Professor Ellul runs the University (GAW) Atmospheric Research station located at Ta’ Gordan lighthouse, Ghasri and is project leader of a University initiative to upgrade this facility by the end of this year using EU Structural funds.
He has discussed and agreed with many participants at the workshop, new initiatives for Pollution and Climate Change research programmes to be implemented as from next year. These include many German and Swiss organisations and research institutes as well as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) at Boulder, Colorado, the leading United States organisation in the field.
At the moment the brunt of measurement programmes worldwide is being borne by the Swiss, German and United States agencies. The Japanese Meteorological agency archives all data obtained worldwide, while the Ghasri Ta’ Gordan lighthouse station is responsible for results from the Mediterranean.
Professor Ellul will be holding a lecture to which the public is invited on Friday, the 29th of May between 7pm and 8pm at the Ministry for Gozo, St Francis Square, Victoria. He will be summarising the last 12 years’ work, carried out by the University of Malta as the responsible Maltese academic entity appointed by WMO to run the GAW station.
Professor Raymond Ellul, who heads the Atmospheric Research Unit of the Physics Department, University of Malta, attended the Quadrennial Global Atmospheric Watch (GAW) meeting held at the World Meteorological Organisation, Geneva, Switzerland from 5 to 7 May 2009. He presented a paper entitled Summarising a twelve year study of Atmospheric Pollution in the Central Mediterranean – The way forward.
Professor Ellul also chaired the working group on Network coverage and quality, role of supersites for testing new methodologies and techniques. The conclusions of this working group are passed to the Plenary Session and form the basis of the strategy for the measurement programme of WMO for the next four years.