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Report - Commission for Aeronautical Meteorology (CAEM-XIII)
Geneva, Switzerland, 23 November to 1 December 2006
View of the CAeM-XIII in
session
Please click to enlarge. |
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 here the WMO
Final Report of the meeting
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 NMSs 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 software to determine if it could properly display SIGWX
bulletin data in BUFR format as a visual presentation on a workstation.
Several vendors software were evaluated against a set of criteria
developed by ICAO and SADIS. The majority of vendors software 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 closes 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 NMS's 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 NMSs. 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.
Mr. Hannu Katajamäki from Vaisala and
other participants at the CAeM in front of the HMEI display outside the
conference room. |
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HMEI Display at CAeM
HMEI Member Products Catalogues were
available outside the conference at a HMEI display stand. The stand
attracted considerable attention and over 80 Catalogues on CD-ROMs were
taken by attendees of CAeM.
HMEI and CAeM delegates
The Executive Secretary of HMEI, Bruce
Sumner, addressed the conference and introduced HMEI to the CAeM
delegates. After this he was personally approached by some of the
delegates:
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 Hong 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.
Closing of the conference
The conference was closed earlier than anticipated, on Thursday
afternoon, 30th November 2006.
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