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Weather services depend on radio frequency bands - WMO

"Weather forecasts, disaster warnings and climate monitoring are all critically dependent on radio frequency bands which are used around the clock by meteorological services", said the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

According to WMO, increasing pressure on the use of radio spectrum from wireless technology and other applications could hamper Earth observations and efforts to understand and predict climate change.

These are some key points of a submission by the WMO to the World Radiocommunication Conference taking place in Geneva 23 January to 17 February 2012.The conference is mandated to review and revise the Radio Regulations, the international treaty governing the use of radio-frequency spectrum.

"National Meteorological and Hydrological Services are responsible for providing timely warnings of impending natural and environmental disasters, climate predictions and assessments of global water resources.These services protect lives and livelihoods and promote sustainable economic development", said the WMO.

"Successive World Radiocommunication Conferences have taken into account the needs of the meteorological community to ensure the availability and protection of scarce and valuable radio-frequency bands for making and exchanging these observations. The forthcoming conference is urged to uphold this commitment", said the organization.

“Sound management of allocated frequency bands is vital to the quality and accuracy of weather and weather-related predictions,” said WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud.

“If some of the frequency bands currently allocated for meteorological purposes were to be used by other radio applications that are incompatible with meteorological use, then these bands could be rendered unusable for weather, climate and/or disaster prediction systems. This would make corresponding forecasts extremely difficult and sometimes impossible,” he said.

Source: WMO