Remote sensing of weather for aviation management

Remote sensing of weather is recognized as an important step to enhance the quality of aviation. In the last two decades important strides have been made in understanding the role of atmospheric phenomena in aviation, and devising instruments and systems for mitigating their disruptive effects. This paper provides a brief summary of some of the main developments. The diversity of the types of atmospheric phenomena that affect aviation makes their remote sensing a challenging task. The Doppler weather radar and its variants have emerged as the mainstay of the evolving aviation weather remote sensing framework. A long range Doppler radar chain is well suited to perform weather detection for en route flight operations. For the more dense flight environment of the terminal areas, specialized systems with shorter range are preferable. Emphasis has been put on automation of sensor operation, and the acquisition, processing and dissemination of information