In this episode of The WeatherPod, hosts Alan Thorpe and David Rogers invite Irina Sandu, Director of Destination Earth at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts - the ECMWF - into the studio.
About Irina Sandu
Irina Sandu is the Director of Destination Earth (DestinE) at ECMWF, a flagship initiative of the European Union to develop a digital twin of planet Earth. Prior to taking the lead of ECMWF’s involvement in DestinE in summer 2023, she was Science Lead for the initiative from January 2022.
Irina joined ECMWF in 2010 as a scientist working on the representation of turbulent processes and then lead the Physical Processes team for several years. Through the work carried out at ECMWF, Irina played an instrumental role in improving understanding of the impact of surface drag, as well as the representation of both stable and cloudy boundary layers in the Integrated Forecasting System (IFS).
Irina has also coordinated polar prediction related activities at ECMWF for several years, most prominently in the context of the ongoing WMO Year of Polar Prediction and the H2020 project APPLICATE. Irina is also the co-lead of the H2020 nextGEMS project, which develops the next generation of storm and eddy resolving models which underpin the DestinE climate digital twin.
More recently, Irina has helped shaping the science plan for DestinE and led the DestinE science activities at ECMWF. Irina is now leading the implementation of the activities ECMWF is responsible for delivering in DestinE by working closely with partners throughout Europe, related to the first two high priority digital twins and digital twin engine.
