Meteorological and related data and products are delivered through two individual outputs which contribute to the achievement of the outcome element. The developments in each of these outputs during 2003-04 and their contribution to the outcome are discussed below.

The Bureau operates an efficient, integrated observations program that is designed to meet the data requirements of its research and services outputs, as well as fulfilling other national and international commitments. The observation network extends throughout the Australian region, including territories in Antarctica and the Indian and Pacific Oceans, using observational systems operated by Bureau staff, volunteers and contractors. Observations from this network are supplemented by data from automatic weather stations, drifting buoys, aircraft, ships, meteorological satellites and weather watch radars. In addition to the conventional meteorological variables such as wind, temperature, humidity, rainfall and pressure, specialised data on radiation, ozone and other chemical constituents relating to the enhanced greenhouse effect and depletion of the ozone layer are collected; as are data on ocean temperature, waves and currents.

The Bureau infrastructure includes a substantial inventory of complex technical facilities distributed across the Australian region, including some 60 Meteorological Offices, many in regional Australia and the offshore territories and often in remote and inaccessible areas. Most of these sites contain specialised facilities for meteorological observations, such as for filling and tracking weather balloons, undertaking radiosonde flights (Figure 11) and receiving satellite data, and telecommunications for data collection and for the provision of information to users of Bureau services. The Bureau's engineering support function involves the maintenance of this equipment and the installation of new and replacement facilities when required. Engineers and technical officers working from the Bureau's Head Office and Regional Offices, and external contractors when appropriate, provide the specialised skills and knowledge to perform this work. These skills are also used to great effect in support of aid programs to other National Meteorological Services in the region, particularly in the southwest Pacific and South-East Asia.

Figure 11. The number of successful radiosonde flights (ascending to above 200hPa) per day per radiosonde station, by calendar year, illustrating how the additional Government funding through the World Class Weather Forecasting initiative in recent years has enabled the Bureau to restore a more complete basic radiosonde program.

Major developments 2003-04

• Achievement of a significant milestone in the project to implement Digicora III ground reception and data processing systems across 36 of the Bureau's 50 upper air observing stations with the commissioning of the first units at Darwin Airport and Alice Springs Airport, closely followed by Hobart Airport and several other upper air stations.
• Completion of initial installations under the observations collection component of the Radar Network and Doppler Services Upgrade Project (RNDSUP), the five-year initiative to replace a group of obsolete radars in the network and upgrade six radars to high quality Doppler performance in support of improved weather services. Radars were installed at Mt Gambier and Learmonth. Extensive planning and development was undertaken towards acquiring and installing new high performance Doppler radars in Brisbane and Adelaide. Sites for Melbourne and Sydney were also investigated for future installations.
• Implementation of new satellite products including specialised colour images, fog and low cloud detection, cloud motion winds and volcanic ash detection, using data from the USA GOES-9 satellite that provided the backup to the ailing Japanese geostationary meteorological satellite GMS-5.
• Installation of a new NOAA satellite reception station at the Crib Point satellite earth station and implementation of new Central Computing Facility-based satellite data processing systems.
• Establishment of Bureau access to advanced sea surface temperature and radar altimeter satellite data from Europe's ENVISAT environmental satellite, using the new international arrangements between Research and Development satellites and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Global Observing System.
• Implementation of improved instrument calibration systems, including incorporation of new temperature standards, establishment of a new ozone standards facility and replacement of the mercury-based barometer standard with a more precise, computer controlled dead weight tester.
• Installation of advanced monitoring instrumentation for UVB radiation (at Adelaide and Darwin) and for ozone depleting substances (at the Australian Baseline Air Pollution Station at Cape Grim, Tasmania), with the latter providing the first measurements in the southern hemisphere of perfluorocarbons (PFCs), which are potent greenhouse gases.
• Achievement of substantial progress towards full automation of the surface and upper air observing station at Launceston Airport, including an Automatic Weather Station with advanced sensors (visibility meter and ceilometer) and a Boundary Layer Wind Profiler to continuously measure wind velocities above the airport.
• Installation of a new weather radar at Bowen, providing additional surveillance of the tropical coastline including early monitoring of tropical cyclones in the vicinity.
• Upgrade of the observing equipment at Norfolk Island Airport following the construction of the new Meteorological Office.
• Commencement of an initiative to allow refurbishment and updating of the Willis Island Meteorological Office infrastructure and equipment during 2004-05. The station was temporarily de-staffed and decommissioned, except for an automatic weather station retained to provide continuation of key surface meteorological observations. The station is scheduled to reopen in time for the 2005-06 tropical cyclone season.
• Development of improved procedures for monitoring network performance and reporting faults and outages.

Contribution towards outcome

• Implementation of the new Digicora III ground reception and data processing system represented a substantial development in maintaining efficient and effective collection of continuous, reliable upper air observations into the future, thereby supporting a fundamental component of the basic observing system in support of day-to-day weather forecasts, warnings and the long-term climate record.
• Replacement of obsolete radars and radar network expansion safeguarded and enhanced the basic observing system necessary to maintain a round-the-clock nationwide weather watch and reduced the risk of a major failure in a critical severe weather warning system.
• New satellite reception and data processing facilities contributed to meeting user requirements for continuity of access to satellite data and products and to exploiting opportunities to meet the needs for new and advanced data types.
• Development and implementation of new monitoring instrumentation, including advanced sensors and data processing and quality control systems, contributed towards satisfying the present and future needs for continuous reliable data and information on Australian weather and climate, as well as in relation to global climate change.
• Advanced monitoring instrumentation and improvements in testing procedures contributed to greater integrity and sustained accuracy of the national observing networks and improved overall network performance as well as facilitating future development pathways and associated operational efficiencies.
• Efficiencies in surface and upper air observing networks, through automation and improved operational practices, allowed better utilisation of resources to help maintain a reliable and representative network of observations across Australia.
• The programed installation of new and upgraded observational facilities contributed to the ongoing integrity of the Bureau's observing networks and to ensuring that data are provided and/or accessible to users with minimal disruption.
• More effective monitoring of network performance and fault reporting facilitated greater responsiveness in attending to and/or preventing outages and assisted in the development of improved maintenance procedures.

A new polar satellite tracking antenna was installed at the Bureau's Crib Point Satellite Earth Station, 70km southeast of Melbourne, to receive National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) polar orbiting satellite data used in forecasting, research and climate functions. It was commissioned by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment and Heritage, The Hon Dr Sharman Stone MP, in Melbourne on 15 December. This photo shows the Director of Meteorology, Dr Geoff Love with Dr Stone.

The new radar at Learmonth, Western Australia, was commissioned on 9 December.

PROCESSED DATA AND PRODUCTS 

The Bureau's ability to provide the Australian community with an efficient and effective service is reliant on robust and reliable Information Technology (IT) systems operating continuously, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The IT infrastructure at the Bureau is typical of that of a modern National Meteorological and Hydrological Service and is required to support weather, climate, hydrological and oceanographic forecasting, and associated research.

The Bureau operates and manages its own specialised telecommunications systems making use of services leased from a number of telecommunications carriers. Communications systems enable the nationwide and international flow of observations, information, and forecasts and warnings to Bureau offices, and external users, and internationally to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and other National Meteorological Services. Activities are structured around the three functions of data collection, data exchange and data dissemination.

The Bureau's IT infrastructure also includes central computing systems, which are an integral part of the operations of the NMOC and also support the large-scale numerical modelling research of the Bureau of Meteorology Research Centre (BMRC); distributed computing systems, supporting additional specialised facilities and programs; and computing systems that sustain the Bureau's regional operations.

A key component of the Bureau's IT infrastructure is the High Performance Computing and Communications Centre (HPCCC) operated with the cooperation of the CSIRO. The HPCCC exists to support the operational and research needs of the Bureau of Meteorology and facilitates research across many divisions of the CSIRO.

The Bureau's analysis and prediction function embraces the basic meteorological analysis and prediction operations needed to support the provision of weather and climate services and to fulfil Australia's international obligations under the Convention of the WMO. The NMOC in Melbourne, the Regional Specialised Meteorological Centre in Darwin, the seven RFCs in the State capital cities and Darwin, the Townsville and Canberra Meteorological Offices and the Antarctic Meteorological Centre at Casey function as an integrated national network to produce a range of manual and automated guidance products which support the nationwide operational forecast and warning services provided by the Bureau.

The NMOC serves as the central operational hub, combining the roles of operational communications and computing with meteorological and oceanographic analysis and prediction functions. The NMOC runs several complex numerical analysis and prediction systems to provide current or predicted conditions in the atmosphere or the ocean, with differing emphasis according to the various applications.

Major developments 2003-04

• Successful relocation of all telecommunications systems for the Bureau's Head Office and the Victoria Regional Office to the new Central Computing Facility (CCF) at 700 Collins Street Melbourne. The relocation provided connectivity for the Bureau's new SX- 6 supercomputer and allowed the Bureau to consolidate and upgrade several key telecommunications systems.
• Installation of redundant backup Global Telecommunications System (GTS) connections to enhance the Bureau's communication and computing disaster recovery site in Brisbane.
• Upgrade of the Bureau's World Wide Web computing infrastructure to allow concurrent servicing of 6000 requests.
• Upgrade of the Bureau's wide area network (Weathernet) with a bandwidth increase of about 50 per cent.
• Establishment of a new agreement for the broadcast of marine forecasts and warnings over the Inmarsat satellite communication system.
• Relocation, upgrade and consolidation of all computing systems in Head Office and the Victoria Regional Office to the Bureau's new Central Computing Facility at 700 Collins Street.
• Acquisition and implementation of an NEC SX-6 supercomputer consisting of an upgradeable 144 processors capable of 1,152 billion calculations per second.
• Renegotiation of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for the continuation of the HPCCC between the Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO, valid to 2007.
• Upgrade of the Australian Integrated Forecast System (AIFS) in the Brisbane Regional Office. AIFS is the core of the Bureau's operations, supporting the major functions of Regional and Field Offices throughout Australia. The upgrade is the first in a series that will extend nationwide over the next two years.
• Successful conversion of operational numerical systems to run on the new infrastructure at the Bureau's new CCF. In particular, the numerical models are now fully established on the new SX-6 supercomputer.
• Extension of the 5 km resolution limited area model centred over Victoria to encompass Tasmania and implementation of a new 5 km domain over southeast Queensland.
• Incorporation of the generalised multivariate statistical interpolation scheme (GenSI) into the global forecast model.
• Implementation of the National Thunderstorm Guidance product derived from the output of the 125 km resolution limited area model.
• Establishment of Data and Product Management systems for use under the joint Bureau of Meteorology, CSIRO and Royal Australian Navy project, BLUElink.
• Completion of 12 simulations by the NMOC in its role as an Emergency Environmental Response (EER) Centre in conjunction with designated EER centres in Tokyo and Montreal.
• Development of a backup system for the Volcanic Ash Advisory Service as part of the Bureau's aviation responsibilities, in case of failure of the Darwin Centre.
• Implementation of a computer based forecasting titled 'Best Objective Guidance' scheme that automatically generates weather forecasts at individual locations.
• Implementation of the new ultaviolet (UV) radiation prediction system based on the Global Assimilation and Prediction System (GASP).

The new NEC SX-6 supercomputer housed at the new Central Computing Facility at the Bureau's Head Office in Melbourne.

Contribution towards outcome

• The new communications infrastructure allows improved monitoring and management of systems which has improved the overall operational robustness, efficiency and effectiveness of the Bureau's key mission-critical telecommunications infrastructure.
• The existence of the Bureau's Brisbane Disaster Recovery Site as a totally redundant facility, able to maintain telecommunications, ensures business continuity and the maintenance of key services for the Bureau's forecasting offices and national and international users if there is a catastrophic failure of communications.
• The increase in the Bureau's wide area network bandwidth kept pace with the external demand for improved services and products and the internal requirements for new network accesses, distribution of model data and the use of new technologies such as video conferencing.
• Ongoing improvements to the Bureau's website to support the site's position as one of the most accessed Australian government websites with over 300 million hits per month (Figure 12) and some 20 terabytes of data downloaded during the year. The hit rate for the site is approximately doubling every year and the improved infrastructure will increase the accessibility and availability of data and products as well as allowing more cost-effective communications to remote locations.
• Robust systems to supply forecasts to marine users for safety of life at sea were augmented with the new Inmarsat agreement.
• The CCF is now housed in a world-class facility with redundant power and telecommunications services. Increased processing and storage capacity combined with upgraded security has strengthened the IT infrastructure that underpins all Bureau services.
• The new NEC SX-6 supercomputer has effectively increased the Bureau's processing capability by a factor of six and will allow the continuation of improvements to products and services. The new supercomputing infrastructure will also allow a larger range of products from different numerical models to be produced and made available to both internal and external users in a more timely manner.
• The extension of the MOU with the CSIRO for the operation of the HPCCC has provided a firm framework over the next four years to operate high performance computing that will enable advances in both the Bureau's strategic modelling research and its operational systems supporting weather and climate services.
• The upgrade to the AIFS system in Brisbane included the replacement of five-year-old computer servers with new computers that are more than six times more powerful than the older machines, providing more efficient operational response and greater capability.
• Higher resolution models and better diagnostic schemes from the models, such as for thunderstorm guidance, contribute to improvements in the quality and accuracy of forecasts and warnings (Figure 13).
• Improvements in the initial state specification for forecast models through the use of more data in the GenSI scheme is contributing to improved forecasts.
• The Best Objective Guidance scheme, implemented at 37 locations, is resulting in significant improvements to forecast performance throughout regional Australia.

Figure 12. The number of hits per month on the Bureau of Meteorology website from January 1996.

Figure 13. Values of the S1 skill score, a measure of the errors in prediction, for 24-hour forecasts of mean sea level pressure from operational and persistence prognoses over the Australian region. The values shown are 12-month running means. The persistence predictions, based on the assumption that today's pattern will continue unchanged tomorrow, show relatively large errors and no long-term trend. The operational predictions from the Australian region analysis and prediction system have shown general improvement over time, with a strong improvement associated with the latest upgrade. The original base analysis used for verification purposes has been discontinued. The results during the overlap period show a slight shift in the measure of skill, but the trends are similar.