The New International Cloud Atlas

Date: Wednesday 14 November 2018

Time: 19:00 - 20:30

Location: 

Inverness College
1 Inverness Campus
Inverness
Highland
IV2 5NA
United Kingdom

Email: 

scotland-inv@rmets.org

SPEAKER | George Anderson

ABSTRACT | The World Meteorological Organization’s ‘International Cloud Atlas (Manual on the observation of clouds and other meteors)’ is the global standard reference on the classification and observation of clouds and other weather phenomena. The ICA has a long and interesting history. Its first edition was published in 1939, though its origins date back to the 1800’s. Subsequent editions were published in 1956 and 1975, and a volume of photographs was published in 1987.
Accurate and consistent cloud and weather observations are vital for weather forecasting and climate studies, and so ensuring that observations are standardised throughout the world remains an important function of the World Meteorological Organization. With this in mind, in 2013 the WMO undertook to update the International Cloud Atlas, taking advantage of modern technology and the Internet to collect new cloud reference photographs and ultimately to make the revised Cloud Atlas freely available to the widest possible audience of professional meteorologists, weather enthusiasts and the general public. In this talk, George Anderson, one of the team of meteorologists involved in updating the Cloud Atlas, will give an insider’s view of the work to create the new web-based 2017 edition which includes the addition of several new official cloud classifications.

BIOGRAPHY | George Anderson is a Senior Operational Meteorologist in the Meteorological Office and has served the Royal Meteorological Society as a former Photographs Editor for the journal ‘Weather’. In 2013 he was invited by the World Meteorological Organization to be a member of its task team to revise the ‘International Cloud Atlas’.