The Polar Prediction Project (PPP), a decade-long initiative by the World Meteorological Organization's World Weather Research Programme (WWRP), ended on December 31, 2022. The project aimed to foster global cooperation in researching and developing enhanced weather and environmental prediction and services for the polar regions, covering time scales from hours to seasons. The flagship activity of PPP, the Year of Polar Prediction (YOPP), also completed its work at the same time.

Despite the formal conclusion of PPP and YOPP, three key groups will continue their work:

• The Year of Polar Prediction in the Southern Hemisphere (YOPP-SH), led by David Bromwich, a professor in the Department of Geography and a principal investigator with the Polar Meteorology Group in the Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center at The Ohio State University, will focus on developing prediction capability and services for the southern polar regions during winter as a result of a special observational campaign described below. This work will continue to 2024.
• The Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (MIIP), headed by Gunilla Svensson from Stockholm University, will continue to improve weather models for the polar regions.
• The PPP Societal and Economic Research Applications group (PPP-SERA), led by Machiel Lamers from Wageningen University and Research, will study the societal and economic impacts of polar weather and environmental predictions.

The YOPP Final Summit took place in Montreal, Canada, from August 29- September 1, 2022. Bromwich's presentation, The Year of Polar Prediction in the Southern Hemisphere (YOPP-SH): Achievements and Future Plans, can be found on YouTube. 

The status of YOPP-SH project entailed the collection of additional observations during the winter Special Observing Period centered around the Targeted Observing Periods within the SOP, mid-April-end of August 2022. Now the project is evaluating the impact of forecast improvements facilitated by the additional observations together with investigating ways to enhance the weather forecast models and their use of the observations in general to better specify the starting conditions for the forecasts.

Learn more about YOPP-SH by watching a brief video of stations in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean releasing radiosondes during the winter special observing period from mid-April - August 31, 2022, titled YOPP: Year of Polar Prediction.

The Polar Meteorology Group has a number of other research projects, one of which started last month and is titled Blowing Snow. This research, funded by the National Science Foundation, studies the Impacts of Blowing Snow in the Northern Great Plains using novel instrumentation and coupled models. This project is a collaborative research with professor Aaron Kennedy at the University of North Dakota. 

Update- Read about the 17th Workshop on Antarctic Meteorology and Climate (WAMC) and 7th Year of Polar Prediction in the Southern Hemisphere Meeting update.