Australia Yearbook - 2001

Chapter 1—Geography and climate 33
Regional Forecasting Centres
One of the most significant steps in the history of
the Bureau was the decision in the late 1960s to
consolidate the public weather and aviation
forecasting staff of the Bureau into Regional
Forecasting Centres (RFCs) in the capital cities.
Although it led to the need for new mechanisms
for meeting the needs of many geographically
dispersed and specialised user communities, the
establishment of the RFCs, beginning in Tasmania
in 1971, enabled the Bureau to absorb the greatly
increased demands for service which flowed from
its increased forecasting capabilities and the
increased weather sensitivity of such important
industry sectors as agriculture, coastal tourism
and offshore oil and gas operations.
The Bureau’s capabilities were further enhanced
through the progressive installation of its
Automated Regional Operations System (AROS)
through the 1980s and its subsequent
replacement by AIFS (Australian Integrated
Forecasting System) which now provides the
main specialised technological support for
Australia’s weather services nation-wide.
Global Weather Experiment
The Global Weather Experiment, the field
phase of which took place in 1979, was the
largest fully international scientific
experiment ever undertaken. It was aimed at
improving the accuracy and time range of
weather forecasting, guiding the design of
the most cost-effective observing systems for
operational forecasting and pointing the way
towards a scientific basis for climate
prediction.
Australian meteorologists were deeply
involved in the planning of the Experiment
from the early 1970s, and Australian support
for the specialised observing systems (such
as drifting buoys) deployed during 1979 was
critical to its success. For the first time, the
global meteorological research community
turned their primary attention to the
problems of the southern hemisphere
(graph C2.5) and so laid the foundation for
the enormous progress in southern
hemisphere meteorology that took place in
the closing years of the twentieth century.
C2.5 Typical distribution of data over the southern hemisphere during the 1979 Global Weather
Experiment. Open circles are land-based synoptic stations, solid circles are ships and asterisks are
drifting buoys.