Challenges and Trends in National to International Networks: J. Nash, Met Office, Exeter, UK

1. Trends and Challenges: National to International networks J. Nash, Met Office, Exeter, UK TECO – 2006, Geneva ,December 2006

2. Introduction[1] • CIMO is invited to contribute to various cross-cutting issues between WMO Technical Commissions in the next intersessional period • CIMO is only supposed to deal with calibration and technical issues associated with surface , radiation and upper air networks and not the management of the networks. However, network management and planning decisions can be quite damaging if not supported by consultation with technical experts of sufficient experience . • So it is assumed that CIMO needs to be pro-active to raise issues with CBS/ GCOS in particular when decisions are being made about networks supported by CIMO technical experts. Senior managers in NMHS’ need to be informed of the role of CIMO so that provisions to facilitate the liaison are made. • The challenge to CIMO is to provide technical support of suitable quality that the senior manager’s in NMHS’s consider the contribution useful and important in future

3. Introduction[2] • Within WMO the technical experts for surface based observing observing systems mostly sit in CIMO ,CBS , CAS , JCOMM, CAeM or CAgM or may even contribute to the work of several commissions. • Liaison between the observation experts in the different Commissions is not always very good, especially when communication relies on circulation of documents through the international sections of the various NMHS. • Policies to develop a WMO Integrated Global Observing System should be welcomed and CIMO must be in a position to provide the necessary experts when technical advice is required. • Hence it is very important that CIMO Members register the technical expertise that can be made available to support these activities in future.

4. In which technical areas should CIMO be demonstrating its capabilities? • Delivering measurements to the standard required • Performing intercomparison tests required for validation of current and future networks • Improving the methods used to ensure accurate calibration and quality of all ground–based observing systems • Surface • Upper air, • Ground-based remote sensing • Weather radar • Atmospheric radiation • Atmospheric composition ? • Clouds

5. CIMO Management Committee Response • CIMO intends that a member of the Management Committee is responsible for each of the main issues. • However, steps will have to be taken to get the Management Committee to function more as a unit than has been possible up to now. Pressures of work in national services make it extremely difficult for good experts – who inherently are very busy – to make the time. • So the Commission will have to make some judgment about the working practices and the resources made available for the work • In addition it is essential that CIMO ensures that new international experts are identified , encouraged and developed for the future. • Good technical knowledge is necessary for members of the MCM to function efficiently.

6. Global earth Observing System Of Systems Societal benefit areas where CIMO networks can contribute: • Disasters: Reducing loss of life and property • Understanding environmental factors affecting health • Improving management of energy resources • Understanding, assessing, predicting, mitigating and adapting to climate variability and change • Improving water resource management • Improving weather forecasting and warning • Remote sensing of ecosystems • Remote sensing of agriculture

10. Area of photos

11. Response to GEOSS • Meteorological variable most relevant to other earth system science remote sensing is water vapour, so CIMO needs to ensure that water vapour issues including monitoring of quality are addressed. • Emphasis on mitigation of natural hazards indicates a need to support remote sensing of winds and precipitation, so CIMO needs to develop support to systems such as weather radars and wind profilers • Dealing with observing issues affecting climate needs good scientific experts capable of advising climate scientists, especially about the reality of dealing with component obsolescence in modern observing systems • Many requirements met if GCOS requirements addressed

12. GCOS requirements[1]

13. GCOS requirements[2]

17. Long term design stability of surface based networks • GEOSS and GCOS requirements rely heavily on national observing policies to remain stable and deliver a very stable system. • However, with the drive towards numerical weather prediction models with high spatial and temporal resolution, networks such as the conventional surface and upper air networks need changing to allow necessary data coverage to be obtained by a variety of means, not just the standard surface observations and the standard radiosonde observations which are used now. • Thus, CIMO needs to make this clear to the relevant bodies and start a dialogue process that allows the necessary policies to be developed, see also J. Nash talk on WIGOS.

18. Disaster Prevention and Mitigation As with GEOSS, the CIMO Management Committee, has been keeping in touch with the Programme Office at WMO for this activity through the efforts of Rainer Dombrowsky [US]. Here, it seems probable that some efforts at capacity building or technical advice may be required for specific projects which are being given the highest priority by WMO. Some of these projects may be associated with coastal flooding in low-lying coastal areas and other types of flooding

19. Hazards that CIMO networks should address Hazards listed relevant to CIMO observing responsibilities include: • Tornado • Tropical cyclone • Lightning • Hailstorm • Strong winds • Hazards to aviation [turbulence, icing, downbursts] • Flooding- river, flash, coastal, storm surge • Freezing rain • Sandstorm • Forest fire • Smoke, dust or haze • Dense fog

20. Cause of loss of life in last 10 years from natural disaster

21. Trend with time of disasters

22. Recent Tornado in Wales- many hazards difficult to observe, although associated conditions have better chance of being sensed

25. Why has CIMO not made more contributions to weather radar observations? 28 November 2006 01.00

26. 28 November 2006 01.15

27. 28 November 2006 01.30

28. 28 November 2006 01.30 GPS water vapour Contoured at intervals of 2 kg.m-2

29. Would these winds have been assimilated into an NWP model ? Aberystwyth wind profiler, Located within 3 km of the tornado Provided by Emily Grace Norton Univ. of Manchester

30. Proposed CIMO activities for weather radar operations P. Joe, Canada • Establish an up to date and fully comprehensive data base of the global use of weather radar, including details of radars, to be used in dealing with radiofrequency allocation issues and estimating the effects of wind turbines on future radar operations. • Intercomparison Workshops on current signal processing and data processing algorithms including :- • Signal processing and quality control • Error estimates • Data processing and quality control • Vertical profile corrections Common data sets used to test algorithms, and then report results • Practitioners guide for weather radar [practical issues]

31. Intercomparison workshops

32. Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Many activities will be associated with observing and mitigating the problems associated with cyclones, hurricanes and typhoons including flooding in low-lying coastal areas. Here, CIMO would benefit from some input from DPM and the countries where the problems are most critical. The areas where it would be most beneficial to give technical advice and capacity building need to be identified. e.g. advice on hardening observing installations and communications to survive severe natural storms and disasters. In some cases groups of countries could combine to work on specific topics such as observing blasting sandstorms, tracking of locusts, and identifying extreme temperatures. Thus it is requested that at the Commission meeting the countries involved will come with specific proposals for CIMO actions in the next intersessional period.

33. Quality Management Framework CIMO Guide [WMO No. 8, Sixth Edition] had a chapter, Part III-Chapter 3, on quality management issues. During the last intersessional period Ray Canterford [Australia} was active in attending crosscutting meetings associated with this area on behalf of CIMO. Furthermore during 2006, CIMO experts, Rolf Gauert (Germany), Bruce Forgan(Australia) have revised the chapter of the CIMO Guide for the seventh edition The revised chapter includes more information about the ISO-9000 family of standards and the WMO Quality Management Framework. This latter framework gives basic recommendations that are based on the experience of many national Hydrometeorological Services. This QM framework is a guide for members, especially those who have little formal experience in a formal Quality Management System

34. How do you make sure the process and the controlling factors are really effective?? Where are technical problems resolved? What do you do if the customer does not have sufficient knowledge to specify the requirements ? If the developer indicates a higher standard is necessary , is he just trying to make work for himself?

35. Quality management document structure Is documentation of development activities and quality control activities readily achieved and does it address all necessary problems?

36. Problems with global upper air measurements • As Co-Chairman of the Upper Air OPAG and it predecessors for 16 years I know that during that time, certain areas of the upper air network in the Global Observing System have had sub-standard radiosonde observations which have not been significantly improved in those 16 years. • Why does the WMO Quality Management not work? The problems are on an international scale ,but how do you set up projects to rectify problems in a manner acceptable to all parties. • To generate a really active link between data monitoring, system experts, manufacturers and national network managers/ operators requires more dedicated effort than can necessarily be obtained by purely voluntary schemes and the commission should consider what can be done to rectify this. Should priority activities be identified and with the solution directly funded.

37. What processes are necessary to sustain systems ? • In Dr. Gaffard’s keynote document about Upper Air measurements, it can be seen that the users in Europe are not using many of the wind profiler wind measurements at upper levels. To observe these levels large sums of money have been spent. • It appears that if the profiler had a failure for a short time and poor measurements have got onto the GTS then the users stop using the data for the next year even if the problem was cured in a week. • This seems to be partly due to restricting the development time spent on new observing systems. Technical experts get the systems to work correctly initially, but are not allowed to develop the procedures to ameliorate the effects of system degradation which may not occur until 3 or 4 years later. • This problem can be particularly pronounced if a country buys a system, but then does not have the technical expertise to deal with failure modes that inevitably occur. • CIMO needs to establish better ways of dealing with issues like this and to recommend improved processes for this work. Developing procedures to sustain operations is as important as initially developing or purchasing the system

38. Should CIMO take actions about substandard measurements in global networks? • at least half of the world’s radiosondes can measure relative humidity to a useful accuracy down to temperatures of about -70 degrees C. However, most users still only use the measurements down to temperatures of -40 degrees C. • Should pressure be brought on the other radiosonde operators to improve their relative humidity measurements, since the accuracy of the other measurements falls well outside modern user requirements? • How does CIMO retain its credibility in this area when scientists are criticizing the wide disparity in measurement standards? • What should CIMO do when a widely used system clearly has large measurement errors, see the report on the WMO Radiosonde Training Workshop in region III in this TECO, but the relevant HMEI representative does not give advice to the users about how to eliminate this problem? • Thus, Quality management for observations needs to have liaison with manufacturers, both in telling about problems but also receiving clear and relevant advice. This again is an area where working relationships seem substandard and more effort is required to develop better procedures, possibly on a regional basis. Is there a mechanism that could allow manufacturers to deal with problems on a regional basis?

39. WMO Information System The WMO Information System, (WIS), is an overreaching approach to meet information exchange requirements of all WMO Programmes. It is intended to help WMO to avoid data incompatibilities and problems in sharing data between various programmes. It will ensure interoperability of Information Systems between WMO Programmes and outside of the WMO community.

40. Data collection, national centres collect national observational data

41. Data dissemination ,

42. Types of data flow

43. CIMO and WIS • It is clear that the IMOP Programme falls within the remit of this system. The precise consequences for CIMO have yet to be clarified and much of the lead in dealing with the development of the system is being undertaken by CBS. • CBS is pursuing a leading technical role under the coordination of the Inter Commission Coordination Group on WIS (ICG on WIS). • One area where it seems sensible that CIMO provide Technical advice is to the Inter-Programme Expert Team on Metadata Implementation (IPET-MI) • CIMO needs to keep track on how this team progresses, since in many cases CIMO has specialised knowledge of the requirements for Metadata associated with specific observing systems. • Another area where CIMO will have to consider its working processes will be in the methods and formats used to make Intercomparison data and test results readily available to the wider scientific community. • There may also have to be some negotiations with HMEI since in some cases, limitations on full access to results is a condition imposed by HMEI members, who may be partially funding the testing.

44. Questions & Answers