World Meteorological Orgnisation, Regional Association V,
Data Management Training Workshop

29^th November - 3^rd December 2004
Australian Bureau of Meteorology
700 Collins Street
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

The WMO World Climate Data and Monitoring Programme (WCDMP) frequently run data management and other climate workshops, principally for capacity building purposes, and also to explore new developments and possible options for meeting either general requirements or needs that are specific to one or more particular regions.

There are several reasons why such a workshop should now be held in RAV. These include:

• Several RAV countries need to make the transition from CLICOM to a more modern database system, and a broadly based data management workshop will be useful in acquiring a more precise understanding of the needs of the Region for future systems;
• The Pacific Island GCOS (PI-GCOS) initiative has expressed interest in fostering data management activities for Pacific Island Countries (PICs); and
• There is a need to provide training to RAV NMHS staff in recent developments in climate data processing and management.

The workshop has the overall aim of improving the capacity of countries within RAV to manage climate data effectively along with the following specific objectives:

• To enhance knowledge of climate data management practices and procedures;
• To provide instruction and guidance on data structures, quality processes, data rescue, data access and other priority areas of data management;
• To demonstrate modern database systems and principles relevant to projected RAV needs; and
• To review climate data management needs of RAV with the aim of collecting requirements for possible future developments.