World Meteorological OrganizationWorking together in weather, climate and water

WMO StandardsNOAA System Of Systems Workshop

October 06, 2009

WMO/OBS www.wmo.int

WMO

Fredrick R. BranskiPresident of CBS

What is the WMO?(World Meteorological Organization)

• A specialized agency of the United Nations

• The UN system's authoritative voice on the state and behavior of the Earth's atmosphere, its interaction with the oceans, the climate it produces and the resulting distribution of water resources

• 188 Member States

•

NWS is the U.S. representative

•

to the WMO

FM SYSTEM OF CODE FORMS - Traditional Alphanumeric Codes (TAC)

FM 12–XII Ext. SYNOP Report of surface observation from a fixed land stationFM 13–XII Ext. SHIP Report of surface observation from a sea stationFM 14–XII Ext. SYNOP MOBIL Report of surface observation from a mobile land stationFM 15–XIII Ext. METAR Aerodrome routine meteorological report (with or without trend forecast)FM 16–XIII Ext. SPECI Aerodrome special meteorological report (with or without trend forecast)FM 18–XII BUOY Report of a buoy observationFM 20–VIII RADOB Report of ground radar weather observationFM 22–IX Ext. RADREP Radiological data report (monitored on a routine basis and/or in case of accident)FM 32–XI Ext. PILOT Upper-wind report from a fixed land stationFM 33–XI Ext. PILOT SHIP Upper-wind report from a sea stationFM 34–XI Ext. PILOT MOBIL Upper-wind report from a mobile land stationRec. 22 (CBS-89), approved by the President of WMO and Res. 8 (EC-LI)FM 35–XI Ext. TEMP Upper-level pressure, temperature, humidity and wind report from a fixed land stationFM 36–XI Ext. TEMP SHIP Upper-level pressure, temperature, humidity and wind report from a sea station

FM SYSTEM OF CODE FORMS - Traditional Alphanumeric Codes (TAC)

FM 37–XI Ext. TEMP DROP Upper-level pressure, temperature, humidity and wind report from a sonde released by carrier balloons or aircraftFM 38–XI Ext. TEMP MOBIL Upper-level pressure, temperature, humidity and wind report from a mobile land stationFM 39–VI ROCOB Upper-level temperature, wind and air density report from a landrocketsonde stationFM 40–VI ROCOB SHIP Upper-level temperature, wind and air density report from a rocketsonde station on a shipFM 41–IV CODAR Upper-air report from an aircraft (other than weather reconnaissance aircraft)FM 42–XI Ext. AMDAR Aircraft report (aircraft meteorological data relay)FM 44–V ICEAN Ice analysisFM 45–IV IAC Analysis in full formFM 46–IV IAC FLEET Analysis in abbreviated formFM 47–IX Ext. GRID Processed data in the form of grid-point valuesFM 49–IX Ext. GRAF Processed data in the form of grid-point values (abbreviated code form)FM 50–XIII WINTEM Forecast upper wind and temperature for aviationFM 51–XIII Ext. TAF Aerodrome forecastFM 53–X Ext. ARFOR Area forecast for aviationFM 54–X Ext. ROFOR Route forecast for aviation

FM SYSTEM OF CODE FORMS - Traditional Alphanumeric Codes (TAC)

FM 57–IX Ext. RADOF Radiological trajectory dose forecast (defined time of arrival and location)FM 61–IV MAFOR Forecast for shippingFM 62–VIII Ext. TRACKOB Report of marine surface observation along a ship’s trackFM 63–XI Ext. BATHY Report of bathythermal observationFM 64–XI Ext. TESAC Temperature, salinity and current report from a sea stationFM 65-XI Ext. WAVEOB Report of spectral wave information from a sea station or from a remote platform (aircraft or satellite)FM 67–VI HYDRA Report of hydrological observation from a hydrological stationFM 68–VI HYFOR Hydrological forecastFM 71–XII CLIMAT Report of monthly values from a land stationFM 72–XII CLIMAT SHIP Report of monthly means and totals from an ocean weather stationFM 73–VI NACLI CLINP SPCLI CLISA INCLI Report of monthly means for an oceanic areaFM 75–XII Ext. CLIMAT TEMP Report of monthly aerological means from a land stationFM 76–XII Ext. CLIMAT TEMP SHIP Report of monthly aerological means from an ocean weather station

FM SYSTEM OF CODE FORMS - Traditional Alphanumeric Codes (TAC)

FM 81–I SFAZI Synoptic report of bearings of sources of atmosphericsFM 82–I SFLOC Synoptic report of the geographical location of sources of atmosphericsFM 83–I SFAZU Detailed report of the distribution of sources of atmospherics bybearings for any period up to and including 24 hoursFM 85–IX SAREP Report of synoptic interpretation of cloud data obtained by a meteorological satelliteFM 86–XI SATEM Report of satellite remote upper-air soundings of pressure, temperature and humidityFM 87–XI SARAD Report of satellite clear radiance observationsFM 88–XI SATOB Report of satellite observations of wind, surface temperature, cloud, humidity and radiation

FM SYSTEM OF CODE FORMS – Table Driven Code Forms (TDCF)

FM 92–XI Ext. GRIB edition 1 Processed data in the form of grid-point values(gridded binary) expressed in binary formFM 92–XIII Ext. GRIB edition 2 General regularly-distributed information in binary formFM 94–XIII Ext. BUFR Binary universal form for the representation of meteorological dataFM 95–XIII Ext. CREX Character form for the representation and exchange of data

What is the WIS? (WMO Information System)

• An overarching approach to meet information exchange requirements of all WMO Programmes

• Data centric vs communications centric (legacy approach)

• Aid WMO to avoid data incompatibilities & problems in sharing valuable data across various programmes

• Ensure interoperability of Information Systems between WMO Programmes and those outside of the WMO community

What is the WIS? (WMO Information System)

• WMO Data Representation Systems (DRS) were historically developed with an inward looking approach to meet Member needs for utilization and exchange of information

• Beside legacy exchange systems the WIS offers a Data Discovery, Access & Retrieval (DAR) service

• The WIS DAR will open WMO Member data services and stores up to a wider COI

• The WIS DAR will expose data services and stores of the wider COI across the community

WIS Standards • WMO has been developing DRSs for many

decades

– Work precedes ISO and many other standards bodies

– Over 50 legacy DRS

• Tremendous “richness” of capability already exists

• WMO has captured this “richness” in its Binary Uniform Format for Representation (BUFR)

WIS DRM • BUFR was developed with an inherent data

model

• From this data model all other DRS needs will be driven

– ISO compatible feature catalogues

– Legacy formats

– OASIS, OGC, JMBL other requirements

ISO 19000 Modelling process for BUFR

BUFR is too big to be represented in a single ISO Feature Catalogue, which should be small enough to be useable by external communities.

No external community uses the full BUFR model, and most communities use a small subset, augmented with extractions, aggregations, and compounds of this subset.

The ISO model is intended for this sort of use.

Aviation Feature CatalogueAviation community names linked to (one or more) BUFR table elements

Public Weather Service Feature Catalogue

Common names, aliases and language variants linked to relevant

BUFR table elements

Hydrological Feature CatalogueHydrological community names and

common aliases

Full BUFR Model

Aviation Feature

Catalogue

Public Weather Service

Feature Catalogue

Hydrological Feature Catalogue

Other Catalogues

?

Public

Weather

Service

Hydrology

AviationOther Needs

?

WIS DRS Development• WMO Expert Teams are tasked with working directly

on DRS standards in the following areas– Maintenance and update of existing DRS including BUFR

– Developing and maintaining WMO metadata standards and improving interoperability

– Migrating off legacy systems to new standards

– Addressing the DRS requirements of aviation meteorological needs

– Assessing all DRS requirements of the wider WMO COI and developing policy recommendations regarding how to meet those needs.

ICAO-WMO PILOT PROJECT FOR REPRESENTING OPMET DATA

• OPMET data delivery via XML proof of concept - Representation and exchange of TAC OPMET data in XML, initially by wrapping the TAC data in XML and demonstrating the ability to exchange this data over aeronautical telecommunication systems. This phase also includes parsing the contents of the TAC OPMET data into XML and exchanging them as well;

• Direct conversion of BUFR OPMET data into XML;• Development of an ISO compliant modeling process from

which feature catalogues are derived. These will include OPMET data in XML/GML as an application of the ISO 19100 series of standards.

• Support for conjoint development of future versions of WXCM, WXXM, WXXS Weather Information Models and Schema

WIS Data Dictionary• The WIS Data Dictionary is a conjoin of definitions

from:– BUFR – WMO Core Metadata Profile– Services metadata

• BUFR as the parent data model is the primary component

• BUFR contains:– Over 450 Code tables – Over 370 flag tables – Over 7,000 total features, elements, codes and

flags

WIS Tie in to Other Standards• WMO identified Common Alerting Protocol (CAP), OASIS, as a

standard for dissemination of warning messages– Development underway through Members

– WMO hosted a CAP Implementers Workshop December 9-10, 2008 in Geneva

• WMO is assessing Geographic Information Systems (GIS) such as those based on OGC standards– Workshop on the use of GIS systems was held at the European Centre for

Medium Range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF) in Reading, UK from 24-26 November 2006

– This workshop reviewed the use of OGC standards to promote collaboration to define a set of common standards to enhance interoperability

• WMO and ISO have developed an agreement on recognition of each other’s standards and are developing the administrative protocols

WIS Tie in to Other Standards

• The WMO is continuing to assess other DRS standards some of which are already in use in the COI– Network Common Data Form (NetCDF) ,University Corporation for

Atmospheric Research (UCAR)

– Hierarchical Data Format (HDF), National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA)

– eXtensible Markup Language (XML), World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) (CAP is based on XML)

– Abstract Syntax Notation One (ANS.1), joint ISO/IEC and ITU-T

– Joint METOC Broker Language (JMBL), DoD

• Usage recommendations are underway

• Semantic interoperability being pursued with DRS “owners”

• Syntactic interoperability being reviewed for development where needed

Services Metadata

BUFR TableDescriptors

WMO Core Metadata

Profile

Summary - WIS DRM based on:

WISData

Dictionary

WMO Commission for Basic Systems (CBS) is the official steward for these standards

Full BUFR Model

Aviation Feature

CataloguePublic

Weather Service Feature

Catalogue

Hydrological Feature Catalogue

Hydrology

Aviation

Public

Weather

Service

Other Needs?

Other Catalogues

?

What are the advantages• ISO models are derived from the BUFR model

– The maintenance process is fundamental and is not changed– References to BUFR entries from Feature Catalogues are invertible.

• Relevant changes to the BUFR model can be mapped and notified to the user communities

• The structure allows an automatic mapping from BUFR to XML/GML– Not necessarily the implementation (although likely to be possible

using XML tools)• The structure allows servicing of data requests which

include extraction of data subsets across sets of BUFR data.– e.g. query for all air temperatures within a space and time window.– All surface BUFR bulletins expanded into BUFR XML– All mappings of air temperature to BUFR elements selected (with

relevant position and times)– The data returned in an XML/GML encoding under WFS.

http://www.wmo.ch/pages/prog/www/WIS/

Discovery Access and Retrieval (DAR)

• Because DAR metadata must be homogeneous in form and in content, ISO 19115 and ISO 19139 are used for the description of discovery metadata.

• Metadata could be: • Sent as a metadata file via WIS to a GISC prior to

publishing the data or product, • Collected from the data / product producer (batch

mode), • Manually edited and validated via a web based

interface provided by the system, • Automatically generated from existing reference

catalogues, • Possibly built on the fly during the data ingestion.

Example: Standardized Interface - Information Search and Retrieval (ISO 23950)

•Standard used by libraries worldwide for searching online catalogs, and it also used for searching geospatial metadata. •Defines how to specify searches precisely for accurate results. Includes lat & long boundaries and scientific terms, as well as bibliographic citations. •Can be used simply with Internet search engines. But has the expressive power for complex data searches like chemical formulas and pattern-matching needed for images.

http://www.wmo.ch/pages/prog/www/WIS/metadata_en.html

Summary• http://wis.wmo.int/2008/metadata/draft_version_11/

WMOCore_ver1_1_UML_20081030.pdf

• WMO has a long history of DRS development

• WMO is committed to interoperability with the wider COI at semantic and syntactic levels

• WMO will leverage its existing data model (BUFR) including an extensive data dictionary to implement ISO, OGC, OASIS and other standards as needed to support requirements

• WMO & the NWS is interested in continuing standards development opportunities and relationships with other agencies

Questions

Contact info:

Fred Branski:U.S. National Weather ServiceOffice of the CIOInternational Data Exchange and Requirements Liaison President, WMO Commission for Basic SystemsE-mail: fred.branski@noaa.gov