"Harnessing AI: Transforming Early Warning Systems and Flood Prediction": This panel is envisaged to discuss the opportunities, but also the associated challenges and how the rapid evolution of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning is reshaping our understanding of the complex interaction between the atmosphere, climate, and human society: AI/ML-driven models are revolutionizing the way we predict and respond to severe weather events; the urgency for further improvement of this is shown by recent high-impact events in and outside Europe and recognized by the EW4ALL Early Warnings for All initiative.

The panel will be chaired and moderated by the EMS President, Liz Bentley.
The panellists:
▪ Gabriela Aznar, AI development team for operational applications at MeteoSwiss
▪ Kirstine Dale, Chief AI-Officer Met Office
▪ Alan Hally, Met Eireann Scientific Lead AI Transformation Team
▪ Monique Kuglitsch, Innovation Manager at Fraunhofer HHI and Chair of the ITU/WMO/UNEP/UNFCCC/UPU Global Initiative on Resilience to Natural Hazards through AI Solutions.
▪ Florence Rabier, Director-General of ECMWF
▪ Stefan Uhlenbrook, Director of the Hydrology, Water and Cryosphere at WMO

The strategic lecture will be given by Matjaž Ličer, SLOVENIAN ENVIRONMENT AGENCY (ARSO)

Title: "A deep role of deep learning in environmental research, forecasting and applications"

A substantial part of the national gross product in many countries is weather dependent. National weather services and the private sector have been innovative for more than a century to make better use of our meteorological knowledge. However, large gains are still to be made and this prize encourages individuals and groups to come with ideas how meteorology in a practical way can further move society forward. Meteorology can make society safer, can deliver costs savings and can bring more welfare to large groups of people. More information about the Prize and the Foundation can be found at http://www.harry-otten-prize.org

Submissions of ideas for the 2025 prize round started on 15 September 2024 and closed on 10 March 2025.

Finalists will be invited to present their idea during this EMS2025 special session. This session will be held on Monday 8 September 2025 from 9:00am to 10:30am (CEST).
Based on the written submitted idea and the presentation by the participant on 8 September, the jury will decide the winner of the Harry Otten Prize and the prize will be awarded in the Awards Session at EMS2025, also on Monday 8 September.

The EMS & partners are inviting all conveners and early career scientists to this reception.
A relaxed occasion for meeting with fellow Early Career Scientists, exchange experience with and between convenors and for chatting about career possibilities with people who have chosen different career paths - and just enjoy.

With ECS we mean PhD students and early PostDocs - generally, all who think of themselves as an early career scientist.

Join us for the first ever EMS Speed Networking for Early Career Scientists!
This fun and fast-paced session will help you make connections and learn from experienced professionals in meteorology, climate, and related fields. Whether you’re interested in job opportunities, learning about possible career paths or advice about professional growth, this event is an excellent opportunity to expand both your knowledge and your network of contacts.

The format is simple: each professional "mentor" will be seated at a table and groups of "mentorees" will change tables every 20 minutes to meet different mentors. The time allows for asking plenty of questions, and the table rotation is great to make many connections.
At the conclusive Apéro you can continue conversations and meet more professionals and Early Career Scientists!

We look forward to "mentors" and "mentorees" joining us from across the atmospheric and climate science field for an engaging afternoon of networking.

Each morning during the break, forecasters from the National Meteorological Service (Slovenian Environment Agency) will present the current weather situation and forecast. They will also highlight local climate and weather features and provide commentary on the latest weather developments across Europe.

The European Meteorological Society (EMS) has launched their new Journal of the European Meteorological Society (JEMS). JEMS is a peer-reviewed, open access online journal, publishing international research and review articles of general interest and relevance about weather, climate and related fields. The journal is published by Elsevier B.V.
https://www.emetsoc.org/introducing-the-new-journal-of-the-ems/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/journal-of-the-european-meteorological-society/vol/3/suppl/C

The event Meet the Editors enables a direct interaction between members of the Editorial Board and prospective authors and the readership community of JEMS. You are cordially invited to stop by and discuss with members of the Editorial Board.

TITLE: Weather services in society: an evolution of usage and engagement over the past 50 years

ABSTRACT: Over the past two decades, interaction between society and meteorological services has
undergone a profound transformation, driven by digitalization, evolving user expectations, and broader
societal challenges. We will examine this evolution through four different aspects: Growth in use,
Commercial evolution, People engaged in meteorology and Societal expectations.

The keynote on Data-driven weather models: A new era in meteorology will be given by Mariana Clare and the ECMWF Colleagues.

Mariana Clare is a researcher at the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), where she helps develop AIFS, ECMWF’s data-driven weather forecasting model. She is particularly interested in how to capture the model uncertainty in these data-driven approaches and in evaluating their physical realism. She recently received a PhD from Imperial College London, focussing on developing advanced numerical and statistical techniques to quantify uncertainty in coastal ocean models. By training she is a mathematician, having done her undergraduate degree in Mathematics at the University of Oxford.

The keynote presentation on Flood warnings everywhere - data-driven rainfall-runoff modeling at global scale will be given by Frederik Kratzert from Google Research.

Frederik is a research scientist in the Flood Forecasting team at Google. His academic background is in civil (BSc) and environmental (MSc) engineering, as well as machine learning (PhD). Besides his work and research on the intersection of hydrology and machine learning that mostly focusses on improving reliable and actionable flood forecasts, Frederik also cares deeply about open source software and open data. He is the creator of NeuralHydrology, an open source Python library for training deep learning models in the context of hydrology, and also the creator of Caravan, a global community dataset for large-sample hydrology.