Satelite Training in Latin America

1. Satelite Training in Latin America Vilma Castro, Professor at the School of Physics, University of Costa Rica WMO Regional Meteorological Training Center

2. WMO Regional Meteorological Training Center at the University of Costa Rica

3. 1995 WMO Regional Training Seminar on Satellite Meteorology • Coordinated by Dr. Donald Hinsman, from WMO • With lecturers from the RMTC, NOAA, EUMETSAT • Among them: Drs Jim Purdom and Roger Weldon

4. The rule in most of the participants countries:low resolution imagery, one or two pictures a day in ugly thermal paper. Few countries had displays in a monitor like the one below .

5. During the seminar in Costa Rica, Drs Purdom and Hinsman proposed a pilot project to convert the RMTCs in Costa Rica and Barbados in specialized satellite training centers, with the cooperation of WMO andNOAA/NESDIS,through the Cooperative Institute for Atmospheric Research (CIRA), at Colorado State Univ. – Fort Collins

6. Dr. Martin Yerg, at the International Activities Division (NOAA) helped finding resources to acquire computer equipment for the RMTC-CR

7. Reconstruction effort for Hurricane Mitch provided funds for: • 2 RAMSDIS systems for every country in Central America • 1 server • training • calibration of rainfall algorithms • Help Desk at the RMTC

8. 1999 WMO Regional Training Seminar on Satellite Meteorology • Coordinated by Dr. Donald Hinsman, from WMO, with lecturers from the RMTC and CIRA • 50 participants: • 21 sponsored by WMO • 11 by NOAA/Mitch project • 6 National Met. Service of Costa Rica • 12 from the RMTC

9. 2000 Regional Training Seminar on Satellite Meteorology

10. The RMTC in Costa Rica has evolved as a specialized training center in satellite meteorology • PCs available for training • Ingest of real time imagery with RAMSDIS systems • Computed aided learning, multimedia modules from COMET have been translated into Spanish • Satellite Meteorology: the new GOES imager • Satellite Meteorology: Case Studies • The Forecast Process • Numerical Weather Prediction

11. The RMTC in Costa Rica has evolved as a specialized training center in satellite meteorology • It participates and pools resources from the Virtual Laboratory for Education and Training in Satellite Meteorology • BoM via the WMO site: • http://www.wmo.ch/indexflash.html • CIRA site: http://www.cira.colostate.edu/ramm/wmovl/main.html • EUMETSAT site: http://oislab.eumetsat.de/VLab/

12. Challenges for the near future: • Maintain the Help Desk beyond support from project Mitch • Expand the job done in Central America to other countries • Train students in the digital manipulation of imagery and products • Joint project between CIRA, UCR and ICE • Validation of the blended GOES/Microwave precipitation estimates and TRMM

13. Challenges for the near future: • Keep up the pace of the Virtual Laboratory for Education and Training in Satellite Meteorology Leaded by WMO’s Expert Team on Improving Satellite Systems Utilization and Products

14. Challenges for the near future: • Automatic access to real time meteorological data is still required. Will it be LDM-UNIDATA? Or a NOAAPORT? ACCES TO REAL TIME DATA IS IMPORTANT IN TRAINING

15. I already have an antenna!…and METEOFORUM…

16. Thank you Campus -UCR