HMEI Report on the
Joint CIMO Expert Team on Surface-based Instrument Intercomparisons and Calibration Methods, Seventh (reduced) Session, and International Organizing Committee (IOC) on Surface-based Intercomparisons, Seventh (reduced) Session (ET-IOC-SBII-7),
Sestola, Italy, 22 - 27 June 2009

The Executive Secretary, Bruce Sumner represented HMEI members at this meeting.

The WMO report of the Sestola meeting is now available at: http://www.wmo.int/pages/prog/www/IMOP/reports/2009/ET-IOC-SBII-7_Report_final.pdf

The official photo of the Participants at the Sestola meeting, Please click to enlarge.

Meeting Participants
Dr Emanuele Vuerich
Dr Claudia Monesi
Dr Miroslav Ondras
Dr Isabelle Ruedi
Mr Michel Leroy
Dr Eckhard Lanzinger
Prof. Luca Lanza
Dr Luigi Stagi
Mr Bruce Sumner

Welcome
Lieutenant Colonel Fabio Malaspina (Director of CAAM, Sestola) welcomed participants. The Director of ReSMA-Vigna di Valle Colonel Gianni Daddario then opened the meeting. He was pleased to note the good work of the Intercomparison campaign and of the whole expert team. Dr Ondras thanked the Director of having this important meeting in Sestola to finalize the Intercomparison. Col. Constante de Simone, Director of the National Centre of Meteorology and Climatology then welcomed participants to the meeting, and also looked forward to showing participant the important observatory on Mt Cimone. Also Col. Paolo Pagano from the Italian Meteorological service welcomed the participants. He mentioned that this meeting is the final outcome over ten years of activities and was pleased that the Italian service was able to participate in this important Intercomparison.

Meeting Session on Rainfall Intercomparison at Vigna di Valle
The meeting opened at 9.30 on 22 June. It was decided to try to get some conclusions done in the first few days and to send these to the participants for their comments, and for these to be incorporated into final report by the end of this session on Friday.

The comments received from the manufacturers were then discussed by the meeting to ensure that all their concerns are addressed. Eckhard Lanzinger was requested to reply to all the participants who provided comments and to let them know how their comments were resolved by the meeting and incorporated in the final report. This was done, and all manufacturers who provided comments were advised, either by email or by telephone, of how their comments were resolved and incorporated into the final report.

It was requested by HMEI that the names of the instruments and the manufactures names be standardized throughout the report. There are at least 9 tables of the participating instruments, and the names of the instruments currently vary considerably. HMEI provided a revised list of the participating instrument model names and company names. These will be used to update the final report.

Discussion was then centred on a summary table of the comparison of all the instruments that would be included in the final report. The table included the quality of 1 minute rainfall intensity and the quality of 5 minute rainfall intensity. It was decided to delete the 5 minute quality assessment from the table, and to only include the 1 minute assessment in the data sheets. The finalized table was sent to all participants for their confirmation. Many replies where received during the meeting, and these were incorporated into the summary table. Many companies also took this opportunity to advise the Expert Team of other issues in the Final Report regarding their own instruments. The Team resolved all these concerns and again advised the manufacturers of the outcomes during the time of the meeting.

Several hours were spent on analyzing an email received during the meeting from company Attex. This included the requirement that each participant being provided with his own raw instrument data (agreed), letting participants analyze their own data in their own way (agreed), having the manufacturers attend a workshop to produce a report (agreed, at manufacturers expense) and the report can be published by the manufactures or presented at such sessions at WMO TECO.

The team agreed with a suggestion from Environmental Measurements Ltd to include an indicative cost of instruments in the summary table of the report, as these are many different instrument technologies included in this Intercomparison, and it could be beneficial to show the large range of instrument prices. HMEI was requested to obtain these costs by the end of the meeting. If there was not universal agreement to provide the costs, they would not be included in the report. HMEI requested this information from all participants. However some participating manufacturers objected and it was decided not to pursue this idea in this Intercomparison, and instrument costs, even just ranges of stars, will not be included in the final report. However the team members thought that this could be a good idea for future Intercomparisons, and may be requested in the application form for participation in future Intercomparisons.

The meeting agreed on the set of conclusions for inclusion in the final report. In addition a set of recommendations were approved by the meeting, one set of recommendations for the users and another set of recommendations for the instrument manufacturers, including a list of parameter values that should be included in instrument manuals, such as range, resolution, linearity, measurement uncertainty (for the whole range), threshold, etc.

The availability of the final data sets was discussed. Manufacturers will be able to apply to the Intercomparison Site Manager (Emanuele Vuerich) for their own raw data, the 1-minute reference data and the 1-minute ancillary data after publication of the Final Report. Other third parties, including manufacturers, will be able to apply to the ET/IOC chairman (Michel Leroy) for the full data base of 1-minute data after the publication of the final report, for the purposes of scientific studies, if they provide full justification and confirmation that the data will only be used for scientific purposes, including papers and conference reports. The data to be provided will be the 1-minute instrument data, 1-minute reference data and the 1-minute ancillary data.

Report of the Rainfall Intercomparison
The meeting decided that the final report of the Vigna di Valle Intercomparison should be published before the end of 2009. It is now available from the Publications area of the WMO website at: http://www.wmo.int/pages/prog/www/IMOP/publications/IOM-99_FI-RI.pdf

Meeting session on Intercomparison of screens, temperature and humidity, in Ghardaïa, Algeria
The International Organising Committee then reviewed the status of the screens, temperature and humidity Intercomparison held in Ghardaïa, Algeria. Originally the comparison was due to start in 2007, but there were many problems with sensors, data acquisitions and other issues. The Intercomparison started officially on 1 November 2008, and is due to finish on 31 October 2009. All sensors are connected to a Yokokawa data logger. Here is a list of all the screens and sensors:

Participating instruments: (Table supplied by the IOC)

DAS stands for Data Acquisition Unit
DS stands for Dedicated Software

10 second data from all the sensors are stored in a local data base. One minute values are prepared and quality controlled and this data is then transferred to Trappes, France. Algeria appears to have problems with data analysis, and Meteo France is prepared to step in and conduct the data analysis in collaboration with Algeria.

Report of the Ghardaïa Intercomparison
A preliminary report of the Ghardaïa Intercomparison will be prepared and included in the WMO report of the Sestola meeting (see link to the meeting report above). This will allow manufactures to see some preliminary results. The final report of the Ghardaïa Intercomparison is due about March 2010, and will be presented at CIMO in September 2010 in Helsinki.

Future Intercomparisons
A follow up Intercomparison of screens, temperature and humidity sensors, hopefully with the same participants as those in Ghardaïa, is planned to be held in a cold locality, namely the Arctic, starting in the spring of 2011. Canada has volunteered to host this Intercomparison.

A teleconference call with Rodica Nitu in Canada, the organizer for this next Arctic Intercomparison, confirmed the tentative dates, data acquisition and calibration procedures for the next Arctic Intercomparison.

Terms of Reference for Lead Centre on Precipitation Intensity
Discussion on the terms of reference for Lead Centres on Precipitation Intensity (LC-PRIN) was undertaken by the Expert Team. These lead centres are a new idea to be set up within CIMO. The terms of reference will be submitted to the CIMO Management Group for endorsement and for final approval by CIMO next year. The basic concept for these lead centres is to provide specific guidance about instrument calibration and their achievable accuracy, performance of laboratory field tests and provide research and technical developments about the measurement of precipitation intensity and related data analysis and interpretation. The Vigna di Valle site is suggested as a lead centre, so as to not lose its experience gained during the precipitation intensity Intercomparison. Also the Vigna di Valle site could be included as a test site of further testing and future Intercomparisons. It was also decided not to limit such lead centres just to precipitation intensity, but also to allow rainfall accumulation. It was suggested the proposed centres should be called ‘Lead Centres for Precipitation Measurement’.

Meeting Closure
The meeting closed at 12.30 pm on Saturday 27 June.

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