WMO whitepaper, co-authored by our CMO, discusses 2024 demonstration campaign

Read the full whitepaper here

Exerpt:

The lower atmosphere, including the boundary layer, plays a critical role in energy and moisture
exchange between the surface and the free atmosphere. In addition, shallow, small-scale flow
features and low-level gradients in temperature, winds and humidity often determine impactful
local meteorology such as where fog forms, thunderstorms initiate, precipitation changes
phase or air quality is affected. However, atmospheric modellers and weather forecasters have
identified the boundary layer as a domain that is undersampled and which therefore represents a
significant gap in the global observing system.
The expected growth in commercial applications of small low-flying uncrewed aircraft systems
(UASs), coupled with current efforts to develop fully autonomous launch, land and recharge
operations for routine atmospheric sensing by UASs, indicates there is great potential for such
new observing systems to fill the observational gap. Studies have shown that observations
obtained with commercial passenger and transport airlines improve weather forecasts. Other,
recent and more limited studies indicate that UAS observations may have a significant positive
impact on the skill of regional and high-resolution forecast model predictions.
Based on the growth of UAS commerce and the potential benefits of small UAS observations for
National Meteorological and Hydrological Services, the WMO Joint Expert Team on Aircraft-
Based Observing Systems has begun to assess the maturity of UAS sensing technologies. This
White Paper provides an overview of the current level of readiness of UASs to routinely provide
observational data to support National Meteorological and Hydrological Services around the
world and as a contribution to the WMO Integrated Global Observing System.
The current status of UAS technology and UAS ability to fill gaps in the WMO Integrated
Global Observing System is discussed, along with previous and current efforts related to
their technological advancement and operational integration. The benefit of operational UAS
programmes in improving weather services through data assimilation and timely monitoring of
rapidly changing conditions to improve short-term predictions is explored.
The paper also discusses the required areas of technological development and standardization
of UAS operational and data management procedures needed for integrating UASs into the
operational weather monitoring domain. This includes various considerations that will affect UAS
implementation to support operational meteorology such as potential cost, standardization of
data collection, formats, testbeds, required level of autonomy and regulatory hurdles.