Scientific advice and evidence in emergencies - Science and Technology Committee Contents


Memorandum submitted by the Met Office (SAGE 34)

INTRODUCTION

  1.  The last three major emergencies which involved UK Government response were weather related: Cumbria floods in 2009; winter salt shortages in 2010 and volcanic ash in 2010. Weather is undoubtedly the single risk that could be said to cut across all emergency situations. Even when not the initial cause, weather may be the direct driver of secondary factors that act to intensify the impacts, hamper emergency response or slow recovery.

  2.  All Met Office operational services, and the meteorological advice Government relies on in emergency situations, are underpinned by a strong and dynamic science base. Our proven 24/7 operational capability ensures delivery to the right people fast—through a resilient and secure infrastructure that routinely carries classified information.

  3.  The Met Office is globally unique in our capability to pull emerging meteorological and climate science directly from research—either our own or in collaboration with academia—to fully operational and targeted applications.

USING MET OFFICE EXPERTISE IN IDENTIFYING AND QUANTIFYING EMERGENCIES

  4.  Weather is frequently either the direct or a secondary driver in emergencies. The Met Office feeds directly into the annual process for assessing risk to the UK from natural hazards and is frequently an expert member of the Science Advice Group in Emergency (SAGE) convened and led by the Government's Chief Scientific Advisor. During the recent volcanic ash emergency the Met Office Chief Scientist was part of the SAGE core team (working alongside an expert from the British Geological Survey (BGS)).

  5.  The Met Office has long established links directly into the Cabinet Office Civil Contingencies Secretariat, COBR and its counterparts in the devolved administrations. We update both Official and Ministerial meetings with real-time evidence, situational analysis and impartial advice based on robust predictions enabling Government to make immediate but considered decisions.

  6.  Risks arising from natural hazards have previously, and correctly, been based largely on historical and statistical data and evidence. However, the world's climate is changing and the science community agree that the frequency of damaging weather-related events is increasing. A robust underpinning science base, delivering impartial results, is therefore vital to ensure a measured yet realistic assessment of changing risk is maintained.

  7.  An emerging issue is also the need to be better prepared for the impacts of concurrent hazards and to increase the resilience of the UK's critical infrastructure; recognising that the functionality of one critical service (eg water) is interdependent on others (power). Although infrastructure and users may be resilient to a number of hazards experienced individually, they may experience a different level and type of risk when they are combined eg the recent incident in New Zealand which saw the strongest earthquake since 1931 hit Christchurch causing widespread damage and power outages, followed by winds of up to 80 miles per hour and heavy rain which hampered the recovery efforts and caused further evacuations due to risk of flooding.

  8.  Horizon scanning is an important aspect of the Government's risk assessment process. In addition to the changing probability of weather related incidents, the UK's vulnerability is changing: the recent volcanic eruption in Iceland highlighted the vulnerability of airline operations with respect to ash plumes and the relatively recent and rapidly growing global reliance on technology, for example, has catapulted the risks from space weather to life, the economy and infrastructure to the fore bringing concern about the ability of UK infrastructure to withstand major space weather events.

RISKS PRESENTED BY SPACE WEATHER

  9.  The term space weather encompasses the conditions on the sun, the solar wind, the magnetosphere, the ionosphere, and the neutral atmosphere that can influence the performance and reliability of space-borne and ground-based technological systems.

  10.  Extreme space weather events typically occur at the solar maximum, which itself follows a roughly 11 year cycle. The next solar maximum is expected around 2012-13—potentially coinciding with the London Olympic Games.

  11.  Ionospheric storms disrupt global navigation satellite systems and high frequency communications, magnetic storms induce damaging currents in power lines and can weaken pipelines, and radiation storms affect the health and safety of passengers and aircrews. Prediction of space weather conditions can help to reduce, or avoid, the impact of space weather on our lives.

  12.  An event of the scale of the 1859 Carrington event, the most powerful in recorded history, could result in national grid failure causing power loss across significant areas of the UK for up to 12 hours, and up to several weeks if many transformers were damaged, due to the long manufacture lead times for these components.

  13.  A storm of the severity of the Carrington event could cause the permanent loss of 30% of satellites, leading to disruption of communication satellites, Earth Observation facilities and Position Navigation and Timing services, including GPS. This would have a severe impact upon global and UK monetary systems which are primarily composed of electronic accounts and assets and rely on accurate timings from GPS to synchronise trades.

  14.  A US National Academy of Sciences paper estimated that if the Carrington event were repeated today, the economic and societal costs to the USA could reach US$1-2 trillion in the first year, with full recovery taking four to 10 years.

USING MET OFFICE EXPERTISE TO PREPARE FOR AND REACT TO EMERGENCIES

  15.  The Met Office operates the London Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre, one of nine such centres worldwide, and has responsibility for predicting and monitoring the spread of ash plumes arising from eruptions in the Northeast Atlantic, including Iceland. We also host and operate the Radioactive Incident Monitoring Network (RIMNET) on behalf of DECC which records and analyses radioactive levels across the UK. The Flood Forecasting Centre harnesses meteorological and hydrological expertise jointly from the Met Office and the Environment Agency and provides flood warnings across England and Wales. We operate the National Severe Weather Warning System that ensured the UK, and emergency responders in particular, were sufficiently prepared during the severe cold and snow events of last winter.

  16.  Those responsible for directing and taking action during an emergency do so in real time, relying on skilled interpretation and clear communication of often complex information. The Met Office, as the UK's National Meteorological Service and as the preferred supplier of meteorological information under the Civil Contingencies Act, is at the forefront of providing the impartial advice and supporting evidence required to enable Government to make the best decisions possible in real time during emergencies. The emergency response community, the public, and industry and commerce also look directly to us for the authoritative information and advice upon which to base their actions.

  17.  Users of science advice must be confident in its veracity, its relevance and be assured of an organisation's capability to continue to deliver to a wide range of stakeholders. Policy makers plan and prepare according to the best advice and forward-looking analysis that science can provide. It is vital that decisions are based on the best science to ensure risk mitigation and preparedness is appropriate, cost effective and provides true value for money.

  18.  Confidence in policy and action comes from the knowledge that expert advice, and therefore the underpinning science, is robust. The UK is assured of the quality of Met Office science, operations and advice through continual benchmarking against international scientific institutes and the close monitoring by the Public Weather Service Customer Group. The Met Office is one of only two World Aviation Forecast Centres (the other being in Washington, US), and is the accredited aviation forecast provider to the CAA under the EU Single European Sky legislation.

  19.  Although the Met Office's reputation as a world leading science institute is perhaps more commonly associated with terrestrial weather, the breadth and depth of our capability, our science expertise and our role as a facilitator of academic research, is enabling a developing involvement and expertise in space weather prediction.

  20.  We already know that the military, and therefore security, is heavily dependent on space weather information. Organisations such as QinetiQ and some US departments are developing basic decision making tools but they still require an interpreter trained in space weather to make best use of the information for each customer community. The Met Office has been delivering training in space weather to our own forecast staff and to Royal Navy forecasters since 2006.

  21.  The focus of current Met Office work is to bridge the gap in the user's understanding between the scientific output in the space weather products and what this means for the user's system. For example, current space weather outputs might say, "a Coronal Mass Ejection has just occurred'; we are translating this into actionable and relevant advice such as "this has a, b and c operational implications for system X", rather than leaving the user with the difficult (and unwanted) task of interpreting the space weather information.

  22.  The Met Office is collaborating with NOAA to mirror their space weather predictions on an operational basis and to push forward with science developments. Our research into space weather has to date focussed on exploiting our existing strengths in troposphere/stratosphere/mesosphere modelling and data assimilation and we have utilised these in collaborative projects with University College London to test existing models.

  23.  We are actively engaged with space weather experts in BGS and the Science and Technology Facilities Council as well as collaborating with Bath University on an Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council Doctorate studentship entitled "Design and Development of a Space Weather Forecast System". This runs from 2009 to 2013 with the student based full time at the Met Office from autumn 2010.

OBSTACLES TO OBTAINING RELIABLE AND TIMELY SCIENTIFIC ADVICE AND EVIDENCE

  24.  When multiple hazards are experienced, Government and the wider user community may find themselves taking advice and information on each parameter separately and sometimes from conflicting perspectives. In addition to central Government departments, local authorities and civil contingency responders, over 20 agencies can be involved in providing data, intelligence and advice to decision makers.

  25.  These agencies, including the Met Office, sit within different departments, have different responsibilities and perspectives, issue warnings for different specific hazards and are developing new capabilities—both individually and in collaboration. Without a clear set of priorities or the best level of overall agency-wide and academic coordination there is potential for duplication of effort and, more critically, capability gaps may not be readily identifiable.

  26.  In real-time decision making terms, multiple sources of rapidly updating information and advice may cause delays as time is taken to assimilate and analyse data. In extreme cases, particularly where the full picture is not known to all, advice could be ambiguous, confusing or even in direct conflict. More information does not necessarily mean better advice and clarity.

  27.  There is increasing recognition of the need for cross-departmental coordination to ensure adequate mechanisms are in place to develop or enhance warning services focussed on critical areas—especially when we consider that although infrastructure may have sufficient tolerance for single hazard events, a combination of hazards may affect the total resilience of any part of the infrastructure.

  28.  Other countries, most notably the US and China, are moving towards a more integrated one-stop-shop approach to realise efficiencies across infrastructure and warning systems through the adoption of a multi hazard approach.

  29.  The Met Office already plays a unique and critical role in hazard management and in providing science advice and evidence. We frequently act as a hub for many strands of environmental information and there is an opportunity for this central role to be further enhanced by closer collaboration with existing partners and by exploiting the security and resilience of our physical infrastructure and technical expertise.

CASE STUDY (II)—WAS THERE SUFFICIENT & TIMELY ADVICE IN ASH?

  30.  The Met Office was formally appointed as one of nine International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Volcanic Ash Advisory Centres (VAAC) in 1987. Policy and operational procedures of a VAAC is set by ICAO. As a VAAC, the Met Office is responsible for issuing volcanic ash advisories of the forecast trajectory of ash from any erupting volcanoes within its designated area which includes Iceland and the Canary Islands. Six-monthly exercises are undertaken to test the ICAO European and North Atlantic contingency plan for volcanic eruptions and ensure the relevant parties are familiar with the procedures. The last exercise prior to the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull took place on 25 February 2010.

  31.  The weather forecast model which underpins the Met Office's NAME dispersion model has been subject to continuous research and development. Comparisons of the accuracy of the Met Office weather forecast model predictions with those from other weather forecasting centres consistently show the Met Office's forecasts to be within the top three in the world. The dispersion model itself has also been continuously developed and tested against other models for a range of environmental hazards since it was introduced in 1986. Indeed, this is an advantage of using a common dispersion model for multiple purposes: funding, research and expertise can be used to deliver benefit for multiple emergency scenarios.

  32.  NAME has been used to support a number of incidents including:

    (a) pollution resulting from the Kuwaiti oil fires (First Gulf War);

    (b) the 2005 Buncefield oil storage depot incident;

    (c) the 2001 and 2007 Foot and Mouth disease outbreaks;

    (d) the 2008 Bluetongue outbreak in northern Europe; and

    (e) the Icelandic volcanic eruption in 2010.

  It is also used more routinely to support smaller, potentially hazardous incidents such as tanker vehicle fires and to provide air quality forecasts. There are numerous papers in the peer reviewed literature which compare the performance of NAME to similar models and, where possible, observed data. The most relevant is a comparison of the London, Darwin, Washington, Montreal and Toulouse VAAC models undertaken following the Grimsvotn eruption in 2004. The comparison of ash dispersion predictions from all five VAAC models showed good agreement, despite the different model details and meteorology used.

  33.  The Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland erupted in March 2010, though the specific location of the fissure, the intensity of the eruption and the prevailing weather conditions meant that the impacts were largely confined to Iceland. On 14 April 2010 however, a much more intense and sustained eruption took place towards the centre of the crater under a glacier. The resultant ejection was more explosive with a high concentration of solid particulates.

  34.  The Met Office's Environment Monitoring and Response Centre (EMARC) was notified by the Icelandic Meteorological Office (IMO) of the eruption and instigated standard procedures in line with ICAO guidance. The NAME dispersion model was run twice a day to provide forecasts of the location of the ash. These predictions were used in conjunction with any available observations of the ash to generate the VAAC Advisory graphics and associated text messages. It is standard weather forecasting process that a trained forecaster combines forecast model information with observational data to provide a prediction. This same interpretation of the model output also formed the basis of advice the Met Office provided to the relevant parties. Whenever the Met Office was notified of a significant change in the volcano's behaviour by IMO, either in terms of the amount of material emitted or the height to which it was emitted, the dispersion model was re-run. VAAC forecasts were issued at 0, 6, 12 and 18:00 hours GMT every day.

  35.  During the course of this event the Met Office was in contact through telephone conferences and email with the following organisations:

    (a) CAA;

    (b) NATS and through them the airlines and airports in teleconferences;

    (c) the Department for Transport and other Government departments;

    (d) Eurocontrol and through them other air traffic control organisations;

    (e) European aviation met services and through them other national regulators;

    (f) European Met Watch Offices;

    (g) Other VAACs, in particular VAAC Toulouse who would have been responsible for providing predictions should the Met Office's system have failed;

    (h) ICAO (European office and Montreal Office);

    (i) World Meteorological Organization; and

    (j) NERC for the provision of airspace and surface monitoring facilities.

  The Met Office was in regular contact with each of these bodies, in most cases several times a day. Guidance was provided to the RAF through our Defence forecasters as part of our standard briefing process. We also participated in, and provided briefings to, COBR and its Scottish equivalent, SAGE, the Health Protection Agency and Defra.

  36.  As is normal practise the Met Office established an Incident Management Team to oversee all aspects of its involvement in the incident.

  37.  Paragraph 3.4.8 of the ICAO Manual[54] makes clear that there were no agreed values of ash concentration which constitute a hazard to jet aircraft engine. The recommended procedure was therefore to avoid flying through any concentration of volcanic ash. The Met Office was asked to provide its forecasting and advisory services to the CAA on this basis. The model threshold used as the basis for delineating areas of ash in London VAAC guidance was based on the data in a table used in the Volcanic Ash Forecast Transport and Dispersion (VAFTAD—a model used in the USA).

  38.  In response to VAAC London advice that the "ash cloud" would cover much of Europe, many European nations' aviation authorities closed airspace during the period 15-23 April 2010. The unprecedented scale and impact of the Icelandic volcanic eruption prompted airlines and aircraft manufacturers to agree between themselves a safe level of atmospheric ash concentration which the CAA promptly endorsed. Once these new standards were agreed, the Met Office was asked to modify its advice to provide differing sets of analysis depending on the concentration of ash in the atmosphere. These products were issued as supplementary guidance to the official VAAC advisory graphics.

  39.  Throughout the incident work was ongoing to extend the capability of NAME to represent more fully the specific nature of the Eyjafjallajökull eruption[55] and develop additional products to help Cabinet Office, the civil aviation industry, MOD and Defra to manage the incident. Development occurred at pace, but always in such a way as to ensure resilience of the production capability, with many more staff than normal working shift patterns and being on call to ensure we could respond promptly to changes in volcanic activity or customer needs.

  40.  In parallel with providing forecasts of the ash trajectory it was necessary to obtain observations of the ash cloud, the size, location and concentration of the particles. These were needed to:

    (a) determine the height to which the volcano was erupting and how much material was being emitted;

    (b) manually adjust the extent of the ash cloud before issuance of the VAAC product;

    (c) assist regulators in tactical decisions about opening/closing airports;

    (d) provide data to assist engine and airframe manufacturers in determining safe limits; and

    (e) help convince the public, media and airline industry the threat was real.

  41.  Three sources of observational data exist: satellite data, in-situ data taken from an aircraft and remotely sensed ground based observations. All three sources of observation have limitations and concentration and particle size estimates have significant error bars associated with them. Whilst it is possible to provide ash/no ash observations relatively quickly and initial estimates of concentration ranges, these observations need time-consuming and lengthy analysis before concentration and particle size data estimates can be quoted with confidence.

  42.  The Met Office has access to large amounts of satellite derived products; some are fully operational others are still in development. These were routinely used, particularly to help assess the height to which the volcano was erupting and the extent of the ash. However satellite derived products have a number of limitations, particularly in cloudy conditions, often prevalent in northern latitudes, or when the ash particles become coated in ice.

  43.  Ground based observation assets are limited, but inventive use of the assets did help to observe the plume. The Met Office contacted colleagues in academia and using both Met Office, NERC and academic instruments it was possible to obtain data for up to six fixed locations within the UK from 15 April 2010. These data were supplemented by information from the Met Office's standard network of cloud observing equipment.

  44.  The Facility for Airborne Atmospheric Measurements (FAAM) BAe 146 aircraft (jointly leased by NERC and the Met Office to perform atmospheric research) was unavailable at the start of the eruption as it was stripped down for essential maintenance. Instruments were transferred from it to the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Dornier 228 aircraft which flew four flights until it suffered engine damage on 19 April 2010 which was later found to be consistent with sulphuric acid. The BAe146 was re-equipped and flew 11 missions between 20 April 2010 and 18 May 2010. The Met Office played a key role in planning these flights and provided scientists to help staff the flights and analyse the data.

   45.  The Met Office also contacted its European and North American counterparts to ask for assistance in providing observational data of the "ash cloud". This provided access (not necessarily in real time) to additional ground based observations and satellite products which were under development. Of particular value however was the assistance provided by the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) in conjunction with the German Met Service (DWD). They provided intelligence from their research aircraft which undertook flights in both UK and European airspace, complementing the flights undertaken by the BAe 146 and Dornier.

  46.  The Met Office also explored options with MOD and its supply chain for the provision of additional UK assets (including Unmanned Airborne Vehicles) which would be suitable to provide additional data. When all suitable assets were found to be deployed on operations joint Met Office and FCO diplomatic communications with the US were started. One member of Met Office staff was transferred to the UK Embassy in Washington to help negotiations and provide briefings on the situation.

IMPORTANCE OF COORDINATION AND HOW IT COULD BE STRENGTHENED

  47.  Weather systems and other natural hazards do not respect international boundaries and hence international cooperation is often essential in the management of weather related hazards. This is particularly true if the event involves the transport of material (volcanic ash, chemical, biological or nuclear agent) which has been emitted into the atmosphere and is thus able to be carried long distances by the wind.

  48.  Nor do they respect the delineation between Government Department and research body responsibilities. Better coordination of expertise and developing capability has already proven successful in the Flood Forecasting Centre. This partnership between the Met Office and the Environment Agency provided much clearer and longer lead times for warnings during last year's Cumbrian floods and there is scope, through further partnerships, to expand this concept to encompass other natural hazards in a single warning and monitoring centre.

  49.  An example of international partnering to the benefit of all participating countries is in space weather where the UK has the data assimilation skills lacking in the US and the US has the satellite, solar modelling and predictive capability. Partnerships like this, whether where UK national and international concerns coincide or in drawing cross-Government capability together in the UK, would undoubtedly result in a more cost effective final solution and on a time scale much increased than each partner alone would otherwise achieve.

THE MET OFFICE

  The Met Office is a Trading Fund Agency owned by MOD. We are a world leading scientific organisation, both in the field of weather forecasting and climate prediction. An independent review of the Met Office Hadley Centre published in 2007[56] acknowledged the pioneering nature of our work and our position at the "pinnacle of global climate science".

  The Met Office is globally unique. We offer prediction across all timescales (weather and climate) using a single, highly sophisticated computer forecasting model and drawing from an extensive, shared observations network.

  The Met Office operates the Public Weather Service (PWS), which is funded by Government through MOD, providing operational forecasts to the public—including the Severe Weather Warning System—and fulfilling international commitments on behalf of the UK Government.

  Weather forecasting has improved rapidly in the last 10 years and the latest figures from the World Meteorological Organization (a UN agency) show definitively that the Met Office is the most accurate operational weather forecaster in the world. These improvements are bringing real and genuine value to the economy: an independent report from 2007 concluded that for every £1.40 of public money invested in our Public Weather Service alone, the Met Office returned over £10 of savings to the UK taxpayer. The report also acknowledged how investment in the PWS enabled the development of the science that underpins the UK's response to incidents as diverse as Buncefield, Volcanic Ash and outbreaks of bluetongue among UK livestock.

  Although the Met Office has no statutory responsibility it is identified as the preferred supplier of meteorological information and services under the Civil Contingencies Act.

Met Office

16 September 2010







54   The ICAO Manual on Volcanic Ash, Radioactive Material and Toxic Chemical Clouds states: "Unfortunately, at present there are no agreed values of ash concentration which constitute a hazard to jet aircraft engines. This matter is discussed in detail in Chapter 4, but it is worth noting at this stage that the exposure time of the engines to the ash and the thrust settings at the time of the encounter both have a direct bearing on the threshold value of ash concentration that constitutes a hazard. In view of this, the recommended procedure in the case of volcanic ash is exactly the same as with low-level wind shear, regardless of ash concentration: AVOID AVOID AVOID" Back

55   No two volcanic eruptions, or indeed natural hazard events, will be the same. As the event unfolds and more observational data becomes available it is possible to refine the modelling to provide more specific advice. Back

56   Hadley Centre Review 2006 Final Report; a report for DEFRA/MOD-Risk Solutions March 2007 Back


 
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