Climate Services form one the Bureau's eight major outputs and contribute to one of the four output groups, Output 1.3 - Meteorological and Related Services and Products.

Outputs from this group include: a complete quality controlled archive of Australian and regional climate data in basic and processed forms; the provision of basic and processed climate data and information from that archive in various formats and on various media; routine Australian, southern hemisphere and global analyses of the monthly, annual and longer-term behaviour of climate; seasonal climate outlooks for Australia; and information on climate change.

OUTPUT PERFORMANCE 2004-05 

Output performance is measured against a number of quantity, quality and price targets. The results achieved for 2004-05 are provided below along with a commentary on significant variations.

Comments on output performance

The growth in automated service delivery largely results from increases in accesses through the internet and reflects the increasing demand for climate information, and was at least partly influenced by a hot and dry start to 2005 (Figure 27). The number of data and related services provided was also above the target, reflecting a 25 per cent increase on the previous year. The percentage of users satisfied with data services also exceeded the target. The percentage of regular archive entries into the national climate database that were successfully completed within preset quality control standards was above the 96 per cent target for the ninth consecutive year (Figure 28).

Figure 27. The number of monthly visits to the Bureau's climate web pages from June 2003 to June 2005.

Figure 28. The percentage of regular archive entries into the national climate database that were successfully completed within preset quality control standards (target is 96 per cent, as indicated by the black line).