1.
Government of Australia
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The Government of the Commonwealth of Australia is the government of the Commonwealth of Australia, a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy. The Commonwealth of Australia was formed in 1901 as a result of an agreement among six self-governing British colonies, the terms of this contract are embodied in the Australian Constitution, which was drawn up at a Constitutional Convention and ratified by the people of the colonies at referendums. Separation of powers is implied by the structure of the Constitution, the Australian system of government combines elements of the Westminster and Washington systems with unique Australian characteristics, and has been characterised as a Washminster mutation. Section 51 of the Constitution provides for the Commonwealth Governments legislative powers and allocates certain powers, all remaining responsibilities are retained by the six States. Further, each State has its own constitution, so that Australia has seven sovereign Parliaments, the High Court of Australia arbitrates on any disputes which arise between the Commonwealth and the States, or among the States, concerning their respective functions. The Commonwealth Parliament can propose changes to the Constitution, the Commonwealth Constitution also provides that the States can agree to refer any of their powers to the Commonwealth. This may be achieved by way of an amendment to the Constitution via referendum, more commonly powers may be transferred by passing other acts of legislation which authorise the transfer and such acts require the legislative agreement of all the state governments involved. This transfer legislation may have a clause, a legislative provision that nullifies the transfer of power after a specified period. In addition, Australia has several territories, two of which are self-governing, the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory, Australian citizens in these territories are represented by members of both houses of the Commonwealth Parliament. The territory of Norfolk Island was self-governing from 1979 until 2016, the other territories that are regularly inhabited—Jervis Bay, Christmas Island and the Cocos Islands—have never been self-governing. The federal nature of the Commonwealth and the structure of the Parliament of Australia were the subject of protracted negotiations among the colonies during the drafting of the Constitution, the House of Representatives is elected on a basis that reflects the differing populations of the States. Thus New South Wales has 48 members while Tasmania has only five, but the Senate is elected on a basis of equality among the States, all States elect 12 Senators, regardless of population. This was intended to allow the Senators of the smaller States to form a majority, the ACT and the NT each elect two Senators. The third level of government after Commonwealth and State/Territory is Local government, in the form of shires, towns, the Councils of these areas are composed of elected representatives, usually serving part-time. Their powers are devolved to them by the State or Territory in which they are located, with this act, Australian law was made unequivocally sovereign, and the High Court of Australia was confirmed as the highest court of appeal. The theoretical possibility of the British Parliament enacting laws to override the Australian Constitution was also removed, the Legislature makes the laws, and supervises the activities of the other two arms with a view to changing the laws when appropriate. The Australian Parliament is bicameral, consisting of the Queen of Australia, a 76-member Senate, twelve Senators from each state are elected for six-year terms, using proportional representation and the single transferable vote, with half elected every three years. In addition to the state Senators, two senators are elected by voters from the Northern Territory, while another two senators are elected by the voters of the Australian Capital Territory
2.
Melbourne
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Melbourne is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in Australia and Oceania. The name Melbourne refers to an urban agglomeration spanning 9,900 km2, the metropolis is located on the large natural bay of Port Phillip and expands into the hinterlands towards the Dandenong and Macedon mountain ranges, Mornington Peninsula and Yarra Valley. It has a population of 4,641,636 as of 2016, and its inhabitants are called Melburnians. Founded by free settlers from the British Crown colony of Van Diemens Land on 30 August 1835, in what was then the colony of New South Wales, it was incorporated as a Crown settlement in 1837. It was named Melbourne by the Governor of New South Wales, Sir Richard Bourke, in honour of the British Prime Minister of the day, William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne. It was officially declared a city by Queen Victoria, to whom Lord Melbourne was close, in 1847, during the Victorian gold rush of the 1850s, it was transformed into one of the worlds largest and wealthiest cities. After the federation of Australia in 1901, it served as the interim seat of government until 1927. It is a financial centre in the Asia-Pacific region. It is recognised as a UNESCO City of Literature and a centre for street art, music. It was the host city of the 1956 Summer Olympics and the 2006 Commonwealth Games, the main passenger airport serving the metropolis and the state is Melbourne Airport, the second busiest in Australia. The Port of Melbourne is Australias busiest seaport for containerised and general cargo, Melbourne has an extensive transport network. The main metropolitan train terminus is Flinders Street Station, and the regional train. Melbourne is also home to Australias most extensive network and has the worlds largest urban tram network. Before the arrival of settlers, humans had occupied the area for an estimated 31,000 to 40,000 years. At the time of European settlement, it was inhabited by under 2000 hunter-gatherers from three indigenous tribes, the Wurundjeri, Boonwurrung and Wathaurong. The area was an important meeting place for the clans of the Kulin nation alliance and it would be 30 years before another settlement was attempted. Batman selected a site on the bank of the Yarra River. Batman then returned to Launceston in Tasmania, in early August 1835 a different group of settlers, including John Pascoe Fawkner, left Launceston on the ship Enterprize
3.
Australian dollar
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Within Australia, it is almost always abbreviated with the dollar sign, with A$ or AU$ sometimes used to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies. It is subdivided into 100 cents, in 2011, the Australian dollar was the fifth most traded currency in the world, accounting for 7. 6% of the worlds daily share. It trades in the foreign exchange markets behind the US dollar, the euro, the yen. The currency is referred to by foreign-exchange traders as the Aussie dollar. With pounds, shillings and pence to be replaced by decimal currency on 14 February 1966, in 1963, the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Menzies, a monarchist, wished to name the currency the royal. Other proposed names included more exotic suggestions such as the austral, the oz, the boomer, the roo, the kanga, the emu, the digger, the quid, the dinkum and the ming. Menzies influence resulted in the selection of the royal, and trial designs were prepared and printed by the Reserve Bank of Australia, the Treasurer, Harold Holt, announced the decision in Parliament on 5 June 1963. The royal would be subdivided into 100 cents, but the existing names shilling, florin, the name royal for the currency proved very unpopular, with Holt and his wife even receiving death threats. On 24 July Holt told the Cabinet the decision had been a terrible mistake, on 18 September Holt advised Parliament that the name was to be the dollar, of 100 cents. The Australian pound, introduced in 1910 and officially distinct in value from the pound sterling since devaluation in 1931, was replaced by the dollar on 14 February 1966. The rate of conversion for the new currency was two dollars per Australian pound, or ten Australian shillings per dollar. The exchange rate was pegged to the pound sterling at a rate of $1 =8 shillings, in 1967, Australia effectively left the sterling area, when the pound sterling was devalued against the US dollar and the Australian dollar did not follow. It maintained its peg to the US dollar at the rate of A$1 = US$1.12, on 27 September 2012, the Reserve Bank of Australia stated that they had ordered work on a project to upgrade the current banknotes. The upgraded banknotes will incorporate a number of new features so that they remain secure into the future, the first new banknotes were issued from the 1st of September 2016, with the remaining denominations to be issued in the coming years. In 1966, coins were introduced in denominations of 1,2,5,10,20 and 50 cents. The initial 50-cent coins contained high silver content and were withdrawn after a year after the value of the silver content was found to exceed the face value of the coins. One-dollar coins were introduced in 1984, followed by two-dollar coins in 1988, the one- and two-cent coins were discontinued in 1991 and withdrawn from circulation. In commemoration of the 40th anniversary of decimal currency, the 2006 mint proof and uncirculated sets included one-, in early 2013, Australias first triangular coin was introduced, to mark the 25th anniversary of the opening of Parliament House
4.
Josh Frydenberg
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Joshua Anthony Josh Frydenberg is an Australian politician. He has been a member of the Australian House of Representatives for the seat of Kooyong representing the Liberal Party since August 2010 and he is currently serving as the Minister for the Environment and Energy. Frydenberg was born in Melbourne and educated at Bialik and Mount Scopus Colleges and his mother is a psychologist and University of Melbourne professor and his father is a general surgeon. Frydenberg studied and earned degrees in both law and economics at Monash University before working at Mallesons Stephen Jaques, a large Australian commercial law firm. He subsequently attended the University College, Oxford to read for Master of International Relations degree in 1998 on a Commonwealth scholarship, Frydenberg has also attained a Master of Public Administration from John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. In 1999, Frydenberg worked as an assistant adviser to Attorney-General Daryl Williams before becoming an adviser to Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer, a post he held until 2003. From 2003 to 2005 he was an adviser to Prime Minister John Howard, specialising in domestic security issues, border protection, justice. In 2005 he took up a position as a Director of Global Banking with Deutsche Bank in the companys Melbourne office, in 2006 Frydenberg announced that he was seeking Liberal preselection for Kooyong, a comfortably safe Liberal seat in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne. The seats incumbent member, Petro Georgiou, had held the seat since 1994, Kooyong is regarded as a Liberal leadership seat. The three men who held it before Georgiou all went on to lead the Liberals or their predecessors--Andrew Peacock, Sir Robert Menzies, the preselection was held at Trinity Grammar School on 23 April 2006. Georgiou received 62 of the 85 delegates votes, with Frydenberg receiving 22 votes and it had previously been held by one of Frydenbergs mentors, Michael Wooldridge. Frydenberg declined the offer, saying, This is where I am from, this is where I feel most comfortable, Frydenbergs candidacy was supported by references from former Prime Minister John Howard and former Opposition Leader Andrew Peacock. At the 2010 federal election, he won the seat with 52. 56% of the vote and 57. 55% of the two-party-preferred vote. At the 2013 federal election, Frydenberg was re-elected with the largest swing to the Liberal Party in the seat since 1975 and he was sworn in as a Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister on 18 September 2013, with particular responsibility for the governments deregulation agenda. On 23 December 2014, Frydenberg was sworn in as Assistant Treasurer in a reshuffle and replaced Arthur Sinodinos. In February 2016, the Nationals Matt Canavan took over responsibility for Northern Australia in the rearranged ministry, in 2015, he declared that he had switched positions regarding same-sex marriage and publicly supported marriage equality. In June he was the subject of a smear from a Brisbane wealth adviser on Twitter which attracted wide media coverage. With the reelection of the Turnbull Government in 2016, Frydenberg became the Minister for the Environment, on 19th February 2017, he lied to the Australian public on the show Insiders about the cause of the South Australian blackouts which by that time it had been already proven false
5.
States and territories of Australia
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Australia is a federation of six states, together with ten federal territories. The Australian mainland consists of five of the six federated states, the state of Tasmania is an island about 200 kilometers from the mainland. The remaining seven territories are classified for some purposes as external territories, aside from the Australian Antarctic Territory, which is Australias claim to part of Antarctica, Australia is the worlds sixth-largest country by total area. Since 2015, federal control has also extended to the formerly self-governing territory of Norfolk Island. Three of the territories are inhabited, the others are uninhabited. The term geographic Australia is used by the Australian government to describe the area covered by demographic statistics such as national population figures and this area comprises Christmas Island and the Cocos Islands in addition to the six states and three mainland territories. Norfolk Island is the territory with a native population that is not part of geographic Australia. Both territories were reincorporated as the Northern Territory at the end of this period, from 1923 to 1968, the United Nations Trust Territory of Nauru was under Australian administration, until independence as the Republic of Nauru. From 1949 to 1975, the Territory of Papua and New Guinea was a territory of Australia, the states originated as separate British colonies prior to Federation in 1901. Upon Federation, the six colonies of New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia, the territories, by contrast, are from a constitutional perspective directly subject to the Commonwealth Government, laws for territories are determined by the Australian Parliament. Most of the territories are directly administered by the Commonwealth Government, in the self-governing territories, the Australian Parliament retains the full power to legislate, and can override laws made by the territorial institutions, which it has done on rare occasions. For the purposes of Australian intergovernmental bodies, the Northern Territory, each state has a Governor, appointed by the Queen, which by convention she does on the advice of the state Premier. The Administrator of the Northern Territory, by contrast, is appointed by the Governor-General, Jervis Bay Territory is the only non-self-governing internal territory. Until 1989, it was administered as if it were a part of the ACT, although residents of the Jervis Bay Territory are generally subject to laws made by the ACT Legislative Assembly, they are not represented in the Assembly. They are represented in the Parliament of Australia as part of the Electoral Division of Fraser in the ACT, in other respects, the territory is administered directly by the Federal Government through the Territories portfolio. The external territory of Norfolk Island possessed a degree of self-government from 1979 until 2015, each state has a bicameral parliament except Queensland, which abolished its upper house in 1922. The lower house is called the Legislative Assembly, except in South Australia and Tasmania, Tasmania is the only state to use proportional representation for elections to its lower house, all others elect members from single member constituencies, using preferential voting. The upper house is called the Legislative Council and is elected from multi-member constituencies using proportional representation
6.
Weather forecasting
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Weather forecasting is the application of science and technology to predict the state of the atmosphere for a given location. Human beings have attempted to predict the weather informally for millennia, hence, forecasts become less accurate as the difference between current time and the time for which the forecast is being made increases. The use of ensembles and model consensus help narrow the error, there are a variety of end uses to weather forecasts. Weather warnings are important forecasts because they are used to protect life, forecasts based on temperature and precipitation are important to agriculture, and therefore to traders within commodity markets. Temperature forecasts are used by utility companies to estimate demand over coming days, on an everyday basis, people use weather forecasts to determine what to wear on a given day. Since outdoor activities are severely curtailed by rain, snow and wind chill, forecasts can be used to plan activities around these events. In 2014, the US spent $5.1 billion on weather forecasting, for millennia people have tried to forecast the weather. In 650 BC, the Babylonians predicted the weather from cloud patterns as well as astrology, in about 340 BC, Aristotle described weather patterns in Meteorologica. Later, Theophrastus compiled a book on weather forecasting, called the Book of Signs, chinese weather prediction lore extends at least as far back as 300 BC, which was also around the same time ancient Indian astronomers developed weather-prediction methods. You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, ancient weather forecasting methods usually relied on observed patterns of events, also termed pattern recognition. For example, it might be observed if the sunset was particularly red. This experience accumulated over the generations to produce weather lore, however, not all of these predictions prove reliable, and many of them have since been found not to stand up to rigorous statistical testing. It was not until the invention of the telegraph in 1835 that the modern age of weather forecasting began. Before that, the fastest that distant weather reports could travel was around 100 miles per day, the two men credited with the birth of forecasting as a science were officer of the Royal Navy Francis Beaufort and his protégé Robert FitzRoy. Beaufort developed the Wind Force Scale and Weather Notation coding, which he was to use in his journals for the remainder of his life. He also promoted the development of reliable tide tables around British shores, Robert FitzRoy was appointed in 1854 as chief of a new department within the Board of Trade to deal with the collection of weather data at sea as a service to mariners. This was the forerunner of the modern Meteorological Office, all ship captains were tasked with collating data on the weather and computing it, with the use of tested instruments that were loaned for this purpose. Fifteen land stations were established to use the new telegraph to transmit to him daily reports of weather at set times leading to the first gale warning service and his warning service for shipping was initiated in February 1861, with the use of telegraph communications
7.
Radiofax
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This article is about the image transmission mode. For the radio station, see Radiofax, Radiofax, also known as weatherfax and HF fax, is an analogue mode for transmitting monochrome images. It was the predecessor to slow-scan television, prior to the advent of the commercial telephone line fax machine, it was known, more traditionally, by the term radiofacsimile. The cover of the regular NOAA publication on frequencies and schedules states Worldwide Marine Radiofacsimile Broadcast Schedules, facsimile machines were used in the 1950s to transmit weather charts across the United States via land-lines first and then internationally via HF radio. Today radiofax data is available via FTP downloads from sites in the Internet such as the ones hosted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Radiofax transmissions are also broadcast by NOAA from multiple sites in the country at regular daily schedules. Radio weatherfax transmissions are particularly useful to shipping, where there are limited facilities for accessing the Internet, the term weatherfax was coined after the technology that allows the transmission and reception of weather charts from a transmission site to a remote site. Radiofax is transmitted in single sideband which is a refinement of amplitude modulation, the signal shifts up or down a given amount to designate white or black pixels. A deviation less than that for a white or black pixel is taken to be a shade of grey, with correct tuning, the signal shares some characteristics with SSTV, with black at 1500 Hz and peak white at 2300 Hz. Usually,120 lines per minute are sent, APT format permits unattended monitoring of services. It is employed by most terrestrial weather facsimile stations as well as geostationary weather satellites, the start tone triggers the receiving system. It was originally meant to allow time for the drum of mechanical systems to get up to speed. It consists of rapid modulation of the carrier, resulting in a characteristic rasp-like sound. The phasing signal, consisting of a pulse, synchronizes the receiver so that the image will be centered on the paper. The stop tone, optionally followed by black, marks the end of the transmission, today, radiofax is primarily used worldwide for the dissemination of weather charts, satellite weather images, and forecasts to ships at sea. The oceans are covered by stations in various countries. In the United States, fax weather products are prepared by a number of offices, branches, Tropical and hurricane products come from the Tropical Analysis and Forecast Branch, part of the Tropical Prediction Center/National Hurricane Center. They are broadcast over US Coast Guard communication stations NMG, in New Orleans, LA, and NHC, after Hurricane Katrina damaged NMG, the Boston Coast Guard station NMF added a limited schedule of tropical warning charts. NMG is back at full capability, but NMF continues to broadcast these, all other products come from the Ocean Prediction Center of the NWS, in cooperation with several other offices depending on the region and nature of information
8.
Docklands, Victoria
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Docklands is an inner-western suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia,2 km from Melbournes Central Business District. Its local government area is the City of Melbourne, at the 2011 Census, Docklands had a population of 5,791. Docklands occupies an adjacent to the Melbourne central business district, consisting of land. Contemporary Docklands is the product of an urban renewal project to extend the area of the Melbourne CBD by over a third when completed around 2015. It is now home to several of Melbournes modern landmarks, including Etihad Stadium, from the 1880s, the former swamp west of Melbourne became heavily used as a dock, with an extensive network of wharfs, heavy rail infrastructure and light industry. Docklands Stadium was built in 1996 as a centrepiece to kick-start developer interest in Docklands as a renewal area. Urban renewal began in earnest 2000, with several independent privately developed areas overseen by VicUrban, VicUrban promotes its vision of Docklands as being a major tourist attraction and projected over 20 million visitors a year and a future residential population of over 20,000. A handful of significant buildings were retained, generally due to their association with the areas industrial, most of these heritage buildings are intended for adaptive reuse and integrated with new facilities. Docklands is also the home to a number of water sports, before the foundation of Melbourne, Docklands was a wetlands area consisting of a large salt lake and a giant swamp at the mouth of the Moonee Ponds Creek. It was one of the hunting grounds of the Wurundjeri people. At Melbournes foundation, John Batman set up his home on Batmans Hill at Docklands, however, the rest of the area remained largely unused for decades. The advent of rail infrastructure in the late 1860s saw the Citys industry gradually expand into the area, the plan proposed several gridlike blocks with an ornamental public garden and lake in the shape of the United Kingdom, occupying the site of the salt lake. However, expansion of the westward was abandoned in favour of a northward extension. The dock was lined with wharves and light industry grew around the western rail yards of Spencer Street railway station. During the wars, Victoria Dock was used as the port for naval vessels. By the 1920s, with shipping moved from the Yarra turning basin at Queensbridge, Victoria Dock, Docklands was seen as a large urban blight by the Cain State Government. Property consultants JLW Advisory carried out the first market demand assessment of the site, the size of the Melbourne Docklands area meant that political influences were inescapable. Nevertheless, the Docklands project stayed on the board
9.
Perth
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Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth-most populous city in Australia, with a population of 2.06 million living in Greater Perth. The first areas settled were on the Swan River, with the central business district. Perth was founded by Captain James Stirling in 1829 as the centre of the Swan River Colony. It gained city status in 1856, and was promoted to the status of a Lord Mayorality in 1929. The city is named after Perth, Scotland, due to the influence of Sir George Murray, Member of Parliament for Perthshire and Secretary of State for War and the Colonies. The citys population increased substantially as a result of the Western Australian gold rushes in the late 19th century, largely as a result of emigration from the eastern colonies of Australia. During Australias involvement in World War II, Fremantle served as a base for operating in the Pacific Theatre. An influx of immigrants after the war, predominantly from Britain, Greece, Italy and Yugoslavia, Aboriginal people have inhabited the Perth area for 38,000 years, as evidenced by archaeological remains at Upper Swan. The Noongar people occupied the southwest corner of Western Australia and lived as hunter-gatherers, the wetlands on the Swan Coastal Plain were particularly important to them, both spiritually and as a source of food. The Noongar people know the area where Perth now stands as Boorloo, Boorloo formed part of Mooro, the tribal lands of Yellagongas group, one of several based around the Swan River and known collectively as the Whadjuk. The Whadjuk were part of a group of fourteen tribes that formed the south-west socio-linguistic block known as the Noongar. The judgment was overturned on appeal, the first documented sighting of the region was made by the Dutch Captain Willem de Vlamingh and his crew on 10 January 1697. The British colony would be officially designated Western Australia in 1832, Captain James Stirling, aboard Parmelia, said that Perth was as beautiful as anything of this kind I had ever witnessed. On 12 August that year, Helen Dance, wife of the captain of the ship, Sulphur. The only contemporary information on the source of the name comes from Fremantles diary entry for 12 August, Murray was born in Perth, Scotland, and was in 1829 Secretary of State for the Colonies and Member for Perthshire in the British House of Commons. The town was named after the Scottish Perth, in Murrays honour, the racial relations between the Noongar people and the Europeans were strained due to these happenings. Because of the amount of building in and around Boorloo
10.
Darwin, Northern Territory
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Darwin /ˈdɑːrwᵻn/ is the capital city of the Northern Territory of Australia. Situated on the Timor Sea, Darwin is the largest city in the sparsely populated Northern Territory and it is the smallest and most northerly of the Australian capital cities, and acts as the Top Ends regional centre. Darwins proximity to South East Asia makes it a link between Australia and countries such as Indonesia and East Timor, the Stuart Highway begins in Darwin, ending at Port Augusta in South Australia. The city itself is built on a low bluff overlooking the harbour and its suburbs spread out over some area, beginning at Lee Point in the north and stretching to Berrimah in the east. Past Berrimah, the Stuart Highway goes on to Darwins satellite city, Palmerston, the Darwin region, like the rest of the Top End, has a tropical climate, with a wet and a dry season. Prone to cyclone activity during the wet season, Darwin experiences heavy monsoonal downpours, during the dry season, the city is met with blue skies and gentle sea breezes from the harbour. The greater Darwin area is the home of the Larrakia people. On 9 September 1839, HMS Beagle sailed into Darwin harbour during its surveying of the area, John Clements Wickham named the region Port Darwin in honour of their former shipmate Charles Darwin, who had sailed with them on the ships previous voyage which had ended in October 1836. The settlement there became the town of Palmerston in 1869, and was renamed Darwin in 1911. The city has been almost entirely rebuilt four times, following devastation caused by the 1897 cyclone, the 1937 cyclone, Japanese air raids during World War II, the Aboriginal people of the Larrakia language group are the traditional custodians and the first inhabitants of the greater Darwin area. They had trading routes with Southeast Asia, and imported goods from as far afield as South, established songlines penetrated throughout the country, allowing stories and histories to be told and retold along the routes. The extent of shared songlines and history of multiple groups within this area is still contestable. The Dutch visited Australias northern coastline in the 1600s and landed on the Tiwi Islands only to be repelled by the Tiwi peoples, the Dutch created the first European maps of the area. This accounts for the Dutch names in the area, such as Arnhem Land, the first British person to see Darwin harbour appears to have been Lieutenant John Lort Stokes of HMS Beagle on 9 September 1839. The ships captain, Commander John Clements Wickham, named the port after Charles Darwin, in 1863, the Northern Territory was tranferred from New South Wales to South Australia. In 1864 South Australia sent B. T. Finniss north as Government Resident to survey, Finniss chose a site at Escape Cliffs, near the entrance to Adelaide River, about 60 km northeast of the modern city. This attempt was short-lived, however, and the settlement abandoned by 1865, on 5 February 1869, George Goyder, the Surveyor-General of South Australia, established a small settlement of 135 people at Port Darwin between Fort Hill and the escarpment. Goyder named the settlement Palmerston, after the British Prime Minister Lord Palmerston, in 1870, the first poles for the Overland Telegraph were erected in Darwin, connecting Australia to the rest of the world
11.
Brisbane
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Brisbane is the capital of and most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland, and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbanes metropolitan area has a population of 2.35 million, the Brisbane central business district stands on the original European settlement and is situated inside a bend of the Brisbane River, about 15 kilometres from its mouth at Moreton Bay. The demonym of Brisbane is Brisbanite, one of the oldest cities in Australia, Brisbane was founded upon the ancient homelands of the indigenous Turrbal and Jagera peoples. A penal settlement was founded in 1824 at Redcliffe,28 kilometres north of the business district. The city was marred by the Australian frontier wars between 1843 and 1855, and development was set back by the Great Fire of Brisbane. Brisbane was chosen as the capital when Queensland was proclaimed a colony from New South Wales in 1859. During World War II, Brisbane played a role in the Allied campaign. Today, Brisbane is well known for its distinct Queenslander architecture which forms much of the built heritage. It also receives attention for its damaging flood events, most notably in 1974 and 2011. Several large cultural, international and sporting events have held at Brisbane, including the 1982 Commonwealth Games, World Expo 88, the final Goodwill Games in 2001. Prior to white settlement, the Brisbane area was inhabited by the Turrbal and they knew the area that is now the central business district as Mian-jin, meaning place shaped as a spike. The Moreton Bay area was explored by Matthew Flinders. On 17 July 1799, Flinders landed at what is now known as Woody Point, in 1823 Governor of New South Wales Sir Thomas Brisbane instructed that a new northern penal settlement be developed, and an exploration party led by John Oxley further explored Moreton Bay. Oxley discovered, named, and explored the Brisbane River as far as Goodna,20 kilometres upstream from the Brisbane central business district, Oxley recommended Red Cliff Point for the new colony, reporting that ships could land at any tide and easily get close to the shore. The party settled in Redcliffe on 13 September 1824, under the command of Lieutenant Henry Miller with 14 soldiers and 29 convicts. However, this settlement was abandoned after a year and the colony was moved to a site on the Brisbane River now known as North Quay,28 km south, chief Justice Forbes gave the new settlement the name of Edenglassie before it was named Brisbane. Non-convict European settlement of the Brisbane region commenced in 1838, German missionaries settled at Zions Hill, Nundah as early as 1837, five years before Brisbane was officially declared a free settlement. The band consisted of ministers Christopher Eipper and Carl Wilhelm Schmidt and lay missionaries Haussmann, Johann Gottried Wagner, Niquet, Hartenstein, Zillman, Franz, Rode, Doege and they were allocated 260 hectares and set about establishing the mission, which became known as the German Station
12.
Regional Specialized Meteorological Center
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In addition some WMO member countries that lacked extensive forecasting capability requested that specialized pollutant transport and dispersion forecasts be provided during these emergencies. As a result, during 1989 Meteo-France, Environment Canada and the United Kingdoms Met Office were all set up as RSMCs under interim arrangements between the WMO and the IAEA. Under these arrangements Meteo-France provided global coverage with the UKMO as the center until each WMO region had at least two RSMCs for transport model products. This resulted in the WMO regions RA and RA IV having two RSMCs each which indicated the need to revise the interim arrangements. The new arrangements came into force in August 1994, with EC and NOAA responsible for the Americas, while MF, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology was subsequently made an RSMC on July 1,1995, while the Japan Meteorological Agency was made one in July 1997. C. The United States National Hurricane Center is responsible for the tracking of tropical cyclones within the Atlantic Ocean, the Japan Meteorological Agency is responsible for issuing advisories within the Western Pacific basin. The India Meteorological Department is responsible for tracking tropical cyclones within the North Indian Ocean, météo-France La Reunion is responsible for the issuing advisories and tracking of tropical cyclones, however, the naming of systems is deferred to the Mauritius and Madagascar weather services. Within the Australian region five tropical cyclone warning centres are responsible for the naming and tracking of tropical cyclones, three of these centres are run by and located within the Australian Bureau of Meteorology regional offices in Perth, Darwin and Brisbane and use one national list of names. The other two tropical cyclone warning centres in the Australian region are located in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea and Jakarta, Indonesia
13.
Adelaide
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Adelaide is the capital city of the state of South Australia, and the fifth-most populous city of Australia. In June 2016, Adelaide had a resident population of 1,326,354 million. South Australia, with a total of 1, the demonym Adelaidean is used in reference to the city and its residents. Adelaide is north of the Fleurieu Peninsula, on the Adelaide Plains between the Gulf St Vincent and the low-lying Mount Lofty Ranges which surround the city. Adelaide stretches 20 km from the coast to the foothills, and 94 to 104 km from Gawler at its northern extent to Sellicks Beach in the south. Named in honour of Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen, queen consort to King William IV, Colonel William Light, one of Adelaides founding fathers, designed the city and chose its location close to the River Torrens, in the area originally inhabited by the Kaurna people. Lights design set out Adelaide in a layout, interspaced by wide boulevards and large public squares. Early Adelaide was shaped by prosperity and wealth—until the Second World War, it was Australias third-largest city and it has been noted for early examples of religious freedom, a commitment to political progressivism and civil liberties. It has been known as the City of Churches since the mid-19th century, as South Australias seat of government and commercial centre, Adelaide is the site of many governmental and financial institutions. Most of these are concentrated in the city centre along the boulevard of North Terrace, King William Street. Today, Adelaide is noted for its festivals and sporting events, its food and wine, its long beachfronts. It ranks highly in terms of liveability, being listed in the Top 10 of The Economist Intelligence Units Worlds Most Liveable Cities index in 2010,2011,2012 and 2015. It was also ranked the most liveable city in Australia by the Property Council of Australia in 2011,2012 and 2013, prior to its proclamation as a British settlement in 1836, the area around Adelaide was inhabited by the indigenous Kaurna Aboriginal nation. Kaurna culture and language was almost completely destroyed within a few decades of the European settlement of South Australia in 1836, however, extensive documentation by early missionaries and other researchers has enabled a modern revival of both language and culture. South Australia was officially proclaimed as a new British colony on 28 December 1836, the event is commemorated in South Australia as Proclamation Day. The site of the capital was surveyed and laid out by Colonel William Light. Adelaide was established as a colony of free immigrants, promising civil liberties and freedom from religious persecution. Wakefields idea was for the Government to survey and sell the land at a rate that would maintain land values high enough to be unaffordable for labourers and journeymen
14.
Volcanic Ash Advisory Center
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A Volcanic Ash Advisory Center is a group of experts responsible for coordinating and disseminating information on atmospheric volcanic ash clouds that may endanger aviation. As at 2010, there are nine Volcanic Ash Advisory Centers located around the world and their analyses are made public in the form of Volcanic Ash Advisories and often incorporate the results of computer simulation models called Volcanic Ash Transport and Dispersion. The individual VAACs are run as part of weather forecasting organisations of the country where they are based. British Airways Flight 9, a Boeing 747, lost power to all four engines in 1982 over Indonesia after an eruption of Mount Galunggung, KLM Flight 867, another Boeing 747, again lost power to all engines in 1989 over Alaska after Mount Redoubt erupted. There are nine VAAC locations each with an area to monitor. The centers coordinate with adjacent VAAC, flight control centers within and adjacent to their area as well as offices within. They will then issue an alert to aviation and meteorological offices as stated within the IAVW procedure manual and this alert will be in the format of an alert stating that it is a Volcanic Ash Advisory
15.
Darwin International Airport
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Darwin International Airport is the busiest airport serving the Northern Territory and the tenth busiest airport in Australia. It is the airport serving Darwin. The airport is located in Darwin, Northern Territorys northern suburbs,8 km from the Darwin city centre and it shares runways with the Royal Australian Air Forces RAAF Base Darwin. Darwin Airport has a terminal, a domestic terminal and a cargo terminal. Both of the terminals have a number of shops and cafeterias. In 2011 the airport served 26,036 flights and 1,743,734 passengers, in 1919, when the England to Australia air race was announced, Parap Airfield was established in the suburb of Parap to act as the Australian Terminal. It operated as two airports, an airport and a military field. It frequently took hits from Japanese bombing through the Second World War, the airport hosted Spitfires, Hudson Bombers, Kittyhawks, C-47s, B-24 Liberators, B-17 Fortresses and PBY Catalinas. In 1945 the Department of Aviation made the existing Darwin military airfield available for civil aviation purpose, as a result, the civilian airport at Parap was closed down and airport operations combined with the military airport. UTA, BOAC, Alitalia and Air India were some airlines that had scheduled services to Darwin, however the introduction of longer range aircraft in the 1970s meant that many airlines did not need to stop over in Darwin, and chose to cease services. Cyclone Tracy hit Darwin in 1974 and flattened the city, the airport was used to ferry 25,628 people out of Darwin. Darwin Airport was extensively used to assist UN operations in East Timor from 1999, the new passenger terminal, with four aerobridges, was opened in December 1991. The centre is being built on eight hectares of land at the major intersection of Bagot Road. In 2008 the Australian Infrastructure Fund, which holds 28. 2% of Northern Territory Airports, among other improvements it would provide a 65 percent increase in terminal floor space. In April 2009 Garuda Indonesia suspended the Denpasar service from Darwin after nearly 30 years of service, the move had been protested by the Northern Territory government. The suspension left Darwin Airport without any non-Australian carriers flying there until late 2010 when Indonesia AirAsia started service from Bali to Darwin, however, the increased competition from these carriers forced Jetstar to abandon its base in Darwin Airport and focus its aircraft elsewhere. On the 9 May 2015, a new expanded terminal was officially opened, the expansion, costing $85 million, increased the floor area from 16,000 to 27,000 square metres and is expected to double the capacity of the airport at peak periods. The extended terminal also features Qantas and Virgin Australia airline lounges as well as Duty Free, Darwin Airport has scheduled flights to destinations in the Northern Territory, around Australia and in Southeast Asia
16.
Tropical cyclone
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Depending on its location and strength, a tropical cyclone is referred to by names such as hurricane, typhoon /taɪˈfuːn/, tropical storm, cyclonic storm, tropical depression, and simply cyclone. A hurricane is a storm that occurs in the Atlantic Ocean and northeastern Pacific Ocean, a typhoon occurs in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, Tropical cyclones typically form over large bodies of relatively warm water. They derive their energy through the evaporation of water from the ocean surface and this energy source differs from that of mid-latitude cyclonic storms, such as noreasters and European windstorms, which are fueled primarily by horizontal temperature contrasts. The strong rotating winds of a tropical cyclone are a result of the conservation of momentum imparted by the Earths rotation as air flows inwards toward the axis of rotation. As a result, they form within 5° of the equator. Tropical cyclones are typically between 100 and 2,000 km in diameter, Tropical refers to the geographical origin of these systems, which form almost exclusively over tropical seas. Cyclone refers to their nature, with wind blowing counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere. The opposite direction of circulation is due to the Coriolis effect, in addition to strong winds and rain, tropical cyclones are capable of generating high waves, damaging storm surge, and tornadoes. They typically weaken rapidly over land where they are cut off from their energy source. For this reason, coastal regions are vulnerable to damage from a tropical cyclone as compared to inland regions. Heavy rains, however, can cause significant flooding inland, though their effects on human populations are often devastating, tropical cyclones can relieve drought conditions. They also carry heat away from the tropics and transport it toward temperate latitudes. Tropical cyclones are areas of low pressure in the troposphere. On Earth, the pressures recorded at the centers of tropical cyclones are among the lowest ever observed at sea level, the environment near the center of tropical cyclones is warmer than the surroundings at all altitudes, thus they are characterized as warm core systems. The near-surface wind field of a cyclone is characterized by air rotating rapidly around a center of circulation while also flowing radially inwards. At the outer edge of the storm, air may be nearly calm, however, due to the Earths rotation, as air flows radially inward, it begins to rotate cyclonically in order to conserve angular momentum. At an inner radius, air begins to ascend to the top of the troposphere and this radius is typically coincident with the inner radius of the eyewall, and has the strongest near-surface winds of the storm, consequently, it is known as the radius of maximum winds. Once aloft, air flows away from the center, producing a shield of cirrus clouds
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Tropical cyclone naming
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Tropical cyclones and subtropical cyclones are named by various warning centers to provide ease of communication between forecasters and the general public regarding forecasts, watches, and warnings. The names are intended to reduce confusion in the event of concurrent storms in the same basin, generally once storms produce sustained wind speeds of more than 33 knots, names are assigned in order from predetermined lists depending on which basin they originate. Before the formal start of naming, tropical cyclones were named after places, objects, the credit for the first usage of personal names for weather systems is generally given to the Queensland Government Meteorologist Clement Wragge, who named systems between 1887 and 1907. This system of naming weather systems subsequently fell into disuse for years after Wragge retired. Before the formal start of naming, tropical cyclones were named after places, objects. The credit for the first usage of names for weather systems is generally given to the Queensland Government Meteorologist Clement Wragge. This system of naming weather systems subsequently fell into disuse for years after Wragge retired until it was revived in the latter part of World War II for the Western Pacific. Formal naming schemes have subsequently introduced for the North Atlantic, Eastern, Central, Western and Southern Pacific basins as well as the Australian region. This is especially important when multiple storms are occurring simultaneously in the ocean basin. Names are generally assigned in order from predetermined lists, once they produce one, however, standards vary from basin to basin, with some systems named in the Western Pacific when they develop into tropical depressions or enter PAGASAs area of responsibility. Within the Southern Hemisphere, systems must be characterized by a significant amount of gale-force winds occurring around the center before they are named, PAGASA also retires the names of significant tropical cyclones when they have caused at least ₱1 billion in damage and/or have caused at least 300 deaths. There are six lists of names which rotate every six years and begin with the first letters A—W used, skipping Q and U, the names of significant tropical cyclones are retired from the lists, with a replacement name selected at the next World Meteorological Organizations Hurricane Committee meeting. If all of the names on a list are used, storms are named after the letters of the Greek alphabet, significant tropical cyclones have their names retired from the lists and a replacement name selected at the next World Meteorological Organization Hurricane Committee. When a tropical depression intensifies into a storm to the north of the Equator between the coastline of the Americas and 140°W, it will be named by the NHC. There are six lists of names which rotate every six years and begin with the letters A—Z used, skipping Q and U, the names of significant tropical cyclones are retired from the lists, with a replacement name selected at the next World Meteorological Organizations Hurricane Committee. If all of the names on a list are used, storms are named using the letters of the Greek alphabet, when a tropical depression intensifies into a tropical storm to the north of the Equator between 140°W and 180°, it is named by the CPHC. Significant tropical cyclones have their names retired from the lists, with a replacement name selected at the next Hurricane Committee meeting, Tropical cyclones that occur within the Northern Hemisphere between the anti-meridian and 100°E are officially named by the Japan Meteorological Agency when they become tropical storms. However, PAGASA also names tropical cyclones that occur or develop into tropical depressions within their area of responsibility between 5°N–25°N and 115°E-135°E
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Antarctica
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It contains the geographic South Pole and is situated in the Antarctic region of the Southern Hemisphere, almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle, and is surrounded by the Southern Ocean. At 14,000,000 square kilometres, it is the fifth-largest continent, for comparison, Antarctica is nearly twice the size of Australia. About 98% of Antarctica is covered by ice that averages 1.9 km in thickness, Antarctica, on average, is the coldest, driest, and windiest continent, and has the highest average elevation of all the continents. Antarctica is a desert, with precipitation of only 200 mm along the coast. The temperature in Antarctica has reached −89.2 °C, though the average for the quarter is −63 °C. Anywhere from 1,000 to 5,000 people reside throughout the year at the research stations scattered across the continent. Organisms native to Antarctica include many types of algae, bacteria, fungi, plants, protista, vegetation, where it occurs, is tundra. The continent, however, remained neglected for the rest of the 19th century because of its hostile environment, lack of easily accessible resources. In 1895, the first confirmed landing was conducted by a team of Norwegians, Antarctica is a de facto condominium, governed by parties to the Antarctic Treaty System that have consulting status. Twelve countries signed the Antarctic Treaty in 1959, and thirty-eight have signed it since then, the treaty prohibits military activities and mineral mining, prohibits nuclear explosions and nuclear waste disposal, supports scientific research, and protects the continents ecozone. Ongoing experiments are conducted by more than 4,000 scientists from many nations, the name Antarctica is the romanised version of the Greek compound word ἀνταρκτική, feminine of ἀνταρκτικός, meaning opposite to the Arctic, opposite to the north. Aristotle wrote in his book Meteorology about an Antarctic region in c.350 B. C, marinus of Tyre reportedly used the name in his unpreserved world map from the 2nd century A. D. Before acquiring its present geographical connotations, the term was used for locations that could be defined as opposite to the north. For example, the short-lived French colony established in Brazil in the 16th century was called France Antarctique, the first formal use of the name Antarctica as a continental name in the 1890s is attributed to the Scottish cartographer John George Bartholomew. Antarctica has no population and there is no evidence that it was seen by humans until the 19th century. Explorer Matthew Flinders, in particular, has credited with popularising the transfer of the name Terra Australis to Australia. Cook came within about 120 km of the Antarctic coast before retreating in the face of ice in January 1773. The first confirmed sighting of Antarctica can be narrowed down to the crews of ships captained by three individuals, according to various organisations, ships captained by three men sighted Antarctica or its ice shelf in 1820, von Bellingshausen, Edward Bransfield, and Nathaniel Palmer
19.
Cray XC40
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The Cray XC40 is a massively parallel multiprocessor supercomputer manufactured by Cray. The XC series supercomputers are available with the Cray DataWarp applications I/O accelerator technology, the Pawsey Supercomputing Centre has a 35, 712-core XC40 called Magnus for general science research. This supercomputer has a power of 1.097 petaflops National IT center for science CSC computer Sisu was completed as XC40 in 2014. It has 40,512 cores with overall performance of 1,688 TFlops. High Performance Computing Center, Stuttgart has built a 185, 088-core XC40 named Hazel Hen with a performance of 7420 TFlops. Interdisciplinary Centre for Mathematical and Computational Modelling in Warsaw has an XC40 supercomputer named Okeanos with 1084 compute nodes with 128 GB of RAM each, king Abdullah University of Science and Technology has an XC40 named Shaheen. The processing power is 5.54 petaflops with 196,608 cores, royal Institute of Technology has a 53, 632-core XC40 called Beskow. The UK Met Office has selected the XC40 for its new supercomputer, the estimated processing power will be 16 petaflops with 480,000 CPUs. The United States Army Research Laboratory has an XC40 supercomputer called Excalibur, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has a XC40 supercomputer called Cori Petroleum Geo-Services has an XC40 supercomputer used for the processing of complex seismic data sets. PGS Employs Cray Supercomputer for High-Resolution Imaging
20.
Unix
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Among these is Apples macOS, which is the Unix version with the largest installed base as of 2014. Many Unix-like operating systems have arisen over the years, of which Linux is the most popular, Unix was originally meant to be a convenient platform for programmers developing software to be run on it and on other systems, rather than for non-programmer users. The system grew larger as the system started spreading in academic circles, as users added their own tools to the system. Unix was designed to be portable, multi-tasking and multi-user in a time-sharing configuration and these concepts are collectively known as the Unix philosophy. By the early 1980s users began seeing Unix as a universal operating system. Under Unix, the system consists of many utilities along with the master control program. To mediate such access, the kernel has special rights, reflected in the division between user space and kernel space, the microkernel concept was introduced in an effort to reverse the trend towards larger kernels and return to a system in which most tasks were completed by smaller utilities. In an era when a standard computer consisted of a disk for storage and a data terminal for input and output. However, modern systems include networking and other new devices, as graphical user interfaces developed, the file model proved inadequate to the task of handling asynchronous events such as those generated by a mouse. In the 1980s, non-blocking I/O and the set of inter-process communication mechanisms were augmented with Unix domain sockets, shared memory, message queues, and semaphores. In microkernel implementations, functions such as network protocols could be moved out of the kernel, Multics introduced many innovations, but had many problems. Frustrated by the size and complexity of Multics but not by the aims and their last researchers to leave Multics, Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, M. D. McIlroy, and J. F. Ossanna, decided to redo the work on a much smaller scale. The name Unics, a pun on Multics, was suggested for the project in 1970. Peter H. Salus credits Peter Neumann with the pun, while Brian Kernighan claims the coining for himself, in 1972, Unix was rewritten in the C programming language. Bell Labs produced several versions of Unix that are referred to as Research Unix. In 1975, the first source license for UNIX was sold to faculty at the University of Illinois Department of Computer Science, UIUC graduate student Greg Chesson was instrumental in negotiating the terms of this license. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, the influence of Unix in academic circles led to adoption of Unix by commercial startups, including Sequent, HP-UX, Solaris, AIX. In the late 1980s, AT&T Unix System Laboratories and Sun Microsystems developed System V Release 4, in the 1990s, Unix-like systems grew in popularity as Linux and BSD distributions were developed through collaboration by a worldwide network of programmers
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Australian Integrated Forecast System
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The Australian Integrated Forecast System is a UNIX and Linux -based processing, display, analysis and communications system for meteorological data. It incorporates facilities for the ingest and storage of meteorological and hydrological observations, tools are also provided for alerting, chart plotting and the preparation and dissemination of forecasts and warnings to the public. AIFS is currently running on AIX, HP-UX and Linux platforms in Australia, Fiji, development began in 1991 as a replacement for the Automated Regional Operations System, built on Tandem NonStop architecture
22.
Numerical weather prediction
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Numerical weather prediction uses mathematical models of the atmosphere and oceans to predict the weather based on current weather conditions. Though first attempted in the 1920s, it was not until the advent of computer simulation in the 1950s that numerical weather predictions produced realistic results. Manipulating the vast datasets and performing the calculations necessary to modern numerical weather prediction requires some of the most powerful supercomputers in the world. Even with the power of supercomputers, the forecast skill of numerical weather models extends to only about six days. Factors affecting the accuracy of numerical predictions include the density and quality of observations used as input to the forecasts, post-processing techniques such as model output statistics have been developed to improve the handling of errors in numerical predictions. A more fundamental problem lies in the nature of the partial differential equations that govern the atmosphere. It is impossible to solve these equations exactly, and small errors grow with time, present understanding is that this chaotic behavior limits accurate forecasts to about 14 days even with perfectly accurate input data and a flawless model. This approach analyzes multiple forecasts created with an individual forecast model or multiple models and it was not until the advent of the computer and computer simulations that computation time was reduced to less than the forecast period itself. The ENIAC was used to create the first weather forecasts via computer in 1950, in 1954, Carl-Gustav Rossbys group at the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute used the same model to produce the first operational forecast. Operational numerical weather prediction in the United States began in 1955 under the Joint Numerical Weather Prediction Unit, in 1956, Norman Phillips developed a mathematical model which could realistically depict monthly and seasonal patterns in the troposphere, this became the first successful climate model. Following Phillips work, several groups working to create general circulation models. The first general circulation model that combined both oceanic and atmospheric processes was developed in the late 1960s at the NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory. As computers have more powerful, the size of the initial data sets has increased. These newer models include more physical processes in the simplifications of the equations of motion in numerical simulations of the atmosphere, in 1966, West Germany and the United States began producing operational forecasts based on primitive-equation models, followed by the United Kingdom in 1972 and Australia in 1977. The development of limited area models facilitated advances in forecasting the tracks of tropical cyclones as well as air quality in the 1970s and 1980s, by the early 1980s models began to include the interactions of soil and vegetation with the atmosphere, which led to more realistic forecasts. The output of forecast models based on atmospheric dynamics is unable to resolve some details of the weather near the Earths surface. As such, a relationship between the output of a numerical weather model and the ensuing conditions at the ground was developed in the 1970s and 1980s. The process of entering data into the model to generate initial conditions is called initialization
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World Meteorological Organization
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The World Meteorological Organization is an intergovernmental organization with a membership of 191 Member States and Territories. It originated from the International Meteorological Organization, which was founded in 1873 and its current Secretary-General is Petteri Taalas and the President of the World Meteorological Congresss, its supreme body, is David Grimes. The Organization is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, the World Meteorological Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations. WMO has a membership of 191 Member States and Territories as of February 2014, the Convention of the World Meteorological Organization was signed 11 October 1947 and established upon ratification on 23 March 1950. WMO became the agency of the United Nations in 1951 for meteorology, operational hydrology. It originated from the International Meteorological Organization, which was founded in 1873, the WMO hierarchy, The World Meteorological Congress, the supreme body of the Organization, determines policy. Each member state and territory is represented by a Permanent Representative with WMO when Congress meets every four years, Congress elects the President and Vice-Presidents of the Organization and members of the Executive Council, and appoints the Secretary-General. The Executive Council implements Congress decisions, the Executive Council normally hold a session at least once a year. Six Regional Associations are responsible for the coordination of meteorological, hydrological and they meet once every four years, and elect a president and vice-president. The president of regional association is an ex officio member of the Executive Council. Eight Technical Commissions are responsible for studying meteorological and hydrological operational systems, applications and they establish methodology and procedures and make recommendations to Executive Council and the World Meteorological Congress. The Secretariat is headed by the Secretary-General, who is appointed by the World Meteorological Congress for a term with a maximum tenure of 8 years. The Secretary-General appoints all staff, including the Deputy Secretary-General and the Assistant Secretary-General, the Secretariat currently has around 300 staff. Weather, climate and the water cycle shape almost every aspect of our lives and these powerful natural forces do not recognize national borders, thus global and regional cooperation is essential. Even the accuracy of a weather forecast relies on observations from far beyond national borders. These warnings help to save lives and to protect property. They contribute to economic planning and decision-making, and help minimize the harm that weather, climate, the first step in producing weather forecasts is to gather non-stop observations of the environment from around the world. WMO develops the standards for designing these and other observing instruments and for ensuring that the collected data are quality controlled
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National Weather Service
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It is a part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration branch of the Department of Commerce, and is headquartered in Silver Spring, Maryland. The agency was known as the United States Weather Bureau from 1890 until it adopted its current name in 1970, the NWS performs its primary task through a collection of national and regional centers, and 122 local weather forecast offices. As the NWS is a government agency, most of its products are in the public domain, the agency was placed under the Secretary of War as Congress felt military discipline would probably secure the greatest promptness, regularity, and accuracy in the required observations. Within the Department of War, it was assigned to the U. S. Army Signal Service under Brigadier General Albert J. Myer, General Myer gave the National Weather Service its first name, The Division of Telegrams and Reports for the Benefit of Commerce. The agency first became an enterprise in 1890, when it became part of the Department of Agriculture. The first Weather Bureau radiosonde was launched in Massachusetts in 1937, the Bureau would later be moved to the Department of Commerce in 1940. On July 12,1950, bureau chief Francis W, the Weather Bureau became part of the Environmental Science Services Administration when that agency was formed in August 1966. The Environmental Science Services Administration was renamed the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on October 1,1970, at this time, the Weather Bureau became the National Weather Service. NEXRAD, a system of Doppler radars deployed to improve the detection and warning time of local storms, replaced the WSR-57. Bob Glahn has written a history of the first hundred years of the National Weather Service. The NWS, through a variety of sub-organizations, issues different forecast products to users, although, throughout history, text forecasts have been the means of product dissemination, the NWS has been using more forecast products of a digital, gridded, image or other modern format. Each of the 122 Weather Forecast Offices send their graphical forecasts to a server to be compiled in the National Digital Forecast Database. The NDFD is a collection of weather observations used by organizations and the public, including precipitation amount, temperature. Specific points in the database can be accessed using an XML SOAP service. The National Weather Service issues many products relating to wildfires daily, for example, a Fire Weather Forecast, which have a forecast period covering up to seven days, is issued by local Weather Forecast Offices daily, with updates as needed. The forecasts contain weather information relevant to fire control and smoke management for the next 12 to 48 hours, such as direction and speed. The appropriate crews use this information to plan for staffing and equipment levels, the ability to conduct scheduled controlled burns, and assess the daily fire danger. Once per day, NWS meteorologists issue a coded fire weather forecast for specific United States Forest Service observation sites that are input into the National Fire Danger Rating System
