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Met 101: Introduction to the Atmosphere
This lesson provides an overview of Earth’s atmosphere, its vertical structure, the fundamental forces acting on air, and how the atmosphere's composition affects the colors we see in the sky. The lesson also includes information about how Earth receives energy from the Sun as solar and infrared radiation, and the mechanisms for transferring heat around the globe. Learners will be introduced to the components of Earth’s water cycle, and also briefly explore the main types of systems used to observe the atmosphere.
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Marine Seminar: WMO and UNESCO/IOC
On Wednesday May 3 from 10am to 12.30 in the WMO Press Room, there will be a Marine Seminar by both WMO and visiting staff from UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC).
The Seminar will be chance for exchange of information and discussion between the two agencies, as outlined in the attached programme. From the UNESCO-IOC, Dr Albert Fischer, Dr Salvatore Arico and Dr Thorkild Aarup will share information about IOC programs relevant for WMO, and vice versa, WMO staff will share information on their marine work here.
UNESCO IOC is an important part ...
WMO/IOC海洋学和海洋气象学联合委员会 - 第十七次届会最终节略报告
世界气象组织 (WMO); Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC); 联合国教育,科学 和文化组织 (UNESCO) - 世界气象组织 (WMO), 2017 (世界气象组织 (WMO)-No. 1208)
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Интервью: Владимир Рябинин, Исполнительный секретарь Межправительственной океанографической комиссии (МОК) ЮНЕСКО
Бюллетень, Том 64(2). BMO, 2016Владимир Рябинин, Российская Федерация, 1 марта 2015 г. был назначен новым Исполнительным секре- тарем Межправительственной океанографической комиссии (МОК) ЮНЕСКО, что соответствует уровню помощника Генерального директора (ПГД) ЮНЕСКО. Г-н Рябинин перешел на работу в МОК из ВМО, где он с 2001 по 2015 г. занимал пост старшего научного сотрудника Всемирной программы исследований кли- мата (ВПИК). Годы, проведенные в ВМО, безусловно, окажут благотворное воздействие на тесное сотрудни- чество между двумя организациями. Бюллетень ВМО с удовольствием представляет г-на Рябинина читателям и предлагае ...
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Progrès réalisés dans l’observation et la prévision du phénomène ENSO
Bulletin, Vol. 64(1). OMM, 2016Les gouvernements, les entreprises du secteur privé et les particuliers sont de plus en plus exigeants lorsqu’il s’agit de la qualité des services climatologiques, d’où l’importance du Cadre mondial pour les services climatologiques (CMSC). Cependant, certaines composantes du réseau d’observation de l’océan – pourtant essentielles à la prestation de ces services – risquent de se dégrader, et les systèmes de prévision climatique ont du mal à rester au fait des attentes croissantes quant à l’exactitude et à la fi abilité des services.1234
GCOS, 201. Report of the Nineteenth Session of the Ocean Observations Panel for Climate (OOPC-19)
A large focus of the meeting was completing the GCOS Implementation Plan, in addition to progressing activities in the OOPC Work Plan. The first day of the meeting was held jointly with the JCOMM Observations Coordination Group, and hence was focused on discussing the structure and focus of the ocean section of the GCOS IP, and refining the network based actions for the plan. The Second day was focused on further refining the package of Essential Ocean Variable Specification Sheets, particularly ensuring consistent articulation of applications areas, and phenomena to capture. The 3rd Day focus ...
Climate and Water Resources Management, Part 1: Climate Variability and Change
Climate is changing at unprecedented rates in recorded history. A variety of lines of evidence demonstrate that climate change is likely to affect the hydrologic cycle and thus create new challenges in water management. This requires that climate change information be included in water and water-related resources planning, operations, and management. Climate and Water Resources Management, Part 1: Climate Variability and Change describes the terminology, global evidence, regional manifestations, and basic science of global climate variability and anthropogenic change, with a focus on water res ...
Real-time Storm Surge Products
This lesson will describe the real-time storm surge products that are issued by the National Hurricane Center (NHC) and National Weather Service Weather Forecast Offices (NWS WFOs) during a significant tropical cyclone event along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of the United States. Tropical cyclones that threaten a coastline have the potential to inflict devastating damage to communities. Real-time storm surge information will assist decision-makers in their plans and preparation work for these events. Basic familiarity with probabilistic forecast guidance is required. It is recommended that us ...
Forecasters' Overview of the Mediterranean and Europe
This module provides an introduction to the European continent and the Mediterranean and Black Sea areas for weather forecasters. It focuses on geography, climatology, oceanography, major aspects of the synoptic and mesoscale weather patterns, and hazards to aviation and maritime operations. Geography covers major political boundaries, cities, ports, topographical features, rivers, and volcanic areas. Climatology covers the seasonal climatology of jet stream, synoptic weather systems, extratropical cyclones, and high winds and seas. Oceanography includes major bathymetric features; mean sea su ...
Climate Variability and Change for Water Resources Management - International Edition
Climate is changing at unprecedented rates in recorded history. A variety of lines of evidence demonstrate that climate change is likely to affect the hydrologic cycle and thus create new challenges in water management. This requires that climate change information be included in water and water-related resources planning, operations, and management. Climate Variability and Change for Water Resources Management - International Edition describes the terminology, global evidence, regional manifestations, and basic science of global climate variability and anthropogenic change, with a focus on wa ...
TsunamiReady: Guidelines for Mitigation, Preparedness, and Response
The TsunamiReady® program began in 2001 to promote tsunami hazard preparedness and improve public safety before, during, and after tsunami emergencies. In 2015, the National Weather Service updated the TsunamiReady Guidelines based directly on emergency management principles and with input from the social sciences. This training provides an overview of the 2015 guidelines, which are focused on mitigation, preparedness, and response. The training will equip community officials and others interested in becoming TsunamiReady with strategies for streamlining their implementation of the guidelines. ...
Sea Level Change: Datums and Terminology
This lesson addresses how sea level is determined and applied. It starts with a general discussion of the surfaces that form the basis of measurement, called datums, then looks more closely at the vertical datums that form the basis of height measurements. We cover tidal datums in more depth, including the different datums, their extent, period of record (called a tidal epoch), and common applications. We conclude with a look at some data resources for tidal datums and sea level trends.
Sea Level Change: Basics
This lesson describes the physical processes, both natural and human-induced, that lead to changes in sea level. The processes described include climate induced changes in ocean heat content and volume, natural oceanic cycles, and both natural and human-induced changes in coastal land elevation. The learning is enhanced with rich graphics and periodic questions.
Best Practices in Tropical Cyclone Briefings
Crafting clear, concise and effective messages focused on customer needs is a crucial skill in every decision-support situation. Tropical cyclones that threaten a coastline have the potential to inflict devastating damage to communities and communicating relevant weather information will assist decision-makers in their plans and preparation work. This lesson examines how to effectively prepare for the hurricane season and then focuses on how best to support NWS partners through meteorological briefings during tropical cyclone events. Basic familiarity with probabilistic forecast guidance is re ...
Ocean Acidification
The chemistry of the world’s oceans is changing. Ocean acidity is creeping upward, a result of rising atmospheric carbon dioxide. The added carbon dioxide depletes seawater of carbonate, a chemical constituent of minerals that form the shells and structures of animals including corals, molluscs, plankton, and others. The accelerating impacts are expected to reverberate through the marine food web. Most people are unaware of ocean acidification and its expected impacts. This lesson will educate policy makers and university students about its causes and consequences. The lesson explains the chem ...
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Sea Breeze
Miller Jack - WMO, 2016"This is my first time-lapse film I decided to put together. All scenes are shot in Florida from April - September 2016. This film is meant to showcase Florida's weather pattern from a stray shower to a fierce severe warned thunderstorm.
Through that time period, I had taken over 149,000 photos between the two cameras for this project. Less than half were used for the final production. Overall editing took about 2 months and was really because of the music choice as I had switched songs half way through the project.
***Technical*** - Equipment used was a Canon 6D ...
Ocean, climate and weather: the role of the World Meteorological Organization
When it comes to the weather, most of us think only about what is happening in the atmosphere. If we ignore the ocean, however, we miss a big piece of the picture: covering some 70 per cent of the Earth’s surface, the ocean is a major driver of the world’s weather and climate. The ocean is also a major driver of the global economy, carrying more than 90 per cent of world trade and sustaining the 40 per cent of humanity that lives within 100 km of the coast. Recognizing this, national weather agencies and researchers regularly monitor the ocean, model how it affects the atmosphere and deliver m ...
Rainfall Variability over Zimbabwe and its relation to large-scale atmosphere-ocean processes
Mamombe Vimbai - 이화여자대학교 대학원, 2016For Zimbabwe, where rain fed agriculture is the backbone of the economy, the importance of accurate rainfall seasonal forecasts cannot be overemphasized (Makarau and Jury, 1997). In fact, extremes in interseasonal variability of rainfall can significantly complicate human livelihoods. In addition, there have been predictions of increased precipitation variability and hydro-meteorological hazards such as floods, droughts, and erratic rainfall due to global warming (Field et al., 2014; Mushore, 2013a). Thus, detailed understanding of the major contributors to the rainfall variability over Zimbab ...
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Interview: Vladimir Ryabinin, Executive Secretary of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO
Bulletin, Vol. 64(2). WMO, 2015Vladimir Ryabinin of the Russian Federation was appointed as the new Executive Secretary of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO at the level of Assistant Director-General (ADG) of UNESCO on 1 March 2015. Mr Ryabinin went to IOC from WMO, where he was a Senior Scientific Officer in the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) from 2001 to 2015. His years of experience with WMO will surely benefit the close cooperation between the two organizations. The Bulletin is pleased to introduce him to our readers through the interview below. 1
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Progress in Observing and Predicting ENSO
Bulletin, Vol. 64(1). WMO, 2015Governments, private companies and individuals are demanding ever more sophisticated climate services, as manifested by the Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS). But parts of the ocean observation network – paramount to the delivery of climate services – are at risk, and the evolution of climate prediction systems is not keeping pace in terms of accuracy and reliability
JCOMM Technical Report, 63. Recommended Algorithms for the Computation of Marine Meteorological Variables
World Meteorological Organization (WMO) ; Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC); United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) - WMO, 2015This publication presents a summarized version of the WMO No-8 information, focusing on the instruments used by the VOS, but breaks new ground in making specific recommendations (including providing software modules and test validation cases) on the algorithms to be used to compute “derived” variables.
DBCP Technical Document, 52. Annual report for 2014, financial report
JCOMM Technical Report, 84. Final report, JCOMM Pilot intercomparison project for seawater salinity measurements
World Meteorological Organization (WMO) ; Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) - WMO, 2015The Pilot Inter - comparison Project for Seawater Salinity Measurements is organized by The Joint WMO - IOC Technical Commission for Oceanography and Marine Meteorology (JCOMM) and undertaken by the Regional Marine Instrument Center for the Asia - Pacific Region (RMIC/AP). As the first inter - comparison project under JCOMM framework in history, the purpose is of understanding the overall quality level of salinity measurements of JCOMM Members/Member States and observation programmes, identifying the differences an d promoting the expertise of salinity measurements.
Understanding Marine Customers, 2nd Edition
Understanding Marine Customers, 2nd edition, introduces the different marine forecast customers and discusses what forecast information they need to know and why they need to know it. A better understanding of the needs of the marine forecast customer will lead to better daily forecasts. The 2nd edition expands upon marine customer base to include more nearshore users, such as beachgoers, surfers, and sea kayakers.
Operational Models Encyclopedia
The availability of numerical guidance from NWP models has been an important component of operational forecasting for decades. For many, the output from this numerical guidance was produced by a mysterious “black box”. Rules for using and adjusting the guidance for operational forecasters were often subjective “Rules of Thumb” based on experience rather than based on quantitative analysis. To open up this “black box”, we produced this web-based “Operational Models Encyclopedia” linking both generic information on how NWP models work, and specifics on physical parameterizations, dynamics, and d ...
Forecasting Tropical Cyclone Storm Surge
This lesson introduces forecasters to the various probabilistic guidance products used by the National Hurricane Center to forecast storm surge. It provides an overview of how these probabilistic surge products are created, their purposes, and why they are preferred to deterministic-only style guidance for specific events. The lesson also provides practice in correctly interpreting probabilistic storm surge guidance at various phases of an event. Basic familiarity with probabilistic forecast guidance is required. This online lesson is part of the Tropical Cyclone Storm Surge: Forecasting and C ...
Using Scatterometer Wind and Altimeter Wave Estimates in Marine Forecasting
Scatterometers and altimeters provide a variety of space-based observations that are useful for marine analysis and forecasting as well as other applications. Key among the products are ocean surface winds from scatterometers and significant wave heights from altimeters. This lesson describes the basics of scatterometers and altimeters, including how they work, what they measure, and how scatterometer winds and altimeter significant wave heights are derived. It then discusses some of the challenges in using the estimates, such as dealing with ambiguities and rain contamination. The lesson also ...
Storm Surge and Datums
This lesson introduces forecasters to the orthometric and tidal datums used to describe tropical cyclone storm surge measurements and forecasts. It provides a general overview of how to interpret storm surge forecasts using various vertical datums. This online lesson is part of the Tropical Cyclone Storm Surge: Forecasting and Communication course.
Marine Weather Services Incident Response and Decision Support
Marine Weather Services Incident Response and Decision Support provides guidance for forecasters tasked with supporting oil or chemical spills and other marine-focused incidents. The lesson follows an example spill event to help demonstrate marine forecasters' responsibilities for coordinating with emergency managers, other NOAA line offices, and governmental agencies and outlines best practices related to effective communication.
Microwave Remote Sensing: Land and Ocean Surface Applications, 2nd Edition
This lesson introduces the concepts and principles basic to retrieving important land and ocean surface properties using microwave remote sensing observations from polar-orbiting satellites. Section one reviews the advantages of microwave remote sensing from polar-orbiting platforms and briefly highlights some of the unique spectral characteristics that allow for differentiation between various surface types and properties. Subsequent sections present a more in-depth look at the derivation and application of microwave products that quantify four different land and ocean surface properties and ...
Principles of Celestial Navigation
This lesson provides a basic introduction to celestial navigation for navigators, sailors, and others interested in the topic. It begins with the relationship between celestial coordinates and Earth coordinates and examines key celestial navigation parameters—geographic position, sextant altitude, observed altitude, azimuth, and computed altitude—that can be used to identify to a ship's position. A U.S. Navy navigator demonstrates the main celestial sights performed over the course of a day, including the morning three-star fix, morning Sun line, Local Apparent Noon Sun line, afternoon Sun lin ...
Extreme High Swell Events on the Moroccan Atlantic Coast
High swell events can develop far from the coast under cyclonic conditions, and take several days to travel to land. If early warnings are not issued, they can take an area by surprise and have a devastating impact. This lesson aims to improve the ability of marine forecasters to forecast extreme marine events related to high swells. It does so by providing background information on winds and waves, and presenting a process for monitoring and forecasting high swell events using a variety of data. These include ASCAT scatterometer wind data and the ECMWF Extreme Forecast Index (EFI) product, wh ...
Introduction to Tropical Cyclone Storm Surge
This lesson introduces forecasters to the physical processes and impacts of tropical cyclone storm surge. It provides an overview of the factors that affect storm surge, how it is measured, and the limitations associated with storm surge data. This online lesson is part of the Tropical Cyclone Storm Surge: Forecasting and Communication course.
Using ASCAT Wind and Other Data in Marine Forecasting
This case study lesson demonstrates the use of scatterometer wind and, to a lesser extent, altimeter significant wave height products in marine forecasting. A brief introduction to cold fronts and their impact on weather and sea state conditions sets the stage for the main part of the lesson, the case study. The case follows the passage of a cold front over the South Atlantic Ocean on 23 and 24 November 2013 when the Polarstern research vessel was transiting the area. Learners use ASCAT wind and Jason significant wave height data to help determine current conditions and evaluate GFS and WAVEWA ...
Ship-based Sea and Lake Ice Observing
Ships operating in areas with ice are expected to report conditions as part of standard weather reporting procedures. This lesson is aimed at those tasked with this responsibility, be they official or informal observers. The lesson begins with background information on ice, addressing such topics as where it is found, how it develops, and how to observe and report it. This sets the stage for the lesson’s scenarios, which simulate the experience of being an ice observer in four situations: on the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Healy operating in the Arctic Ocean, on a container ship transiting the Nor ...
Instability Indices and Heavy Rainfall Forecast in a Maritime Environment
Forecasting heavy rainfall associated with in-situ convective cloud development over small island states is a challenge in operational forecasting as not all numerical models are able to resolve convection at such small scales. Forecasting of such phenomena is mainly based on prevailing local conditions and the use of a plethora of thermodynamic indices derived from the local sounding. This study is an effort to assess the suitability of the different available indices, hereafter referred as traditional indices, to forecast heavy rainfall from local convection, commonly known as pure sea breez ...
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DBCP Technical Document, 51. Presentations at the DBCP Scientific and Technical Workshop
JCOMM Technical Report, 61. Ship Observations Team (SOT) Implementation Strategy : version 1.0
World Meteorological Organization (WMO) ; Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC); United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) - WMO, 2014This document provides the rationale for the strategy of the SOT for the implementation of the ship fleets under its responsibility in the foreseeable future. It particularly includes an overarching implementation plan, and a detailed implementation plan with clear objectives, and some performance targets.
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DBCP Technical Document, 48. Annual report for 2013
DBCP Technical Document, 49. Proceedings of the Second Capacity Building Workshop of the DBCP for the North Pacific Ocean and its Marginal Seas (NPOMS-2) : Application of Regional Ocean Observations for Increasing Society’s Understanding and Forecasting of Typhoons
Weather Observing Fundamentals
"Weather Observing Fundamentals" provides guidance for U.S. Navy Aerographer's Mates, Quartermasters, and civilian observers tasked with taking and reporting routine, special, and synoptic observations. Although the focus of this lesson is on shipboard observations, much of the content applies to land-based observing and reporting as well. The lesson details standard procedures for taking accurate weather observations and for encoding those observations on COMNAVMETOCCOM Report 3141/3. Exercises throughout the lesson and four weather identification drills at the end provide learners with oppor ...
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