Abstract
Weather observations and forecasts are crucial for aviation safety and efficiency, particularly in the presence of hazards such as fog. Hence, climatological studies of this phenomenon are standard information for the aviation industry. Aeronautical stations combined with synoptic stations have to provide local and current weather conditions in two different types of reports by using the same instrumentation: SYNOP for synoptic purposes and METAR for aeronautical purposes. When climatological studies have to be carried out, the question of which type of report is more appropriate for the task arises. In this work, a comparison between these two types of hourly meteorological observation reports is made, with the aim of identifying the conditions under which differences can have a significant impact on the final results. For this purpose, SYNOP and METAR reports for the period 2000–2019 from 13 Argentine airports were selected from different databases. Results show that level of agreement depends strongly on the variable of interest. A key difference is found in “present weather” mainly due to different reporting rules. In this context, six different selection criteria using visibility, dew point depression, and present weather are used to evaluate the impact of the differences found in the fog and mist climatology. In conclusion, SYNOP data could be used instead of METAR in statistical studies if the need arises, but with the caveat that the frequency of fog occurrence should not be interpreted too strictly.
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Acknowledgements
This work was carried out within the framework of a Doctoral Thesis in Atmospheric and Ocean Sciences of the Faculty of Exact and Natural Sciences of the Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina, supported at the Servicio Meteorológico Nacional, Argentina (SMN), and funded by the Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET) of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, Argentina. The authors also thank the reviewers and the editor Dr. Ismail Gultepe for their helpful comments and suggestions that improved the manuscript.
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The author Melina Yabra has received a fellowship from Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET) from the period 2020–2025 to pursue her PhD studies. The remaining authors declare that no funds, grants, or other support were received during the preparation of this manuscript.
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All authors contributed to the study's conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by Melina Yabra. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Melina Yabra and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Yabra, M.S., de Elía, R., Vidal, L. et al. Intercomparison Between METAR- and SYNOP-Based Fog Climatologies. Pure Appl. Geophys. 181, 1337–1361 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00024-024-03447-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00024-024-03447-7