Public sharing session raises weather awareness

The Institute of Atmosphere Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences organized a sharing session to publicize the development of meteorological science and raise people’s awareness of it on Friday.

World Meteorological Day also was celebrated. It's been held every March 23 since 1961, this year with the theme “The sun, the earth and the weather”.

Zeng Qingcun, an institute member and winner of the 61st International Meteorological Organization Prize, shared the history and current development of atmospheric sciences.

Weather and climate predictions in the past were based on observations and personal experiences, which had many limits. What is widely used around the world now is numerical weather and climate prediction, according to Zeng, who is one of the pioneers in prediction method.

It is a complicated process to discover the laws from vast disordered data, he said. “Current big data technology may provide us with a way in the development of predicting the climate.”

With the development of numerical weather and climate prediction, the effectiveness of global weather forecasting has been improved from the previous 1 to 3 days to the current 5 to 7 days.

Last year, the prediction for Typhoon Mangkhut's landfall was limited to a range of 50 kilometers within 24 hours.

China also is contributing to international meteorological science, Zeng said.