REPORT OF THE IAMAS ACTIVITIES DURING 1998

Roland List, Secretary General

1. ASSEMBLIES

At the IUGG General Assembly Birmingham, 18-30 July 1999, IAMAS is sponsoring 1_ Union Symposia, and has planned 41 IAMAS-led Symposia and Workshops, consisting of 10 Inter- Association Symposia, 12 Inter- Commission Symposia, 11 Commission Symposia, and 8 Workshops in 8 parallel meetings for the 2-week duration of the Assembly. Further, IAMAS co-sponsores 2 Union and 14 Inter-Association Symposia (for details see IAMAS Home Page http://iamas.org). The schedules for the presentations (1300 submissions) will be finalized soon.

The preparations for the IAMAS General (Administrative) Assembly, Birmingham, 21 & 28 July, involve a new section of Statutes on Nomination Procedures. A circular letter to all Member Countries and National IAMAS Representatives has been prepared with the proposed changes of Statutes and a call for nominations for the new Executive Committee.

The IAMAS Assembly in 2001 will be held in Innsbruck, a historic city with impressive convention facilities. Professor Michael Kuhn will be in charge. We need to think about how to use an auditorium with 500 seats everyday. Could we launch 10+ “Presidential Lectures”? Are there enough hot topics at the forefront of the atmospheric sciences or exciting survey lectures to inform the “others” on the Status and Future of the Atmospheric Sciences?

2. THE WORLD METEOROLOGICAL ORGANIZATION, WMO

As IUGG Liaison Officer, SG attended the 49^th Executive Council Meeting, EC of WMO in Geneva. ECIL served mainly to prepare next year’s Congress. There is a “no-growth” budget for the next financial period and the new 10-year plan is just a extrapolation of the past; there are no new priorities. The dramatic and sometimes traumatic changes within certain weather services have not been taken as a signal for necessary sweeping action. - Of great concern to IUGG is the way WMO deals with the access to and exchange of observational data. It is obvious that next WMO Congress XIII will deal again with this issue. It will be necessary for IUGG to have a statement ready for WMO Congress XIII.

2. ALLIANCE FOR CAPACITY TRANSFER, ACT

ACT, an Alliance between WMO-IUGG-UCAR (University Corporation for Atmospheric Research), will be using the Internet to exchange information, knowledge, technical know-how, data and software between WMO, the National Meteorological and Hydrological Services, the Atmospheric Physics Departments of Universities, Research Institutions, individual scientists and the Private Sector. ACT is coordinated for IUGG by IAMAS SG and funded by IAMAS. ICSU has just approved a request by IUGG and SCOR, worked out by President Duce and SG, for a grant of $30000 to hire a part-time Web Master.

Presently address lists are being assembled, needs and interests are being determined, and discussion, mentoring and help groups are being considered. WMO has a wealth of information on its Web, and UCAR has already a prototype home page for ACT. A big effort will soon be made to get funding from national and international bodies for Internet access by scientists and institutions from developing countries. It is hoped that 20-30 servers could be installed per year, for 3 years - to start with. The provision of servers would be paralleled with training courses.

4. ADMINISTRATIVE MATTERS

Financial accounting for IAMAS is now nearly automated on Spreadsheet. Thanks to the contributions of by the Canadian Atmospheric Environment Service, AES, the University of Toronto, SG’s personal absorption of expenditures and a strict husbanding of resources the IAMAS reserves have risen to ~$70k, closer to the goal of $100k, the minimum buffer in view the fickleness of the funding of IUGG by ICSU.

The IAMAS addresses are now on an electronic Address Book. Mailing is a great concern considering that one shipment of regular letters to all national representatives is easily $1000/ shipment. Thus, the great advantage to use e-mail and the new IAMAS Webpage: http://iamas.org. IAMAS Reports will be listed there and will be available for downloading. Otherwise, distribution by diskettes will take place, and only a few hard copies will be made ready for archival purposes. The annual budget of $25000 is just not sufficient for more.

SG has attended a 2-day Workshop on Machine Translations in order to get an idea about the state of the art. He also served on a IUGG Committee to examine the newest follies of ICSU, which tries to be everything to everybody, thereby losing the connections to its roots, the Unions.

9.3.1999

R. List