Lars Isaksen

Lars Isaksen is a Danish national. He received university degrees in computer science and mathematics from Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark, followed by a degree in meteorology from the University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark, where he graduated with a thesis on land surface data assimilation in numerical weather prediction (NWP). He has been the Head of the Data Assimilation Section at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), Reading, U.K., since 2008. The Data Assimilation Section is responsible for the variational atmospheric data assimilation system and the EKF/OI-based land data assimilation system. Before becoming a manager, he worked in the Research Department at ECMWF for 16 years on a variety of research topics, including the assimilation of in situ observations, development and implementation of an ensemble of data assimilations, hybrid data assimilation, Huber norm quality control, accuracy of tangent linear model, structure of analysis errors, Aeolus wind lidar project, assimilation of scatterometer winds in 4-D-Var, tropical cyclone analysis, distributed memory design and implementation of the NWP model, and 4-D-Var at ECMWF. Before joining ECMWF, he worked at Copenhagen University and the Danish Meteorological Institute.