Data Exchange with the Research Sector - the World Meteorological Organization Perspective

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) approved the Unified Data Policy in 2022, and different groups are working on its implementation under the coordination of the Commission for Observation, Infrastructure and Information Systems  (INFCOM), through the Focus Group on Data Exchange Policy. The WMO Research Board coordinates the actions on data exchange with the research sector through a dedicated Task Team: Task Team on Data Exchange with the Research Sector (TT DERS). The TT DERS’ main activities aim to accomplish section #4 of the WMO Resolution: Members should provide without charge access to all recommended data to public research and education communities for non-commercial activities. They consist of: i. Consultation with research communities dealing with weather, climate, water, cryosphere, and atmospheric composition on data exchange availability; ii. Involvement of research communities to monitor implementation and identify problems/opportunities; iii. Identification of case studies or use cases to be documented as best practice exemplars; iv. Outreach to National Meteorological and Hydrological Services on the benefits of data exchange with the research and academia.

Preliminary analysis revealed that:

• Reasons for not sharing the data at the national/regional/international level are different from one region/country to another: lack of data, personnel to organise the data basis, or infrastructure to store/pre-process the database, national data sharing policy and regional geopolitical sensitivities;
• There are big differences in approach for freely sharing the data in neighbouring countries;
• Access to hydrological data is more critical than weather and climate data;
• Access to observation data, especially for the old period for which they are not in a digital format, is quite limited.

WMO can support the Member States in exploring the possibility of integrating data from other sources when data are missing, developing the capacity and infrastructure, or providing recommendations to agree the national regulations with the WMO resolution.

In some situations, especially in developing countries, no particular reason for not sharing the data with the research community was identified. Thus, we assumed there was no will to share the data rather than objective limitations in doing it. Under these circumstances, the role of the WMO through the TT DERS and other bodies is to advocate for mutual benefit data sharing and finding those triggering factors (such as receiving funding, improvement of weather and hydrological forecast, better quality of climate/hydrological services) that could change the attitude, to encourage mutual exchanges of data and infrastructure, and make use of strategic communication.