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In July 2007, Mr. CM Shun attended the annual ICAO Asia/Pacific regional
CNS/MET SG/11 meeting and chaired the part on aviation meteorology. The
Observatory submitted a total of 8 papers, which was an all time high
since our first participation at this meeting in 1997.
The Observatory's contributions on a wide range of aviation weather
services continue to gain international recognition. In particular, the
meeting paid tribute to the Observatory in setting up a dedicated
webpage to monitor en-route significant weather (SIGMET) at ICAO's
invitation. Through the assistance of the Singapore data exchange
centre, all SIGMETs and advisories issued by the Tropical Cyclone
Advisory Centres and Volcanic Ash Advisory Centres are forwarded to the
Observatory to ensure availability of all data on the webpage. The
meeting acknowledged that this webpage would facilitate the monitoring
of SIGMETs. ICAO had issued state letters to the regional data banks,
data exchange centres and meteorological watch offices to encourage them
to send their subscriptions to the Observatory for access to the webpage
so that the issuance of SIGMETs and the corresponding data exchange in
the Asia/Pacific region could be effectively monitored.
At the meeting, the SIGMET posters prepared by the Observatory, again
developed on ICAO's invitation, received positive feedback. The posters
will be forwarded to ICAO and WMO for their final endorsement before
distributing to all meteorological watch offices for their reference.
Apart from the above contributions in international matters, the
Observatory also played an active role in the application of advanced
technologies. In particular, the Observatory made use of the latest
communication technology to conduct a trial to uplink integrated
windshear alerts from the Hong Kong Terminal Doppler Weather Radar and
the LIght Detection And Ranging (LIDAR) Windshear Alerting System
(LIWAS) to the cockpit. Uplinking of the LIDAR windshear alerts to the
cockpit is a world first. Representatives from the international pilot
association (IFALPA) and the USA highly appreciated this development for
enhancement of aviation safety.
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