The Director of the Hong Kong Observatory (HKO), Mr Shun Chi-ming, was elected as a co-Vice-President of the Commission for Weather, Climate, Water and Related Environmental Services and Applications (the Services Commission) of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) at the 18th World Meteorological Congress held in Geneva, Switzerland yesterday (June 13, Geneva Time).
The Services Commission is one of the two new commissions established by the WMO, as part of its governance reform, to consolidate the existing eight technical commissions. It is the primary mission of the Services Commission to contribute to the development and implementation of globally harmonised weather, climate, water, ocean and environment-related services and applications to enable informed decision making and realisation of socio-economic benefits by all user communities and society as a whole.
"It is my great honour to serve as a co-Vice-President of the Services Commission. Having actively participated in the work of the WMO in the past two decades, I look forward to making further contributions to the WMO through my service to the new commission. The Services Commission has a much wider portfolio than that of the previous technical commission which I presided over from 2010 to 2018. Looking ahead, I will devote my best efforts to further strengthen the co-operation between the WMO and the HKO, with a view to enhancing the provision of meteorological services for the benefit of both Hong Kong and the international community," Mr Shun said.
Recent collaborations between the WMO and the HKO include the launch of the Severe Weather Information Centre (SWIC) 2.0 website and the Global Multi-hazard Alert System for Asia in 2018 to provide online platforms for aggregating warnings issued by official weather service organisations. In 2018, the HKO was also designated by the WMO as the Regional Specialised Meteorological Centre for Nowcasting and the Testbed for Doppler Light Detection and Ranging systems.
Mr Shun, who has been serving as Director of HKO since 2011, is also the Permanent Representative of Hong Kong, China with the WMO. Mr Shun was elected as President of the Commission for Aeronautical Meteorology of the WMO in 2010, the first Asian to take up this position. He was re-elected in 2014 and served in that position until his term ended in 2018.
The WMO is the intergovernmental agency of the United Nations for weather, climate, operational hydrology and related geophysical sciences. At present, the WMO has 187 member states and six member territories, including Hong Kong, China. The core functions of the WMO include the fostering of meteorological research and observations, data exchange and technology transfer, as well as relevant training and application services.
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