Enhanced Climate Data and Analyses for Africa

The use of climate data in Africa for research and applications has been limited mainly due to poor availability of and access to quality climate time series. Weather stations are sparse, and their number has been declining over the last 50 years or so. Access to existing climate data is a challenge mainly because of national data policies, low financial investment, lack of dissemination capacity and tools, and high access costs. The Enhancing National Climate Services (ENACTS) approach led by the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI) at Columbia University has been tackling this problem by working with National Meteorological Services (NMS) in Africa and in other developing countries. This initiative helps NMS to generate long time series of rainfall and temperature. This is accomplished by combining quality-controlled data from national observation networks with satellite estimates for rainfall and climate model reanalysis products for temperature.  This is done using the Climate Data Tool (CDT), which is an open-source software developed by IRI. CDT can be used for data organization, quality control, combining station data with satellite and reanalysis data, evaluating merged and inputs datasets, performing an array of analyses, and visualization.  In addition, ENACTS also enables users to perform climate analyses, including variability and extremes, through a user-friendly online mapping service (maproom). This approach has been implemented in about 20 countries in Africa, and a few countries in Asia and South America.