From: Gerhard Wotawa Sent: Thursday, 11 October, 2007 12:47 To: Zerbo, Lassina; Andreas Becker; Chen, Peter; D'Amours, Real; Glaab, Hubert; Hirtl, Marcus; Hort, Matthew; Jacobsen, Ingo; Josse, Beatrice; Katayama, Keichi; Langer, Matthias; Mino, Hiroshi; PEARCE Robert; Pechinger, Ulrike; Perron, Laurent; roland.draxler@noaa.gov; RSMC Obninsk; RSMC Tokio; Servranckx, Rene; Shershakov, Vyacheslav; Skomorowski, Paul; Song, Zhenxin; Stewart, Paul; Wortley, Stewart; Gerhard Wotawa; Zang, Yuetang Subject: CTBTO-WMO Exercise 2007 Attn WMO-Secretariat, World Weather Watch, Data Processing and Forecasting Systems / Future Regional Specialised Meteorological Centres in Atmospheric Backtracking / Chair, Nuclear Emergency Response Activities Coordination Group Dear colleagues, It is now about 2 years since the last CTBTO-WMO Experiment has been held. Meanwhile, we were informed that the WMO Executive Council has approved the inclusion of our joint atmospheric backtracking response system into the manual for the Global Data Processing and Forecasting System (GDPFS), and formal procedures are underway regarding the designation of WMO Regional Specialized Meteorological Centres for this purpose. The State Signatories to the CTBT, also in the last session of the Working Group B (technical matters), have expressed their satisfaction regarding our joint effort. Last but not least, the event in DPRK just a year ago has underpinned the importance of atmospheric transport computations. To test and validate the PTS-WMO response system before it can go into our provisional operations, we would like to perform a joint PTS/WMO Exercise 2007. This exercise is proposed to be embedded into a larger PTS-internal test scenario, which starts with the selection of an interesting seismic event and the construction of a subsequent measurement scenario by a test coordination group and our software application/development people. Within the timelines foreseen in our operational procedures, artificial/hypothetical detections will then be forwarded to us, affecting a number of stations over an extended time period. We will not know the underlying scenario until the end of the exercise. We will send out, within the agreed timelines, requests for support to the RSMCs, and we will expect operational responses within 24 hours or better. The State Parties will be informed about the test, and will receive, through the secure web page for authorised users, the hypothetical measurements as well as all backtracking computations that are delivered. This time, however, the response system will only be fed by the invited WMO Centres and not by any National Data Centre. The latter will only be involved as customer of the products. Since the unit I work in will not be involved in the scenario selection and construction process, we cannot tell you as of today when the requests for support will start or when they will end; we can only give you the following outline: * The first request will be issued by our unit in the week starting 26 November 2007 * There will only be one request for support per day * The requests will be continued until above-threshold detections are encountered at sites, but not longer then 14 days after the first detection * Clearly, the task may involve notifications/responses on weekends and after local business hours Regarding the technical specifications, we will review the instructions and communicate them in due course, but can already say now that the backtracking times requested will be substantially lengthened. The backtracking time will be 7 days on the first experiment day and will extend to a maximum of 21 days during the exercise. This needs to be considered when the models are configured. Please find enclosed an Excel Spreadsheet with the contact information of all invited WMO Centres. This may well be outdated/wrong, and we kindly ask you to review and if necessary correct the information pertaining to your Centre, and to communicate this back to us in due course. Having said all this, we would propose the following time frame: * Please send us any updates on contact addresses at your earliest convenience * By Thursday October 25, please tell us whether your Centre intends to participate in the exercise * By Thursday October 25, we will send out modifications in communication and procedures, if any, arising from our review * On Wednesday October 31st, we will perform a communication test. An e-mail message will be sent to your operational PoC, and we would just expect an answer that the message has been received. No further action. * On Wednesday November 7, we will perform a response test. We will send out a request for support to your specified operational e-mail address, and we will expect your backtracking results within 24 hours * Depending on the experience gained, further response tests may be scheduled with all or individual centres in the two weeks after November 7. Thank you very much, and we are all looking forward to our cooperation in this exciting exercise, and also in the future operational response system. Best regards, Gerhard ----------------------------------- Gerhard WOTAWA Atmospheric Sciences Officer Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization Provisional Technical Secretariat International Data Centre Monitoring and Data Analysis Section Data Fusion Unit IDC/MDA/DF PTS/PrepCom/CTBTO ---------------------------------- Vienna International Centre P.O. Box 1200 A-1400 Vienna, Austria Tel +43 1 26030 6405 Fax +43 1 26030 5973 gerhard.wotawa@ctbto.org http://www.ctbto.org/ This email message is intended only for the use of the named recipient. 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