lineage.
World_Weather_Building_1974.png NCEP context for transatlantic ensemble race.

B. New candidates – verified

B.1 Tim Palmer portrait (WEF 2013) – CONFIRMED MATCH

Already in repo as Tim_Palmer_WEF2013.jpg and Tim_Palmer.jpg.

  • Source page: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tim_Palmer_World_Economic_Forum_2013.jpg
  • Direct: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/85/Tim_Palmer_World_Economic_Forum_2013.jpg
  • License: CC BY-SA 2.0
  • Author: World Economic Forum / photographer Sebastian Derungs
  • Date: 26 January 2013, Davos session “X Factors: Preparing for the Unknown”
  • Caption: Tim Palmer at the World Economic Forum, Davos, January 2013, by which time the EPS he had led at ECMWF in 1992 had matured into a flagship of probabilistic forecasting. Photo: Sebastian Derungs / WEF, CC BY-SA 2.0.

B.2 Eugenia Kalnay – NEW DOWNLOAD

  • Source page: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Eugenia_Kalnay_Maniac_Talk.jpg
  • Direct: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/51/Eugenia_Kalnay_Maniac_Talk.jpg
  • License: Public domain (NASA work)
  • Source: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, “Maniac Talk” lecture series, 31 March 2015
  • Caption: Eugenia Kalnay at NASA Goddard, 2015. Director of NCEP’s Environmental Modeling Center 1987-1997, she would launch the NCEP ensemble on 7 December 1992 – just two weeks after Palmer’s EPS. Photo: NASA, public domain.

B.3 NCEP spaghetti plot (Nov 2001) – NEW DOWNLOAD

  • Source page: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nov192001h5spaghetti5640m.png
  • Direct: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/44/Nov192001h5spaghetti5640m.png
  • License: Public domain (NOAA / U.S. government work)
  • Author: Environmental Modeling Center, NOAA
  • Date: 19 November 2001
  • Description: 5640 m isohypse at 500 hPa, 10 NCEP global ensemble members, 3.5-day forecast; areas of greatest uncertainty circled in red.
  • Caption: A 2001 NCEP global-ensemble spaghetti plot of the 500 hPa 5640 m contour from ten members, 3.5 days out. The “spaghetti” idiom – closely-bunched lines mean confidence, spread means uncertainty – became the operational language Palmer’s EPS made routine across the North Atlantic. Image: NOAA / EMC, public domain.

B.4 NOAA contour-boxplots ensemble (2014) – NEW DOWNLOAD

  • Source page: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Contour_Boxplots_Weather_ensemble.jpg
  • Direct: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/Contour_Boxplots_Weather_ensemble.jpg
  • License: Public domain (NOAA / U.S. government work)
  • Author: NOAA, Storm Prediction Center experimental ensemble visualization tool, 13 February 2014
  • Caption: An ensemble of isocontours rendered as a “spaghetti plot” from NOAA’s experimental ensemble visualization tool. By the 2010s the visual language Palmer had championed in 1992 was standard issue at every operational center. Image: NOAA, public domain.

B.5 WRF Hurricane Rita ensemble track plot – NEW DOWNLOAD (optional)

  • Source page: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WRF_rita_spread2.jpg
  • Direct: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d5/WRF_rita_spread2.jpg
  • License: Public domain (NASA)
  • Author: Prof. Robert Fovell (UCLA) and Dr. Hui Su (JPL); uploaded 5 March 2010 from a 22 Sept 2005 simulation
  • Caption: WRF ensemble simulations of Hurricane Rita’s track (2005), with NHC cone-of-uncertainty overlay. The cone is the public face of the kind of ensemble spread Palmer’s EPS first delivered for medium-range forecasting in November 1992. Image: NASA, public domain.

B.6 Bred-vector growth rates in the Lorenz system – NEW DOWNLOAD

  • Source page: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bred_vector_growth_rates_in_Lorenz_system.png
  • Direct: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f1/Bred_vector_growth_rates_in_Lorenz_system.png
  • License: CC BY 3.0
  • Authors: Erin Lynch, Daniel Kaufman, A. Surjalal Sharma, Eugenia Kalnay, Kayo Ide (NPG, 2016)
  • Caption: Growth rates of bred vectors in the Lorenz system, from a paper co-authored by Kalnay – a direct descendant of the breeding method NCEP would deploy on 7 December 1992 to compete with Palmer’s singular-vector EPS. Image: Lynch et al. 2016, CC BY 3.0.

B.7 Lennart Bengtsson portrait

Already in repo as Lennart_Bengtsson.jpg. Source page on Commons appears to be File:Lennart_Bengtsson_(meteorologist).jpg (verify license before reuse in new post if not already vetted by earlier post).

B.8 ECMWF Reading HQ exterior

Already in repo as ECMWF_Reading.jpg. Used in earlier posts.

B.9 Lorenz / chaos visuals (already in repo)

  • Lorenz_system_r28.png – canonical attractor
  • Error_growth_Lorenz_attractor.jpg – two-trajectory divergence
  • TwoLorenzOrbits.jpg – ensemble-spread analogy
  • EdwardLorenz_portrait.jpg – intellectual lineage to Charney/MIT All previously vetted in Post 41.

B.10 World Weather Building 1974

Already in repo. Useful for NCEP context.

B.11 Cray Y-MP NASA Goddard 1993

Already in repo. ECMWF ran a Cray Y-MP4 then transitioned to C90 around 1992-94; the Goddard photo is the closest free-license proxy.

C. Do-not-use list

File Why not
Tim_Palmer_in_2010.jpg (Commons) This is Tim Neil Palmer (UNCW), a different person – NOT the ECMWF meteorologist. Photographer Adam Gilbert, CC BY 4.0, but wrong subject. Do not let “Tim Palmer 2010” search hits confuse the post.
Any ECMWF press-release portrait of Roberto Buizza, Franco Molteni, David Burridge, or Anthony Hollingsworth Wikimedia search returns zero Commons-tagged portraits for any of these four. ECMWF’s website hosts photos but they are all-rights-reserved unless individually re-licensed. Do not embed. The post must work around this absence via prose only.
Zoltan Toth portrait No PD-USGov or Commons portrait found. Do not embed.
Any ECMWF Cray Y-MP / C90 photo from ecmwf.int All-rights-reserved. Use the NASA Goddard Cray Y-MP proxy already in repo.

D. Structural absences (post must work around)

  • No free portrait of Roberto Buizza: the EPS singular-vector co-author. Post will need to describe him in prose without a face card.
  • No free portrait of Franco Molteni: same.
  • No free portrait of Zoltan Toth: the breeding-method counterpart at NCEP. Kalnay portrait can stand in as institutional representative.
  • No free portrait of David Burridge or Anthony Hollingsworth: both ECMWF directorate figures.
  • No native ECMWF singular-vector visualization on Commons: bred-vector visualization (B.6) is the nearest analog and is co-authored by Kalnay, so it doubles as an institutional NCEP visual rather than ECMWF. The post must either commission a redraw or rely on prose.

E. Wayback saves

Wayback save blocked. Both the /save/ endpoint and the archive.org/wayback/available API returned HTTP 520 / empty bodies from this network on 2026-05-20. No verified snapshots created for the six Commons source pages above. Recommend retrying manually when publishing the post – the Wikipedia/Commons URLs themselves are stable, but a Wayback snapshot adds an extra layer of permanence.

Source pages to save when network allows:

  • https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tim_Palmer_World_Economic_Forum_2013.jpg
  • https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Eugenia_Kalnay_Maniac_Talk.jpg
  • https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nov192001h5spaghetti5640m.png
  • https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Contour_Boxplots_Weather_ensemble.jpg
  • https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WRF_rita_spread2.jpg
  • https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bred_vector_growth_rates_in_Lorenz_system.png

F. Files downloaded this session

In /home/michal/repos/michalbrennek.github.io/assets/images/:

Filename Dimensions Source
Eugenia_Kalnay_Maniac_Talk.jpg 480x264 NASA, PD – low-res YouTube screenshot, fine as a portrait inset
NCEP_spaghetti_5640m_2001.png 600x450 NOAA EMC, PD
NOAA_contour_boxplots_ensemble.jpg 768x609 NOAA SPC, PD
WRF_rita_ensemble_tracks.jpg 311x504 NASA (Fovell & Su), PD – tall format, good for a sidebar
Bred_vector_growth_Lorenz.png 496x354 Lynch, Kaufman, Sharma, Kalnay, Ide 2016, CC BY 3.0

Already in repo from earlier sessions (re-usable):

  • Tim_Palmer_WEF2013.jpg (1600x1045) – CC BY-SA 2.0, Sebastian Derungs / WEF
  • Tim_Palmer.jpg (1200x784) – same source, slightly smaller crop
  • Lennart_Bengtsson.jpg (874x1200)
  • ECMWF_Reading.jpg (1600x1200)
  • Cray_Y-MP_NASA_Goddard_1993.jpg
  • Lorenz_system_r28.png
  • Error_growth_Lorenz_attractor.jpg
  • TwoLorenzOrbits.jpg
  • EdwardLorenz_portrait.jpg
  • World_Weather_Building_1974.png

G. Summary count

12 verified usable images for the EPS post (5 new + 7 already in repo). Structural gaps for portraits of Buizza, Molteni, Toth, Burridge, and Hollingsworth – the post must handle these in prose alone.