Transportation Meteorological Service

China Meteorological Administration (CMA) has responded to national demands by providing meteorological support for robust transportation development. In conjunction with the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Transport, the State Railway Administration, and the State Postal Bureau, CMA has released the "14th Five-Year Plan" on Meteorological Support for Transportation. The goal is to explore the development of a contemporary, comprehensive transportation meteorological service platform. CMA offers tailor-made transportation meteorological service in terms of disasters, road sections, waterways, seas, and railway routes.

Based on the three-dimensional space, ground, air and sea-based transportation meteorological monitoring network, a modern transport meteorological service system integrating real-time monitoring, accurate forecasting, disaster warning and risk assessment has been established using physical mechanisms, machine learning, coupled interpretation and other technical means. CMA provides digital and refined meteorological factors forecasting products for transportation of any location in the country, with a time scale ranging from 10 minutes (short range and nowcasting) to monthly and seasonal scales. At the same time, with the fusion of multi-source traffic information, CMA provides traffic weather risk prediction and warning services for the impact of severe weather in different scenarios, such as engineering design, facility maintenance, operations and maintenance, safety management, to meet the needs of risk research and collaborative decision making in the transportation field.

Inquiry services are provided to the public via the Internet, mobile clients and other means to protect drivers and passengers during their journeys. Customised traffic meteorological service information is integrated into the Traffic Safety Emergency Command System to meet the demand for emergency response to emergencies, holidays and major events, as well as severe weather prevention and mitigation. In recent years, CMA has endeavored to improve services for high-impact road sections, to expand transportation meteorological services for major construction projects, and to improve meteorological support for maritime transportation in ports and shipping lanes, as well as meteorological services for multimodal transportation with logistics.

Energy meteorological service

CMA conducts research and development of new energy meteorological services and products, including wind and solar energy resource assessment and forecasting, and energy and power meteorological disaster assessment. CMA's operational resource assessment products mainly include a refined wind resource numerical simulation system, mesoscale wind resource numerical simulation products, a multi-source satellite remote sensing offshore wind resource monitoring and assessment system, a refined solar resource numerical simulation system, a satellite remote sensing solar resource monitoring system, and products such as a wind and solar resource complementarity index. Resource forecasting products include a wind-solar numerical prediction system (for the next 14 days) and monthly and seasonal wind-solar resource forecasting products. Energy and Power Weather Assessment and Forecasting products mainly include products such as forecasts of meteorological conditions for high temperature power loads in summer and forecasts of meteorological conditions for power line icing during winter cold spells.

CMA provides comprehensive and high-quality meteorological services to major new energy bases, government energy departments and energy enterprises. In terms of decision-making services, we have served 75 users, including the Operation Bureau of the Development and Reform Commission, the National Energy Administration and its dispatching agencies, provincial energy bureaus, member enterprises of the Electricity Safety Committee, the Atmosphere Department of the Ministry of Environmental Protection, and the North China Electricity Regulatory Centre. In terms of industry services, CMA regularly publishes the annual assessment bulletin of wind and solar energy resources for the industry and the forecast of meteorological conditions for wind and solar power generation in China. In terms of corporate services, CMA provides resource assessment services for pre-planning and siting of new power plants, and meteorological forecasting services for regional power grid planning, safe operation and power trading. These services have played an important role in supporting China's new energy scientific planning and design, grid connection and consumption, and energy security. Under the guidance of the National Technical Committee for Standardization of Wind and Solar Energy and Climate Resources (TC540/SC2), CMA has taken the lead in formulating and revising more than 50 national/industry standards covering a wide range of areas such as wind and solar energy observation, forecasting and evaluation.

Ecological Meteorological Service

Through the scientific evaluation of characteristic climatic resources, the standardised creation of climatic and ecological brands, the comprehensive evaluation of the benefits of brand creation, and the promotion of demonstration and leadership, CMA has helped localities make use of advantageous climatic resources according to local conditions, and promote regional ecological value realization and green development, thus serving the local ecological civilization construction. "China Natural Oxygen Bar" is one of the first batch of China's climate ecological brands, which is a useful practice of meteorological services to promote the transformation and development of local economy. In 2018, it was included in the "Guiding Opinions of the General Office of the State Council on Promoting the Development of Regional Tourism"; in 2020, it was listed in the "National Catalogue of Retained Projects for the Creation of Demonstration Activities" of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Welfare (the second batch); and in 2022, it was included in the "Guidelines on Promoting the High-Quality Development of Meteorology (2022-2035)" issued by the State Council.

By the end of 2022, 313 sites in 29 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) were awarded the title of "China's Natural Oxygen Bar". In 2022, "China's Natural Oxygen Bar Evaluation Bulletin" was published for the first time to the public, and "China's Natural Oxygen Bar Green Paper" was published four times for the industry. A demonstration platform for the establishment of climate and ecological brands of CMA was built to support the establishment and demonstration of three climate and ecological brands such as "China Natural oxygen Bar".

CMA strives to promote the climatic quality of special agricultural products. From 2019, the meteorological services of China will make full use of their scientific and technological advantages, focusing on local special agricultural products, and conduct research on the evaluation methodology of "Good Climate Products" and the practice of technical services. Relying on the independently researched and developed "Climate Quality Evaluation and Application Technology for Agricultural Products and based on Multi-source Data Integration" and the automated support platform, it will carry out regional kilometer-level climate quality evaluation, quality traceability, branding support and other technical services, effectively contribute to improving the climatic value-added of agricultural products and market competitiveness, and provide technical support for building regional community brands of special agricultural products and industrialized development.

Hydro-meteorological Service

The National Hydrological Forecasting Centre of the National Meteorological Centre (NMC) provides crucial hydro-meteorological services at a national level. These services originated from the hydro-meteorological servicesin response to the devastating floods that occurred in 1998 in the Yangtze River, Nen River, and Songhua River basins. The services were officially launched in 2002 with the surface rainfall estimation and forecasting of the seven major river basins. Starting from 2003, based on the relevant agreements jointly signed by the Ministry of Land and Resources and China Meteorological Administration (CMA), the service of geological disaster meteorological forecasting and warning during the flood season was officially launched. In 2006, NMC issued formally the flood and waterlogging disaster meteorological risk warning to better provide meteorological services for preventing and controlling farmland and urban waterlogging. In 2015, the Ministry of Water Resources and CMA jointly released the flash flood disaster meteorological warning. In2016, the flood risk warning product for small and medium-sized rivers was officially introduced.

The hydro-meteorological forecasting and warning service for river basins aims to provide risk-based meteorological warnings for disasters such as floods, flash floods, and geological hazards caused by precipitation, based on impact forecast and risk warning concepts. The service has established a national-river-provincial-city-county level meteorological disaster risk warning service system, which effectively supports hydro-meteorological services for the seven major river basins, small and medium-sizedriver basins, and the national disaster prevention and reduction system.

At present, the hydro-meteorological forecasting techniques of NMC rely mainly on independently developed statistical-based threshold models for disaster risk assessment and distributed hydrological models. These techniques are built on a seamless intelligent grid forecasting system that utilizes big data analysis and artificial intelligence technologies to create a meteorology-hydrology-geology coupled forecasting model. Starting in 2019, NMC established a comprehensive analysis and consultation support platform to meet operational requirements better. This platform is continuously upgraded and improved to serve better the integrated and intelligent hydro-meteorological forecasting and warning services for river basins.

Urban Meteorological Service

In 2021, CMA optimized the layout of urban meteorological service from a holistic perspective by convening meetings, formulating and issuing a task list for addressing the problems, and strengthening guidance and support, all for the high-quality development of meteorological service in large cities. Over the years, the guarantee mechanism for high-quality meteorological development in large cities has been further improved. Large cities have strengthened core technical breakthroughs such as urban meteorological monitoring, impact-based forecasting, and risk warning. The construction of scientific and technological innovation teams in key areas of urban meteorology has also been strengthened for the enhanced supporting capabilities for urban meteorological operations. Efforts have been made to improve the capabilities for high-precision monitoring in urban areas and then to increase the accuracy of urban meteorological forecasting and the precision of urban meteorological services. The basic supporting capabilities of urban meteorological information has also been enhanced continuously.

Large cities need to strengthen cross-department cooperation, improve the coordination mechanism for meteorological disaster prevention and mitigation, and integrate into the construction of smart cities, digital cities, sponge cities, resilient cities, and safe development demonstration cities. They are expected to provide tailor-made meteorological services for the public and improve the applicability, convenience, satisfaction, and social benefits of public meteorological services. Meanwhile, the institutional advantages shall be fully leveraged to strengthen the efforts in project approval, fund investment, and policy support. Laws and regulations for urban disaster prevention and mitigation are to be optimized and the standard formulation and modification are to be reinforced. Hence, the capabilities of meteorological services for safeguarding the urban development will be greatly enhanced.