Title: WMO Climate Monitoring Capabilities and Strategy for Development
1WMO Climate Monitoring CapabilitiesandStrategy
for Development
- Thomas C. Peterson
- National Climatic Data Center, NOAA
- Asheville, NC, USA
- and
- Omar Baddour
- World Meteorological Organization
- Geneva, Switzerland
2Outline
- Why Climate Monitoring is important
- WMOs Climate Monitoring activities
- Strategies for developing and improving Climate
Monitoring capabilities - Discussion
3Consider a city running low on drinking water
during a drought
- If you were in charge of the citys long-term
water planning, what would you do?
4The answer depends on climatic conditions
- Is this is a once in 200 years drought or a once
in 20 years drought? - Do long-term data (and model projections)
indicate that droughts of this magnitude are
tending to become more frequent or less frequent? - How could you possibly make the right decision
without climate monitoring information?
5Climate Variability and Change
- Impacts numerous societal, economic and
environmental aspects - Safety, health, food security, tourism, energy,
etc. - Therefore, coping and adapting to these changes
requires understanding their causes, magnitudes
and extent, and to predict their impacts.
6Climate Monitoring
- Provides information needed for effective
planning - As well as for operations to respond to extreme
events
WMO Bulletin April 2008
7WMO Climate Monitoring Activities
8WMO AnnualState of the Global Climate
- Since 1993
- In collaboration with the WMO Commission for
Climatology - Authoritative yet simple
- E.g., 13 heavily illustrated pages
9WMO also collaborates on the larger Bulletin of
the American Meteorological Societys Annual
State of the Climate
- Identifying potential authors
- Encouraging interactions
10CCl Expert Team on Climate Monitoring
- Including the use of Satellite and marine data
and products
- Focused on what a small international team of
experts could provide any NMHS trying to improve
their climate monitoring
11Expert Team Actions
- Started out by providing information on Climate
Monitoring to WMO Member States. - Web site with climate monitoring relevant links
- A pamphlet to provide outreach to the community
- Coordinating translation of the BAMS State of the
Climate into Spanish, Chinese, Arabic, French and
Russian so more people could read it - Publicizing important information
- Such as Guidelines for plant phonological
observations - Writing an article for the WMO Bulletin
WMO Bulletin April 2008
12By the time the 4 years ended
- Focus evolved towards building and formalizing
interactions - Enhancing collaboration between major global
climate monitoring centers - Capacity building collaboration between a
satellite agency and an individual NMHS - Lesson learned
- Interactions between scientists is the key first
step towards improving climate monitoring
13Strategy for Improving and Developing Climate
Monitoring
14The Key is Participation
- Until one attempts to monitor the climate it is
difficult to appreciate the many different things
that need to come together in Climate Monitoring
15The Importance of Historical Data
- It is the long-term data that allow one to put
current conditions into perspective - Rescue and digitize old records
16The Importance of Homogeneity
- Artificial discontinuities in the data can paint
an erroneous climate picture
- Rize, Turkey
- Discontinuity verified by metadata indicating
that station relocated in 1995
17The Importance of Cross-Border Verification
- Verification by seeing how local conditions fit
into global and regional patterns
- Highlights the importance of internationally
sharing data and information
18The Importance of Daily Data
- Cant globally monitoring daily temperature
extremes - Yet extremes are more societal relevant than
monthly average - Heat wave related to increased mortality
- Cold extremes related to agricultural damages
- The same is true for precipitation extremes
- Long-term droughts can be monitored
- But heavy flood producing precipitation events
often can not be monitored globally and put into
accurate historical perspective
19The Importance of Information, not just Data
- Even where data are not shared,
other information can be - Indices of extremes coordinated by the joint
CCl/CLIVAR/JCOMM Expert Team on Climate Change
Detection and Indices - A challenge to address in near real-time
- Reporting climate conditions in the annual State
of the Climate report is enhancing cross-border
exchange of information and collaboration on
climate monitoring. - RCCs could play an important role
20Hands-on Workshops are an Effective Strategy for
Development
- Not just listening and talking but doing also
- Photos from Caribbean Climate Extremes workshop
21Summary
- Real-time global, regional and local climate
monitoring poses tremendous challenges - A complex and multifaceted problem
- Only by attempting climate monitoring can a full
appreciation of all the processes come together - Regional workshops can jump start that process
- Society needs this information to help guide
adaptation to climate change
22Those are our ideas on how to develop climate
monitoring. What are yours?