Weather stations for Venus

Ian Strangeways looks at the difficulty of operating meteorological instruments on Venus due to its harsh environment, and suggests some possible solutions

Application of Short-Range LIDAR in Early Alerting for Low-Level Windshear and Turbulence at Hong Kong International Airport

Hong Kong Observatory currently uses a series of meteorological instruments, including long-range LIDAR (light detection and ranging) systems, to provide alerting services of low-level windshear and turbulence for Hong Kong International Airport. For some events that are smaller in spatial dimensions and are rapidly changing, such as low altitude windshear and turbulence associated with buildings or man-made structures, it would be necessary to involve meteorological instruments that offer greater spatial resolution. Therefore, the Observatory has set up a short-range LIDAR on the roof of the AsiaWorld-Expo during the summers over the past several years, conducting field research on the feasibility of strengthening early alerting for windshear and turbulence over the north runway’s eastern arrival runway (Runway 25RA) and developing an automated early alerting algorithm. This paper takes the pilot reports for Runway 25RA during the 2013 field research as verification samples, using different thresholds for radial wind velocity spatial and temporal changes detected by the short-range LIDAR to calculate the relative operating characteristic (ROC) curve, and analyzes its early alerting performance.

Meteorological Instruments Visualized Verification Integrated System

This Meteorological Instruments Visualized Verification Integrated System (MIVVIS) bases on existing conventional metrology business, using measurement verification image simulation technology, dynamic displays changes of the certification process and data acquisition in real-time, completes remote automatic measurement, control and regulation, improves work efficiency, and provides technical support to the new equipments of atmospheric monitoring automation projects.