Climate Data Management Systems (CDMSs) : Status of implementation in developing countries

15th Session of the Commission for Climatology

Technical Conference, Turkey, February 2010

Climate Data Management Systems (CDMSs) :Status of implementation in developing countries

By:

Albert Mhanda (Climate Change Office, Zimbabwe) &

Denis Stuber (Meteo France, France).

With the contribution of:

the Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD), Christiana Lefebvre &

the Agrhymet Regional Centre, Brahima Kone.



CONTENT

DEFINITIONS : INSTALLATION / IMPLEMENTATION

CDMS AND CDMS DISTRIBUTION POLICIES

ASSESSMENT OF CDMS STATUS in 2010 ASSESSMENT OF CDMSs INSTALLATION TENTATIVE ASSESSMENT OF CDMSs IMPLEMENTATION

CONCLUSION & COMMENTS

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DEFINITIONS : INSTALLATION / IMPLEMENTATION

DEFINITIONS CDMSs POLICIES IMPLEMENTATION CONCLUSION

Definition of " CDMS installation " :

hardware and software in place, CDMS system running;

staff have been trained in its basic capabilities.

Definition of " CDMS implementation " :

CDMS installed;

"CDMS being used on a regular and operational basis for the processing of real data observation to prepare a quality controlled data archive which is then being used to produce output for users" .

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Definition of " CDMS " :

tool to acquire, store, monitor, preserve, control and manage data; Allows data access and offers various products.



2010: AVAILABLE CDMSs

6 CDMSs are known to be used in developing countries, each of them having, at least, more than 2 installations.

Some CDMSs are under development e.g. the project of the BoM that is currently developing a CDMS for the Pacific countries.

Other National Meteorological Services (NMSs) or private companies could shortly propose new CDMSs.

CDMS License Supplier

CLICOM FREE WMO, still used, but CLICOM is no longer maintained

CLIMSOFT FREE UK Met Office initiative & an African team of 3 persons located in Zimbabwe, Kenya and Guinea

CLIWARE LICENCE / FREE Roshydromet of the Russian Federation

CLIDATA LICENCE Czech Hydrometeorological Institute & Ataco Ltd

CLISYS LICENCE Meteo France & Meteo France International

CLDB LICENCE MicroStep-MIS, private company from Slovakia


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FROM CLICOM TO NEW CDMSs…

2002 / …: installation/implementation of new CDMSs

Different distribution methods :

Workshops,

Voluntary Cooperation Programme of WMO (VCP) or bilateral cooperation,

Regional projects,

Commercial purchases.


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CDMS THROUGH WMO WORKSHOPS 1/2

toward: 51 countries, 41 developing countries of which 25 least developed countries

5 workshops:

used for the CLIMSOFT system

•2005 Pacific region•2006 Caribbean•2006 Eastern and Southern Africa•2007 Central Africa•2007 South East Asia


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CDMS THROUGH WMO WORKSHOPS 2/2

Objective:

Train adequately each NMS representative (training the future trainers) in order to let him/her implement the system when he/she gets back to his centre and trains the rest of the staff.

Advantages:

Favour synergy between users, future collaboration and partnership;

Ability to train in a short period of time several NMSs representatives;

Economical process for the trainers resource.

Disavantages:

Only 1 person of each NMS is trained;

No time is devoted to the real installation location (the NMS premises);

Difficult to assess the real implementation.


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CDMSs THROUGH WMO VCP OR BILATERAL COOPERATION

VCP: 4 countries, 3 developing countries of which 1 least developed country

Bilateral cooperation: 5 developing countries of which 1 least developed country

used for CLIDATA, CLISYS and CLIWARE CDMSs

Comments

Few VCP operations (4 in 5 years) compared to the CLICOM period (86 in 8 years)

During 1988-2007, VCP has supported 49% of the demand on CDMSs and climatological activities. There is still a demand, 51%, through VCP that has not yet received an answer.


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Caribbean Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology (CIMH) with a WMO project funded by the government of Finland on " Preparedness to climate variability and global change in small islands " that benefits 6 countries of the region;

CDMSs THROUGH REGIONAL PROJECT OR REGIONAL ORGANIZATION

20 countries, 16 developing countries of which 11 least developed countries

2 cases where CDMS installation and training was performed first in the Regional Centre to be then spread out to NMSs included in the project or in the organization:

used for CLIDATA

The advantage of a regional project is that follow-up of the components of the project (resources, training, equipment, software, etc.) are integrated and should ensure continuity

Agrhymet Regional Centre has selected CLIDATA and builds up a long term project for CDMS implementation that concerned CILSS countries and also ECOWAS countries. A total of 14 countries are already involved.




CDMSs INSTALLATION THROUGH COMMERCIAL PURCHASES

20 countries, 12 developing countries of which 2 least developed countries

Comment

Costs could be prohibitive for some countries;

Could answer the exact requirements and training needed by the NMS.

used for CLDB, CLIDATA, CLISYS


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CDMSs PER METHOD OF DISTRIBUTION: SUMMARY

Number of new CDMSs installations per method of distribution

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

Work

shop

VCP & B

ilate

ral

Regio

nal Pro

ject

Comm

erci

al

Total

Developing country

Least developed country

58% of developing countries and 82% of least developed countries have benefited from those distributions

53% of the installations through Workshops

Few VCP


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ASSESSMENT IN 2010 OF NEW CDMSs INSTALLATIONS

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

CLICOM

CLIMSO

FT

CLIDATA

CLISYS

CLDB

CLIWARE

home- m

ade

unknown

Total

Developing countries

Least Developed Countries

Still 21 CLICOM. May be more with unknown situations

CLIMSOFT is the most installed CDMS (39). But probably over-estimated due to the disadvantage of the Workshop distribution method

Nearly 20% of developing countries with an unknown situation

Potentially 35% of developing countries would have to migrate to a new CDMS (CLICOM + unknown situation)

DEFINITIONS CDMSs POLICIESI IMPLEMENTATION CONCLUSION

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ASSESSMENT OF NEW CDMSs INSTALLATIONS PER WMO REGION

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Africa

Asia

South A

mer

ica

North &

Cen

tral A

mer

ica

South-W

est P

acifi

c

Europe

Developing countries

Developing countrieswith new CDMS

RA III, South America, has yet no new CDMS installation. Among the 11 developing countries of this Region, 4 countries are running CLICOM and 7 have home-made CDMSs

Central America, RA IV, has yet no new CDMS installation. All installations in Region IV, "North America, Central America and the Caribbean", are concentrated on islands referred to by the UN term as “Small Island Developing States” (SIDS)

Except Indonesia, all new CDMSs for the South-West Pacific have been installed in SIDS


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TENTATIVE ASSESSMENT OF CDMSs IMPLEMENTATION

CLIMAT message : an indicator to assess the capability of NMSs to manage their data

CLIMAT messages are monthly messages of climatological data that should be sent by NMSs to data centres and exchanged via the Global Telecommunication System (GTS) of the WMO and could reflect the capacity of a NMS to:

collect, on time, the data of its RBCN network;

compute monthly and normals data;

code CLIMAT message;

transmit CLIMAT message.

The first three processes are part of CDMS functions.


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TENTATIVE ASSESSMENT OF CDMSs IMPLEMENTATION

Method

To compare the evolution of developing countries in producing their CLIMAT messages before and after receiving a new CDMS.

4 groups of NMSs defined, all considered as developing countries.

The objective was to compute the percentage of CLIMAT messages that has reached a WMO Centre with a correct format considering 2 time periods : 2000-2002 and 2006-2008.

Group 1 9 NMSsfrom Africa and Agrhymet

Group 212 NMSsfrom Africa non Agrhymet

Group 3 15 NMSsfrom Caribbean area

Group 49 NMSsfrom Pacific Islands

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ASSESSMENT OF NEW CDMSs INSTALLATIONS PER WMO REGION

% of CLIMAT message received

PERIOD 1

2000-2002

PERIOD 2

2006-2008

PERIOD2 –

PERIOD 1

Group 1:

Africa and Agrhymet

19.4% 23.6% +4.2%

Group 2:

Africa not Agrhymet

2.4% 8.3% +5.9%

Group 3:

Caribbean

13.5% 18.9% +5.4%

Group 4:

Pacific

28.3% 13.2% -15%

Total Average 15.9% 16.0% +0.1%

slight improvement with an average of + 5.2%

Important drop

no significant improvement of the capacity of NMSs to produce their CLIMAT message

May not be an accurate indicator (no validation of the indicator has been done);

May be too soon to detect improvement, the integration of new tools need time;

Still it indicates, as known, issue on elaboration of CLIMAT messages.


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CONCLUSION

Developing countries are still in the process of implementation of new CDMSs:

71 developing countries, 53% of the total of developing countries, are implementing a new CDMS: CLIMSOFT, CLIDATA, CLISYS, CLDB or CLIWARE;

21 developing countries are still using CLICOM and will have to migrate;

And 62 developing countries, 47%, are likely to migrate one day to another CDMS (21 CLICOM, 15 home-made and 26 unknown).

The real implementation of new CDMSs still need to be evaluated:

If the number of CDMSs installations could be counted, CDMSs implementations that is to say their “in-service” status and capacity to answer to the needs of NMSs is difficult to assess. The attempt proposed here with the analysis of CLIMAT messages shows yet no significant improvement of developing countries, with new CDMSs, in managing their climatological data…

...But a questionnaire initiated by CCl, with its expected results in mid 2010, will give a better vision on CDMSs status and determine problems and where there is need for more assistance.


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COMMENTS

CDMSs description

Key features, strengths and weaknesses of the different CDMSs have not been presented. This work is currently undertaken by CCl and would be finalised for the next CCl inter-sessional period. Technical and functional CDMSs evaluation as the one made in 2002 by WMO has been also recommended several time.

Gathering CDMSs with common practices

Standardization of processing and statistical methods (Quality Control, Data Generation, homogenisation, etc.) between CDMSs would facilitate future training and the overall coherency of data management practices. It is also the need of CDMS developers to receive precise requirements on data and metadata processes.

A long term strategy to establish for CLIMSOFT

29 % of all developing countries are assumed running CLIMSOFT. A major orientation has therefore been taken with the CLIMSOFT solution. If this approach is pursued, and if the software satisfies coming evaluations, the CLIMSOFT project would have to be strengthened in order to avoid what happened to CLICOM when the maintenance and development of the software came to an end.


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Thank you for your attention

Documents

Climate Data Management Systems (CDMSs) : Status of implementation in developing countries