Global status report on non-satellite observing systems

1. Global status report on non-satellite observing systems 7th meeting of THORPEX DAOS WG, Montreal 15th August 2014 Stefan KlinkEUMETNET Observations Programme Manager Acknowledgements: Sabine Hafner (EUCOS OM), Tanja Kleinert (EUCOS QMC), Steve Stringer (E-AMDAR), Rudolf Krockauer (E-ASAP), Henrik Vedel (E-GVAP), Alexander Haefele (E-PROFILE),Pierre Blouch (E-SURFMAR), Elena Saltikoff (OPERA)

2. E-AMDAR: Key Developments during last year (to July 2014) • Austrian Airlines Airbus fleet added – providing new destinations & wider coverage in eastern Europe • Continuing increase in global aircraft observations – now 500,000 Obs per day (see figure) from 40+ airlines • Working with WMO an “AMDAR Onboard Software Functional Requirements Specification” (AOSFRS) has been produced. This provides the primary WMO meteorological-based specification for AMDAR data uplink and downlink for ACARS to be used by any new participating airline or new AMDAR programme worldwide.

3. ASAP fleets Regular ASAP fleets: • European E-ASAP- 18 ships under the umbrella of the European Meteorological Network EUMETNET,- 15 out of 18 ships are merchant ships in regular trans Atlantic service,- sounding area: North Atlantic (>90% of all soundings). • Japanese ASAP- 3 governmental research ships,- sounding area: mainly North Pacific. plus • Some further research vessels which transmit their data to the GTS

4. E-GVAP provides ground-based GNSS data (zenith delays, in some cases IWV) . This is done in close collaboration with the geodetic community in Europe. The data are available in BUFR and ascii format. • The GNSS data provide humidity information to the models, and are demonstrated to increase NWP model skill. • Time resolution is high, spatial resolution varies with region. E-GVAP

5. Wind profilers: a global player with positive impact • Windprofilers provide vertical profiles of atmospheric wind automatically and in real time under nearly all weather conditions. • Important networks include: Europe (30), Canada (9), United States (35), Japan (31), China (300), Australia (8). • FSO studies revealed positive impact of windprofiler on forecast in assimilation system. • New developments of VAD (Lau et al. 2012, AMS) and spaced antenna (Lindseth et al. 2012, IEEE) windprofilers as well as new antenna designs (Imai et al., 2010, https://global-sei.com) to improve data quality. Obs. Impact / day / obs. type [Lorenc and Marriott, 2013, QJRMS]

6. Ceilometer and automatic lidars: growing national and continental networks Aerosol & Volcanic Ash • Big growthof national operational lidar networks in Europe sinceeruptionsofIcelandicvolcanoes in 2010/2011 (e.g. France, Ireland, Germany, United Kingdom) • South American operational lidar networkforvolcanic ash monitoring ( http://spie.org/x94865.xml ) underdevelopment. • Global inventoryof lidar and ceilometer stationsavailable: http://www.dwd.de/ceilomap . Global ceilometer inventory • Strengthening of research aerosol lidar networks: EARLINET (Europe), MPLnet (global), AD-net (Asian), CLnet (China), …

7. Global Surface Marine Observations • Sea Level Pressure (SLP) remains an essential parameter for NWP that cannot be provided by the space observation segment • Barometer buoys are the most efficient way to measure SLP • Good coverage in North Atlantic and Indian Ocean. Lesser in tropical and South Atlantic. In progress in the Arctic. Insufficient in large areas of the Pacific Ocean. • The total number of operating buoys increased over the past 12 months: 700 in June 2014 against 400 one year earlier. • Voluntary Observing Ships(VOS) provide complementary observations • The number of visual observations (waves, visibility, clouds, past and present weather) is decreasing. • Automation growth marks a pause but should restart within a couple of years: ~220 AWS at present. • WMO urges Members to continue and increase their participation in JCOMM activies • contributing in the Global Drifter Programme through the funding of barometer upgrades on standard oceanographic drifters (NOAA proposal) • Increasing automation of the observation onboard ships

8. OPERA and world of radars • Several network upgrades ongoing / tendering / planned (19 of 30 OPERA members) • majority of new radars are dual-polarization • Several NWP models starting assimilation of reflectivity or precipitation, and Doppler velocity data

9. Stop of transmission of data coded in Traditional Alphanumeric Code (TAC) • WMO CBS agreement: …deadline of November 2014 to stop the parallel distribution of TAC and TDCF data for the category 1 (SYNOP and TEMP) as well as the category 2 (satellite observations) and 4 (marine data: SHIP and BUOY)… • Plans to disseminate EUMETNET E-ASAP and E-AMDAR data in BUFR format only - from 3rd November onwards! • BUFR migration status is monitored at ECMWF wiki page: https://software.ecmwf.int/wiki/display/TCBUF/TAC+To+BUFR+Migration

10. Stop of transmission of data coded in Traditional Alphanumeric Code (TAC) • Is everybody aware of • the aforementioned WMO CBS decision and • the possible consequence that those WMO Members (NMHS) might stop transmitting data in TAC formats who already providing BUFR encoded data in parallel?

11. Supplemental materials

12. AMDAR: Continuing increase in global aircraft observations – now 500,000 Obs per day

13. E-AMDAR: Further activities to note • Installation of humidity sensors on selected Lufthansa aircraft delayed until end 2014 so that they can be fitted to newer aircraft with longer expected lifetimes. • Potential for extension of E-AMDAR to form basis of WMO European region AMDAR programme, documented as a draft AMDAR Regional Implementation Plan (A-RIP) • E-AMDAR provided additional flights for the month of February to enhance observing at Sochi airport before and during the Winter Olympics. • Three aircraft were migrated to reporting in new WIGOS AMDAR BUFR template ahead of planned complete switch in Nov 2014 • Developments with use of Mode-S as a potential new source of aircraft observation data have advanced. EUMETNET have formed a Working Group to consider how this data may be produced as an operational service.

14. Distribution of gobal ASAP soundings 2013 5225 radiosoundings on the GTS 79% European E-ASAP fleet (18 ships) 7% Research vessel RV Polarstern 14% All other research vessels (mainly 3 Japanese ships)

15. E-GVAP provides EUMETNET partners with European ground based GNSS meteorological data (delays and in some cases IWV) for operational meteorology. This is done in close collaboration with the geodetic community in Europe. • The E-GVAP data are available via GTS (BUFR) and ftp (compressed ascii format). (Restrictions apply to usage and furthering of the data to third parties, but they do enable usage in weather forecasting.) • The GNSS data provide humidity information to the models, and are demonstrated to increase NWP model skill. • The GNSS meteorological data have relatively high time resolution. The system is all weather capable. • E-GVAP and NOAA/NCEP has agreed to use a common WMO approved BUFR template for distribution of ground based GNSS meteorological data. • NOAA/NCEP data has recently become available via GTS (BUFR) and are also available via ftp. • In combination there is data from about 2500 GNSS sites (see fig. slide 2) • E-GVAP/EUMETNET and NOAA/NCEP encourage other met services with access to GNSS delay and IWV data to engage in a global exchange of the data, using the WMO approved BUFR format and GTS. Use egvap.dmi.dk and egvap@dmi.dk for further information E-GVAP

16. E-GVAP

17. Ship Observation Network

18. Data Buoy Network (barometer buoys)

19. Barometer Drifting Buoys

20. OPERA: 178 radars • Radar spacing in average 128 km (twice as dense as in NEXRAD) • Heterogenous network (30 members, 6 manufacturers, C,S and X-bands) • Data hub since 2011 • Some centralized data quality control since March 2013

21. TAC = Traditional Alphanumeric Codes TDCF = Table Driven Code Form CBS agreement stop of TAC distributions Nov 2014 http://www.wmo.int/pages/prog/www/WMOCodes/MigrationTDCF/CBSEXT10matrix.pdf

22. Questions and comments?

23. Stefan Klink EUMETNET Observations Programme Manager GIE/EIG EUMETNET Contact Details GIE EUMETNET Secretariat c/o L’Institut Royal Météorologique de Belgique Avenue Circulaire 31180 Bruxelles, Belgique Tel: +32 (0)2 373 05 18Fax:     +32 (0)2 890 98 58 Email: info@eumetnet.eu Web: www.eumetnet.eu EUMETNET Observations Programme Manager Deutscher Wetterdienst Frankfurter Str. 135 63067 Offenbach, Germany  Tel: + 49 69 8062 4492 Fax: + 49 69 800 863 410 Email: stefan.klink@dwd.de Web: www.eumetnet.eu