“It’s certainly true that we are recognized as the world leader in global numerical weather prediction out to a couple weeks ahead. But one can oversimplify this, because that statement about who has the best predictions is the average over many forecasts. The ECMWF is recognized as being at the forefront of how to do that data assimilation to get the most from the observations. We take our observations not at just a single time but over a window of several hours. Information from prior short-range forecasts is merged with the observations.”

 　　“在提前数周的全球数值天气预报方面，我们当然被认为是世界领先者。但是，人们会过分简化这个说法，因为那只意味着很多预报平均来看谁做得最好。ECMWF意识到，作为数据同化的领先者，怎样才能从观测中获得最多信息。我们不仅仅在一个时间点上利用观测，而是在几个小时的时间窗口里这样做。之前短期预报信息与观测相互融合。”

 　——2015年底卸任ECMWF主任的Alan Thorpe先生，在接受《今日物理》杂志采访时，针对在数值天气预报领域，ECMWF世界第一、英国气象局和美国气象局排在二、三位的观点时，做了如上回答。其中不乏作为领导人的自豪和审慎，也道出了数据同化在数值预报预报中的关键作用。