Browsing by Subject "basic meteorological services"

The national meteorological service (NMS) is the nation's main, and often only, official establishment that is in charge of the production and obtaining of meteorological observations, products and services. The fundamental mission of NMS is to monitor and research national weather and climate conditions in a global context and fulfill its national and international tasks and standards. These duties are set by the world meteorological organizations (WMO), international agreements, NMS's directives and mandate and by the national legislation. Standards set by WMO are internationally applying and uniform for all members. These standards are drafted according to the weakest member's capacity hence they can be regarded as the international minimum standards for NMS. Tasks for NMS should be set at a national level and preferably reinforced with national legislation. WMO has set the following areas as most relevant for the nation to provide meteorological services to; protection of life and property, safeguarding the environment, contributing to sustainable development, promoting long-term observation and collection of data, promotion of endogenous capacity-building, meeting international commitments and contributing to international cooperation. All production of meteorological products and services needs reliable observations of the current state of the atmosphere. Nationally weather and climate observation infrastructure (surface and upper air observations) is operated and maintained by the NMS. A part of the observations is distributed globally in a WMO operated observation network. The free sharing of data is the core of international cooperation between NMSs, and has proven out to be beneficial for all parties involved and enables global weather and climate service production. At national scale, warning services are considered to be the most important service provided by the NMS. The capabilities of different NMSs differ a lot. Countries with highly developed NMS can provide a broad range tailor made services for an international clientele, whereas developing countries and least developed countries struggle to maintain basic observation infrastructure and face difficulties finding competent staff. Developing countries typically offer the bare minimum of weather and climate services, which usually covers only the most critical warning services and even the production of basic climatological services can be challenging. These NMSs need modernization in their capacity. This thesis aims to provide a general view of the minimum standards set for NMS and function as a help when assessing capacity-building cases. The topic is analyzed using information from previous publications, WMO reports and surveys, NMS published contents and interviews of selected key persons. The scope is limited to the WMO member countries.