This report covers various items from the meeting considered of particular interest to the HMEI Membership and is not intended to be definitive.
The WMO Final Report of the meeting is available here.

As a result of this meeting HMEI has been accepted as an advisor to the Task Team on Instrument Standards, and will be involved in future work of this Task Team.

Attendees
For the full attendees list please see the Participants List here
HMEI was represented by:
Rémy Pepin - MODEM
Bruce Sumner - HMEI Executive Secretary
Christine Charstone - HMEI Administrator

Opening at 9.30
The Deputy Secretary-General Dr. Hong Yan opened the meeting at 9.30 on behalf of the Secretary General, He stressed the important or sharing information between oceanographic and meteorological activities, particularly in the area of climate change.

Technical Workshop
SOT (Ship Observation Team) consists of three components – VOS (Voluntary Observing Ship) Scheme consisting of 5000 ships making surface observations, the SOOP (Ship of Opportunity Programme consisting of 60 ships making 24,000 sub-surface thermal profiles each year and ASAP (Automated Shipboard Aerological Programme) consisting of 16 ships performing about 4500 Radiosonde profiles each year.

Technical Workshop presentations were made to show new techniques and instrumentation for the collection of shipboard observations:

• A test of XBT vs CTD profiles has been performed of six instrument systems.  Temp errors are within manufacturer’s specifications (0.1C), therefore no bias. There is a fall rate error. Two instruments are a little worse than the other four instruments.
• Summary of the Devil XBT acquisition system developed by CSIRO, teamed up with Sippican launcher and Sippican probe. 29 Devil systems have been delivered worldwide. Turo Technology Pty Ltd in Hobart has been licensed to make the systems (5800 dollars each).
• Mquest is a quality control program to check subsurface profiles, developed by the CSIRO. It is a multi-platform system to replace an old 1990 program.
• BluLink – an ocean forecasting tactility around Australia, using a partnership between BoM, CSIRO and Australian Navy. Uses a coupled ocean-atmosphere model. That goes down to 200m at every 10m.
• TurboWin version 4. This is KNMI software that is an electronic logbook for shipboard lodgement of data.. Redesign of sea level pressure e.g. surface or ship level.
   

NATIONAL REPORTS
General items of interest:

• Manual shipboard weather observations are declining, and to rectify this many services are starting to install shipboard Automatic Weather Stations (AWS). Some countries are very advanced, such as Canada, who no longer accept manual ship observations, and have replaced all their recruited weather ships with AVOS, an automated systems developed for Canada by AXYS Technologies. France are trialling shipboard AWS that they have developed, called BATOS and MILOS. The United Kingdom is trialing AWS on ships, such as MINOS from Martec, BATOS from Meteo-France and Automet by UKMet.. The UK also have AWS on offshore platforms, mostly in the North Sea. These are generally instrumentation from Muir Matherson.

• There was a suggestion from Scripps Institute and AML in Miami to arrange bulk purchasing of XBT’s. Smaller institutes are disadvantaged in that they have to pay a lot more for a few XBT’s, whereas Scripps and AMOL purchase about 12,000 XBT’s per year, mainly from Sippican, and may be able to assist smaller institutes to be able to more easily purchase more XBT’s.

• Transference from Inmarsat to Iridium satellite communications is generally happening in the oceanographic/marine community. This is to reduce costs. Costs drop from about $15.00 per observation to about $1.00 per observation. (Reference – all services performing ship, XBT and other shipboard observations).

• Greenhouse gas sampling from ships consists of approximately weekly sampling on various routes, such as New Zealand to Japan and New Zealand to Long Beach California. Samplers are usually located on the ships bridge. Bridge officers start the sampling, load new sampling flasks and press start. At the end of the sampling process, reloaded for next sampling in about 18 hours. New routes are planned, and there is a need to automate the sampler. (Reference – Atmospheric modelling laboratory, Boulder, Colorado)

• Private sector meeting held in Paris in March 2006. The results and actions from this meeting will be implemented shortly. A meeting in Exeter in 2008 will also involve the public sector.

Report by the SOT Coordinator
JCOMMOPS webpage has a new section on instrumentation:
http://wo.jcommops.org/cgi-bin/WebObjects/JCOMMOPS  
(Reference – Hester Viola, JCOMMOPS, Toulouse)

Requirements for ship-based observations
This report highlighted that adequacy requirements need to be set for VOS observations, both for NWP and for climate purposes. Also need to ensure continuing observations of sea surface temperature (SST).
(Reference – Liz Kent, UK)

FerryBox as Operational Tool for Ocean Observing Tasks
FerryBox, built by Jena in Germany, is installed on ferries to measure flow through parameters, such as chlorophyll, turbidity, temperature, salinity, etc. Cost is about $50,000 per unit, depending on the seniors installed. System developed in Germany, with funding EuroGOOS, and used in northern Europe on trans-country ferries. However different countries require different sensors in the instrument, which means the data from different countries is difficult to compare.
(Reference – Franciscus Colijn, GKSS, Geesthacht, Germany)

Task Team Reports and Recommendations
There are six Task Teams:

• Task Team on VOS Recruitment and Programme Promotion
• Task Team on Satellite Communication System Costs
• Task Team on Metadata for WMO Publication No. 47
• Task Team on VOSClim
• Task Team on Coding
• Task Team on Instrument Standards

The only Task Team of relevance to HMEI is the Task Team on Instrument Standards, with a possible interest in Task Team on Coding. However the coding group mainly is involved in defining BUFR descriptors if they are not currently available. Instrument manufacturers should thus be aware that SOT (and JCOMM) is committed to the use of BUFR as the new code form. HMEI has been accepted as an advisor to the Task Team on Instrument Standards, and will be involved in future work of this Task Team.
Reference - Robert Luke, leader of Task Team on Instrument Standards.

E-SURFMAR VOS Component
A program to coordinate and optimize the surface marine observations component of EUCOS (EUMETNET Composite Observing System). E-SURFMAR participants are operating different shipboard AWS: France has 50 Batos stations and 8 Minos AWS, Germany has 20 Minos AWS operating through Meteosat, UK has seven stations – either Automet, Batos or Minos, Norway has one QLS-50 AWS, Ireland and Spain have one Milos station each and Denmark has one Batos AWS. A new simple AWS is under development by Meteo France, called Baros. Currently in pre-production, with final production expected in about two years time, when a tender will be issued to potential manufacturers.
(Reference – Pierre Blouch, E-SURFMAR Programme Manager)

XBT fall Rate Equation
366 profiles with 6 instrument systems were obtained in the Atlantic in 2006 to investigate the fall rate equation for XBT’s.  Current fall rate equation was developed by IGOSS in 1994. HMEI recommends a full scientific Intercomparison, over all ocean basins and with input from all manufacturers of probes (generally Sippican and TSK), so that the fall rate equation can investigated and a refined fall rate determined.
(Reference – Derrick Snowden, AOML, Miami, USA)

JCOMMOPS
^There is a website http://wo.jcommops.org/cgi-bin/WebObjects/JCOMMOPS with lots of information on JCOMM activities, including instrumentation, monitoring, programmes, meetings, contacts, etc.
(Reference – Hester Viola, JCOMM Technical Coordinator)

• Development of a small, compact, expandable marine AWS, with easy installation and able to be moved from ship to ship.
• Development of a simple auto-launcher for automated launches of helium-based Radiosonde releases from ships.
• Development of a simplified hand launcher and multiple launcher for XBT probes from ships.
• Investigation of the fall rate equation of XBT instruments from different manufacturers.
• Update of manufacturers' information on JCOMMOPS website.

HMEI was accepted as a member of the Task Team on Instrument Standards and the new ASAP Task Team.