Chapter 2 - Climate Data and Monitoring

• THE AUSTRALIAN CLIMATE NETWORK
  • Meteorological Observations
  • Oceanographic Observations
  • Terrestrial Observations
  • Satellite Networks
• THE CLIMATE RECORD
  • Climate Data and Data Management
  • Global Climate Databases
• CLIMATE MONITORING AND ANALYSIS
  • National and Regional Climate Monitoring
  • Climate Variability and Climate Change Detection
  • Contribution to Global Climate Monitoring
• TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER
• CONCLUSIONS
• REFERENCES

The activities associated with climate data and climate monitoring and analysis have been particularly important to Australia during the evolution and progression of the 2002 El Niño event, and the subsequent widespread Australian drought. A robust and extensive observations framework underpins Australia’s climate data and monitoring program and a wide variety of accurate and timely information was provided to and used in a multitude of applications ranging from agriculture and agribusiness to social policy makers and economic forecasters.

The need for the climate research community to respond with confidence to questions about the possible influence of human induced climate change upon the dry Australian conditions experienced in 2002 highlights the importance of long term management of the Australian, and global, climate observing networks. While specialised climate networks such as Reference Climate Stations, the Regional Basic Climatological Network and the various Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) networks are crucial to accurate monitoring of global and regional climate, the climate community as a whole remains heavily reliant on the more extensive networks used for other meteorological and related applications (e.g. weather forecasting).

Underpinning all of these networks is the framework provided by the programmes of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The WMO’s World Climate Data and Monitoring Programme (WCDMP) is a component of the World Climate Programme. The purpose of the WCDMP is to promote the development of a comprehensive and dedicated climate observing system and climate data management systems, and ensure that high quality climate data from existing observations of the global climate system, including those obtained through other Programmes such as the World Weather Watch (WWW) are readily available to WMO Members. These data must be subsequently converted into formats suitable for use in modelling climate processes, detecting climate change, monitoring climate variability, developing climate applications and services and assessing the impacts of climate.

The main objectives of the WCDMP are:

• To provide regular assessments and authoritative statements on the interpretation and applicability of instrumental and proxy data for the study of climate variability, the detection of climate change, and the validation of climate models and forecasts;
  
  
• To develop awareness of the interannual variability of the global climate system and to facilitate the generation, interpretation and dissemination of this information in global and regional scale climate fluctuations;
  
  
• To support the GCOS in the maintenance and integrated development of existing observation systems, including traditional in-situ surface and upper-air observations, satellite systems and new observing technologies;
  
  
• To facilitate the development and implementation of methods to enable the rescue, preservation and management of climate data by WMO Members, especially developing countries, and to promote the international exchange of climate data and related products; and
  
  
• To coordinate the preparation and distribution of global and regional data sets, including metadata, as required for both research and the development of climate information and prediction services (CLIPS).

The WCDMP has been implemented largely through the following specific projects, with each having its own significant achievements:

• Climate System Monitoring (CSM) project;
• CLImate COMputing (CLICOM) project;
• Development of Climate Databases project;
• Data Rescue (DARE) project; and
• Climate Change Detection project.

The WMO Commission for Climatology (CCl) is responsible for promoting and facilitating activities relating to climate and its relationship with human well-being and human activities, natural ecosystems and sustainable development (WMO 2002a). At the Thirteenth session of CCl in November 2001, the CCl adopted a new structure, centred on three Open Programme Area Groups (OPAGs); Climate Data and Data Management, Monitoring and Analysis of Climate Variability and Change, and Climate Applications, Information and Prediction Services. The former two OPAGs are directly related to climate data and monitoring and are responsible for carrying out much of the work of the WCDMP. Under each of these OPAGs are several Expert Teams (ETs) and Implementation/Coordination Teams covering the broad range of climate data and monitoring requirements, and providing expert guidance and policy advice for climate programmes amongst WMO member nations. The ETs will examine several aspects of climate data and monitoring (WMO 2002b), including:

• Observing requirements and standards for climate;
• Rescue, preservation and digitization of climate records;
• Metadata for climate applications;
• National networks and observations in support of climate activities;
• Dataset catalogues; and
• Climate change detection monitoring and indices.