Bulletin vol 26 no 6 dec 2013

AMOS

AustralianMeteorological & OceanographicSociety

Bulletin of the Australian Meteorological & Oceanographic Society Vol 26, No.6, December 2013 ISSN 1035-6576

Contents Editorial ....................................................................................................................................................................... 113 President’s Column ..................................................................................................................................................... 113 News ........................................................................................................................................................................... 114 News from the Centres ............................................................................................................................................... 115 Conference reports ...................................................................................................................................................... 117 Articles ........................................................................................................................................................................ 121 J.W. Zillman—Fifty years of World Weather Watch: Origin, implementation, achievement, challenge ..........................121

Meet a Member .......................................................................................................................................................... 135 Snapshot ..................................................................................................................................................................... 136 Charts from the Past with Blair Trewin: 25 October 1968 ......................................................................................... 137 The Research Corner with Damien Irving................................................................................................................... 138

ISSN 1035-6576 Cover picture: Images of the electronic billboard at The Age building in Melbourne that advertised a story1 in the newspaper about a recent scientific publication2 that the photographer had led.

Images: AMOS member Scott Power.

Unless specifically stated to the contrary, views expressed in the Bulletin are the personal views of the authors, and do not represent the views of the Society or any other organisation or institution to which the author(s) may be affiliated.

1

www.theage.com.au/environment/climate-change/el-nino-to-take-greater-toll-20131013-2vgng.html

2

www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature12580.html

Editorial

Corrections and The Ashes

I would like to start the December 2013 edition of BAMOS by drawing your attention to a small error in Taylor et al.

(2013). The error regards the reference to the Australian Water Availability Project (AWAP) data in Figure 4 and the Acknowledgements. The reference to the “AWAP analysis” should be replaced with “Barnes analysis” (Jones and Weymouth, 1997), as this was the method used. The main difference between these two methods is that the AWAP-type analysis uses an extra explanatory variable (land surface elevation above sea level) whereas the Barnes-type analysis does not, which is likely to make the latter method smoother (Robert Fawcett, personal communication). The following sections of the text should be read as:

Caption, Figure 4: A Barnes analysis of the 24-hour rainfall to 9:00 a.m. on…

(2009) was that the drier summer in El Niño years would lead to drier, bouncier pitches that are favourable for the faster-paced Australian bowlers. Conversely, the Joshi (2009) paper suggests that in damper conditions during La Nina years the conditions may be more favourable for the English bowlers who bowl slower and try to exploit any ‘swing’ on offer (2010–2011 for example). So… as the Australians are 3–0 up in the series (and from this Englishman’s point of view will probably win 5–0) are we currently experiencing the start of very strong El Nino conditions in the Pacific Ocean? According to the Bureau of Meteorology1, “The El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) remains neutral, with the majority of atmospheric and oceanic indicators close to their long-term average”— so no El Niño to provide an excuse. In conclusion, there may be a case for the above theory being true when the teams are evenly matched; however, as this is certainly not the case in this series I think climatic conditions will have little bearing on the overall result.

Acknowledgements: Thanks to Dr Robert Fawcett for providing a Barnes analysis of the 24-hour rainfall over South Gippsland.

References

Page 93, paragraph 2: Figure 4 shows a Barnes analysis of the 24-hour rainfall to 9:00 a.m…

The corrections to the Taylor et al. (2013) article have made me realise that we do not have an actual policy on how to deal with such corrections for already published articles. Corrections are commonly seen in other journals and they are published as a “Corrigendum”. These articles are then linked back to the original document. I think this is something that can easily be included in BAMOS and I will put something in place to deal with it in future.

As a light-hearted note to round off the year, I thought I’d return to something I wrote about in the April issue of BAMOS (p17) about the article from my former Reading University colleague on whether ENSO could affect the outcome of an Ashes series in Australia (Joshi, 2009—and well worth a read!). One of the conclusions from Joshi

President’s Column

The roles of AMOS

One of the roles that AMOS plays is to recognise excellence in the profession, at all stages of the career path from those making their early steps onto the ladder, to those who have had a long and accomplished career. It is the time of year when our awards begin to be announced; in particular, the Priestley Medal, which recognises outstanding achievement in the atmospheric or oceanographic sciences, and the Uwe Radok Award, recognising an outstanding Ph.D thesis. The detailed announcements are contained elsewhere in this Bulletin; I am sure all of you

Bulletin of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society Vol.26 page 113

Jones D.A., and Weymouth G., 1997, An Australian monthly rainfall data set. Technical Report No. 70, Bureau of Meteorology, Melbourne, Australia. 19pp.

Joshi, M., 2009, Could El Nino Southern Oscillation affect the results of the Ashes series in Australia?, Weather, 64, 178–179.

Taylor, J.C., Xuereb, K.C., and Taylor, W.J., 2013, Extreme rainfall at Wilsons Promontory 22–23 March 2011, Bulletin of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society, 26, 92–107.

Duncan Ackerley 1

www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/

will join me in congratulating Matt, Joel and Paul on their achievements.

Over recent months AMOS has been reviewing the awards we offer, recognising that there are some gaps in the structure, particularly for senior scientists who have not played the leadership roles which are the primary target of the Morton Medal (previously the AMOS Medal) but have nonetheless had an outstanding research career.

While we are still sorting out the final details, we have decided that from 2015 we will be offering new awards for senior scientists, as well as early-career researchers.

It is also very pleasing to us when our members receive external recognition. One particularly notable recent example came a few weeks ago, when the Australian Community Climate and Earth-System Simulator (ACCESS) model development team was awarded the CSIRO Science Excellence Medal. This was a thoroughly deserved award for a large group of scientists from CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology, who have produced a model in the upper echelon of the international rankings—both for numerical weather prediction and for climate—with a fraction of the resources available to some of the larger countries. It was also great to learn of the recent awarding of Discovery Early Career Researcher fellowships to two talented young scientists in Sarah Perkins and Jennifer Catto (apologies to anyone else I haven’t heard about).

Public engagement is another area in which AMOS is taking an increasing interest. An outstanding recent success was Melbourne Centre’s event which was run in conjunction with the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report release. We succeeded in filling up a 700-seat lecture theatre, which was a tribute both to the public interest in the topic and the energy with which the Melbourne Centre committee promoted it. We even managed to attract a (small) demonstration outside—previously I had thought the southern limit of

chemtrail conspiracy theorists was somewhere around Tamworth, but some of them have made it to Melbourne (perhaps this is another impact of global warming).

Another role we play as an organisation is to provide support to those in the profession who are the subject of unwarranted external criticism (an experience all too familiar to those who are in the climate science area). It was in this capacity that we recently issued a statement (available on the AMOS website) in response to public comments by David Murray on the ABC, in which he cast aspersions on the integrity of those involved in the IPCC report. The uptake of this through the media was pleasing, as was the response from many people, both inside and outside the science community. We won’t be making a statement every time someone makes a comment in climate science which is unsupported by the evidence—it would be a full-time job otherwise—but we will certainly be prepared to defend our profession’s honour again should we need to do so.

I wish all members an happy end of the year (hopefully without too much extreme weather to get in the way), and look forward to seeing many of you in Hobart in February.

Blair Trewin

News

Priestley Medal and Uwe Radok Awards announced Blair Trewin

President, AMOS The winners of two of AMOS’s most significant awards have been announced.

The Priestley Medal, which is made for outstanding research achievement by an early- to mid-career scientist, has been won by Matthew Wheeler of the Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research at the Bureau of Meteorology. Matt is recognised as an international leader in tropical meteorology, in particular as one of the world’s leading experts on the Madden-Julian Oscillation and associated phenomena.

The Uwe Radok Award, which is made for an outstanding Ph.D thesis in Australia, was shared this year after the

judges were unable to separate two excellent candidates.

This year’s winners were Joel Pedro, for “High Resolution Ice Core Records of Climate Variability and Forcing” and Paul Durack, for “Global Ocean Salinity: A Climate Change Diagnostic”.

The Christopher Taylor Award, for outstanding achievement in operational meteorology, has not yet been decided at the time of writing.

The awards will be formally presented at the 2014 National Conference in Hobart, with the Priestley Medal and Uwe Radok Award winners also being invited to make plenary presentations at the conference.

Indian Ocean phenomenon helping to predict extreme weather Craig Macaulay

CSIRO, Science Journalist, Marine and Atmospheric Research.

Email: Craig.Macaulay@csiro.au The Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) is defined as the difference in sea-surface temperatures between the western and eastern part of the Indian Ocean, and until recently has been one of the most influential but the least understood natural forces affecting Australia’s climate.

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An international team of scientists, lead by CSIRO Wealth from Ocean Flagship’s Dr Wenju Cai has reexamined the link between the Indian Ocean Dipole and climate change, predicting more positive IODs in the future. The important study, which could lead to better predictions of

extreme weather events in Australia, was published last month in Nature Geoscience1.

and furthermore, projecting positive IOD events into the future.

A better understanding of the relationship between the Indian Ocean Dipole and extreme weather events will enable farmers, industry, communities and governments to better anticipate and prepare for droughts and increased bushfire risk, up to six months in advance of the event.

“Over the past 50 years, the Dipole has been trending upwards, increasing the number of positive events, occurring an unprecedented eleven times over the past thirty years,” Dr Cai said.

Just as the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) affects weather patterns across the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) influences weather and extreme events across the Indian Ocean. While ENSO fluctuates between “El Niño”, “neutral” and “La Niña” phases, the Dipole fluctuates between “positive”, “neutral” and “negative” phases approximately every three to eight years.

The positive phase is characterised by above-average sea-surface temperatures and more rain in the western Indian Ocean region and cooler waters in the eastern Indian Ocean. It tends to cause droughts in East Asia and Australia, and flooding in parts of the Indian subcontinent and East Africa.

Positive Dipole activity has, to date, preconditioned major wildfires in south-east Australia, caused coral reef death across western Sumatra, and exacerbated malaria outbreaks in East Africa.

Dr Cai said the findings provide greater confidence in predicting extreme weather up to two seasons in advance, 1

“For example, there were three consecutive positive Dipole events between 2006 and 2008, which preconditioned the catastrophic Black Saturday bushfires in Victoria.”

He said the increased frequency is due to the tropical Indian Ocean warming faster in the west than the east, due in part to the increasing temperature of Earth’s surface.

“This warming pattern will continue in the decades to come, according to the state-of-the-art global climate models used in the study,” Dr Cai said.

He said that as the warming pattern continues, future changes will include drier winter and spring seasons over southern Australia, particularly during positive Indian Ocean Dipole years.

Research into the Indian Ocean by CSIRO’s Wealth from Oceans Flagship enables better understanding of climate processes affecting Australia, detecting our changing climate, and reducing uncertainty in Australian climate projections.

www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v6/n12/full/ngeo2009.html

News from the Centres

Melbourne Centre News Nicholas Tyrell

Regional sub-Editor, Melbourne Centre To mark the release of the IPCC’s Working Group 1 report “Climate Change 2013: The physical science basis”, the Melbourne AMOS centre organised a public forum featuring a discussion between five world-leading climate scientists on the current state of climate science. The event was extremely popular with over 700 people attending, demonstrating the large public interest in the science.

With Rob Gell keeping the scientists and public in order, the panel included Dr Scott Power (Coordinating Lead Author of Chapter 11, WG1 AR5)1 and Dr Julie Arblaster (Lead Author of Chapter 12, WG1 AR5) from the Bureau of Meteorology, Prof Neville Nicholls (Lead Author for previous reports) from Monash University, Dr Penny Whetton (Lead Author of Chapter 25, WG2 AR5) from CSIRO and Dr Malte Meinshausen (Member of the German delegation) from the University of Melbourne and Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany.

Scott Power gave an excellent summary of the state of climate science focussing on four questions; How has 1 WG refers to “Working Group” and AR5 refers to “Fifth Assessment Report”. See: www.ipcc.ch/ for more information.

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climate changed in the past, what caused these changes, what will happen to climate in the future and to what extent will humans influence future climate. The discussion of past climate gave perspective on the current levels of atmospheric CO2 and the rate of recent warming. Scott addressed this so called “hiatus” in recent global surface temperatures by pointing out the hiatus is in one statistic, and other measures of the climate system have not shown a hiatus.

The questioning then moved to the panel. Rob Gell asked questions pertinent to the specialties of the panellists, and also took questions from the audience. The depth of experience within the panel allowed many aspects of the IPCC process and the science to be explored. Neville argued convincingly that there is no “hiatus”, Penny discussed regional impacts likely for Australia, Julie succinctly explained some complex scientific concepts such as climate sensitivity and feedbacks and Malte gave some insights into the political discussions that occur between the delegations.

Considering the false controversy surrounding climate science it is a credit to the attending public that the

questions were of a level that showed an understanding of the science and made good use of the expertise on stage to delve further. The only question that remained unanswered was concerning the claim that the government is using “chemtrails” to manipulate the climate, but this lead to a discussion of the potentially dangerous repercussions of geo-engineering.

Brisbane Centre News

The event was organised in collaboration with the Monash Sustainability Institute, University of Melbourne Sustainability Society Institute, RMIT and Latrobe Universities. The amazing line-up of scientists and the huge crowd made for a great event. The event was recorded and is available for view on the AMOS Melbourne Centre youtube page2.

2

www.youtube.com/channel/UC0XvixIRVREtHrT41TdHVRQ

Michael Hewson

Secretary, Brisbane Centre Sadly, the Brisbane public forum building on the release of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report has had to be postponed to the new year, at a date yet to be decided. The Brisbane Regional Centre committee had received only ten registrations a week before the event and so the decision was taken to defer the forum. This was a pity really, as we had some very good speakers lined up—and it was a great opportunity to engage with members, policy makers and the public. We’ll certainly advise you when we pick a new date.

As a result, and in order not to lose some travel funding, the decision was taken to bring Dr Julie Arblaster of the Bureau of Meteorology to Brisbane to give her presentation on “Key Findings of the IPCC Working Group 1 Fifth Assessment Report”. AMOS joined with the Katestone company, who hosted the event in their premises. Katestone Managing director, Ms Christine

NSW Centre News

Killip, also gave a presentation on a cattle industry climate adaptation example entitled “Adaptation to climate change: Management of environmental heat stress”. Both talks were enlightening. The Brisbane Centre thanks Katestone for their hospitality. I want to acknowledge that not all AMOS members associated with the Brisbane Regional Centre got to hear about the change of plan, something for which I apologise.

The Brisbane Regional Committee will be responsible for organising and hosting the AMOS annual conference to be held in July 2015. As members will know, most of the logistical organising is arranged by the very capable Jeanette Dargaville in the AMOS office, but I’m asking AMOS members in and around Brisbane to contact me (m.hewson@uq.edu.au) if they could join either the organising or science committees. I’d appreciate your participation.

Fiona Johnson

Chair, NSW Centre The NSW Centre has had a busy end to the year. In October we co-hosted (with the Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science) a briefing event on the science from the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The event had two parts—a highlevel executive briefing breakfast and a full day workshop which attracted attendees from industry, government and the university sector. We were pleased to have so many lead authors of the Fifth Assessment Report able to come to present on their area of expertise.

Also in October, Macquarie University hosted an AMOS seminar to allow us to present the Prize for Academic Excellence for 2012 to Dean Howard from Macquarie University, who has recently completed his honours project on atmospheric mercury under the supervision of Grant Edwards. Grant presented an overview of the work of climate science research at Macquarie. Dean presented the findings from his research and he has now gone on to start a PhD on the same topic. We look forward to hearing more about his future work from this deserving award winner.

Two events were held at the University of New South Wales in the last week of November. Jointly with the Institute of Environment Studies and the Climate Change Research Bulletin of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society Vol.26 page 116

Centre, AMOS NSW organised a screening of the Island President, a documentary about scientific and geopolitical issues around climate change, centred on the Maldives.

The president, the first democratically elected president, overcame the massive challenge of bringing democracy to his country and the first issue he faced in office was that of climate change. The Maldives lies a mere 1 m above sea level and were fierce negotiators at Copenhagen (COP15).

Everyone in the audience at the AMOS event was impressed by the amazing and passionate communication skills of President Nasheed. After the movie, Dr Johannes Luetz and Dr Alex Sen Gupta led an informal discussion over drinks and nibbles.

Andy Pitman presenting to attendees at the IPCC Briefing Event. Image: Stephen Gray.

The AMOS NSW Postgraduate Symposium was held on Friday 29 November. A detailed report of this will be covered in the February 2014 issue of BAMOS. Finally the NSW AMOS centre AGM was held on Wednesday 20 November at Yullis in Surry Hills. Finally, I would like to extend a big thank you to the 2013 committee for their enthusiasm. In particular I would like to thank Michelle Ho for her hard work over the last few years as secretary of the NSW committee. The 2014 committee was elected as follows: Fiona Johnson (chair), Anthony Kiem (vice-chair), Andrew Magee (secretary), Ian Macadam (treasurer), Timothy Constable, Agata Imielska, Andrew King, Mick Logan, Nicola Maher and Steven Phipps.

Happy Christmas to all and we look forward to seeing you at our NSW events in 2014.

Dean Howard receiving the Academic Excellence Prize from Fiona Johnson.

Image: Angela Maharaj

Conference reports

The Second Australian Wind-waves Symposium 4–5 June 2013, Docklands, Melbourne, Australia Diana Greenslade1, Mark Hemer2, Alex Babanin3 and Graham Symonds4

Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research, Bureau of Meteorology, GPO Box 1289, Melbourne, VIictoria 3001, Australia Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research, CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, GPO Box 1538, Hobart, Tasmania 7001, Australia 3 Centre for Ocean Engineering, Science and Technology, Swinburne University of Technology, PO Box 218, Hawthorn, Victoria 3122, Australia 4 Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research, CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, Underwood Ave, Floreat, Western Australia 6014, Australia 1 2

In May 2010, the inaugural Australian Wind Waves Research Science Symposium was held on the Gold Coast, Queensland (Greenslade et al., 2010; Day et al., 2010).

There was unanimous agreement at that meeting that it should be the first of a series, with future meetings to be held on a biennial basis. Three years later, we got around to organising another one, and so the Second Australian Wind-waves Symposium was held from 4–5 June, 2013 at the Travelodge Hotel in Docklands, Melbourne.

This second symposium drew over 60 participants (twice the number of the first symposium) with attendees from Universities, the Bureau of Meteorology, CSIRO, State Government departments and research institutes and also from the private sector, notably the renewable energy industry. The symposium even attracted a few international attendees from New Zealand suggesting that perhaps the next symposium should be an Australasian symposium.

The symposium was opened by Tom Keenan, the Director of the Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research (CAWCR) who noted that this was a rare (and positive) example of a scientific meeting being initiated and organised by the community itself, rather than by any specific institute or association.

Over the next two days, 36 presentations were scheduled covering a range of topics but all with the common theme of wind waves. The sessions included Shallow water and coastal impacts; Small-scale physics; Climate and projections; Observations; Wave energy; Interactions with

Bulletin of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society Vol.26 page 117

the atmosphere, ocean, sea-ice and biogeochemistry; and Modelling and Forecasting.

Several significant issues emerged during the symposium and these were discussed, sometimes vigorously. For example, a number of gaps in the sustained coastal wave observing network were identified, in particular along the southern coast of Australia. A related discussion arose around the question of instrumentation for the Marine National Facility’s new research vessel, the RV Investigator, and how the community might rally together to purchase and install a wave observing radar on the ship. Another common theme that arose was the importance of windwaves as an integral component of the earth system, and the continued effort that needs to be put towards investigating multi-way coupling between waves and other components of the earth system. The emerging renewable wave energy industry also generated much interest with presentations describing some upcoming pilot wave energy installations.

The symposium dinner was held at the Bohemian Restaurant, South Wharf with a delicious Spanish tapas menu enjoyed by the participants.

At the end of the meeting, it was agreed that continuing this series of focussed workshops was highly desirable and a third symposium has been pencilled in for Hobart in 2015.

Swinburne University, CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology are gratefully acknowledged for their generous contributions (financial and otherwise) to the symposium.

References Day, K.A. (editor), 2010, Proceedings of the Australian Wind Waves Research Science Symposium, CAWCR Technical Report No. 29. http://www.cawcr.gov.au/ publications/technicalreports/CTR_029.pdf

Greenslade, D.J.M., Hemer, M., Symonds, G., and P. Craig, 2010, Wind waves Research in Australia, Bulletin of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society, 23, 103–107.

Participants at the Second Australian Wind-waves Symposium. Image: Diana Greenslade.

Front: Diana Greenslade, Julian O’Grady, Luke Bennetts, Alison Kohout, Konny Reichert, Lucy Wyatt, Paul Boswood, David Provis, Anne Belski, Luciano Mason, Russel Morison Second Row: Alistair McKelvie, Siobhan O’Farrell, Mostafa Bakhoday, Sergei Suslov, Alexander Babanin, Stephanie Contardo, Graham Symonds, Ryan Lowe, Stefan Zieger, Tom Durrant, Joao Morim do Nascimento Back Row: James Taylor, Simon Caine, Charles James, Aihong Zhong, Chari Pattiaratchi, Claire Trenham, Jim Gunson, Elodie Charles, Ron Hoeke, Mark Hemer, Cyprien Bosserelle, Moritz Wandres, Liviu Puticiu, Kristen Splinter, Ian Goodwin, Henrique Rapizo Gomes, Malek Ghantous, John Ryan, Ian Young, Richard Gorman, Kathleen McInnes, Mike Banner

2013 Priestley workshop and lecture 15 November 2013, CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, Aspendale, Victoria Linden Ashcroft1 and Roger Bodman2 School of Earth Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria Centre for Strategic Economic Studies, Victoria University

1 2

On Friday 15 November, 2013 there was a rare opportunity to hear about the recent Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), directly from some of the Australian scientists who helped write it. The day also marked the 16th Priestley Lecture, a series of lectures that began in 1995 to honour Dr Bill Priestley, founding Chief of CSIRO’s Atmospheric Division (now CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, CMAR).

This year’s Priestley Lecture was delivered by Dr David Wratt, Chief Scientist, Climate, at the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (New Zealand) and Vice-Chair of Working Group I of AR5. Dr Wratt was invited to speak on his experience and involvement in the IPCC. Upon his invitation, Dr Wratt suggested that a full day of presentations be held, inviting Australian scientists who have been involved in the recent IPCC Fifth Assessment Report to share their views and experiences.

So it was that this year’s Priestley Lecture also included a workshop on “the content, process and reflections of the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report”.

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Around 50 people attended the workshop, ballooning to over 90 people for the official Priestley Lecture in the afternoon. During the workshop, eight scientists from CSIRO described their involvement in different chapters of the latest IPCC report, from first timers to veterans who have been involved with the IPCC since the Third Assessment Report in 2001. It was a sobering experience, seeing the many different lines of evidence for a changing climate crammed into one day. However, it was also inspiring to hear about the amount of effort that these scientists had dedicated to preparing such an important document, and to see how well Australia’s scientific community was represented in the IPCC. The science of the ocean was discussed in detail, from global sea level rise to the impact of regional climate change on marine life. Steve Rintoul via teleconference from Hobart gave a clear explanation of the oceanic observations chapter (Chapter 3 from the Working Group I report released in September), showing warming across the oceans, and a strengthening of the oceanic salinity patterns, which suggests an enhancement of the global water cycle. Steve’s presentation was complemented by

John Church’s talk, which detailed global sea level rise projections. This included the improvement in modelling of ice sheet outflow since the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4), and the remaining uncertainties in long-term sea level projection. Elvira Poloczanska shared her work on regional ocean impacts (Chapter 30 in the Working Group II report, due out in 2014), particularly the way in which warmer ocean temperatures will affect marine life and habitats.

Dr Poloczanska also described her experience as a first time IPCC author, outlining some of the positive benefits of being involved with the IPCC. These include improved networking, an increase in knowledge and the opportunity to provide policy relevant information. Francis Chiew echoed Dr Poloczanska’s positive sentiments as he discussed his first time involvement with Chapter 25 of Working Group II. This chapter examines the projected climate change impacts in the Australasian region, and Dr Chiew’s work focusses on the complex issue of modelling water availability changes in Australia.

Other more experienced presenters reflected on their involvement in the IPCC process over the past seven to twelve years. Penny Whetton discussed working with both Working Group I (The Physical Science Basis) and Working Group II (Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability), and the role of regional climate models in both the scientific analysis of climate change and the understanding of regional climate impacts. Nathan Bindoff shared his experience of the final plenary session for the recent AR5 release, giving an inside view of getting scientists and government delegates from 195 countries to agree on the wording of every line of the final report.

As the workshop organiser, Simon Torok led an honest discussion on the role of the media in reporting the latest findings to the Australian public. This session engaged several past and present IPCC authors on the program and in the audience.

Kathy McInnes discussed the Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (SREX), released by the IPCC in 2012. It was clear from her presentation that untangling the factors that contribute to risks and impacts of extreme events is a difficult task. Considering the role of population growth, settlement locations, disaster management strategies, mitigation techniques and the role of climate change requires the skill of researchers from a wide range of fields. Pep Canadell described the simple nature of the carbon budget, which was included in AR5 for the first time. Using clear graphs and explanation, Pep estimated that there is another 20–30 years of CO2 that can be emitted into the atmosphere to remain below 2°C. He also explained how these simple results were presented in a more complicated way in the final IPCC report, to provide information that was policy relevant, but not policy prescriptive.

Lively discussion occurred between each presentation, and the audience had a chance to ask the presenters a range of questions in panel sessions. Many other IPCC authors were also in the crowd, giving additional insight Bulletin of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society Vol.26 page 119

into the report process and how it has evolved. The reflections from the IPCC authors were that the process was rewarding and enjoyable, but could also be frustrating at times when cultural and disciplinary differences were encountered. The detailed and transparent review process was also identified as an important but time consuming part of the report preparation.

Following afternoon tea, fifteen new portraits were inducted into the CSIRO Aspendale “Wall of Fame”, honouring staff members who have worked at CMAR for thirty years. Dr Helen Cleugh, Deputy Chief CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, then introduced Dr David Wratt. The attentive audience heard an excellent presentation entitled “Policy Relevant But Not Policy Prescriptive: IPCC Climate Change Assessments and their Uptake”.

Dr Wratt began by discussing some of the highs and lows in the reception of the IPCC reports from the AR4 in 2007 to the latest in September this year. He reviewed the role of the IPCC and how the AR4 has been relevant to policy, particularly for international negotiations and informing objectives of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). These included providing “reasons for concern” and setting out emission pathways consistent with different amounts of global-mean temperature change.

The AR4 was also an important contribution to the UNFCCC negotiations at Copenhagen in 2009, providing information relevant to the 2°C target, although not commenting on the target itself. This is one example of the talk’s main themes about the IPCC mandate to provide policy relevant information, but not to be policy prescriptive. It was evident from the discussions in the earlier workshop how challenging this can be for scientists when personal concerns enter the picture. Dr Wratt commented that the science of climate change may be clear but that does not mean the world will necessarily change.

Dr Wratt briefly reviewed some of the key findings from AR5 and talked about how the highlighted statements in the AR4 and AR5 Summary for Policymakers are an important factor in framing the message about climate change and how these are the key messages that typically get taken up by the media. The new carbon emission scenarios, the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs), were considered, with some results for projected changes. Amongst a number of new developments that Dr Wratt mentioned were the addition of statements about monsoons, which affect approximately two-thirds of the world’s population, and more helpful comments on sea level rise. Another notable feature of the AR5 compared to AR4 is the appearance of the carbon budget, with the semilinear relationship between cumulative anthropogenic carbon-dioxide emissions and global-mean temperature change.

To finish, our speaker talked about some of the lessons learnt through his involvement in the IPCC, including the need to assist policymakers and practitioners in

interpreting the reports together with the utility of regular science updates. There is a demand for more than just a seven-yearly assessment report. On the other hand, Dr Wratt pointed out that, although the full assessments

are influential and authoritative, they are a huge amount of work. Tony Priestley, a cousin of Dr Bill Priestley, completed the 16th Priestley Lecture with a response.

The Victorian Postgraduate Student Symposium 27 November 2013, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria Tammas Loughran The University of Melbourne, Melbounre, Victoria

The Victorian Postgraduate Student Symposium, sponsored by AMOS and the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science, focusses on providing students with an opportunity to share their work and ideas without the pressure of rigorous scrutiny that often occurs at large international conferences. This year, the symposium was to be held in the midst of a maze of construction sites at Monash University on 27 November. Thankfully, the ruckus of power tools was securely blocked out and did not interfere in any way with the nineteen talks presented throughout the day.

Much like last year’s symposium, the atmosphere was casual, friendly and supportive, which allowed for some truly fantastic presentations and interesting discussions.

The format of the talks was loosely advertised as consisting of both the students’ work and their experiences as students. With students free to interpret this format as they wished, the standard of the presentations turned out to be very high with many coming up with some innovative presentation styles that were both informative and hilariously relatable.

AMOS

AMOS National Conference 2014

AustralianMeteorological & OceanographicSociety

The topics covered throughout the day were diverse spanning topics such as climate change, rain, convection, ozone, radiation and variability to name a few. The best speaker of the day was awarded to Sonya Fiddes, a Masters student at the University of Melbourne, for her clearly presented work on wintertime precipitation in alpine south-east Australia.

Following the presentations, there was a breakout session and social event where the attendees could express their thoughts on what they think the role of a climate scientist is and how they fit into this role. The breakout sessions were also used as an opportunity to share support resources, such as job mailing lists and technical resources.

The vast majority of students that attended the conference were from either Melbourne or Monash University.

In addition, we also had two visitng students give presentations, one from James Cook University and one from Complutense University of Madrid. I would strongly recommend students studying atmosphere and ocean science at any university to attend in the future, including undergraduates considering further studies in the field.

AMOS

SOUTHERN INVESTIGATIONS

AustralianMeteorological & OceanographicSociety

The Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (AMOS) is holding its 20th Annual National Conference in Hobart, Tasmania from 12-14 February 2014 at the Hotel Grand Chancellor.

This conference is the major annual event for AMOS, attracting more than 350 national and international scientists from diverse fields.

AMOS 2014 will provide a unique opportunity for Australian scientists to present cutting edge research in the weather, climate and ocean sciences, with a strong focus on southern hemisphere research.

For further information please visit www.amos2014.org.au or contact admin_officer@amos.org.au.

Kindly sponsored by:

Hotel Grand Chancellor, Hobart

12-14 February 2014 www.amos2014.org.au

Bulletin of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society Vol.26 page 120

Australian Government Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities Australian Antarctic Division

Articles

Fifty years of World Weather Watch: Origin, implementation, achievement, challenge.

John W. Zillman School of Earth Sciences, University of Melbourne, Australia Address for correspondence: j.zillman@bom.gov.au

Summary The World Weather Watch is arguably the most successful international system yet devised for sustained global cooperation for the common good in science or in any other field. It provides the international framework for national weather, climate and related service provision in every country and the foundation for essential meteorological services for international shipping and aviation. It is the core program of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) through which WMO’s 191 Member States and Territories work together to provide one of the world’s most widely used and highly valued global public goods. The World Weather Watch was conceived and implemented at the height of the Cold War to deliver the collateral benefits of superpower competition in space and weapons technology to the atmospheric sciences and to national communities throughout the world. This paper provides a brief eye-witness account of the implementation of the World Weather Watch, since its establishment in 1963, and an assessment of its remarkable contribution to the safety of life and property and to social and economic progress in both developed and developing countries. It highlights the Australian role in the first fifty years of the World Weather Watch and concludes with some personal reflections on the challenges that face its further development in support of national and international Earth system science and services over the next fifty years.

Introduction Weather and climate affect everybody and it has long been recognised that effective application of meteorological information can enhance decision-making in every country and almost every walk of life (Gibbs, 1964; Maunder, 1970; Price-Budgen, 1990). Weather and climate services contribute to the safety of life and property, economic and social progress, environmental stewardship and the general efficiency and effectiveness of government, business and community affairs (WMO, 2007). Recent best estimates suggest an economic benefit from weather and climate services world-wide in excess of $100 billion annually, at least an order of magnitude greater than their global cost of provision (WMO, 2009).

Although meteorological services deliver both public and private benefit, their dominant characteristics of nonrivalry and non-excludability cast them as economic public goods (Samuelson, 1954) and, therefore, primarily as a responsibility of government. For more than a century, Bulletin of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society Vol.26 page 121

virtually every country in the world has operated some form of National Meteorological Service (NMS) to meet two of its government’s most basic responsibilities to its national community (Zillman, 1999).

The scientific basis for weather prediction and the global interconnectedness of the atmosphere make every NMS heavily dependent on access to a coordinated global infrastructure of observations, data collection and data processing. Rivalled, perhaps, only by astronomy, meteorology was thus one of the first areas of systematic international cooperation in scientific data collection (Davies, 1986) and, with the partial exception of health, it remains the only individual field of science with its own Specialised Agency of the United Nations. In many respects it can be regarded as the example par excellence of a global public good (Gunasekera and Zillman, 2004).

In the first half of the 20th Century, most international meteorological data collection was planned and organised through relatively informal collaboration amongst NMSs. It was only for purposes of safety of life at sea and in support of the safety, efficiency and economy of the burgeoning operations of civil aviation that formal worldwide intergovernmental coordination of observation and service provision was becoming essential. Most of the necessary international coordination (until 1950) was carried out through the non-governmental International Meteorological Organization (IMO) established in 1873 (Daniel, 1973). In the second half of the 20th Century, however, it became clear that weather and climate services in every country would depend, increasingly, on coordinated international efforts by governments to exploit the dramatic scientific and technological progress that followed World War II. The intergovernmental World Meteorological Organization (WMO) formally came into existence on 23 March 1950 (now celebrated as World Meteorological Day) and began work on strengthening the intergovernmental foundations of the global meteorological service system (Davies, 1990).

The concept of the World Weather Watch (WWW) as a new global framework for meteorological cooperation emerged from the dramatic scientific and technological progress in space exploration, Earth observation and digital computing that flowed from superpower competition in the early years of the Cold War (Hallgren, 1971, 1993). It flourished as a mechanism for universal cooperation in the peaceful uses of outer space through the 1960s and 1970s and provided the operational foundation for the

Global Atmospheric Research Programme (GARP) and the Global Weather Experiment (the First GARP Global Experiment (FGGE)) of 1979 (Zillman, 1977). The FGGE, in turn, provided the basis for redesign of the WWW in support of improved weather forecasting and warning world-wide and increased understanding of the physical mechanisms of climate.

Although the dramatic progress of its first 25 years faltered in the 1990s and many (mostly developing) countries have still to achieve the full benefits of its initial promise, the WMO WWW stands as one of the great success stories of international cooperation in the 20th Century (Zillman, 2006). The definitive short version of the history of the WWW has been provided by Davies (1990), Obasi (2003) and Rasmussen (2003) with insightful commentary and analysis in recollections of the various leaders of the planning years (eg Federov, 1966, 1981; Fleagle, 2001; Gibbs, 1985, 1994; Hallgren, 1993, 1997; Petterssen, 2001; White, 1981), some more recent analyses (eg Edwards, 2010) and the many detailed WWW Planning and Status Reports published by WMO. The WWW story is overwhelmingly a story of shared vision, friendship and trust among meteorologists of the World War II and post-World War II generation in an environment of intense super-power rivalry in most other fields during the Cold War. The WWW remains the core programme of WMO and the foundation for meteorological service provision in every country. It has served as the prototype for other global environmental monitoring programmes and provides the major component of much broader Earth observation and service systems such as the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS), the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) and the Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS) (Zillman, 2013).

It was appropriate, therefore, that, half a century on from the historic 1963 World Meteorological Congress agreement to establish the WWW, the WMO chose as the theme for World Meteorological Day 2013 “Watching the

IMO 1873

Brussels (Maury) 1853

I was pleased to accept an invitation from the Director of Meteorology, Dr Rob Vertessy, to deliver the Bureau of Meteorology’s annual World Meteorological Day Address on 22 March 2013 on “World Weather Watch, a fifty year journey and beyond”. I was conscious that there are many others in the retired and serving Bureau (eg Brook, 2003; Barrell et al, 2013) who know much more about most aspects of the present-day WWW than I do. But, having had the opportunity, during my Bureau years, to watch its early planning and implementation and, from time to time, to join in shaping its development, I concluded that it might be of interest to a broader BAMOS readership to record my summary recollections of the WWW journey in a little more detail than was possible within the time constraints of the World Meteorological Day Address.

International meteorological cooperation before World Weather Watch Although people had been keeping weather records since antiquity, it was only with the invention of the thermometer and the barometer in the 17th Century that the idea of coordinated observing networks emerged (Frisinger, 1977) with one of the first networks extending beyond national borders established by James Jurin, Secretary of the Royal Society of London, in 1723. But the following 200 years brought a series of remarkable developments in international cooperation in meteorology (Figure 1) which laid the foundation for what was, in the middle of the 20th Century, to emerge as the unique concept of the WWW (Daniel, 1973).

One of the first proposals for a global weather observing network was due to J. H. Lambert in 1771 (Frisinger, 1977).

Although he elaborated detailed plans for a global network

First Conference of Directors

Eighth Conference of Directors

1891

1947

IPY 1882-83

Palatine Met. Society 1780-92 Lambert Proposal 1771

weather to protect life and property—celebrating 50 years of the World Weather Watch”. It provided meteorologists in every country with a timely reminder to look back on the WWW achievement and consider the implications of the lessons learned for addressing the weather, climate and related environmental challenges of the next 50 years.

Royal Society 1723

WMO 1950

First Congress 1951

IPY 1932-33

Second Congress 1955

IGY 1957-58

Technical Commissions

Technical Commissions

CSWI 1923

CSM

Figure 1: Some milestones in international meteorological cooperation 1723–1958 which provided the foundation for the WWW. The names and

abbreviations are elaborated in the text.

Bulletin of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society Vol.26 page 122

Figure 2: Professor Georg Neumayer during his years in Australia (Gibbs, 1975).

of observing stations, albeit with none in Australia, for the First Fleet had not yet arrived, most of these were never implemented.

In 1780, however, the Palatine Meteorological Society, based in Mannheim (Germany), established a network of 39 stations, making three observations daily, extending from the Mediterranean to Russia and North America, and published these for a period of twelve years in the Society’s annual Ephemerides (Davies, 1990).

Other networks were established, in various parts of the world, in the late 1700s and early 1800s. But the real beginning of international cooperation in meteorology is usually set at 1853 (Daniel, 1973; Gibbs 1975; Zillman, 2011) when US Navy Lieutenant Matthew Fontaine Maury convened the Brussels Conference to encourage standardised collection of observations from ships at sea as a basis for improved wind and current charts for the oceans. In summarising the outcome of the Conference two years later (Maury, 1855), he reported that: “This conference ... recommended a plan of observations which should be followed on board vessels of all friendly nations ...”

“In peace and in war these observations are to be carried on and, in the case of the vessels on board of which they are conducted may be captured, the abstract log... is to be held sacred.”

“This plan contemplates the cooperation of all the states of Christendom, at least so far as the form, method, subject of observations, time of making them, and the interchange of results are concerned. I hope that my fellow citizens will not fail to second and cooperate in such a humane, wise and noble scheme.”

The Maury initiative provided a strong practical impetus to the emerging Humboldtian approach to science, promoted, inter alia, by the German sailor-scientist Georg Neumayer (Figure 2), founder of Melbourne’s Flagstaff Observatory, during his early scientific career (1857–63) in Australia (Home, 2011; Zillman, 2011).

The invention of the telegraph in 1843 had opened up the possibilities for data collection “in real time” and telegraphic reporting networks soon started to appear in many countries. In North America, from his base Bulletin of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society Vol.26 page 123

Figure 3: Professor C.H.D. Buys Ballot, President of the International Meteorological Organization (IMO) from 1873 to 1879 (Image courtesy of

World Meteorological Organization). in Cincinnati, Professor Cleveland Abbe established telegraphic data collection across the US in the late 1860s leading him, with satisfaction, to write to his father in New York that, “I have started that which the country (he might well have said “the world”) will not willingly let die” (Cox, 2002).

In Europe, the pressure was building for increased coordination of instruments, observing practices and publication formats and, in 1871, invitations were despatched to a meeting in Leipzig the following year to prepare for an international meteorological congress in Vienna in 1873. The invitations to the 1872 Leipzig meeting stated, in part: “At the present time, the increasing interest in meteorological research shown by all civilised countries has led to a demand for far-reaching co-ordination and standardization of the methods and procedures in use in different countries. Such suggestions have been put forward and discussed so frequently (for example, by C.H.D. Buys Ballot in his paper Suggestions on a uniform system of meteorological observations, Utrecht, 1872) that the undersigned consider it both feasible and timely to propose the convening of a meteorological conference …”

Some 32 representatives of 20 countries attended the First International Meteorological Congress in Vienna in September 1873. The Congress gave birth to the International Meteorological Organization (IMO) with Professor Buys Ballot of the Netherlands as its inaugural President (Figure 3). One of the early initiatives of the IMO Permanent Committee established by the Congress was the organisation of extensive observational networks for the (First) International Polar Year (IPY) in 1882–83 under the leadership of Professor Georg Neumayer, by then head of the German Maritime Observatory in Hamburg.

During the 1870s and 1880s, many countries and their colonies established some form of national Meteorological Institute or Meteorological Service and, in 1891, the IMO convened its First Conference of Directors of Meteorological Services in Munich (Figure 4) to develop more formal arrangements for international

Figure 4: The First Conference of Directors of Meteorological Services in Munich in 1891. The second President of the IMO, Professor Heinrich Wild of Russia, is third from the right in the front row and the third President, E Mascart of France, is fourth from the right. Professor Georg Neumayer of Germany (formerly from Victoria) is second from the right in the front row and Clement Wragge from Queensland is third from the left in the second row (Image courtesy of World Meteorological Organization).

By the time of outbreak of World War II, the increasing standardisation and exchange of meteorological observations among their Services. demands for more detailed “official” weather information, especially for civil aviation, suggested the need to Under its successive Presidents and through two world transform the non-governmental IMO into a more wars, the essentially non-governmental IMO continued formal arrangement between governments based to provide the overarching framework for international primarily on the work of their National Meteorological cooperation in meteorology during the first half of the 20th Services (NMSs). But early initiatives to this end were Century. Its peak forum was the series of regular (nonput on hold as meteorologists on both sides were drawn governmental) meetings of Directors of Meteorological deeply into the war effort involving, in Australia, the Services. As expert working mechanisms, it established a Bureau of Meteorology’s transformation into the RAAF series of technical commissions including a Commission Meteorological Service (Gibbs, 1995). for Synoptic Weather Information (CSWI), later the Very soon after the War, however, an Extraordinary Commission for Synoptic Meteorology (CSM) the Conference of Directors in London in 1946 and the predecessor of the present-day WMO Commission for Eighth Conference of Directors in Washington D.C. the Basic Systems (CBS), in 1923. Fifty years after the First following year (Figure 5) finalised the Convention of the International Polar Year, it led the organisation of the intergovernmental World Meteorological Organization Second International Polar Year in 1932–33.

(WMO) for signature in Washington DC in October 1947.

The major initiatives of the inter-war years focussed The WMO formally came into existence on 23 March 1950 mainly on expansion of observing networks and improved and the First World Meteorological Congress was held in data collection. They included a visionary proposal from Paris in 1951. Later in 1951, by agreement with the newly the Australian polar explorer-scientist Sir Hubert Wilkins established United Nations (UN), WMO also became the for a coordinated global weather monitoring system and UN Specialised Agency for international cooperation in an international meteorological bureau (Nasht, 2005) on a meteorology. At this stage, its Membership was 66, made scale that, three decades later, was to emerge as the WWW. up of 46 States and 20 Territories.

Figure 5: The Eighth Conference of Directors of Meteorological Services in Washington D.C. in September-October 1947 (Daniel, 1973). The last President of the IMO, Sir Nelson Johnson of the UK, is eleventh from the right in the front row, the first President of WMO, Dr Francis Reichelderfer of the US is tenth from the right and Mr Norman Warren of Australia (Director of the Bureau of Meteorology and Chair of the drafting committee for the WMO Convention) is ninth from the right (Image courtesy of World Meteorological Organization).

Bulletin of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society Vol.26 page 124

staffed “IGY Weather Central” at “Little America” in Antarctica (Gray, 1960) to carry out operational Antarctic synoptic analysis during the IGY. An IGY Data Centre was established in WMO Headquarters in Geneva and importantly, also, those involved in planning for the IGY (especially Dr Harry Wexler of the US) were envisioning the day when artificial satellites could look down and photograph cloud patterns over the Earth.

The IGY experience and the insight gained into Southern Hemisphere weather-producing processes triggered vigorous debate in Australia, New Zealand, South America and South Africa over the following decade on the many different approaches to synoptic (especially frontal) analysis over the Southern Ocean (Taljaard, 1972).

Figure 6: The upper-air observing network over the middle and high southern latitudes during the IGY (Image Copyright Bureau of Meteorology).

The new WMO moved quickly to establish the necessary intergovernmental coordination, standardisation and data exchange arrangements to strengthen the global meteorological system. The 1951 Congress reestablished the IMO system of technical commissions as intergovernmental expert bodies including, importantly, the Commission for Synoptic Meteorology, CSM, (now the Commission for Basic Systems (CBS)) and the Commission for Aerology, CAe, (now the Commission for Atmospheric Sciences (CAS)).

Origin of World Weather Watch and the Global Atmospheric Research Programme (GARP) The 1955 Second Congress of WMO focussed on the action needed to establish a more comprehensive and more robust global meteorological system based initially on the major new observing, data collection, archival and synoptic analysis initiatives planned for the IGY. But the history-shaping event which triggered the dramatic scientific and political developments that were to lead to the almost twin birth of the WMO World Weather Watch (WWW) and the WMO-ICSU Global Atmospheric Research Programme (GARP) was the launch of the first artificial Earth satellite, Sputnik-1, by the Soviet Union in October 1957 (Figure 7).

The Congress also agreed to join forces with the nongovernmental International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG) and its parent International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU) to organise the International Geophysical Year (IGY). The IGY was a major global observational, data collection and research effort, spanning all the Earth sciences, in 1957–58, 25 years after the 1932–33 International Polar Year. This focussed unprecedented attention on the data-sparse Southern Hemisphere and Antarctica with a major investment by both Northern and Southern Hemisphere countries in new observing stations (Figure 6; Taljaard and van Loon, 1960) and improved data collection arrangements for the Antarctic region. They also established an internationally

The 1958 session of the WMO Executive Committee (EC) held a lengthy discussion on the potential of artificial satellites for meteorology and, immediately after the 1959 Third Congress, the EC established a Panel of Experts on Artificial Satellites consisting of Academician Victor Bugaev of the USSR, Dr Harry Wexler of the USA, Dr Bill Gibbs of Australia (representing the CSM) and Dr G. D. Robinson of the UK (representing the CAe). Then,

UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY

Sputnik -1 1957 JFK

Res 1721 1961

WMO Third Congress 1959

EC Panel Satellites 1959

First Report 1962

Res 1802 1962

Second Report 1963

IGY 1957-58 Weather Central

IAAC

Research

WMO Fifth Congress 1967

WWW Concept 1963

WWW Plan 1967

SHAC

GDPS Research

GTS

Data Centre Satellite Vision

WMO Fourth Congress 1963

TIROS-1 1960

Obs Network

ICSU

GARP 1967

GOS

Figure 7: The launch of the Soviet Union satellite Sputnik-1 in October 1957(top left) and the successful implementation of the IGY (bottom left) as the trigger for the dramatic political and scientific developments which culminated in the parallel establishment of the WMO World Weather Watch (WWW) and the joint WMO-ICSU Global Atmospheric Research Programme (GARP). The abbreviations are explained in the text.

Bulletin of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society Vol.26 page 125

following the successful launch of the first operational weather satellite TIROS-1 by the USA on 1 April 1960, developments came thick and fast.

a.

to advance the state of atmospheric science and technology so as to provide greater knowledge of basic physical forces affecting climate...;

The 1961 session of the UN General Assembly responded to the launch of Sputnik-1 and -2, the USA Explorer series of satellites and subsequent USSR and USA spacecraft with a debate on the peaceful uses of outer space. On 25 September 1961, building on the findings of the WMO Panel, the success of TIROS-1 and ambitious proposals, inter alia, for establishment of an international “World Weather Watch” in a National Academy of Sciences report prepared under the leadership of Professor Sverre Petterssen (Petterssen, 2001), USA President John F. Kennedy (JFK) addressed the General Assembly in the following terms:

b.

to develop existing weather forecasting capabilities and to help Member States make effective use of such capabilities through regional meteorological centres;

“With modern computers, rockets and satellites, the time is ripe to harness a variety of disciplines for a concerted attack … the atmospheric sciences require world-wide observation and, hence, international cooperation …

We shall propose further cooperative efforts between all nations in weather prediction … We shall propose, finally, a global system of … satellites linking the whole world …” leading to UNGA Resolution 1721 of December 1961 which read in part: “The General Assembly: Noting with gratification the marked progress for meteorological science and technology opened up by the advances in outer space, Convinced of the world-wide benefits to be derived from international co-operation in weather research and analysis, 1.

Recommends to all Member States and to the World Meteorological Organization… the early and comprehensive study, in the light of developments in outer space, of measures:

Figure 8: Dr Harry Wexler (left) and Academician Victor Bugaev discuss the concept for the WWW in Geneva in early 1962 (Image courtesy of World Meteorological Organization).

Bulletin of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society Vol.26 page 126

2.

Requests the WMO, consulting with UNESCO and other specialised agencies and governmental and non-governmental organizations, such as ICSU, to submit a report to its member Governments and to the Economic and Social Council… regarding appropriate organizational and financial arrangements to achieve these ends…”

The WMO responded immediately. Academician Bugaev and Dr Wexler (with USSR and USA colleagues) joined the WMO Secretary General (Mr D.A. Davies) in Geneva (Figure 8) to produce the “First report on the advancement of atmospheric sciences and their application in the light of developments in outer space” for consideration by the 1962 session of the WMO Executive Committee and submission to the UN. The “First Report” set out an ambitious program of international cooperation in meteorological observation, monitoring and prediction and, for the first time, introduced the term “World Weather Watch” to the international community. The 1962 session of the General Assembly responded with a second resolution (1802) calling on WMO to further develop its operational plans but this time also calling on ICSU to develop an expanded program of atmospheric research to complement the operational programs being developed

by WMO. Meanwhile, with the support of an eminent Advisory Committee, including Dr C.H.B. (Bill) Priestley of Australia, WMO was elaborating the design of the proposed new international meteorological system and fostering follow-up activities from the IGY including the 1959 establishment of the International Antarctic Analysis Centre (IAAC) in Melbourne (Figure 9) to continue the

Figure 9: Foundations for World Meteorological Centre (WMC) Melbourne

(Day, 2007). Mr Henry Phillpot (IAAC Leader, centre front) and Mr Sandy Troup (CSIRO originator of the Southern Oscillation Index, second from right) of Australia and other staff of the International Antarctic Analysis Centre (IAAC) in Melbourne in 1962 (Image Copyright Bureau of Meteorology).

Weather Watch. Academician E.K. Federov of the USSR (left), Dr R. M. White of the USA (centre) and Dr W. J. Gibbs of Australia Figure 10: Fathers of World (right) who led the international effort to turn the Wexler-Bugaev vision into a global operational system. work of the IGY Weather Central at Little America. The IAAC, in turn, served as a prototype for the Southern Hemisphere Analysis Centre (SHAC) co-located with the Bureau’s Central Analysis Office (CAO) and, subsequently, for what was to become World Meteorological Centre (WMC) Melbourne.

The 1963 Fourth World Meteorological Congress held detailed discussions on the proposals of the First and Second Reports to the General Assembly along with advice from the WMO Advisory Committee. In the General Summary of the Session (WMO, 1963), it is recorded, inter alia, that: “The First Report on the advancement of atmospheric sciences and their application in the light of developments in outer space was endorsed with appreciation, in particular, with respect to the concept of the world weather watch”.

“The world weather watch is conceived in the first report as an ultimate world weather service”.

“The concept of the world weather watch (WWW) was generally commended as an exciting development, which is an extension of plans for facilities and services which meteorologists have long needed”.

dissemination of information, the processing and analysis of information and … scientific research” “This cooperation is … voluntary and is based on the principle that each Service will provide all that it can to, and obtain all that it requires from, the common fund” “This cooperation is … possible only under peaceful conditions and … it should be planned and established exclusively on (that) basis.”

One of the more complex institutional issues to be resolved concerned the proposed research component of the WWW and how this should be coordinated with the “expanded program of atmospheric science research” being developed through ICSU. It was eventually agreed that the WMO should establish an operational WWW and that WMO and ICSU should jointly sponsor a new Global Atmospheric Research Programme (GARP) with two main objectives, the first aimed at improved weather forecasting and the second focussed on improved understanding of climate (Davies, 1990). On this basis, the Fifth World Meteorological Congress in April 1967 approved the Plan and Implementation Programme for the WWW (WMO, 1967) in the following terms (in part): “The Congress

Notwithstanding their excitement with the WWW concept, some countries were initially uncomfortable with the dominant role envisaged for the superpowers through proposals for centralised data processing in World Meteorological Centres (WMCs) in Moscow and Washington and concern was expressed “that the basic principles of the world weather watch system are not yet sufficiently defined”.

t

Confirms its endorsement of the concept of an improved world meteorological system to which the name World Weather Watch has been given

t

Adopts the plan for the World Weather Watch...

t

Urges all Members… to cooperate actively, enthusiastically and promptly in the implementation and operation of the World Weather Watch...

The 1963 Congress agreed, however, that the WWW concept should be further developed into a preliminary plan and implementation program. Driven especially by Academician E.K. Federov of the USSR, Dr R.M. (Bob) White of the USA and Dr W.J. (Bill) Gibbs of Australia (Figure 10), the overall philosophy and design for the WWW was elaborated on the basis of further expert reports and the rapidly growing experience with weather satellites and computer modelling. As summarised by Federov (1966):

t

Urges all Members… to contribute the maximum that their resources will permit towards its immediate implementation.”

“National Services will combine their efforts in four main fields, namely observations, the collection and Bulletin of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society Vol.26 page 127

Implementation and achievement The 1967 WMO Congress adoption of the WWW Plan and an October 1967 WMO-ICSU agreement on GARP set in train a remarkable 25-year series of developments in international meteorology. Subsequently, there was dramatic progress in the monitoring, understanding, modelling and prediction of weather and climate and greatly enhanced collaboration across the fluid Earth sciences of meteorology, hydrology and oceanography.

WMO Fifth Congress Res. 16, 17 1967

WWW Plan & Implementation Program 1967

GDPS GTS GOS

Emergency Response (Chernobyl)

IHD/IHP/ OHP

HWRP

Integrated Systems Study 1983

PWS 1991

IDNDR

AMP

www WCP

FGGE (Global Weather Experiment) 1979

WCC-1 1979

WCC-2 1990

WCC-3 2009

Figure 11: The initial implementation of the observing (GOS), telecommunications (GTS) and data processing (GDPS) components of the WWW during the 1960s and 1970s and their further development during the 1980s through the WWW Integrated Systems Study based on the outcome of the 1979 Global Weather Experiment, to consolidate the WWW as the core program of WMO in the 1990s. The initiatives along the top right shaped the development, during the 1980s and 90s, of the various applications and services programs built on the WWW and the three World Climate Conferences (WCC-1, WCC-2, WCC-3) guided the establishment and restructuring of the World Climate Programme (WCP). The main abbreviations are elaborated below in Figure 15.

Much of this progress flowed directly from the strong national and international support for the WWW as the core program of WMO (Figure 11).

The original structure of the WWW was based on its three main components, the Global Observing System (GOS) with both surface-based and space-based components, the Global Telecommunications System (GTS) and the Global Data Processing System (GDPS). There was also the important Voluntary Assistance Programme (VAP) through which developed country NMSs undertook to help implement WWW activities in developing countries (Figure 12).

The initial implementation program focussed especially on an extensive array of new GOS observing stations (including seven proposed ocean weather ships in the Southern Ocean) and the key GTS communications links (including the Main Trunk Circuit connecting World Meteorological Centres (WMCs) Moscow, Washington, and Melbourne and a comprehensive point-to-point network for the SW Pacific) envisaged under the Plan.

Figure 13: World Meteorological Centre Melbourne on the north-east corner of Lonsdale and Exhibition Streets in 1969 (Image Copyright Bureau of Meteorology).

Implementation of the GDPS focussed on the work of WMCs Moscow, Washington and Melbourne and the larger network of Regional Meteorological Centres (RMCs) including, for the Northern Australian–S.E. Asian region, RMC Darwin. The WMCs and RMCs were based on upgraded roles for their host National Meteorological Centres (NMCs). With government approval and funding obtained for the Bureau of Meteorology’s first IBM 360/65 computers (Anthony, 2005; Day, 2007), WMC Melbourne was brought into operation in 1968 on the basis of the interim Southern Hemisphere Analysis Centre (SHAC), the Australian-staffed operational successor to the IAAC. By 1969, there were few Melbourne taxi drivers who did not delight in explaining to their passengers that the big computers behind the floor-to-ceiling windows at the corner of Lonsdale and Exhibition Streets were “World Meteorological Centre Melbourne” (Figure 13).

In parallel with the operational WWW, things were also moving rapidly on the international meteorological research scene. The WMO-ICSU Joint Organising Committee (JOC) for GARP developed an ambitious programme of atmospheric research including plans for a First GARP Global Experiment (FGGE) which was eventually implemented on a grand scale in 1979

Global Data Processing System (GDPS)

Voluntary

National WMCs

RMCs

NMCs Meteorological

Assistance Programme (VAP)

Global Telecommunications System (GTS)

Services (NMSs)

Global Observing System (GOS) Space-based Surface-based

Figure 12: The original structure of the WWW which was built on the national activities of the NMSs of all WMO Member countries and included also substantial implementation activities in developing countries through the WMO Voluntary Assistance Programme (later re-named the Voluntary Cooperation Programme (VCP))..

Bulletin of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society Vol.26 page 128

Figure 14: An artist’s conception of the enhanced observing systems for the 1979 Global Weather Experiment (Obasi, 2003).

Figure 15: The WWW as the core programme of WMO during the 1980s and 90s (Image Copyright Bureau of Meteorology).

(Figure 14) through major temporary enhancement of the observing, data collection and data processing systems of the WWW (Zillman, 1977).

The Global Weather Experiment was the largest fully international scientific experiment ever undertaken to that time and it was deemed an outstanding success (Bureau of Meteorology, 1981; Bengtsson, 1983; Zillman, 1983) with Southern Hemisphere drifting buoys, special balloon and aircraft observing systems and geostationary and polar orbiting weather satellites producing a dramatic increase in data availability for a full year. The FGGE data provided the basis for an intense decade-long programme of weather and climate research but also, most importantly, the FGGE experience helped guide the re-design of the WWW through the “WWW Integrated Systems Study” during the early 1980s (Davies, 1990). Australian scientists made an outstanding contribution to the post-FGGE research (eg Bourke, 1984), which provided the scientific foundation for rapid enhancement in the skill of the NWP (Numerical Weather Prediction) products issued by the various operational centres of the WWW. One of the features of WWW implementation was a comprehensive system of performance monitoring and reporting with each four-yearly WMO Congress reviewing a detailed status report and approving an updated WWW Plan and Implementation Programme.

Some of the originally envisaged observing systems such as the Southern Ocean weather ships were abandoned (especially in the light of the success of the FGGE drifting buoy program) and the original structure of the GTS, consisting of a Main Trunk Circuit and dedicated pointBulletin of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society Vol.26 page 129

to-point circuits linking Regional Telecommunications Hubs (RTHs) with all the individual NMCs, was gradually overtaken by developments in global telecommunications.

New concepts such as Specialised Meteorological Centres (merged with the original RMC concept as Regional/ Specialised Meteorological Centres (RSMCs)) were also introduced into the GDPS (itself retitled Global Data Processing and Forecasting System—GDPFS) mainly to enable the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) to assume an official role within the WWW structure. The global lead role of the WMCs (especially Melbourne and Moscow) became less significant as other countries developed global modelling capabilities and the ECMWF emerged as the pre-eminent global modelling centre in the world.

The 1980s was also a period of more integrated international planning in WMO (Zillman, 1984) in response to new WMO responsibilities in operational hydrology following the International Hydrological Decade (IHD), the establishment of the World Climate Programme in response to the (First) World Climate Conference (WCC-1) of 1979 (Zillman, 1980), major international initiatives in disaster reduction (including the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction— IDNDR) and the establishment of the WMO Emergency Response Programme following the 1986 Chernobyl disaster (Izrael, 1996). In 1991, the WMO agreed to foster greater international cooperation in serving national communities through a WMO Public Weather Services (PWS) Programme (O’Loughlin and Zillman, 2007).

Figure 16: The surface synoptic network of the Global Observing System (GOS) in the 1990s (Image Copyright Bureau of Meteorology).

17: The space-based component of the GOS in the 1990s (Image Copyright Bureau of Meteorology).

Figure

Figure 18: The structure of the Global Telecommunications System (GTS) and the Global Data Processing and Forecasting System (GDPFS) during the 1990s (Image Copyright Bureau of Meteorology).

Bulletin of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society Vol.26 page 130

All of these new initiatives in the practical application of weather and climate services for community benefit were built firmly on the global observing, data collection and processing systems of the WWW. Increasingly, the WWW (and its supporting research, education and technical cooperation) became accepted as the core program of WMO (Figure 15) around which everything else was built (Bureau of Meteorology, 2000).

Progressively through the 1980s and early 90s, the WMO Member countries proceeded with the implementation of the three major components of the WWW (Figures 16–18) under the guidance of the Commission for Basic Systems (CBS).

In many respects, the original vision for the WWW had been largely achieved by the 1980s with virtually all countries contributing significantly to the global operational system and all countries and all weatherand-climate-sensitive sectors benefiting greatly from their access to WWW data and products. The concept of an integrated NMS (Figure 19) carrying out all the essential public good meteorological responsibilities of its government1 was well accepted in all countries with the remaining challenge seen as that of bridging the gap between the capabilities of the developing and developed country NMSs (WMO,1992).

The need for a more integrated international approach to environmental observation, prediction and service provision based on the WWW which had already been canvassed in the lead-up to the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment (Hallgren, 1971) intensified in the 1980s and 1990s. The 1991 establishment of the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) (Houghton et al, 2012) built on the WWW— which had served as the world’s only real global climate observing system to that time—was followed by other 1 Especially the widely accepted responsibility of governments for providing essential severe weather warning services, assembling and safeguarding of the national climate record and meeting the national obligation to contribute, according to its capacity, to the global effort.

integration initiatives aimed at enhancing societal benefit from environmental services including, within WMO, the establishment of the WMO Integrated Global Observing System (WIGOS) (Barrell et al, 2013), and the WMO Information System (WIS) based primarily on the GOS, GTS and GDPFS. The 2005 establishment of a new intergovernmental mechanism GEO (Group on Earth Observations) to facilitate implementation of a Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) (Zillman, 2005a) was followed by the 2012 WMO Extraordinary Congress decision to implement the Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS) proposed by World Climate Conference-3 (WCC-3), all still built firmly on the three basic component systems of the WWW.

Set-backs and challenges Despite the remarkable scientific and technological achievements of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s and the enormous benefits delivered to all countries and all sectors of society (WMO, 2007; 2009), the late 1980s and 1990s brought formidable new problems for NMSs and serious threats to the voluntary contribution and free and unrestricted international exchange of data and products on which the outstanding success of the WWW had been built.

Governments in several industrialised countries began to curtail public expenditure by introducing alternative approaches to the funding of many traditional public services (Alford and O’Flynn, 2012) including, in some cases, by requiring their NMSs to charge for meteorological data and public weather and climate services. At the same time, the international financial institutions began to wind back or abandon their historical approach to assisting the WMO and the international meteorological community in building up the WWW infrastructure in the developing countries. Observational networks and data collection systems began to deteriorate and the financial restructuring policies imposed on many developing countries forced their NMSs to try to maintain their infrastructure and fund their core operations by

Users, clients and

Oceanographic Services Oceanographic Services

Weather Services

customers

Climate Services

Meteorological Services

Hydrological Services

Data Management and Modelling Research Observation OCEAN

ATMOSPHERE

LAND

Figure 19: The basic concept of the integrated NMS that developed through the 1960s, 70s and 80s within the overall international framework of the WWW. While some countries established organisationally separate National Hydrological Services and National Oceanographic Services, the need for close (national

and international) cooperation and coordination across the fluid Earth sciences and the central role of meteorological observations in both hydrological and oceanographic prediction encouraged most countries to adopt an increasingly integrated approach.

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withholding data and imposing user charges. By the mid 1990s, the fundamental principles on which the WWW was built were under serious threat and the WMO was on the brink of an international data war (Bautista Perez, 1996).

The feared collapse of the international data exchange on which the WWW is based was largely averted (Zillman, 1997). But, although the societal needs for the services it underpins continued to increase (Zillman, 2003) and new service delivery mechanisms have been built on it (WMO, 2009), it has not yet proved possible to re-establish the level of national and international commitment to funding the basic infrastructure of the WWW that characterised its first 25 years. Several of the major satellite-providing countries are struggling to maintain their traditional level of support for the space-based component of the GOS and some of the main beneficiary countries such as Australia have not yet joined the newly industrialised countries such as Brazil, China and India in mounting satellite programs in support of the global effort on Earth observation from space (Zillman, 2009). Many developing countries and former Soviet Union republics continue to struggle with re-building their WWW infrastructure even to the levels, relative to the state of the art, that they achieved in the 1980s, albeit a number of World Bank and other programs have begun to provide advice and assistance to that end (Rogers and Tsirkunov, 2013). To make matters worse, the erosion of the basic national observing networks has occurred at a time of huge increase in national and international needs for reliable long-term climate records in support of the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS), the Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS), and the work of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

There seems little doubt that the requirement for weather, climate and related information and services will continue to increase around the world or that the system of international cooperation built on the WWW will remain the foundation for national weather and climate service provision over the coming decades. The challenges facing WMO and the entire international meteorological community in maintaining the WWW and delivering the benefits of weather and climate information world-wide through the first half of the 21st Century are, however, substantial and major new initiatives will be required in the areas of public policy, systems, science and services (Zillman, 2005b). I see the particular challenges for those responsible for maintaining the WWW as the foundation for international cooperation in meteorology as including: t

Maintaining the principle of voluntary cooperation and free and unrestricted international data exchange.

This is fundamental to everything else and it must remain an article of faith for the global meteorological community. Though other modes of operation can be envisaged and technologies may emerge through which a single country or organization could provide a comprehensive view of weather around the world, it is difficult to conceive of any international organization or concept of operation that could match

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the WWW for efficiency, effectiveness and long-term acceptability to the global community. t

Funding the basic infrastructure of NMSs on which WWW is built. It has always been difficult to maintain governments’ understanding of the essentiality of sustained long-term funding of their basic national meteorological infrastructure, not just in direct response to national needs but as a contribution to the stability of the total international system which enables all NMSs to meet those needs far more efficiently than they could do on their own.

Major efforts will be required to establish a robust and widely accepted economic framework for the ongoing funding of the basic national meteorological infrastructure of every country.

t

Providing satellites and other common systems. While the US and the USSR led the way in the provision of space-based infrastructure and other common observing, data collection and modeling systems in the early decades of the WWW, it seems clear that, in future, the stability of the international system will require that the load of voluntary provision of satellites and other common systems be more equitably shared. Whether this be by joint funding or through voluntary contribution of systems by more individual countries, it will be essential to devise more robust arrangements for the coming decades.

t

Supporting GCOS, GEOSS, GFCS, “Future Earth� and other new Earth observation, research and service systems and programs. There is broad international acceptance of the role of the WWW GOS as the observational foundation, directly and indirectly, for essentially all of the new and emerging Earth observation and service systems. But it has proved difficult to establish the necessary interdisciplinary, interagency and intergovernmental understandings to ensure effective cooperation and coordination at both international and national levels. Major continuing efforts will be needed at all levels, to achieve maximum synergy and avoid duplication and unproductive competition for political profile and resources.

t

Strengthening mutual support between research, operations and services. The early years of the WWWGARP partnership and the mutual support which this engendered among the national research, operational and applications communities played a key role in the original success of the WWW concept and the benefits it enabled NMSs to deliver at the national level. But such partnership and mutual support, despite best efforts at their institutionalisation, must be built and owned afresh by each generation to be effective. The WMO and NMS communities will need to remain alert to the importance of ongoing trust and collaboration across the research-operationsapplications interface.

t

Developing the WWW into a fully integrated global environmental service system. There have been several

new initiatives, over recent decades, to build the fully integrated international environmental service system envisaged in the 1970s but, despite useful experience and occasional signs of progress, this still seems a distant goal. It will be important to build on the momentum established by the GEOSS initiative and link the more integrated observing capabilities more effectively with the service provision programs of WMO and other components of the UN System. t

Applying new capabilities in monitoring and prediction in support of societal needs. The pace of technological development that inspired the establishment of the WWW in the 1960s continues unabated. There will be great challenges, as well as exciting opportunities, in continuing modernisation of the WWW through the uptake and implementation of new technologies as they emerge from the meteorological and broader Earth system science research communities.

Bureau of Meteorology, 2000, International Cooperation in Meteorology. Bureau of Meteorology, Melbourne, 11pp.

Cox, J.D., 2002, Storm Watchers: The Turbulent History of Weather Prediction from Franklin’s Kite to El Niño. John Wiley and Sons, Hoboken, 252 pp.

Daniel, H., 1973, One hundred years of international cooperation in meteorology. WMO Bulletin, 22, 156–199.

Davies, D.A., 1986, Meteorology: A Model of International Cooperation. WMO No. 667, Secretariat of the World Meteorological Organization, Geneva, 30 pp.

Davies, D.A., Ed., 1990, Forty Years of Progress and Achievement: A Historical Review of WMO. WMO No. 721, Secretariat of the World Meteorological Organization, Geneva, 205 pp.

Day, D., 2007, The Weather Watchers: 100 Years of the Bureau of Meteorology. Melbourne University Publishing, Melbourne, 530 pp.

The “World Weather Watch” was more than just a timely label for international meteorological cooperation at the dawn of the space age. It provided a timeless model for nations to work together for the common good and its first fifty years represent one of the greatest success stories in international cooperation that the world has seen.

One of the great challenges for the global meteorological community for the next fifty years will be to maintain the integrity of the WWW concept and to continue to deliver the benefits of its ongoing operation to all countries and to all sectors of society.

Edwards, P.N., 2010, A Vast Machine: Computer Models, Climate Data and the Politics of Global Warming. MIT Press, Cambridge, 518 pp.

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Economic Issues Relating to Meteorological Service Provision, BMRC Research Report, 102. Bureau of Meteorology, Melbourne, 97–121.

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Home, R.W., 2011, Neumayer, Humboldt and the search for a global physics. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria, 123, 2–10.

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The origin, achievement and future development of the Global Climate Observing System. Weather, 67, 227–236.

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Meet a Member

Claudia Frauen Where does this find you?

Just at my desk in the office ready for the weekend…

What do you do?

I am a research fellow at Monash University and work within the variability group of the Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science. I am mainly developing a hierarchy of climate models to study climate variability on interannual to multi-decadal time scales. In particular, I am interested in the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), its nonlinearities and its teleconnections.

Why did you get into it?

I don’t really know. I never had a specific plan to become a scientist but I always liked everything to do with maths. However, when I finished school I didn’t really want to go to university but do something more applied.

That’s why I got into a dual program where I got trained as a Mathematical-Technical Assistant at a research centre while, at the same time, I could study applied mathematics. I worked at the research centre’s Institute for Biotechnology and developed numerical models for running on supercomputers. And that was something I really enjoyed... However, not so much the biotechnology part. That’s why for my Ph.D, I looked for more interesting fields requiring numerical modelling and so I ended up in climate science.

AMOS member Claudia Frauen How do you relax?

It depends. Sometimes I really need to get outside somewhere and do something and other times I’m just perfectly happy to curl up somewhere with a good book.

What is the best thing about what you do?

What is your favourite holiday destination?

There are a lot of good things about being a scientist. One thing I really enjoy is the possibility to work at interesting places and with lots of interesting people. But on the other hand, often not knowing where you’ll be in a year’s time is also one of the bad things about being a scientist.

Since I have come here, I have to say Australia. There are so many great places here. And whenever I go somewhere, I get lots of new ideas about where I want to go next. Thus, my “to visit list” gets longer and longer instead of shorter.

My best trip so far was going scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef.

What did you want to be when you were 10?

As I said above, I always wanted to do something to do with maths. So, for a while I thought I’d become a maths teacher. But when I started tutoring some younger students at school, I quickly realized that that is not what I wanted to do…

Bulletin of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society Vol.26 page 135

Snapshot

Ripples of light 18 November 2012 John Allen

This image was taken at approximately 6:25 p.m. (local time) at Alexandria Headland, Queensland. The picture shows a pink sunset illuminating cirriform gravity waves and mammatus in the anvil of a cumulonimbus following severe thunderstorms over the Sunshine Coast.

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If you have an image of the weather near you to share, send it to duncan.ackerley@monash.edu, or post it on the AMOS Facebook page. — Ed

Charts from the Past with Blair Trewin

25 October 1968 Westerly flow dominated over southern Australia during the late winter and spring of 1968. This pattern, as is typical of such patterns at this time of year, brought dry weather to the east coast of Australia and increased rain to areas exposed to the westerlies; indeed, 1968 would go on to be the only year in which Sydney (where it was the driest year of the 20th century) had less rain than Adelaide. October 1968 was especially active for cold outbreaks; there were widespread snowfalls above 600 m in Victoria at the start of the month, while on the 5th, snow showers penetrated as far north as the Darling Range east of Perth.

Strong westerly flow dominated across south-east Australia on the 24th and 25th, with a fast-moving front crossing the region and moving off the east coast by the morning of the 25th. Conditions were warm on the coast, although not exceptionally so, in the northwesterlies ahead of the front. Sydney reached 25.6°C on the 24th, while sites in western Sydney peaked at 28–29°C. The air was also very dry in the Sydney region, with the dewpoint falling to −8°C at Sydney Airport, although thunderstorms in northeastern New South Wales produced 59 mm at a site near Tenterfield.

Much colder air covered the southeast in the wake of the front. Snow showers were reported on Mount Lofty in the Adelaide Hills on the 24th, then in the Snowy Mountains and Central Tablelands on the morning of the 25th, including reports from Oberon, Orange and Blayney.

Precipitation was much heavier on and immediately west of the Snowy Mountains, with 107 mm at Billapaloola, near Tumut, and 79 mm at Cabramurra in the 24 hours to 9 a.m. on the 26th. Much of this fell as snow on the higher parts of the ranges; the snow depth was still above 2 m at Spencers Creek at the end of October, something only

surpassed in 1956. The coldest air had passed through by the afternoon of the 25th and maximum temperatures, while low, were well short of record levels (12.9°C in Canberra, 13.3°C in Bathurst).

The moisture did not penetrate to the coast or to the Blue Mountains, although temperatures fell to −0.2°C at Mount Victoria. On the coast it was dry, with dewpoints near or below 0°C for most of the day. It was also very windy, with gusts of 117 km/h at Nowra and 100 km/h at Observatory Hill in Sydney, and there was some wind damage in metropolitan Sydney. Despite the moderate temperatures (peaking at 22.0°C in Sydney), the high winds and low humidity, at the end of a dry period, made for dangerous fire weather conditions. Further north, high winds also caused duststorms in southern inland Queensland.

Numerous fires had broken out around Sydney on and before the 24th, including in the Illawarra and South Coast regions, and the Blue Mountains. Several of these fires expanded rapidly in the high winds on the 25th—even with the near-freezing conditions at higher elevations. There were no major losses on the 25th itself, but several fires which became established that day went on to be extremely damaging. One fire, widely considered to be the Illawarra’s worst on record, claimed 31 properties north and west of Wollongong on the 28th, another day with strong, dry winds. There were also losses in the Winmalee area of the Blue Mountains that day, from a fire which was to burn for another month, with further property losses on its eastern flank on 14 and 28 November. In the end 70 properties were lost in this fire, and three firefighters were killed. It was easily Sydney’s driest spring on record with only 29.5 mm, and fire potential remained dangerously high until general rains arrived in the first week of December.

Synoptic chart for 0000 UTC (1000 AEST), 25 October 1968

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The Research Corner with Damien Irving

Holiday guilt I recently returned from a three-week vacation at the family beach house. Since sharing travel photos isn’t really in keeping with the theme of the Research Corner, I wanted to talk about holiday guilt instead. You see, I tried my very best to forget about work while I was away, but often found myself sneaking off to check my email. In fact, even when I was out enjoying the sun with everyone else, my holiday reading consisted of a backlog of unread journal papers as opposed to a novel or sports magazine.

turn. Radhika Nagpal describes many of her tenure-track colleagues as overworked, stressed and generally unhappy, trying to keep pace in a profession where 80-hour weeks are the norm. After a liberating conversation at a party back in 2003, Nagpal decides that she will not let work take over her life. She sets aside time for her family, sets strict limits on her work hours, and generally places a strong emphasis on enjoying herself. The end result? She gets tenure and has a great time doing it.

The unfortunate truth is that this happens every time I go on vacation. I even get pangs of guilt on weekends and public holidays. I suspect (or at least hope) that I’m not alone here. A lot of scientists work on long-term research projects that have a very distant (or non-existent) endpoint, which means there is always more work to do. As such, any time spent away from work feels like a missed opportunity. In order to lessen these feelings of guilt, we sneak work-like activities into our holidays and weekends, and work late/arrive early at the office whenever we get the chance. These behaviours take the edge off our guilt in the short term, but are surely not good for our sanity (or productivity, as I’ll argue below) in the long run.

The second was a post titled “Why Crunch Mode Doesn’t Work2,” which provides a nice summary of the large body of evidence suggesting that in the long-term, useful worker output is maximized near a five-day, 40-hour work week. Productivity drops immediately upon starting overtime and continues to drop until, at approximately eight 60-hour weeks, the total work done is the same as what would have been done in eight 40-hour weeks. In his concluding remarks, the author points out that people crunch (i.e work overtime for long periods) because they haven’t really thought about the job being done. They have learned only the importance of appearing to do their best, as opposed to really doing their best.

Towards the end of my vacation, thoroughly dismayed at my inability to shake the holiday guilt, I came across two key articles that gave me hope for a cure. The first was a post on the Scientific American blog1, by a tenured (i.e. permanent) professor at Harvard. Promising young professors in America are often started on a “tenuretrack” contract of several years duration, during which time they are scrutinised and closely evaluated at every

Taking these two articles, you could reasonably argue that an improved work-life balance (which includes forgetting about work when you’re at the family beach house) can actually improve work/career outcomes, as opposed to hinder them. At some level I think we all know this makes sense, so take a step back this week and consider whether you are really doing your best at work. Like me, you might find that those extra hours are doing nothing more than appeasing some irrational, misplaced guilt.

1 http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2013/07/21/ the-awesomest-7-year-postdoc-or-how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-andlove-the-tenure-track-faculty-life/

Bulletin of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society Vol.26 page 138

2

www.infoq.com/news/2008/01/crunch-mode

Calendar

2014

9–13 21st Symposium on Boundary Layers and Turbulence, Leeds, UK.

February

14–19 15th International Conference on Atmospheric Electricity (ICAE 2014), Norman, OK, USA.

2–6 94th AMS Annual Meeting, Atlanta, USA. 12–14 20th AMOS National Conference, Hobart, Australia.

16–20 21st Conference on Applied Climatology, Boulder, CO, USA.

23–28 Ocean Sciences Meeting, Hawaii Convention Center, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA.

16–20 17th Symposium on Meteorological Observation and Instrumentation, Boulder, CO, USA.

March

17–20 42nd Conference on Broadcast Meteorology, Olympic Valley, CA, USA.

24–28 9th International Conference on Air Quality— Science and Application, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.

31–4 April 31st AMS Conference on Hurricanes and Tropical Meteorology, San Diego, California, USA.

July 7–11 14th Conference on Cloud Physics, Westin Copley Place, Boston, MA, USA.

April

7–11 14th Conference on Atmospheric Radiation, Westin Copley Place, Boston, MA, USA.

7–9 9th Weather Radar and Hydrology (WRaH) International Symposium, Washington, DC, USA.

28–1 August 11thAnnual Asia Oceania Geosciences Meeting, Sapporo, Japan.

27–2 May European Geosciences Union, General Assembly, Vienna, Austria.

September

May

22–26 13th Quadrennial ICACGP Symposium, Natal, Brazil.

12–15 2nd Conference on Atmospheric Biogeosciences, Portland, OR, USA.

2015

12–15 31 Conference on Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, Portland, OR, USA.

January

st

25–30 1st International Summit on Tornadoes and Climate Change, Chania, Crete, Greece.

June

4–8 95th AMS Annual Meeting, Phoenix, USA.

June 22–2 July 26th General Assembly of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics, Prague, Czech Republic.

Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Journal

Articles — Vol. 63 No. 3, September 2013 Dowdy et al. Understanding rainfall projections in relation to extratropical cyclones in eastern Australia.

Gabric et al. Global simulations of the impact on contemporary climate of a perturbation to the sea-to-air flux of dimethylsulphide.

Parker and Lane Trapped mountain waves during a light aircraft accident.

Zhu et al. Spatiotemporal analysis of MODIS and AMSR-E derived SST in joining area of Asia and IndianPacific Ocean.

Grainger et al. The estimated potential predictability of seasonal mean Australian surface temperature Physick et al. Boundary-layer observations in the Pilbara coastal region.

Bulletin of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society Vol.26 page 139

Fleming and Awange Comparing the version 7 TRMM 3B43 monthly precipitation product with the TRMM 3B43 version 6/6A and BoM datasets for Australia Regular features: Reid et al. Seasonal climate summary Southern Hemisphere (spring 2012): warmer and drier across much of Australia, along with a new Southern Hemisphere sea ice extent record.

White and Fox-Hughes. Seasonal climate summary Southern Hemisphere (summer 2012–13): Australia’s hottest summer on record and extreme east coast rainfall.

Wu. Quarterly numerical weather prediction model performance summary—July to September 2013.

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Bulletin of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society Vol.26 page 140

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2013 Bulletin of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society ISSN 1035-6576

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