NAWDEX - North Atlantic Waveguide and Downstream Impact Experiment

«Under Construction»

h1. EUMETNET OBSERVATIONS

EUMETNET is a grouping of 31 European National Meteorological Services that provides a framework to organise co-operative programmes between its Members in the various fields of basic meteorological activities. These activities include observing systems, data processing, basic forecasting products, research and development and training. EUMETNET's mission statement is.

The EUMETNET programme supports NAWDEX with the following extra-observations:

# 1)	Radiosondes from land stations within the European Network

# 2)	E-AMDAR observations

# 3)	E-ASAP-radiosoundings from commercial ships

All observation types perform operational (regular) observations. During the NAWDEX observation period the NAWDEX team can activate the observation types and ask for increased observation frequency. This manual explains the procedure to activate them.

The *point of contact* responsible for the coordination of all observations by the EUMETNET Observations Programme Management is

> Sabine Hafner

> EUMETNET Observations Programme Management

> Operations and Projects Manager

> Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD)                    

> Phone:+49 (0) 69 8062 4491

> email: sabine.hafner[at]dwd.de

The available funding covers 65 k€ (50k€ for additional radiosoundings and 15 k€ for AMDAR data. Depending on the price per sonde which varies from country to country we envisage 200-250 additional soundings. During the NAWDEX period we will regularly get a status report on our balance by Sabine Hafner.

All requests have to be sent from the email-address: *sounding[at] nawdex.org* to the respective points of contacts +(see list)+

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h2. RADIOSONDES

Here +[AS: include a link to the table provided by Sabine Hafner]+ you find the list of the available radiosonde stations that NAWDEX can access within the European Radiosonde network. Additionally the affiliation to the respective national weather service is given for each station. All regular observation intervals and the possible additional sounding release times are listed. 

For NAWDEX we can choose a subset of the list of stations depending on our needs. Therefore requests have to be sent to the indicated points of contact at the national weather services. The requests are send with the "Radiosonde-Email-Template":https://internal.wavestoweather.de/nawdex/attachments/download/39/NAWDEX_EUMETNET_template_RADIOSONDES.doc. The list specifies advance warning deadlines for our requests.  Generally we agreed on the following activation schedule (with some differences regarding activation for weekend and Monday):

* Announcement of the required additional sondes for specific stations 1-2 days in advance by the NAWDEX community 

* announcement of a regular time interval for a defined time window 

* go/no-go decision 12-24 h in advance

* for details see list +[AS: add link]+

!{width:50%}Stations.png!

_Overview of the radiosonde stations within the European network_ 

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h2. E-AMDAR

E-AMDAR (Aircraft Meteorological Data Relay) facilitates the fully automated collection and transmission of weather observations from commercial aircraft. The E-AMDAR programme is an integrated component of the WMO Global Observing System (GOS) of the World Weather Watch (WWW) Programme. The system is operated by EUMETNET Member NMHS in collaboration and cooperation with partner airlines. E-AMDAR provides ascent/descent profile measurements at airports. 

The regular schedule is that every 3 hours a profile is produced from airports where E-AMDAR airplanes are starting and landing. Some airlines are already providing 1 hourly profiles, depending on the user needs. For NAWDEX it is planned that the NAWDEX organization tells E-AMDAR contact, from which area (1, 2 or 3) additional data are requested. E-AMDAR Technical coordinator makes the changes in the Flight Coordination Plan so that 1 hourly profiles are activated in the requested area.

The NAWDEX Team can activate different AMDAR regions that are defined as follows:

*	Area 1 (Scandinavia): 	LLC (4°E / 54°N) ;	URC (31°E / 72°N)

*	Area 2 (Iberia):	LLC (-11°E / 35°N); 	URC (4°E / 44°N)

*	Area 3 (Adriatic):	LLC (6°E / 37°N); 	URC (25°E / 48°N)

!{width:50%}Stations2.png!

_Location of the AMDAR areas that can be activated during NAWDEX_

E-AMDAR observations can be activated with the "E-AMDAR-Email-Template":https://internal.wavestoweather.de/nawdex/attachments/download/40/NAWDEX_EUMETNET_template_EAMDAR.doc by choosing one of the above mentioned areas. Lead times for the activation are:

*	regular schedule on weekdays: 48h before, according to table

*	Data for Monday has to be requested until Friday noon

*	Request for Tuesday can be sent on Monday 

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h2. EASAP

Radiosoundings from performed by the crew members on board merchant vessels in regular service between Europe and North America. The big advantage is that the ships are often in data sparse ocean regions. Ships perform regular ascents at various times which depend on location (reduced number of ascents near harbours) and the daily work onboard.

By defining an area and time window and sending this request with the "EASAP-Email-template":https://internal.wavestoweather.de/nawdex/attachments/download/38/NAWDEX_EUMETNET_template_EASAP.doc the ships are requested to perform 6-hourly ascents. 

Within the EASAP-Data Portal +[link]+ we are able to inform ourselves about the ship routes. 

!{width:50%}EASAP.png!

_Radiosonde ascents from EASAP ships between 4 and 6 September. Releases are not regular so that it is difficult to predict future positions. However when we know the direction of the ship we will be able to define appropriate regions to activate the right ships._

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