Industry News

Vaisala launches air quality sensor for city pollutant identification


Vaisala launches air quality sensor for city pollutant identification

Vaisala has launched the Air Quality Transmitter 560 (AQT560), which is a compact air quality sensor with a wide detection range – PM1, PM2.5, and PM10 – and a calibration system and algorithms.

The AQT560 has been designed to be the most dependable compact air quality sensor for measuring particle matter (PM). It can detect aerosol number concentration of particles within the size range of 0.3 to 10 microns. As a result, the sensor can accurately provide PM1 concentrations for sources primarily influenced by combustion (such as traffic, residential wood burning and wildfires), PM2.5 concentrations dominated by long-range transportation and PM10 concentrations driven by abrasive processes (such as road dust, sandstorms, construction and mining).

Continue reading Vaisala launches air quality sensor for city pollutant identification at Meteorological Technology International.


New Zealand’s glaciers appear “smashed and shattered” due to enduring ice loss, says NIWA


New Zealand’s glaciers appear “smashed and shattered” due to enduring ice loss, says NIWA

According to NIWA’s latest end-of-summer snowline survey, New Zealand’s glaciers appear “smashed and shattered” due to enduring ice loss.

Dr Andrew Lorrey’s research

Dr Andrew Lorrey is the program lead and NIWA’s principal scientist of climate and environmental applications. He said the research paints a picture of how Aotearoa’s landscape is transforming.

“This year, we covered nearly the full set of index glaciers that have been monitored since the 1970s. We flew to the southernmost glaciers, ones that we’ve not seen since 2018. Back then, they were incredibly small and functionally dead, and one is now two-thirds of the size it was on our last visit.

Continue reading New Zealand’s glaciers appear “smashed and shattered” due to enduring ice loss, says NIWA at Meteorological Technology International.


CASE STUDY: AIREN-NWP’s AI-powered numerical weather prediction post-processing solution


CASE STUDY: AIREN-NWP’s AI-powered numerical weather prediction post-processing solution

Is there a high variance in weather forecasts for today? Traditional numerical weather prediction (NWP) models are limited in their ability to integrate new observations. The AIREN-NWP AI-powered numerical weather prediction (NWP) post-processing solution has been designed to fuse forecasts with real-time measurements for higher resolution and more accurate weather predictions up to six hours ahead. We have observed up to 2.5x improvement in the initial forecasts for precipitation, temperature and wind gusts. Get ready for forecasts that react fast, stay sharp and keep you ahead of the weather.

Remember the chaos of last summer’s flash floods and festivals being disrupted by unpredictable weather?

Continue reading CASE STUDY: AIREN-NWP’s AI-powered numerical weather prediction post-processing solution at Meteorological Technology International.


Biden-Harris Administration invests US$3.7m in water-level forecast system


Biden-Harris Administration invests US$3.7m in water-level forecast system

The US Department of Commerce and NOAA are to invest US$3.72m to support research on Great Lakes water-level forecasts, as part of President Biden’s Investing in America agenda, under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

These funds will be distributed by NOAA’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory (GLERL) to NOAA’s Cooperative Institute for Great Lakes Research (CIGLR), hosted by the University of Michigan.

Advancing water-level forecasts

Water-level forecasts are used by many throughout the region for commerce, recreation and safety. The use of current forecasts for decision making has been historically limited due to large uncertainties in the rise and fall of anticipated water levels and the short time span of accurate predictions.

Continue reading Biden-Harris Administration invests US$3.7m in water-level forecast system at Meteorological Technology International.


EUMETSAT and China renew cooperation agreement


EUMETSAT and China renew cooperation agreement

EUMETSAT and the China Meteorological Administration (CMA) have renewed their long-standing cooperation agreement during a meeting in Beijing.

Zhenlin Chen, administrator of CMA, and Phil Evans, director-general of EUMETSAT, signed the document at the ceremony.

The extended contract

The signed contract represents a five-year extension to the partners’ agreement, which relates to data application, exchange and redistribution. The first agreement between the CMA and EUMETSAT came into effect in 1998. The benefits include access by EUMETSAT data users to observations from the CMA’s geostationary and polar-orbiting satellites. The EUMETSAT Council approved the extension to the agreement at its meeting in July 2023.

Continue reading EUMETSAT and China renew cooperation agreement at Meteorological Technology International.


National Oceanography Centre joins £16m mathematical climate doctoral training center


National Oceanography Centre joins £16m mathematical climate doctoral training center

The National Oceanography Centre (NOC) has become a partner in the Imperial College London-led £16m (US$20m) Mathematics for our Future Climate center for doctoral training (CDT), which will train the next generation of mathematical climate scientists.

Collaborative climate research

The Mathematics for our Future Climate CDT is led overall by Prof. Dan Crisan, Dept. of Mathematics at Imperial College London. The leads at the other universities are: Prof. Alberto Naveira Garabato (University of Southampton) and Prof. Jennifer Scott (University of Reading). The partners bring expertise in ocean, weather and climate, in academic and government institutions and across a wide range of industries.

Continue reading National Oceanography Centre joins £16m mathematical climate doctoral training center at Meteorological Technology International.


INTERVIEW: Dr Sue Barrell, science leader, independent chair, director, mentor


INTERVIEW: Dr Sue Barrell, science leader, independent chair, director, mentor

In 2022 Dr Sue Barrell was named Laureate of the International Meteorological Organization (IMO) Prize for her leadership in the international weather, water and climate community and for a career of commitment to the WMO. The prize (named after the WMO’s predecessor, the IMO) came four years after she officially retired from her role as chief scientist at the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) in Australia – an organization she was part of for 38 years.

Starting as a graduate meteorologist at BoM, Dr Barrell had a distinguished career spanning operational forecasting, research, science, climate, infrastructure and data policy, retiring from her final role as BoM chief scientist, with responsibility for research, international and national science relationships, innovation, STEM, diversity and inclusion, in 2018.

Continue reading INTERVIEW: Dr Sue Barrell, science leader, independent chair, director, mentor at Meteorological Technology International.


EUMETSAT and Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute study demonstrates shipping pollution’s effect on clouds


EUMETSAT and Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute study demonstrates shipping pollution’s effect on clouds

Dr Nikos Benas and Dr Jan Fokke Meirink of the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute and Dr Rob Roebeling of EUMETSAT’s User Support & Climate Services published a case study exploring the impact of maritime shipping pollution on clouds.

When ships emit aerosols – tiny particles of sulfur dioxide and black carbon – via their exhaust, this causes changes in the clouds above which has far-reaching impacts on the global climate, according to the researchers.

Satellite observations

Satellite observations make it possible to study the relationship between shipping pollution and clouds. The researchers set out to see if satellite observations can be used to detect changes in cloud properties as a result of shipping pollution and assessed how new regulations to limit the sulfur content of fuel oil in ships – imposed by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) at the beginning of 2020 – affected cloud properties.

Continue reading EUMETSAT and Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute study demonstrates shipping pollution’s effect on clouds at Meteorological Technology International.