Serendipity at 33,000ft: A Win for Metrology—Bruce Forgan's WMO Vaisala Award

Bruce is in the Atmosphere Watch section of the Bureau's Observations and Engineering Branch and is responsible for national solar and terrestrial monitoring and basic laboratory services. He received the Vaisala diploma and medal from Professor G. O. P. Obasi, Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), at a Head Office ceremony on 12 November hosted by the Parliamentary Secretary for the Bureau of Meteorology, Senator Ian Macdonald. The president and CEO of Vaisala, Mr Pekka Ketonen, was present.

Senator Macdonald offered Bruce warmest congratulations for a job very well done.

Professor Obasi cited Bruce's significant contributions to many WMO Programmes: 'The outstanding work carried out by Dr Forgan is of great importance to many operational and research applications. His new method not only enables continuous calibrations of field instruments, but has demonstrated that the accuracy of operationally applied radiation instruments can be increased at a significantly reduced cost.'

Mr Ketonen praised Bruce—and said that there was still a lot of improvement needed for international calibration.

The award, which includes a $5000 prize, recognises Dr Forgan's paper A New Method For Calibrating Reference and Field Pyranometers, published last year in the American Meteorological Society's Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology.

The paper describes a powerful technique combining a simple set of measurements and a mathematical algorithm to accurately calibrate pyranometers which measure solar radiation. The technique halves the uncertainty in routine global solar radiation measurements.

Dr Forgan, born in Mt Gambier, has a PhD from Flinders University of SA. Since joining the Bureau in 1980 he has worked in the Bureau's Research Centre and as Officer In Charge (1984–88) of the Baseline Air Pollution Station at Cape Grim in northwest Tasmania.

Bureau of Meteorology