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AMS San Antonio, Texas, USA, January 15-19, 2007
This AMS Annual Meeting will be held at the H. B. Gonzalez Convention Center in San Antonio. Information can be found at: www.ametsoc.org/meet/annual
The HMEI booth (no. 544) will be manned by the HMEI Executive
Secretary, Bruce Sumner. All are welcome to come and visit him at the
booth, where the HMEI Catalogue, the HMEI website and other HMEI
information will be available.
HMEI will hold an open HMEI members meeting, during this AMS.
Time/date for this is
8.30am to 9.30am, on
Wednesday 17th January, in Room 006B (171 Theatre) of the convention
centre. In addition to
welcoming its Members, HMEI will be extending an invitation to AMS attendees to
come to this meeting and find out more about HMEI and meet some of our
Members.
The 27 HMEI Members who will be exhibiting at AMS are:
All Weather, Inc.
Baron Services, Inc.
Belfort Instrument Company
Climatronics Corporation
Davis Instruments
EKO Instruments Co., LTD.
Enterprise Electronics Corporation
Geonor, Inc.
Gill Instruments Ltd.
GRAW Radiosondes GmbH & Co.
InterMet Systems
Japan Meteorological Business Support Center
Kipp & Zonen
Leosphere
LI-COR Biosciences
Lockheed Martin Corporation, Integrated Systems and Solution
Logotronic, Inc.
Metek (Gmbh)
MODEM
PAWAN EXPORTS
Proton Energy Systems, Inc.
R. M. Young Company
SCINTEC AG
Sutron Corporation
Telvent (including
Almos)
The Republic Group
Vaisala Inc.
Some HMEI members will be hosting some
events at AMS2007;
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Vaisala will be hosting a cocktail reception
at the
Marriott Hotel,
Rivercenter, San Antonio,
TX. Tuesday, January 16, 2007 at 5:00
pm.
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EEC will be hosting a
presentation Polarimetric
Radar and Its Benefits For Real-world Forecasting Session given
by Dr. Alexander V. Ryzhkov during the AMS 2007 show on
each day of
January 16 and January 17,
2:00pm-3:30pm, at the EEC booth 207
. Please see here
the invitation for details of this event. RSVP
no later than 5 January, 2007 to
denise.rivera@eecradar.com
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TECO and CIMO- XIV - a Success for CIMO-HMEI
Cooperation
The
CIMO Technical Conference (TECO) and
the 14th Commission for Instruments and Methods of Observations
(CIMO-XIV), were held in Geneva, Switzerland,
4-6 December 2006, and 7-14 December 2006, respectively.
Both conferences had good attendance by several HMEI Members, with
representatives from 16 HMEI Member companies attending TECO and 4
representatives from the Membership at CIMO-XIV. Naturally the HMEI
Secretariat also attended both conferences.
Various reports from both TECO and CIMO attested very favourably indeed
to the work of HMEI with CIMO. The future planning of CIMO events, in
the next intersessional period, cite the continuing collaboration of
HMEI in future CIMO Intercomparisons and Expert Teams as essential to
the work of CIMO.
The HMEI Secretariat
reports of both TECO and CIMO-XIV are currently being finalised and will
shortly be available on the HMEI Meetings page. These reports will also
be featured in the next HMEI Newsletter.
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International Workshop on Weather Modification Technologies - (Cloud
Seeding),
Hyderabad , AP, India, 18 - 20 January 2007
This is to be held at the
ASC Auditorium, JNT University, Kukatpally.
Dr I V Murali Krishna of Director (Research and Development), JNT
University extends the following invitation:
Development of warm cloud seeding technologies is very much important
to India as rainfall is becoming less and less in some of the
drought prone areas. India has carried out extensive Cloud seeding
operations and developed appropriate technologies suitable for our
country. In this background India is sending the announcement regarding
this International Workshop on Cloud Seeding to be held during 18-20
January 2007 at JNTU Hyderabad. The workshop is preceded by Pre-workshop
tutorials on Satellite meteorology, Geodesy, GPS and GIS and Weather
modification Technologies. I look forward to welcoming you and your
colleagues to the Workshop.
Dr I V Murali Krishna, M Tech(IIT-Chennai), PhD(IISc), FIE, FIS, FAPASc,
MIEEE,
Professor in Spatial Information Technology, Coordinator,
Centre for Atmospheric Sciences and Weather Modification Technologies,
Director (Research and Development),
JNT University, Kukatpally, Hyderabad 500072, AP, India,
Phone / Fax 91-(040)- 2305 3105 Mobile 98480 49624
Email: iyyanki@icorg.org or
ivm@ieee.org
URL:
www.icorg.org
www.saraswathisamrajyam.org
www.jntucloudseeding.com
Please see the Brochure in
pdf for this event here.
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Regional Association I (RA I - Africa) - Fourteenth session,
Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, 14 - 23 February, 2007
HMEI has received the official invitation to attend this
meeting. HMEI Members interested in attending this session of RA I,
please contact the HMEI Secretariat at hmei@wmo.int
The Provisional Agenda of
RAI- XIV in pdf is available here.
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2nd Alexander von Humboldt International
Conference on The Role of Geophysics in Natural Disaster Prevention,
Lima, Peru, 05 - 09 March 2007
The pre-registration via the COSIS Shop (Early Bird Rate) is now
available on the conference homepage and can be reached by the following
link:
http://meetings.copernicus.org/avh2/registration.html
For more details, visit the conference website at:
http://meetings.copernicus.org/avh2/
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International
Conference on Water and Flood Management (ICWFM-2007), Dhaka,
Bangladesh, 12-14 March 2007
The present conference is aimed to make a
bridge among the researchers, academicians and professionals with common
interest to exchange their views to address the issues related to water
and flood management.
For more information see
http://teacher.buet.ac.bd/icwfm/
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'WMO
Madrid Event',
International Conference on Secure and Sustainable Living: Social and
Economic Benefits of Weather, Climate and Water Services, Madrid,
Spain, 19 - 22 March 2007
Information on registration for the conference is available
from the WMO website link,
http://www.wmo.int/news/conference.htm then click on the link to the
conference.
There will be a Poster Session and an Exhibition associated with this Conference.
The HMEI Executive Secretary, Bruce Sumner, has participated in a
steering group meeting at WMO for this event. He has learnt that the
information packages for the exhibition and sponsorship opportunities
are due to be sent out on the 8th January 2007. HMEI has provided the
database of its members to the organisers in order to ensure that HMEI
Members will receive the information on this event.
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Report -
25-27 Oct, 2006 International Workshop on Agrometeorlogical Risk
management and 28 Oct - 3 Nov, 2006, 14th WMO CAgM,
New Delhi, India
Thanks for this report go to the author
Prof. Kees (C.J.) Stigter (Agromet Vision), a consultant with
Eijkelkamp
Agrisearch Equipment B.V., who attended the
meeting as the HMEI representative.
Documents for the CAgM-XIV are available at
http://www.wmo.int/web/wcp/agm/cagm14/cagm14-docs.htm
Attendees at the meeting:
Please see the attendance list for the workshop available at: http://www.wmo.int/web/wcp/agm/Meetings/worisk06/participants_WORISK.pdf
Discussion Items:
1.
Challenges and opportunities for
coping strategies with
agrometeorological risks and uncertainties were the main topics in 22
papers in 6 sections. An additional evening session on insurances had 4
presentations.
Prof. Stigter
presented the paper in section 4
"Complying with farmers' conditions and needs using new weather and
climate information approaches and technologies" by C.J. Stigter,
Tan Ying, H.P. Das, Zheng Dawei, R.E. Rivero Vega, Nguyen van Viet, N.I.
Bakheit, Y.M. Abdullahi
Prof. Srgter was also a co-author of the presented paper in section 3
"Challenges to coping strategies with agrometeorological risks and
uncertainties in Asian regions" by L.S. Rathore, C.J. Stigter
2. Some of the
more important topics of the CAgM session were:
A.-
Agrometeorological services for agricultural production
including:
§
Weather, Climate and
Farmers;
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Strengthening information and dissemination networks, including
monitoring and early-warning systems;
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Management of natural
and environmental resources for sustainable agricultural development.
B. -
Support systems for agrometeorological services
including:
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Techniques (including
technologies such as GIS & Remote Sensing) for agroclimatic
characterization and sustainable land management;
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Database management,
validation and application of models and research methods at the
ecoregional level;
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The WMO information
system (WIS)
C. -
Climate change/variability and natural disasters in
agriculture
including:
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Impact of climate
change/variability on medium- to long-range predictions for
agriculture,;
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Reduction of the impact of natural disasters and mitigation of extreme
events in agriculture, forestry and fisheries;
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Contribution of agriculture to the state of climate.
D. -
Guide to Agricultural Meteorological Practices
(GAMP)
For which Guide I Prof. Stigter is responsible
as Steering Committee Chairman/Expert Team Leader since 1999. Prof
Stigter presented a progress report and was re-nominated for the next
intersessional period, till 2010.
E. -
Support systems in policy making (for
agrometeorological services)
For which subject Prof. Stigter was
responsible as a coordinating member of the Management Group of CAgM.
Prof. Stigter presented a final report.
F. -
Capacity building (evaluation of training,
education and capacity building projects/programmes in agrometeorology)
Under which subject the Netherlands Government
had submitted a document:
“Capacity building in the area of agrometeorological services through
Roving Seminars”, which was presented by Prof. Stigter under that
heading, as well as in one of the “Open Forum“ sessions.
As a consequence Prof. Stigter was nominated in the CAgM Management
Group for the next intersessional period (till 2010) as a “Coordinator
for policy support in capacity building”.
G. -
Bridging the gap between agrometeorological
products/methodologies and producers in agriculture
This subject defined by the Management Group
in its second intersessional meeting in Guaruja (Brazil), was found
sufficiently important to nominate another (shared) co-ordinatorship for
it in the Management Group of CAgM for the coming intersessional period.
Actions:
New Open Programme Area Groups (OPAGs) with
Implementation and Coordination Teams (ICTs) and Expert Teams (ETs) were
nominated under the already above distinguished important issues A., B.
and C., with new subjects for:
A.
Content of
agrometeorological products and their use by farmers and extension
services;
Agrometeorological aspects of sustainable development.
B. Collection
and evaluation of operational agrometeorological tools and
methodologies;
Communication of agrometeorological products and services.
C. Climate
risks in vulnerable areas: agrometeorological monitoring and coping
strategies;
Drought and extreme temperatures: preparedness and management for
sustainable agriculture, rangelands, forestry and fisheries.
Also the
ET was going to continue under D. above,
and all Chairs and Co-chairs of the OPAGs/ICTs, who are all six also
members of the Management Group, were going to frequently liaise with
the co-ordinator for policy support in capacity building (under E. and
F. above) and the shared co-ordinators for bridging the gap between
agrometeorological products/methodologies and producers in agriculture
(under G. above).
Comments
Throughout these meetings, including the opening of the
CAgM session by Mr. Michel Jarraud, Secretary General of WMO, and echoed
by the honourable Minister of Science and Technology, Dr. Kapil Sibal,
proper data taking and prevention of errors remained central issues in
agrometeorology as well.
The
twentieth Vaisala prize was handed to an Indian scientist.
Adequate
density of (agrometeorological) stations and intra- and extrapolation of
routine station data to agricultural field conditions remain great
worries, particularly in developing countries. Automatic weather
stations can assist in solving some of the related problems but
instrument co-ordination, calibration and maintenance are serious issues
to be considered with great attention, and even more so with automatic
weather stations, again particularly in developing countries.
Also
throughout these meetings and particularly under agenda point 10.3 of
CAgM XIV, “Expert
team on database management, validation and application of models,
research methods at the eco-regional level”, it was emphasized that data
should be entered locally as they are collected (either on an hourly or
daily basis) and that the data should be entered only once into a
Database Management System (DBMS) and be made available to all portions
of the NMHSs. The DBMS system used should be capable of handling
climatic and other types of data, such as ecological, hydrological,
agricultural, and geo-referenced data and should be able to easily
import data from a variety of formats. Also, all data should be
directly inputted into a DBMS and then used by various software
application packages. Some quality control (QC) of the data can be
conducted locally as the data are being entered. Other QC such as
spatial quality checks can be undertaken at the central database.
In e-mail interaction
with Dr. Jitze van der Meulen of CIMO, Prof. Stigter was added to these
issues, as principal delegate for the Netherlands, in the final CAgM XIV
report that “Special attention should be paid to peak values of rain,
wind, flows of water, sediment and other materials carried, because they
are of great importance to agriculture”. This will make it possible for
the presidents of CAgM and CIMO to continue joint actions on
improvements of the measurement of extreme values during extreme events.
It was also added to the terms of reference of the ICT of OPAG 3 (under
point C. above) that changing peak values as just listed should be
analyzed in climate change and variability studies in agriculture,
forestry and fisheries at the national and regional levels.
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Report
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6-8 Nov, 2006 Technical Conference on the WMO Information System (TECO-WIS) and 9-16
Nov, 2006,
WMO
Commission for Basic Systems
- Extraordinary session 2006,
(CBS-EXT.2006),
Seoul, Republic of Korea
HMEI Members who
represented HMEI at the meeting were:
Mr.
Patrick Bénichou & Ms Christine David- Meteo France International
Mr. Michal Weis - IBL Software Engineering
Mr. Yuji Hayashi - Oriental Electronics, Inc.
Documents
for the meetings are available at http://www.wmo.int/web/www/BAS/CBS-info.html.
At the Technical Conference on the WMO Information System
(6-8 Nov 2006) that preceded the Commission Session, a half day was dedicated to presentations by
manufacturers invited by WMO/CBS. The following HMEI Member
manufacturers of GTS Message Switching Systems (MSS) made presentations:
IBL Software Engineering
Meteo France International (MFI)
Oriental Electrics, Inc.
Two non-HMEI companies also made presentations: IBM and TechnoServ.
Mr
Yuji Hayashi from
Oriental Electronics, Inc. reported on TECO-WIS and CBS Ext.2006 as follows:
§
The TECO-WIS conference was very successfully held in Seoul for 3 days
and completed on Wednesday 8 November with very aggressive discussions
among the participants from member countries worldwide.
§
The CBS Extraordinary sessions proceeded with discussions
with discussions with much valuable and important information to be gained from
them.
§
There was a big welcome party invited by the Ministry of the Science and
Technology (MOST) of Republic of Korea and the Korea Meteorological
Administration (KMA), which was very much appreciated.
§
Mr Hayashi found his participation to be a rare opportunity and very valuable
and was pleased to be able to participate the sessions as a member of
HMEI. He thanked the HMEI Secretariat for their help with him attending
the conference.
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TECO-WIS group-photo of participants.
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WMO CBS-Ext.06 group photo
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The opening of CBS-Ext.06
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The CBS-Ext.06 in session |
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The CBS Ext.06 in session |
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The CBS Welcome Reception |
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Photos of
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Side exhibition to the Technical
Conference
HMEI Members
who exhibited at this
were:
Jinyang
Industrial Company
IBL Software Engineering
Meteo France International (MFI)
Several other local Korean manufacturers also exhibited at the
exhibition.
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Report - 20-23
November 2006,
Flood Forecasting Initiative,
Technical conference on Improved Meteorological and Hydrological
Forecasting,
Geneva, Switzerland,
This WMO Workshop included a HMEI facilitated opportunity for Poster Presentations in the foyer outside the
WMO conference room.
HMEI Members who sent posters were:
Delta-T Devices Ltd.
Eijkelkamp Agrisearch Equipment
OTT Messtechnik GmbH & Co. Kg
HMEI also had posters displayed, HMEI
information brochures available and promoted the HMEI Member Products
Catalogue, with free CDs of the catalogue available to attendees of the
conference. Over 50 CDs were taken up by the meeting participants.
The participants of the conference were
predominantly experts from national
meteorological and hydrological services of some 15 countries.
The HMEI Executive Secretariat talked to Dr Bruce Stewart,
the President of the WMO Hydrology Commission CHy), regarding the
participation of HMEI in the work of the Commission. Dr Steward was very
supportive of the necessity of including private industry participation
in the Commission's work via HMEI.
The Final Draft Report of the meeting, including the participants list,
can be seen here
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The Flood Forcasting conference in session, with Dr Bruce Stewart at the podium and Bruce Sumner in the front row center. |
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Meeting participants at the HMEI poster display in front of the conference room |
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HMEI Attendance and Poster Display
The HMEI Secretariat, Bruce Sumner and Christine Charstone, attended sessions of this conference considered
of interest to the HMEI Membership, as observers. The small associated poster display had posters from HMEI manufacturers:
Delta-T
Devices Ltd,
Eijkelkamp
Agrisearch Equipment and OTT Messtechnik GmbH & CO. KG.
HMEI also displayed two large posters. CDs of the HMEI
Member Products Catalogue and other HMEI information were also available at the poster
display area for the meeting attendees.
The posters were obviously of much interest to the meeting participants
and over 50 HMEI CD catalogues were taken by participants.
Opening at 9am
Bruce Stewart welcomed the attendees and asked the WMO Secretary
General to open the meeting.
The WMO Secretary General, Michel Jarruad,
opened the conference stressing the importance of cooperative action in
the Meteorological and Hydrological areas, between the various WMO
Members; especially to improve Flood Forecasting and resulting Disaster
Prevention around the world. He said that the outcome of the workshop
would have an influence on the future policies governments made.
Keynote Speech - Status of Early Warning and
Forecasting in National Meteorological and Hydrological Services
This presentation first highlighted the
statistics concerned with loss of life and costs from floods and
disasters. Gaps in the world flood forecasting identified that
only 1/3 of countries have combined Meteorological and Hydrological
services and only about 1/3 could generate usable data for disaster
flood forecasting. 50% of countries only have sufficient flood
forecasting capabilities, the lack is particularly evident in African
countries. This highlighted the necessity of cooperation between
services to help overcome these gaps.
Sessions 1 & 2
These sessions first looked at a presentation concerned with the Key
Deliverables that are hoped to be eventually achieved as a result of
this Workshop.
Presentations followed of Regional expert meetings and the
experiences of various regional experiences with flood disaster
forecasting networks.
The supplementary document with the summaries of the regional reports
can be seen here.
There was a presentation on the Development of a European Flood Alert System (EFAS)
by the European Commission Joint Research Centre. This is an extensive
and sophisticated System, which could certainly be seen as a "best
practice" initiative. However questions would still remain for use of
such a costly system for use in less and least developed countries with
fewer resources.
Presentations on Country Experiences from Mozambique,
Vietnam and France, followed after the lunch period.
Session 4
The Keynote Speech: User Requirements for Flood Forecasting Services and
Products,
Bruce Stewart presented the document entitled " Strategy and
Action Plan for the Enhancement of Cooperation between National
Meteorological and Hydrological Services for Improved Flood
Forecasting".
Click here to see this document.
Item 5.1.1 Strengthening of Observing and
Information Systems, of the document presents the key issue of
interest for HMEI Members. Box3 - Actions - Recommended for the
strengthening of observing and information systems, on page 16 of the
Strategy and Action Final Plan, defines the WMO recommendations
for this issue.
Session 5
Keynote Speech: Hydrological forecasting models
This presentation noted that in use at the NHSs there are Hydrological
modelling tools from various manufacturers, using a variety of data
output formats, with attendant problems for sharing of data between
different agencies.
The presentation also outlined the optimum type of system
that could be used for best practice. Requirements such as, easily
accessed interface and various modules that provide the various
functions necessary, and an open integration platform that can
accommodate various models, were emphasised. This sort of system is currently used by UK, with other
countries' agencies to follow.
Session 6
Keynote Speech: How can the WMO Information System (WIS) meet the needs
of the forecasting and prediction services
Jack Hayes from WMO World Weather Watch presented the WIS to the
meeting; its features and future vision. The "future vision" for WIS
emphasises an integrated approach for all WIS systems. WIS will be a
linkage for all the WMO programmes and also to GEOS. Internet access
will be a strong feature of the architecture of WIS. In this way the
accessibility to WIS by less developed countries can be facilitated.
Discussion
After the presentation it was considered that the benefits to hydrology
of using WIS were both:
 long term
benefits for the world wide community with predicting events as part of
an overall earth system, rather than a series of separate systems;
the short term
benefits of having access to extra data from the meteorology community,
in a consistent format.
This implies the need for a consistent data format to be established and
informed to the private industry, so that systems and equipment can be
manufactured to meet the requirements of WIS.
Session 8
Capacity Building in NMHSs to make use of weather forecasting for
hydrological forecasting information/products
The meeting chairman stated that consideration of new methods of
presenting data and new technologies needed to be considered, and also
staff training, when looking at capacity building to enable a level of
synthesis of weather forecasting and hydrology forecasting, for adequate
Flood Forecasting. Box 9-- Actions - Recommended
for promoting training and capacity building in NMHSs,
Item 5.1.7 Promoting Training and Capacity Building in NMHSs of
the afore mentioned "Proposed Strategy and
Action Plan for Improved Flood
Forecasting", on page 26 of the
Strategy and Action Final Plan, defines the WMO recommendations
for this issue.
Discussion reflected a high interest in training for a
cross-cutting understanding between hydrologists and meteorologists,
this issue was considerably discussed and considered very important.
Sessions 9-10-11
These sessions were concerned with strategy planning and creating
the work plan for implementation of the Strategy and Action Plan
Documents resulting from the conference.
See Implement Action Plan
Close of Conference
The meeting chairman, Bruce Stewart, closed the conference on the
afternoon of 23 November, 2006.
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Report - 21-22
Nov
2006
Technical
Conference
- CAeM
(Commission
for Aeronautical Meteorology)
Participants:
HMEI was represented by
Mr. Hannu Katajamäki
from Vaisala,
and Bruce Sumner and Christine Charstone from the HMEI Secretariat.
See the full participation
list of attendees here.
Please click here to see the HMEI Expert Member's report by Mr. Hannu
Katajamäki from Vaisala
Mr. Hannu Katajamäki and other CAeM participants at the
HMEI display outside the conference room.
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HMEI Display at CAeM Technical Conference and CAeM-XIII
HMEI
Member Products Catalogues were on available outside both the conferences, at a
HMEI display stand. The stand attracted considerable attention and over
80 Catalogues on CD were taken by attendees of CAeM.
Agenda
Please see
http://www.caem.wmo.int/caemtechconf/schedule.pdf
Opening at 9.30am
Dr Neil Gordon the Commission President welcomed the attendees and asked the WMO
Deputy Secretary General, Professor
Hong Yan to open the meeting.
Professor Yan welcomed the participants, summed up the aims of this
Technical Conference and wished the participants a fruitful meeting.
Neil Gordon then addressed the participants and noted the CAeM had not
had a Technical Conference of this type for many years. As a result the
format of the meeting sessions would be a series of Keynote addresses,
each followed by the participants breaking into working groups for
discussion of the issues raised. This was intended to allow the
participants the maximum possibility for flow of useful information and
discussion between them.
Poster Presentations
Presentations of 1-2 minutes for each poster were held immediately before the evening reception on the first day.
The Posters were displayed in the reception area. Posters were entirely
from the Weather Services. Unfortunately no manufacturers presented
posters although they had been invited to submit posters for CAeM.
Keynote Address: Future Challenges and Opportunities in Aviation
Weather Services
Presentation by CM Shun, Hong Kong Observatory, Hong Kong, China.
Please click
here to see this presentation
Key points in his presentation dealt with:
SIGMET monitoring for regions seminars and training for SIGMET upcoming
in 2007
Advantages of AMIDS: Web-based automated service, a cost-effective, web-based automated service
§ Aviation Digital Data Service
§ Automation leading
to: MET flight planning (AMIDS, ADDS), Paperless cockpit (EFB),
Aerodrome observation (Auto METAR), Aerodrome forecasts (Auto TAF) and
warnings (wind shear alert)
§ Versatile to changes
such as, ICAO Annex 3/WMO Tech Reg C.3.1 amendments, and new user requirements
and trends
§ Aviation Digital Data Service
§ Decision Support for Airport - as the
example from France
§ Decision Support for ATM - graphical
interface
§ Decision support for Airlines
New Modes of Info Delivery
- Share MET information for Collaboration
§ Weather Info Uplink - Future (is it possible
today - yes - Hong Kong is currently trailing this)
§ Graphical interface of Weather Info Uplink
- already possible
§ Weather Info Down Link
Changes in WAFS
§ Replacement of SIGWX charts by Guided forecasts
§ Opportunity for graphical forecasts.
Keynote Address: New
and integrated/improved ways of getting weather information to the
pilots
Andrew Mirza, UK Met Office presented this on behalf of Joseph Huysseune,
Project FLYSAFE.
The work of the FLYSAFE Consortium was the focus of this presentation.
Please see
click here to see this
presentation.
Keynote Address:
Probabilistic Forecasting and Future Applications to Aviation
Forecasting in the Terminal Area
Presented by Kent Johnson, Meteorological Service of Canada.
It was noted that recent years has seen a major change in weather
forecasting namely, Ensemble Prediction Systems. A knowledge gap is
increasingly being seen between knowledge of the weather and what can be
delivered as a forecast. This has resulted in the recognition of
Forecast Uncertainty, and thus Probability Forecasts. How much of the
gap be filled by Probability Forecasts is not yet known although it will
be able to help compensate for this gap
TAF is the current flight
planning tool, but forecasters know that more weather information is
available than is
able to be delivered to pilots by TAF.
Use of PROB is inconsistent and subjective.
METAR and TAF have limitations in expression of uncertainty in timing
and communication of two or more equally likely outcomes.
TAF format can also be seen as an impediment to progress.
Forecasters have been using
forms of "probability" forecasts for decades. However the new
Probability Forecasts are scientifically rigorous and offer a
considerable improvement on the older forecasting methods currently in
use in aviation.
The potential that Probability Forecasts can now offer aviation
forecasting is great. However there needs to be dissemination of this
potential and information on Probability Forecasting to the aviation
weather community.
Summary of discussions from the conference working groups:
§ Probabilistic Forecasting was welcomed as a new advance
to take on board but concern was expressed that developing countries
would need help in developing Probabilistic Forecast models from
countries who have Probabilistic Forecasting expertise. Also users need
to be convinced of the usefulness of this type of forecasting.
§ WMO should harmonise activities and be pro-active in
setting Best Practices.
§ There should not only be training of staff but also
training of the trainers to have sustainable training available.
§ Least developed and developing countries constraints
raises the need to continue to have less complex technology supported.
Also there needs to be awareness that speed of technology is exceeding
the financial and human resources and capacities of developing countries
and even at times in the developed countries.
§ Provision of guidelines for consultation and exchange of
information with ATM.
§ Down link was seen as useful, as was Info uplink. But
there were issues defined of how far to go with Uplink, interface
questions and questions regarding the intermediate server. to be
considered. Also the cost. It was suggested that the TAF was still an
economic solution. It could be ameliorated by user friendly interfacing.
However standardization of the TAF data pool would be needed.
§ Users demanded faster reactions to the new challenges and
changes. CAeM and WMO need to rise to the challenge of the need for
more speed in reacting.
Closing of the conference
The President of CAeM, Dr Neil Gordon, thanked the participants and the WMO
Secretariat. He noted that the experimental format of the conference,
with the keynote speeches and following break out discussion groups, had
worked very well indeed and could be a model for future conferences. The
conference was closed at 5.15pm 22 November, 2006.
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Report - 23 Nov-1 Dec, 2006 13th WMO Commission for
aeronautical
Meteorology (CAeM-XIII),
Geneva, Switzerland
HMEI thanks
Mr. Juhani
Polvinen from Vaisala for his input into this report. This report covers various items from CAeM considered of
particular interest to the HMEI Membership and is not intended to be
definitive.
Please see
http://www.wmo.int/web/aom/amprog/amprog.html for the WMO
Final Report of the meeting when it is available.
Please see the Provisional
Agenda here. Also see the documents of the session at:
http://www.wmo.int/web/aom/amprog/Documents/CAeM-XIII/Doc_Plan.htm
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CAeM-XIII in session with the
WMO Secretariat, D. Schiessl, the past President N. Gordon
and the CAeM Secretariat H. Puempel on the podium and the
HMEI representatives, B. Sumner and J. Polivinen in the
foreground of the photo.
Please click to enlarge |
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Participants
The HMEI representatives at the meeting were,
Mr. Hannu Katajamäki
and
Mr. Juhani
Polvinen
from Vaisala's
Aviation Weather Business Unit., Bruce Sumner the HMEI Executive
Secretary and Christine Charstone the HMEI Administrator. There
were over 130 participants from members of WMO and the various agencies
concerned with aviation meteorology.
For the full list of participants
please see the pdf
document here.
Opening at 10am
The President of CAeM, Dr Neil Gordon, opened the session and welcomed
participants and guests. In his speech Dr Gordon stressed the importance
of the Aviation Commission in WMO, saying it is a large and important part
of the work of WMO. He also noted that CAeM contributed approximately
30% of cost recovery to Meteorological Services. The President acknowledged the work of the
Commission, thanking Commission members for their work. He noted that as
he was retiring from the position of President of the CAeM, there would
be a vote for the New Commission President and Vice-President of CAeM
during this conference. The President then invited
the WMO Secretary General to address the Commission.
The WMO Secretary General, Mr Michel Jarraud, then
addressed the meeting. He also thanked the Commission and its members
for their work. Mr Jarraud recalled the history of CAeM within WMO. He
acknowledged the many important activities of CAeM. Mr Jarraud noted the
fast growth of the aviation area worldwide and the importance of the
aviation area in addressing global environmental issues. The Secretary
General said that the debates, discussion and decisions of this meeting
of the Commission would contribute to the scientific basis for
international executive decision making. Mr Jarraud particularly
mentioned the success of AMDAR and noted the work of AMDAR in the
development, with NOAA and a private manufacturer, in creation of a new
Humidity sensor. The excellent cooperation between CAeM and ICAO was
also noted.
Report by the President of the Commission
(Doc 3)
The President said that it had been realised that the Commission
had been over optimistic in expecting too much to be achieved by the
Commission in a given period of time. This was exacerbated by the lack
of funds to support an ambitious OPAGs and Expert Teams meeting
structure. He previewed some changes to CAeM that this Commission
meeting would therefore be considering.
These included:
Planning:
§ CAeM to ensure it was value adding and complementing the work of other WMO
Commissions such as CBS and CIMO;
§ CAeM would particularly target Training;
§ CAeM would work on cross cutting with other WMO Commissions.
The President stated that he had already taken the lead in cross cutting
issues.
Structure:
§ A new more efficient OPAGS structure would be developed;
§ Expert Teams would also be looked at and if necessary revised.
AMDAR .
§ AMDAR would see the addition of Humidity Sensors on aircraft, which will
enhance the observation program.
Dr Gordon thanked those who had worked on the Expert
Teams and the Commission members and the WMO Secretariat. Dr Gordon is
leaving the post of President of CAeM, so a new President would be
elected during this session of CAeM.
Click here to see
the pdf of the President's report
OPAG TRENDS Reports (Docs 4.1)
Training in Aeronautical Meteorology
There were some issues in training that were particularly identified in
the discussion on training:
§ There is a need for more multi-lingual
training seminars and documentation
§
The CAeM training webpage is only in English which
thus is not user friendly for those speaking other languages
§ There is a perceived need to train the
trainers in the various countries
§ Although there have been several
training seminars recently in developing countries, there is a need for
still more training opportunities in the less and least developed
countries.
§ Some publications from CAeM are out of
date and so the publications will be revised by the relevant expert
team.
Training Website
A very
comprehensive training and resource website has been developed at
www.caem.wmo.int
Future
Aerodrome Forecasts
The science of meteorology cannot be fully exploited using
the current TAF format. There was discussion on revising the TAF code to
include more probabilistic type of information and that also can include
more information such as runway visual range and precipitation rates.
The new probabilistic forecasts should be developed in conjunction with ICAO.
Effects of Aviation Activities on Global Warming
Aircraft contrails, when they spread out, contribute to greenhouse
warning. If aircraft could miss the thin lenses of high
humidity that exist in the atmosphere where aircraft contrails are
produced, it would contributed to a lessening of climate change. Missing
the thin lenses would have no impact on aircraft operations. For
aircraft to know of these areas of high humidity it will be necessary to
add humidity sensors to all aircraft.
OPAG
PROMET Reports (Docs 4.2)
Problems and Opportunities Arising from the Migration of OPMET Data to
BUFR (Doc 4.2(7))
Please click here to
see this document
Limitations in the METAR and TAF code forms have been
identified, BUFR is the possible solution to these limitations and was a
recommendation from the WMO CAeM-XII/ICAO MET Divisional Meeting (2002)
and from the plan of WMO, endorsed by its Fourteenth Congress in May
2003, for the transition from the traditional alphanumeric codes (TAC)
to Table Driven Code Forms (TDCF) for all types of meteorological
information.
Concerns:
§ BUT not all exchange of data goes through the
NMHSs but
some is
through national aviation authorities;
§ Concerns were
expressed that there are no real benefits to adopt BUFR and that its
introduction could cause problems;
§ Some people
considered that they should wait for at least a year and see if BUFR is
worthwhile;
§ The CAeM will
probably need to further consider BUFR and this would delay the
introduction of BUFR.
Neil Gordon
suggested that CAeM send representatives to the relevant CBS Expert
Teams on BUFR as ICAO is going to do.
Election of Officers (Doc 6)
§
Mr Carr McLEOD of Canada was elected as the new President of CAeM
§
Mr. C.M. Shun of Hong Kong, China
was elected as the new Vice-President of CAeM
Introduction of BUFR-encoded SIGWX
data and visualization software (Doc 4.2(6))
New visualization
software has to be obtained in order to display BUFR formatted SIGWX
data. The World Area Forecast System (WAFC) London was invited to access
vendors' softwares to determine if it could properly display SIGWX
bulletin data in BUFR format as a visual presentation on a workstation.
Several vendors' softwares were evaluated against a set of criteria
developed by ICAO and SADIS. The majority of vendors' softwares meet the
required standards. For the evaluations see:
http://www.metoffice.com/sadis/software/index.html
Establishment of a Trust Fund for
access to WAFS products Doc 4.2(4))
31 December 2008 has
been set as the date that first-generation WAFS workstations and
associated visualization software will stop being supported, and only
second-generation workstations will be supported. However Least
Developed Countries (LDCs) will have trouble meeting this date with new
equipment. To assist with this a Trust Fund will be set up to assist
these countries in acquiring the necessary equipment and software. The
income for the trust fund will come from (a) voluntary contributions
from WMO Members (b) voluntary contributions made for specific purposes,
(c) contributions from other donors and (d) interest on investments in
the Trust Fund.
Aviation Weather Services
Modernization (USA) (INF Doc 13)
FAA in USA requires
a modernization of their aviation weather support system. They are
working with the National Weather Service on this project. A market
research via a market survey began in November 2006 to determine the
capability of the aviation industry private sector to provide solutions.
The Market Survey closed on 30 November 2006.
30 Hour TAF (INF
Doc 14)
A 30-hour TAF
becomes operational globally in November 2008. Members were advised that
considerable work may be required to modify their software to allow for
the new forecast period and other decoding issues.
CAeM Structure and establishment of
OPAGs and Expert Teams
(Doc 10)
HMEI advised the Commission that it wishes to participate on several of
the proposed Expert Teams. HMEI advised the group of its involvement
with other WMO Commission Expert Teams and gave a short introduction of
the Associations activities and to the membership of the association, in
particular that we have several manufacturers with expertise in the
aviation area. The Commission agree that HMEI would be able to
contribute to the work of the Expert Team, and approved the addition of HMEI to
the small list of International Associations that will be invited to
attend expert meetings as they are convened.
Scientific Lecture: WAFS (Doc 12)
Click here to see this
presentation in full
Implementation of
WAFS was neither easy nor quick. However the benefits are considerable:
§ Inclusion of AMDAR
data provides additional
information for data sparse areas;
§ Benefits are global
and large for forecasts out to 48 hours;
§
Common communication between NWP centres;
§
Development of low cost systems for Aviation Met Authorities to solve a
variety of forecasting problems;
§
Training was implemented on how to use the information WAFS provided, to improve aviation
forecasts, with exceptional results.
The presentation also discussed how
Numerical Weather Prediction in Aviation Forecasting is the best way for
Aviation Forecasting to move forward into the future.
Rapporteur on
the AMDAR Panel - some remarks - Reported for HMEI by
Mr. Juhani
Polvinen from Vaisala
Airbus has made a
proposal for including Water Vapor Sensing System (WVSS) in its planes.
It proposes to include a WVSS system in Airbus planes together with new
ATSU software (air traffic service unit) with weather report software
compliant with the ARINC communication standards.
Sensors supplied
to Airbus planes will be Airbus qualified and the sensor system will be
a catalog item for Airbus. All this is dependant on the availability of
an equipment/ supplier to meet AMDAR requirements. The supplier
selection will be done by Airbus (based on meeting the technical
specifications by Airbus and the AMDAR panel). The sensors themselves
will be purchased by the airlines. The benefits of this approach will be
the fact that the design will meet the OEM safety and quality standards
of Airbus, the design will be applicable to all airliners (in Airbus
planes) and it will offer a worldwide coverage.
The AMDAR panel
highlighted that AMDAR is not yet a replacement to Radiosonde as the
coverage is still not adequate. The global AMDAR system is NOT fully operative,
yet. There are still a lot of empty areas in the world.
Another
interesting thing is the availability of the water vapor sensors that
depends on the trial tests in USA (UPS) and Europe (Lufthansa). If the
outcome of the trials is that the data is acceptable to be used for
short term forecasting and modeling, then there is already an interest to buy
water vapor sensors. What this will require is the NMHSs to ask an
airline to drill holes in an aircraft and install water vapor sensors.
The installation can be done by the aircraft manufacturer before the
aircraft is delivered to its customer.
First test
results on water vapor sensors are awaited soon. Member states will be
informed as soon as data is available.
Comments:
Canada:
AMDAR panel is funded by a trust fund. Contributing members (at least
Canada) want to move AMDAR into WWW and CBS. Canada raised concerns as
the move of AMDAR to CBS seems to be delayed. It is not yet recognized
if AMDAR data is useful for the whole set of meteorology and not just
aviation.
Germany:
when do AMDAR measurements replace humidity measurements by radiosondes?
Use of this data by NMHSs. How to use the data for short term
forecasting?
USA:
Cost-benefit? If we bring these sensors on line maybe we can replace
some other sensors. We have to better understand how to quantify what is the
impact of this new information that we have not previously had.
Encourage AMDAR panel to install the humidity sensors into AMDAR
systems.
NZ:
We are a member of and a voluntary contributor to the AMDAR panel. The
migration that will take place is only that the home in WMO will shift
from CAeM into somebody else. The migration is simply a change in
responsibility in WMO. Funding is in place and the voluntary
contributions should continue.
WMO
Secretariat:
There is a quantum jump in costs when the humidity sensors are
implemented. That should be taken into account. Migration to a more
operative function was requested by some members. Sticking to nominal budget
reduces WMO capabilities. WMO cannot take more and more responsibilities
with nominal budgets.
Senegal Delegate - Opportunity for
Instrumentation Procurement
The Senegal
delegate contacted HMEI personally to ask how to contact manufacturers
for the provision of some specific instruments, including thermometers,
anemometers, and digital barometers. The HMEI Member Product Catalogue,
live on-line, was demonstrated for him and he was shown the application
areas. HMEI has recommended that he contact companies directly, using
the information in the HMEI Catalogue, to find the equipment that he
requires.
Russian Delegate
The Russian Delegate also inquired personally about HMEI. She was
enthusiastic about this new means of finding equipment, has taken a copy
of the HMEI Catalogue and expressed her intention of using this
resource.
Hong Kong Delegate
The HMEI Secretariat spoke with the Hong Kong Delegate, CM Shun who is
also the new Vice-President of CAeM, and his colleague, Sharon Lau Sum
Yee. They were
extremely interested in the potential usefulness of HMEI for CAeM and
the Hong Kong Observatory. A good rapport has been developed with them,
they requested HMEI to keep them informed of HMEI activities and send them
the HMEI Newsletters.
HMEI and the CAeM President
The previous CAeM President Neil Gordon is well known to HMEI. The
Executive Secretary took the opportunity of this conference to introduce
HMEI to the new President of CAeM,
Carr McLeod, who said he looked forward to working with HMEI in the
future and encouraged HMEI to join the Expert Teams of CAeM.
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