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SIGWX
{{refimprove, date=June 2010 SIGWX is a Significant Weather Chart defined by ICAO. Weather charts being issued by World Area Forecast Centres (from meteorological offices in London and Washington), presenting the most important meteorological phenomena relevant especially for air traffic transport. WAFC publishes them in two formats * BUFR code * PNG images Charts are typically being issued every six hours (0, 6, 12, 18 UTC). The SIGWX charts only show the forecast for the specific hour, however it is common place for parameters such as the JetStream, CAT & CB to be interpreted +/- 3 hours of the chart validity time. . Prognoses are typically prepared for two ranges of heights: * SWH - High Level SIGWX (Flight level 250-630) * SWM - Medium Level SIGWX (Flight level 100-450) Weather phenomena: * Cloud - including information about cloud type, height of base and top, turbulence and icing risk * Clear Air Turbulence - including base and top height, strength of turbulence * Jet ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
ICAO
The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO, ) is a specialized agency of the United Nations that coordinates the principles and techniques of international air navigation, and fosters the planning and development of international air transport to ensure safe and orderly growth. ICAO headquarters are located in the '' Quartier International'' of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The ICAO Council adopts standards and recommended practices concerning air navigation, its infrastructure, flight inspection, prevention of unlawful interference, and facilitation of border-crossing procedures for international civil aviation. ICAO defines the protocols for air accident investigation that are followed by transport safety authorities in countries signatory to the Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation. The Air Navigation Commission (ANC) is the technical body within ICAO. The commission is composed of 19 commissioners, nominated by the ICAO's contracting states and appo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BUFR
The Binary Universal Form for the Representation of meteorological data (BUFR) is a binary data format maintained by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The latest version is BUFR Edition 4. BUFR Edition 3 is also considered current for operational use. BUFR was created in 1988 with the goal of replacing the WMO's dozens of character-based, position-driven meteorological codes, such as SYNOP (surface observations), TEMP (upper air soundings) and CLIMAT (monthly climatological data). BUFR was designed to be portable, compact, and universal. Any kind of data can be represented, along with its specific spatial/temporal context and any other associated metadata. In the WMO terminology, BUFR belongs to the category of ''table-driven code forms'', where the meaning of data elements is determined by referring to a set of tables that are kept and maintained separately from the message itself. BUFR is a complex format that can be difficult to use and it presents some weaknesses. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Portable Network Graphics
Portable Network Graphics (PNG, officially pronounced , colloquially pronounced ) is a raster-graphics file format that supports lossless data compression. PNG was developed as an improved, non-patented replacement for Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) — unofficially, the initials PNG stood for the recursive acronym "PNG's not GIF". PNG supports palette-based images (with palettes of 24-bit RGB or 32-bit RGBA colors), grayscale images (with or without an alpha channel for transparency), and full-color non-palette-based RGB or RGBA images. The PNG working group designed the format for transferring images on the Internet, not for professional-quality print graphics; therefore non-RGB color spaces such as CMYK are not supported. A PNG file contains a single image in an extensible structure of ''chunks'', encoding the basic pixels and other information such as textual comments and integrity checks documented in RFC 2083. PNG files use the file extension PNG or png and hav ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flight Level
In aviation and aviation meteorology, a flight level (FL) is an aircraft's altitude at standard air pressure, expressed in hundreds of feet. The air pressure is computed assuming an International Standard Atmosphere pressure of 1013.25 hPa (29.92 inHg) at sea level, and therefore is not necessarily the same as the aircraft's actual altitude, either above sea level or above ground level. Background Flight levels are used to ensure safe vertical separation between aircraft, despite natural local variations in atmospheric air pressure. Historically, altitude has been measured using a pressure altimeter, which is essentially a calibrated barometer. An altimeter measures ambient air pressure, which decreases with increasing altitude following the barometric formula. It then calculates and displays the corresponding altitude. If different aircraft's altimeters were not calibrated consistently, then two aircraft could be flying at the same altitude even though their altimeter ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Meteorological Data And Networks
Meteorology is a branch of the atmospheric sciences (which include atmospheric chemistry and physics) with a major focus on weather forecasting. The study of meteorology dates back millennia, though significant progress in meteorology did not begin until the 18th century. The 19th century saw modest progress in the field after weather observation networks were formed across broad regions. Prior attempts at prediction of weather depended on historical data. It was not until after the elucidation of the laws of physics, and more particularly in the latter half of the 20th century the development of the computer (allowing for the automated solution of a great many modelling equations) that significant breakthroughs in weather forecasting were achieved. An important branch of weather forecasting is marine weather forecasting as it relates to maritime and coastal safety, in which weather effects also include atmospheric interactions with large bodies of water. Meteorological phenom ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Earth Sciences Data Formats
Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surface is made up of the ocean, dwarfing Earth's polar ice, lakes, and rivers. The remaining 29% of Earth's surface is land, consisting of continents and islands. Earth's surface layer is formed of several slowly moving tectonic plates, which interact to produce mountain ranges, volcanoes, and earthquakes. Earth's liquid outer core generates the magnetic field that shapes the magnetosphere of the Earth, deflecting destructive solar winds. The atmosphere of the Earth consists mostly of nitrogen and oxygen. Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere like carbon dioxide (CO2) trap a part of the energy from the Sun close to the surface. Water vapor is widely present in the atmosphere and forms clouds that cover most of the planet. More solar energy is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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