Bulgarian Team

National Institute of Meteorology and Hydrology
of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (NIMH)

Brief description of legal entity

The National Institute of Meteorology and Hydrology (NIMH) (www.meteo.bg) at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences is the official hydro-meteorological service of the Republic of Bulgaria. NIMH was established in February 1890. The present juridical entity NIMH was established by a decree of the Council of Ministers. NIMH is currently operating under the Law as a part of Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. Its primary mission is to provide meteorological and hydrological information and products to different organizations and users in Bulgaria. Its duties comprise both the operational, theoretical and applied research activities. Meteorological and hydrological observations, data acquisition and telecommunication, monitoring the air and surface and water quantitative parameters, meteorological and marine forecasts (www.weather.bg), assistance to special sectors through applied maritime meteorology and agro-meteorology, maintenance of data bases, scientific research, numerical and statistical modelling are only part of the duties of NIMH. NIMH provides the maritime communities with weather forecasts, warnings and observations for coastal waters and the open areas of the Black Sea. NIMH uses advanced weather and marine numerical prediction models to predict the physical characteristics over the Black Sea.

The structure of the NIMH comprises the Central Office in Sofia and 4 Regional Centers, which drive observatories and observation stations. The research activities are concentrated mainly in the Central Office in Sofia. The permanent staff consists of 100 highly qualified researchers and 700 engineers and technicians.

Attributed main tasks

NIMH will contribute to WP 202 and will participate in the different project activities related to the downscaling procedure, waves and storm-surge hindcast.

Previous experience related to attributed main tasks

NIMH is representing Bulgaria in the World Meteorological Organization and as such is one of the GTS centers for East Europe. NIMH has been and actually is a partner in many international research projects and programs. During the last decade, the institution was engaged in a number of national and international scientific programs and several EU projects on the Black Sea and Mediterranean research. Among them are: the Black Sea GOOS program of IOC; MEDARMEDATLAS-II, Mediterranean Hydrographic Atlas; EU FP4; ARENA—A Regional Capacity Building and Networking Program to Upgrade Monitoring and Forecasting Activity in the Black Sea Basin EU FP5; ASCABOS- A Supporting Program for Capacity Building in the Black Sea Region towards Operational Status of Oceanographic Services EU FP6 project; UP-GRADE BS-SCENEUP-GRADE Black Sea Scientific Network EU FP7project; EnviroGRID EU FP7 - Building Capacity for a Black Sea Catchment Observation and Assessment System supporting Sustainable Development.

Short profile of staff members undertaking the work

Anna Kortcheva—CV

Dr. Anna Kortcheva, senior scientist. Experience in numerical modelling and forecast, use of satellite altimeter data; responsible for the operational system for marine forecasts for the Black Sea. Head of Marine Prediction group. Member of JCOMM & WMO Expert Team on Waves and Coastal Hazards Forecasting Systems.

Vasko Galabov

Vasko Galabov, assistant in weather forecasts department, numerical modelling section. Operational marine forecasts. Experience in the field of oil spill drift forecast, wind waves and storm surge modelling.

Valery Spiridonov

Dr.Valery Spiridonov, research professor. Experience in numerical modeling and forecast, objective analysis, assimilation of satellite information, climate modeling. Head of Bulgarian group of the international projects ALADIN.

Andrey Bogatchev

Dr. Andrey Bogatchev, senior scientist. Experience in numerical weather forecasting, numerical simulations of regional climate and creating of computational environment for operational numerical models.

Boryana Tsenova

Dr. Boryana Tsenova, senior scientist in weather forecasts department, numerical modelling section. Experience in pre/pos/processing of the ALADIN NWP model runs.

Marieta Dimitrova

Marieta Dimitrova, assistant in weather forecasts department, numerical modelling section Experience in wave modelling, forecast/hind-cast.