World Meteorological Day 2012: Powering our future with weather, climate and water

Each year, on 23 March, the World Meteorological Organization, its 189 Members and the worldwide meteorological community celebrate World Meteorological Day around a chosen theme. This day commemorates the entry into force, on that date in 1950, of the WMO Convention creating the Organization. Subsequently, in 1951, WMO was designated a specialized agency of the United Nations System.
This year, the theme is “Powering our future with weather, climate and water”.

WMO Welcomes Outcome of World Radiocommunication Conference 2012

Geneva, 17 February 2012 (WMO) - Radio frequencies which are vital for weather forecasts, disaster warnings and climate monitoring will remain available to the meteorological community and protected from interference from other applications thanks to decisions taken by the World Radiocommunication Conference 2012 (WRC-12).

The World Meteorological Organization today welcomed the outcome of WRC-12 and said it would safeguard the use of radio frequency spectrum which are needed to observe and understand our Earth, atmosphere and oceans and to reduce the risk of weather, climate and water-related disasters.

WRC-12 reinforced the commitment of previous World Radiocommunication Conferences to the special needs of meteorological and hydrological services, despite competing pressure for scarce radio frequencies from wireless technology and other uses.

"New applications for radio waves are being continuously developed, which means that more and more has to be squeezed into the available radio spectrum,” said WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud. “The WRC-12 decisions will help ensure that the signals we need to observe the earth are not drowned by new signals," said Mr. Jarraud.

“The outcome of WRC-12 will provide new opportunities for observation systems needed to monitor, understand and predict our changing climate, and will provide the necessary protection to meteorological applications,” he said.

In particular, WRC-12 agreed to an update to Resolution 673 of the World Radiocommunication Conference 2007 on Radiocommunications use for Earth observation applications and modified its name and content. The new version of Resolution 673 (Rev.WRC-12) is called “The importance of Earth observation radiocommunication applications.”

It resolves:
to continue to recognize that the use of spectrum by Earth observation applications has a considerable societal and economic value;
to urge administrations to take into account Earth observation radio-frequency requirements and in particular protection of the Earth observation systems in the related frequency bands;
to encourage administrations to consider the importance of the use and availability of spectrum for Earth observation applications prior to taking decisions that would negatively impact the operation of these applications.

In a submission to the conference, WMO had warned that if some of the frequency bands allocated for meteorological purposes were to be used byother incompatible applications, then these bands could be rendered unusable for weather, climate, water and/or disaster observation and monitoring systems. This would make corresponding forecasts and services extremely difficult and sometimes impossible.

Given that weather, climate and water-related disasters represent more than 90% of natural disasters, radio frequencies are essential components of multi-hazard early warning systems.
WMO’s Steering Group on Radio Frequency Coordination was active in ensuring that WRC-12 participants understood the potential impact decisions at the conference could have on earth observations systems maintained by WMO Members. The World Meteorological Congress in June 2011 allocated additional funding to support WMO’s radio frequency coordination activities in view of their fundamental importance.

World Radiocommunication Conferences are held every four years under the auspices of the International Telecommunications Union to review and revise the Radio Regulations, the international treaty governing the use of radio frequency spectrum.

Specific outcomes:
WRC-12 agenda items identified by WMO as important for development and protection of meteorological applications prior to WRC-12 were successfully addressed by the Conference as follows.

After considering the worldwide regional harmonization of spectrum for electronic news gathering, the meeting agreed to no change to the Radio Regulations. This avoids increasing interference level to meteorological applications due to introduction of electronic news gathering tuning ranges.

WRC-12 updated the Radio Regulations to include reference to the passive bands within the 275-3000 GHz range to ensure those bands used in WMO activities are taken into consideration in the processes for use of these frequencies in free space optical links.

In considering technical and regulatory issues relating to the fixed service in the bands between 71 and 238 GHz, WRC-12 decided to include recommended limits for active services sharing or using adjacent bands to passive services.

WRC-12 considered the need for allocating frequency ranges for the use of oceanographic radars in sets of bands that will allow this technology to be used in a uniform way. It was agreed to make these allocations, including through a resolution ensuring oceanographic radars do not interfere with fixed and mobile services. Although these allocations are not “primary”, WMO believes this compromise solution will help the further development and use of oceanographic radars.

WRC-12 agreed to the allocation of frequencies at 8.3 and 11.3 kHz to meteorological aids for the use in lightening detection systems

WRC-12 recognized that no changes were needed to the Radio Regulation to support Software Defined Radio (SDR) or Cognitive Radio Systems (CRS). It was noted that CRS were incompatible with passive radio frequencies and noted in the WRC-12 report that this should be taken into account for studies in the use of CRS.

WRC-12 looked at additional allocations to high altitude platform stations (HAPS) in the frequency range 5 850 - 7 075 MHz. Rather than a general allocation, a footnote was added to the Radio Regulations noting their use in Australia and a few African countries. The aim is to reduce the risk of interference with Earth Exploration Satellite Service activities.

WRC-12 looked at the effects of emissions from short range devices (SRD) and agreed no change was needed to radio regulations.

WRC-12 agreed to an extension of the allocation to meteorological satellite service in the band 7 750 - 7 850 MHz to the band 7 850-7 900 MHz.

Conference reviewed the need for allocations to the mobile-satellite service between 4 and 16 GHz and agreed to no change in the Radio Regulations.

Notes to Editors:
Further details on the World Radiocommunication Conference at: http://www.itu.int/ITU-R/
WMO’s Steering Group on Radio Frequency Coordination was active in ensuring that WRC-12 participants understood the potential impact decisions at the conference could have on earth observations systems maintained by WMO Members.

The Sixteen World Meteorological Congress (Geneva, May 2011) “…agreed that the protection of frequencies used for meteorological purposes is of direct and vital interest to the international meteorological community and reiterated its full support for radio-frequency activities. It urged the pursuance of, in an organized manner, the continuous review of regulatory and technical matters related to radio-frequencies for operational and research meteorological and related environmental activities.“ Congress allocated additional funding to support WMO’s radio frequency coordination activities in view of their fundamental importance.
WMO and ITU have issued a handbook freely available online.

The World Meteorological Organization is the United Nations System’s

authoritative voice on Weather, Climate and Water

New Weather and Climate Information System Becomes Operational

WMO Information System boosts data exchange for disaster risk reduction, forecasting, predictions and service delivery for food security and health

Geneva, 31 January 2012 (WMO), A new international information system to improve and expand the current exchange of weather, climate and water data – and cut the costs involved - has become operational.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Information System will make it easier to find and use meteorological observations and products and to share them with a wide variety of stakeholders such as the research and disaster risk reduction communities.

It builds on the proven success of the Global Telecommunication System of WMO’s World Weather Watch which has been the backbone of meteorological information exchange for the past 40 years and is used for daily weather observations and forecasts, tropical cyclone warnings and Tsunami alerts – to name but a few applications.

“The WMO Information System is the pillar of our strategy for managing and moving weather, climate and water information in the 21st century,” said WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud.
“It will reduce the costs of information exchange incurred by National Meteorological and Hydrological Services and maximize exploitation of advances in communications technology, ” he said.

“It will allow users outside the meteorological community to have free access to this information for the first time. This will be especially important as WMO moves ahead with other U.N. and international partners with the Global Framework for Climate Services which aims to provide basic climate services for all in the food security, water management, disaster risk reduction and health sectors,” said Mr Jarraud.

The WMO Information System, or WIS, connects and integrates information from three types of data centres:

National Centres collect and distribute data on a national basis. They generate quality controlled analysis and forecast products, and services, including archiving national climate information. The National Meteorological or Hydrological Service coordinate or authorize the use of the WIS by national users.

Data Collection or Production Centres are similar to National Centres but focus on thematic, regional or global collection and/or production of sets of data, forecast products, processed or value-added information, and/or for providing archiving services.

Global Information System Centres connect to each other through a high speed private network. They rapidly share information meant for routine global dissemination that they collect from National Centres and Data Collection or Production Centres in their area of responsibility . They also serve as distribution centres into their areas of responsibilities.

Global Information System Centres provide entry points, through unified portals and comprehensive metadata catalogues, for any request for data exchanged within the WIS. They also provide the connection to other information systems such as the Global Earth Observation System of Systems.

WMO’s governing World Meteorological Congress has approved several Global Information System Centres which meet the required standards. Three of these, Beijing, China; Tokyo, Japan, and Offenbach, Germany, have been running in pre-operational mode since the middle of 2011 and will be officially operational from the end of January 2012. Others will shortly become operational.

Background information:

The World Meteorological Congress in 2003 formally adopted the concept of the WMO Information System to provide an integrated data management approach for all WMO and related international programmes. Congress said it should have a flexible structure; and build on the successful Global Telecommunication System for highly reliable delivery of time-critical data and products.
The World Meteorological Congress in 2007 required the WMO Information System to be implemented in two parallel parts. Part A, the continued evolution of the Global Telecommunications System, is already operational. Part B provides new functionalities and provides the more flexible connection between WMO Members and contributors; this is newly operational.

The World Meteorological Congress in May 2011 set the implementation of the WMO Information System as one of the top priorities for the next four years and gave the green light for WIS to become operational in January 2012.

WIS provides three fundamental types of services (as agreed by Congress):

1. Routine collection and dissemination service for time-critical and operation-critical data and products: This service is based on real-time “push” mechanism including multicast and broadcast; it is implemented essentially through dedicated telecommunication means providing a guaranteed quality of service. This includes a dedicated service for the rapid international exchange of warnings and related messages.

2. Data Discovery, Access and Retrieval service: This service is based on request/reply “pull” mechanism with relevant data management functions; it is implemented essentially through the internet.

3. Timely delivery service for data and products: This service is based on delayed mode “push” mechanism; it is implemented through a combination of dedicated telecommunication means and of public data-communication networks, especially the internet.

Further details are available at www.wmo.int/wis
Access to the Global Information System Centres can be found via www.wmo.int/giscs

The World Meteorological Organization is the United Nations System’s

authoritative voice on Weather, Climate and Water

For more information please contact:

Clare Nullis, Press Officer, Communications and Public Affairs,
Tel: +(41 22) 730 8478; 41-79) 7091397 (cell)
e mail: cnullis(at)wmo.int

WMO highlights importance of radio frequencies for Earth observations Weather, climate and water services depend on radio frequency bands

Geneva, 16 January 2012 (WMO), Weather forecasts, disaster warnings and climate monitoring are all critically dependent on radio frequency bands which are used around the clock by meteorological services. Increasing pressure on the use of radio spectrum from wireless technology and other applications could hamper Earth observations and efforts to understand and predict climate change.

These are some key points of a submission by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) to the World Radiocommunication Conference taking place in Geneva 23 January to 17 February 2012. The conference is mandated to review and revise the Radio Regulations, the international treaty governing the use of radio-frequency spectrum.

National Meteorological and Hydrological Services are responsible for providing timely warnings of impending natural and environmental disasters, climate predictions and assessments of global water resources.

These services protect lives and livelihoods and promote sustainable economic development.

They are dependent on observations of our Earth, atmosphere and oceans. Radio frequencies are critical both for collecting this observational data and disseminating it to society.

Successive World Radiocommunication Conferences have taken into account the needs of the meteorological community to ensure the availability and protection of scarce and valuable radio-frequency bands for making and exchanging these observations. The forthcoming conference is urged to uphold this commitment.

Pressure from new applications

“Sound management of allocated frequency bands is vital to the quality and accuracy of weather and weather-related predictions,” said WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud.

“If some of the frequency bands currently allocated for meteorological purposes were to be used by other radio applications that are incompatible with meteorological use, then these bands could be rendered unusable for weather, climate and/or disaster prediction systems. This would make corresponding forecasts extremely difficult and sometimes impossible,” he said.

“Given that weather, climate and water-related disasters represent more than 90% of natural disasters, radio frequencies are essential components of multi-hazard early warning systems,” said Mr Jarraud.

The development of new, mass-market and added-value radio applications and wireless technology is putting increasing pressure on the frequency bands used for meteorological purposes. This presents the potential risk of limiting meteorological applications in future.

The World Meteorological Congress in June 2011 allocated additional funding to support WMO’s radio frequency coordination activities in view of their fundamental importance.

Global Observing System

The WMO Integrated Global Observing System includes the World Weather Watch, the Global Atmosphere Watch and the World Hydrological Cycle Observing System. These make use of a number of different radio applications and services which require reliable access to radio frequencies ranging from few kilohertz (KHz) to terahertz (THz).

Space-borne sensing of the Earth’s surface and atmosphere has an essential and increasing importance in operational and research meteorology, in particular for mitigating the impact of weather and climate-related disasters, and in the scientific understanding, monitoring and prediction of climate change and its impacts.

The impressive progress made in the recent years in weather and climate analysis and forecasts, including warnings for dangerous weather phenomena (heat waves, heavy rain, storms, cyclones) that affect all populations and economies, is to a great extent attributable to space-borne observations and their assimilation in numerical models.

These services may be affected by World Radiocommunication Conference decisions.

Space-borne passive sensing for meteorological applications is performed in bands allocated to the Earth exploration-satellite (passive) and meteorological satellite services. Passive sensing requires the measurement of naturally-occurring radiations, usually of very low power levels, which contain essential information on the physical process under investigation.

The relevant frequency bands are determined by fixed physical properties (molecular resonance) that cannot be changed or ignored. These physical properties cannot be duplicated in other bands.

Even low levels of interference received by a passive sensor may degrade its data.

For passive sensing bands shared with active services, the situation tends to be more and more critical with the increased density of terrestrial active devices, and serious cases of interference are already reported.

Space-borne active sensing, performed in particular by altimeters and scatterometers for ocean and ice studies, and by rain and cloud radars, provides important information on the state of the ocean and land surfaces and atmospheric phenomena.

Surface-based meteorological radars and wind-profiler radars are important instruments, providing essential measurements of precipitation and other weather elements. This is especially useful for nowcasting, (the detailed description of weather for 0 to 6 hours) of rapidly evolving conditions.

Meteorological radar networks often represent the last line of defence in a disaster warning strategy against loss of life and property in flash flood or severe storm events.

Meteorological aids systems, mainly radiosondes, are the main source of atmospheric in situ measurements with high vertical resolution (temperature, relative humidity and wind speed) to provide real time vertical atmospheric profiles that are and will remain essential for operational meteorology, including weather analysis prediction and warnings, as well as for climate monitoring. In addition, these in situ measurements are essential for calibrating space-borne remote sensing, in particular passive.

Also of great importance is the availability of sufficient and well-protected Earth exploration and meteorological-satellite services frequency spectrum for telemetry/telecommand as well as for satellite downlink of the collected data.

Fixed-satellite service systems, through commercial payloads in the C-band ((3400-4200 MHz), L-Band frequencies of 1695-1710 MHz and the Ku Band (10700-11700 MHz), are used globally to disseminate weather, water and climate related information, including disaster warnings to meteorological agencies and user communities. A large part of the population, in particular in developing countries, is heavily dependent on the use of C-Band satellites, for instance in areas where heavy rain in tropical and equatorial zones makes the use of any other telecommunication support impractical.



Notes to Editors:

Further details on the World Radiocommunication Conference at: http://www.itu.int/ITU-R/

The Sixteen World Meteorological Congress (Geneva, May 2011) “…agreed that the protection of frequencies used for meteorological purposes is of direct and vital interest to the international meteorological community and reiterated its full support for radio-frequency activities. It urged the pursuance of, in an organized manner, the continuous review of regulatory and technical matters related to radio-frequencies for operational and research meteorological and related environmental activities.“

The World Meteorological Organization is the United Nations System’s
authoritative voice on Weather, Climate and Water

For more information please contact:

Clare Nullis, Press Officer, Communications and Public Affairs,
Tel: +(41 22) 730 8478; 41-79) 7091397 (cell)

e mail: cnullis(at)wmo.int