International Meteorological Organisation

Abstract

THE International Meteorological Organisation met in London during the week beginning February 25 for its first post-war conference. Some eighty delegates, consisting of the directors and members of the meteorological services of forty-six nations, were in private session under the chairmanship of Dr. Th. Hesselberg, president of the International Meteorological Committee since 1935. Dr. Hesselberg is the director of the Norwegian Meteorological Service. The first task of the conference was to re-form its various committees and technical commissions, and to fill the numerous vacancies in these bodies which had occurred since the last meeting of the Organisation in Berlin in May 1939. Six regional commissions were also formed, partitioning the whole world; each commission covers broadly a continent and its adjacent ocean areas. The new machinery thus set up has been given instructions and guidance for adapting to peace-time purposes the many developments in procedure and technique which have been evolved during the war years. The primary object in view has been to meet the requirements of long-distance flights by civil aircraft, and to see that the full resources of modern meteorological science are made available as quickly and effectively as possible to ensure the safety and regularity of airlines operating on the international routes. Next year, the International Meteorological Organisation plans to hold meetings of all its commissions in Toronto, to be followed by a conference of directors and a meeting of the International Meteorological Conference in Washington. At the close of the London conference, Dr. Hesselberg retired from the presidency of the Organisation, and Sir Nelson Johnson, director of the Meteorological Office, London, was elected as his successor.