QVA Design Review Teleconference 2022 Jan 26

Details

2022-January-26, 14:00-15:00 UTC, Webex

Agenda

1. Review the design of QVA in IWXXM (see Presentation)
2. Discuss the milestones (see this diagram on agreed workflow) on developing QVA and possibly other changes raised by WG-MOG, in anticipation (?) of delaying the approval process of Amendment 81 to ICAO Annex 3

Highlights of discussion

The model

1. The documents (METP/5 WP and subsequent WG-MOG discussion summary) provide comprehensive information on the requirements. As we are progressing to SWIM, in addition to information, it is also necessary to describe the intended information services to be applied through identifying expected consumers and use cases so that the resulting IWXXM schema can support these services.
2. Some payloads of a QVA report are directly copied from external publications, like VAAC and volcano descriptions. These could be supplemented by including references to entries of these publications to improve traceability. But first of all we need WG-MOG to identify these publications. If necessary, the WMO Codes Registry may be able to make the essential parts of such publications on-line.
3. A QVA report is supposed to describe the volcanic ash of a single volcano, and this shall not change even if the plumes of two nearby volcanos merged to form a single plume. In this particular case there will be two QVA reports for the two volcanos, even though the forecasts could be basically the same.
4. With regard to the case where a single eruption gives rise to multiple plumes (due to wind change for example), WG-MOG's advice is sought on whether there is need to identify the plumes in a QVA report.
5. For those time steps with volcanic ash concentration below the lowest category, WG-MOG to confirm if they would like to keep the time steps with nil information or not include these time steps at all.
6. The code list entries used to describe the thresholds shall be the numeric values of volcanic ash concentration instead of the verbose descriptions used in the sample instant.
7. Unique gml:identity (take WAFS SIGWX F/C as an example: <gml:identifier codeSpace="http://wafs/sigwxfc">3ae2138f-12d8-4392-b4d7-7a2d2e2e55d8</gml:identifier>) is used to identity individual QVA report and payloads it carries. WG-MOG's advice is sought if they would also like to have similar categorization for QVA reports.
8. It is understood that in the first phase of implementation an iso-surface would be described by a horizontal polygon representing the side wall and top and bottom elevations for the lids. To prepare for the future WG-MOG's advice is sought whether the inclusion of additional polygons at intermediate elevations can improve the fidelity of the plume.
9. An issue has been raise to track the progress of development of the model.

The milestones

1. It is understood that the approval process of Amendment 81 to ICAO Annex 3 will be postponed for 1 year.
2. That means IWXXM public consultation which is expected to carry out together with State consultation of proposed Amendment 81 can only be conducted in Apr 2023.
3. Participants are of the view that there are values to expose the schemas during development, albeit it is also understood that software developers will not start their development work until both amendment to Annex 3 and new IWXXM version have been approved by ICAO and WMO respectively.
4. To keep the momentum bi-monthly catch ups will be arranged. The next catch up will be held in late Mar 2022.

Attendees

• Karen Shorey
• BL Choy
• Mark Oberfield