The World Meteorological Day was founded by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) which is an intergovernmental organization established for meteorology and having approximately the membership of 191 worldwide Member States as well as Territories. It was first founded and originated from the “International Meteorological Organization” which was established by the International Meteorological Congress at Vienna, Austria in the year 1873. Whereas, World Meteorological Organization was first established on 23rd of March in the year 1950 and had became the specialized meteorology agency of the United Nations to operate the weather and climate from one place as well as performing the operational hydrology including all the related geophysical sciences. The headquarters of the World Meteorological Organization is in the Geneva, Switzerland which is a member of the Development Group, United Nations.
The World Meteorological Organization has been established as a specialized agency in 1951 for meteorology to keep current details about the Earth’s atmosphere behaviour, atmospheric interactions with the oceans, resulting climate and distribution of the water resources. According to the statistics of 2013, this organization includes around 191 member states and territories membership, the conference of which was held on 11th of October in 1947 and approved in the year 1950.
The policies of World Meteorological Organization are determined by the World Meteorological Congress in the meeting after every four years in the presence of every member country of WMO. The hierarchy of the system is; Permanent Representative becomes a director at National Meteorological or Hydro meteorological Service, Executive Council to apply the policies by Congress decisions, 6 regional associations in order to address the regional concerns, 8 technical commissions in order to handle technical recommendations, Secretary-General in order to lead the secretariat and manage the WMO activities with the help of regular staffs.
Why World Meteorological Day is Celebrated
The organization was established aiming establishing a big meteorological station networks contributing towards the safety and efficiency of the shipping services as well as safety and welfare of the people. It also offers very significant role towards the water resources safety, food security and transport.
A world level international cooperation is required for the continuous growth and development of the meteorology and operational hydrology research activities, as environment, weather, climate and water cycle are very natural resources which never consider any national or international boundaries. WMO is an international organization for the meteorology offering a best support for such international cooperation.
It has been playing very unique and commanding role in the field of meteorology which contributes to safety and well being of the humanity. Its leadership for organizing programs for National Meteorological and Hydrological Services provides a lot help by protecting life and property from the natural disasters. It safeguards earth’s environment and enhances the people’s economic and social well being through the security of food, water resources and transport.
An Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has been established by the WMO and United Nations Environment Programme to directly work for Global Atmosphere Watch. It has been awarded by the Nobel Peace Prize in the year 2007 for their big achievements for the man-made climate change. WMO involved in the research and training activities in the field of hydrological, meteorological, climatological and geophysical to offer safety to the people worldwide from the natural disasters as well as the human-induced disasters (like forest fire, chemical or nuclear accidents, volcanic ash and etc). Its leading role in making an international effort for closely monitoring and protecting the environmental disasters through its various launched programs is really amazing.