Andrea Rossa, MeteoSwiss, 8044 Zurich, Switzerland
The MAP committees CIG, SSC, and IGP met 22 and 23 May 2000, as usually, in the framework of the annual MAP Meeting, held in Bohinjska Bistrica, Slovenia. The EUMETNET MAP-NWS Board met jointly with the IGP. After the successful field phase (see MAP newsletter 12 for extended reports) all organisational efforts are now devoted to the spinup of Phase III of MAP, the Evaluation Phase.
Availability of and easy access to the SOP data is critical at this stage of MAP, highlighting the importance of the MDC. It soon became evident that the lack of manpower at the MDC was bottlenecking the process of making SOP data available. The MAP Committees therefore decided, in the framework of the MAP Meeting 2000, that the MDC staff should be upgraded by two additional persons for one year. A respective proposal was submitted, and accepted by the MAP-NWS Board. As of today, besides the DB manager Hans Hirter and his assistant Esther Häller, two additional persons are working (80% and 50%) possibly until the end of 2001.
The MDC and the PO made a substantial contribution to the MAP Field
Catalog (see Figure 1), a four-CD volume containing a complete set of operation reports and summaries,
quick look data, and a selection of meteorological products that were available at the MAP Forecasting Office during the SOP.
The information is well organised and allows for efficient overviewing of individual Intensive Observing Periods (IOPs).
The Field Catalog has been produced in collaboration with the Joint Office of Science Support, UCAR, USA, and is planned to be available in November, in Europe via the MDC.
An online version of the Field Catalog is available at the MDC under http://www.map.meteoswiss.ch
Two spin-off projects of MAP are currently being developed from the MAP Working Groups of routine observational networks, climatology, and forecasters, geared to solving very practical issues in operational meteorology and climatology. The first of the two projects, the Mesoscale Alpine Climatology (MAC), is a combination of and builds upon the work of WG-ROUND and WG-Pclim, the climatology working group which was launched to establish an Alpine-wide data pool for climatological data sets with high spatial resolution. This idea, although initially part of the MAP scientific objectives, received only secondary attention due to the pressing needs of the MAP field experiment. However, MAC can perfectly profit from the tremendous work accomplished during MAP and the personal relationships developed. Contact person for MAC are Christian Häberli, MeteoSwiss, and Carlo Cacciamani, ARPA-SMR, Italy.
The second project, FACT (Forecasting in Alpine and Complex Terrain), is to be the continuation of the work of the Forecasters' Working Group. Three fields of main interest have been identified. Firstly, the scientific results of MAP need to be transferred to applications that are useful in the forecaster's daily business, i.e. in improving forecasts. This encompasses establishing relations between PV-streamers, heavy precipitation and hydrological impacts, gravity wave activity and aircraft safety, and to assess the significance of PV-banners for weather elements. Secondly, the fruitful international cooperation that started during MAP needs to be continued, especially the trans-border exchange of information on extreme events. In particular, alerts for severe weather is a topic of interest, while case studies and further exchange of special operational products are envisaged as well. Thirdly, FACT plans to develop schemes for education and training of Alpine forecasters, starting from workshops and summer schools, and entertains the idea of establishing a school for Alpine weather forecasting.
As to the overall structure of MAP, some changes will be introduced by the time of the MAP Meeting 2001. Firstly, it is felt that the Coordination and Implementation Group (CIG) and the Scientific Steering Committee (SSC) had their distinct part to play in the preparation of the field experiment, but that now a merger of these two bodies is reasonable. Secondly, in order to increase the visibility of MAP results, plans are being made to attach the annual MAP Meeting to other conferences, i.e. to the AMS Conference on Mountain Meteorology and the International Conference on Alpine Meteorology (ICAM). Finally, the new chairman of the MAP-NWS Board is Jacques Ambühl, member of the directorial board and head of the weather department of MeteoSwiss, replacing Thomas Gutermann who retired as director of MeteoSwiss at the end of 1999. Thomas Gutermann, however, has been confirmed chairman of the MAP's International Governing Panel (IGP) until 2001.
The next MAP Committee Meetings will take place 17-18 May 2001 in the framework of and right after the MAP Meeting 2001, 14-16 May 2001 in Schliersee, Germany, a picturesque village at the northern edge of the Bavarian Alps. More and updated information is available under
http://www.map.meteoswiss.ch.
