NIWA’s research receives international recognition
NIWA’s research receives international recognition
World-class climate and ozone research by
scientists at NIWA’s Lauder Atmospheric Research Station
has been recognised by meteorology’s leading organisation
in Geneva, making Lauder the fourth upper-air site in the
world to be certified by the global climate-data
network.
Information collected by the weekly launch of the Lauder station’s radiosonde weather and ozone balloon soundings, together with associated ground-based measurements, will receive official Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) Reference Upper Air Network (GRUAN) certification at the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) Congress in Geneva in June. This is a significant international endorsement of the capabilities of Lauder Station as a world-class upper-air measurement site.
Stable, standardised, and well-calibrated atmospheric
observations are crucial to documenting climate and climate
change. The standard network of upper-air meteorological
observations, and also weather satellites, provide
relatively good coverage but high-quality observations are
needed against which these standard observations can be
calibrated. This is the purpose of GRUAN.
For this
reason, Lauder is paired with the Invercargill radiosonde
site operated by the MetService, which produces twice-daily
soundings of the atmosphere.
NIWA’s Lauder Station, near Alexandra in Central Otago, is well-known in the global atmospheric science community for its climate research and joins a select group of research stations with GRUAN-certified measurement programmes – Spitsbergen in Norway, Lindenberg in Germany, Boulder, Colorado, in the US. Sodankyla in Finland was recently certified as the fifth. Presently Lauder is the only such-certified site in the Southern Hemisphere.
Lauder’s certification will be presented to New Zealand’s Permanent Representative to the WMO, Peter Lennox, CEO of MetService, reflecting the expected close collaboration between NIWA and MetService in managing and operating the GRUAN site at Lauder.
Ahead of WMO Congress, an event will be held at Lauder Station on Tuesday 10 March attended by NIWA and MetService executive, scientists and invited media.
ends