Report: HMEI at 7th EMS Annual Meeting and Exhibition, Spain, 1-5 October 2007

HMEI Members exhibiting at the EMS in 2007:

Campbell Scientific Ltd.	Environmental Measurements Ltd. (EML)	Gill Instruments Ltd
Kipp & Zonen B.V.	Modem Note: Due to unforeseen circumstances MODEM had to cancel their attendance at the exhibition.

Scintec AG

SELEX Sistemi Integrati GmbH

Vaisala Oyj

Other exhibitors were:
John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Instituto Nacional de Meteorologia
Biral
COST

The HMEI Executive Secretary and Administrator attended EMS 2007

HMEI Executive Secretary, Bruce Sumner, at the HMEI Booth, with Terry Jenkins from EML and Dr. John Zillman the Chairman of GCOS.

Opening Session EMS 2007
The opening was held at the Aula Centro Universitario,  a short walk from the Euroforum conference centre where the conference sessions and exhibition were held, in El Escorial,  Monday 1 October 2007.

Welcome by David Burridge the EMS President
 Dr Burridge welcomed attendees, guests and exhibitors to this year's EMS. He announced that the next EMS would be held October (29) 2008 in Amsterdam. He then went on to introduce the speakers giving welcome addresses.

Welcome addresses were then given by:
Francisco Cadarso, Director Intituto Nacional de Meteorologia (INM)
Richard Anthes, AMS President
José Antonio Maldonado, AME (the Spanish Meteorological Society) President.

Eva Lopez, representative of José Luis Fernàndez-Quejo, Mayor of San Lorenzo de El Escorial and Ben Dieterink, HMEI Chairman, were also invited to address the attendees.

Address by HMEI Chairman
Mr Dieterink noted that the exhibitors (the majority of them HMEI members) were looking forward to showing the conference attendees the latest equipment, instruments and services on offer from manufacturers in the hydro-meteorological industry. He further encouraged communication with the exhibitors regarding the theme of this year’s EMS meeting, i.e. the future meteorological needs that industry can provide.

Award Ceremonies
EMS Presentations were then made, by David Burridge, to this year’s winning young scientists; it was notable that this year all the winners were women scientists.
The Kipp& Zonen prize was also awarded, by Ben Dieterink, to Ivan Mammarella  For his paper “The stability dependence of the roughness length for very rough natural surfaces”.

After a break the Opening continued with the Strategic Lectures. (The HMEI staff were able to attend three of these lectures before leaving the Opening Session to set-up and attend the HMEI exhibition booth).

Strategic Lectures: High Impact Weather

John Zillman – The social and economic value of meteorological services – the findings from the WMO Conference of March 2007 in Madrid.
Dr Zillman noted that the Madrid conference had established the essential usefulness of meteorology to all sectors and all countries. However the findings from the conference were that there are nevertheless enormous possibilities for improvement in further implementing the usefulness of meteorology for societal benefits.

Michel Jarraud, Secretary-General WMO – Disaster Risk Management
In this presentation Mr Jarraud addressed several points regarding Disaster Risk reduction:
• Natural disaster trends show there has been a great rise in economic impacting hydro-meteorological events;
• However, because of improvements in early warnings and forecasting the loss of life has been dramatically reduced.
• Multi Hazard Early Warning Systems:
                      - are cost effective,
                      - WMO members have excellent communication systems to deliver the necessary information for early warning.
• The new factor of climate change will impact on frequency and severity of natural disaster events;
• Thus, there is a need for further climate impact studies.

Mr Jarraud emphasised the need to strengthen cooperation of observations, communications and support. WMO is doing this with its involvement with GOS/WIGOS and GEOSS integration.

Filippo Giorgi, IPCC WGI Vice-Chair – Main messages from the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report
The main points emphasised from the IPPC Report were:
• Observations and studies now show that there are significant greenhouse gas contributions from industry and human (anthropogenic) activities.
• In a comparison with anthropogenic and natural forcing from the period 1750 – 2005, anthropogenic forcing was estimated to be much higher than natural forcing.
• The observation evidence appears to confirm the fact of current climate change.
• There has been an observed global temperature change, with the last 50 years being the warmest for 1300 years.
• Europe is particularly observed as a “hot spot” in global warming, with temperatures more markedly increased in that region.
• Studies also confirm an increase in the melting of global snow and ice, with a resulting rise in sea level.
• Changes have now been observed in Circulation:
                     o A pole-ward shift of mid-latitude storm tracks;
                     o An increase of westerly winds.
• The report notes that in Europe there is:
                      o An increase in heat waves;
                      o More precipitation;
                      o More hot days and less cold days.
• The report also confirms an increase in Atlantic cyclone activity.

The IPCC 2007 now considers that climate system changes are unequivocal and that the studies strongly imply that anthropogenic effects have been a strong factor in the changes globally and regionally. The anthropogenic factor is considered as probably as high as 90-95%, due to human activities since the mid 20th century.

The IPCC future climate change projections are:
• Ensemble models (using more than 20 models) suggest that there could be a 1° - 6°C increase in temperature by 2100.
• There would be a projected corresponding seal level rise of 10 – 58cms (depending on the model). These projected sea level changes are much higher than previously thought.

The IPCC states that the projected changes would result in:
• Further increases in severe weather events globally;
• A slow down (but not a collapse) of the Meridonial Overturning Circulation (MOC).

Ultimately, therefore, IPCC considers that there is a need to manage the unavoidable (adaptation) and prevent the avoidable (mitigation)

HMEI now a Liaison member of COST
After email communications between Sylvain Joffre from COST and HMEI, before EMS in El Escorial, Spain, the HMEI Executive Secretary and the HMEI Chairman arranged to meet with Dr Joffre during EMS, to discuss the "best ways HMEI and its member companies could, on the one hand provide support/expertise to COST Actions where relevant, and on the other hand, benefit from COST activities.

At the meeting Sylvain Joffre advised that HMEI is now recognised as a liaison member of COST, and will be informed of new COST activities as they arise.

HMEI will pass on to members relevant information sent by COST to the HMEI office Communication between HMEI and COST will look for entry points for HMEI members into COST projects.

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GCOS Reference Upper Air Network Meeting (GRUAN), Germany, February 2008
This will be held in Lindenberg, Germany, 26-28 February 2008. The GCOS Secretariat has requested the participation of a single HMEI representative from the Upper-Air industry, at this initial meeting of the group.

TECO-2008 and METEOREX-2008  Russian Federation,  November 2008
HMEI has been officially advised about the next TECO and METEOREX. Next year TECO and METEOREX will be held in St-Petersburg from 27-29 November 2008. There is already some information on the CIMO webpage for those wishing to attend or exhibit. To see the first announcement and for information as it becomes available please go to: http://www.wmo.int/pages/prog/www/CIMO/cimo-teco-meteorex.html

Of interest to manufacturers will be the main conference theme, as quoted from the first announcement:

"TO PROMOTE AND FACILITATE INTERNATIONAL STANDARDIZATION AND
COMPATIBILITY OF METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVING SYSTEMS USED BY
MEMBERS WITHIN THE WMO GLOBAL OBSERVING SYSTEM TO IMPROVE
QUALITY OF PRODUCTS AND SERVICES OF MEMBERS"

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WMO Acronyms List on the HMEI Website
The HMEI website has a new link to the WMO Acronyms, for HMEI Members to reference. It is situated in the Technical Info section of our website.

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Opportunities for members  
HMEI has received and sent on to Members the following opportunities of interest to HMEI Members, since the last newsletter.

Mekong River Commission: The Mekong Hydrological Cycle Observing System
An opportunity to bid for the supply of Hydrometeorological/Telemetry equipment and services of Equipment Supplier Expert for the Mekong Hydrological Cycle Observing System was received in late August by HMEI from WMO and sent on to HMEI Members. The WMO has advised HMEI that ( companies have submitted tender, of which some are HMEI Members.

The Tender bids were opened on 5th October, however the final decision is still to be made on accepting a tender. The evaluations will take place in November and the final decision made in December.

GCOS Regional Technical Support Project for the Americas
This project is for Region 3 ( South America). It consists of at least two missions to each of the GUAN upper-air observatories and as many visits to the GSN stations as possible, during the period of the contract. The missions are focused on performing an in-depth and detailed inspection of the upper-air and surface observing systems and assessment as to which stations are in need of assistance. The contractor will implement a systematic program for calibration of equipment at the GSN stations and training in calibration for local staff. The information on this was passed on to HMEI Members on the 20th August.

All bids have been received and the closing date has passed for tenders. Bids are now being evaluated. The final decision is expected to be made by the end of  December.

Request for Water Vapour Profiling Radiometer and Distrometer
At the end of August, HMEI received, and sent on to all Members, an enquiry from Antronics Solutions in Malaysia, seeking a Water Vapour Profiling Radiometer and Distrometer, complete with training on the product, software and installation.

Salinity Sensor Evaluation
In September HMEI received notification from Robert Luke at NOAA, of an opportunity for  participation in a Salinity Sensor evaluation, this was sent on to all members. The evaluation is being organised by the Alliance for Coastal Technologies (ACT). Field testing is to start in May 2008, with a final report in January 2009.

The Alliance for Coastal Technologies (ACT) is a NOAA-funded partnership of research institutions, resource managers, and private sector companies. The ACT site is at: http://www.act-us.info/