AMOSSG/5-SN No. 4

21/3/05

AERODROME METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVING SYSTEMS STUDY GROUP (AMOSSG)

FIFTH MEETING

Montreal, 11 to 14 April 2005

Agenda Item	7:	Guidance material

MANUAL ON AUTOMATIC METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVING SYSTEMS AT AERODROMES (DOC 9837)

(Presented by the Secretary)

SUMMARY
A status report is given on publication of the Manual on Automatic Meteorological Observing Systems at Aerodromes (Doc 9837) and a suggested timetable for consideration of a revised edition of the manual.

1.	INTRODUCTION

1.1	The Manual on Automatic Meteorological Observing Systems at Aerodromes (Doc 9837) was developed in response a request from the MET Divisional Meeting (2002) and was reviewed by the AMOSSG/4 Meeting before being submitted for publication by ICAO. An update is given concerning the publication of this manual, and an invitation for the group to conduct a review of the manual.

2.	DISCUSSION

2.1	The group will recall that the MET Divisional Meeting (2002) called for the issuance of a manual on the use of automatic observing systems at aerodromes in its Recommendation 2/2. Following a review by the AMOSSG/4 Meeting, the manual was submitted for the editorial and translation processes to take place with the hope that it would be available to States by the implementation date of Amendment 73 to Annex 3 in November 2004.

2.2	The heavy workload of the editorial sections within ICAO has caused some delay in these processes and further significant delays have been created by the budgetary cuts imposed on the organization by the 35th Assembly. The result of these problems is that the manual has remained on the ICAO website in draft form so that it can be used by States with the proviso that editorial changes are still expected. It is not known when the final version will be published although any changes made are not expected to have any impact on the technical content of the manual.

2.3	The group is invited to consider whether a review of the draft material should be considered given the limited time provided for the review of the initial draft of the manual. The group may wish to agree that a thorough review of the technical content should be made by the members of the group. If this is agreed then detailed comments could be sent to the Secretary by 30 September 2005 for incorporation into a second edition of the manual which would be then circulated to the group for final comment. The aim would be to submit the agreed second edition for publication by the end of 2005.

2.4	The text of the draft manual is available on the study group website at: http://www.icao.int/anb/sg/amossg .

3.	ACTION BY THE GROUP

The group is invited to agree that:

a)	a review of the draft Manual on Automatic Meteorological Observing Systems at Aerodromes (Doc 9837) be undertaken by the group by correspondence; and

b)	comments thereon be sent to the Secretary by 30 September 2005.

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