Contributions of DWD’s Data Centres to the Improvement of Climate Data Availability and Quality for Africa

Reliable weather observations are an important basis for climate change assessments and climate services. Compared to other regions of the world, long time series of weather observations are sparse in many African countries. Various activities at national or international level are ongoing to improve the availability and quality of climate databases. In this presentation, we will provide examples from international data centers hosted at Germany's national meteorological service DWD (Deutscher Wetterdienst). The international exchange of monthly climate reports (CLIMAT) is monitored within the Monitoring Centre of the GCOS Surface Network (Global Climate Observing System). In that context the data is also quality controlled and made publicly available.

Such recent climate observations can be complemented by digitization of historical hand-written weather observations which are available in distributed archives. DWD houses huge archives of historical handwritten journals of weather observations originating also from the activities of his predecessor organizations. These archives do not only comprise observations from Germany, but also of the oceans and land stations in many parts of the world. International observations are part of the marine archive (located in DWD's branch office in Hamburg) which contains (among others) the collections of the German Naval Observatory, “Deutsche Seewarte,” a predecessor of DWD that existed from 1868 to 1945 in Hamburg. It includes meteorological data records from ships, as well as from land stations in many parts of the world (e.g., from former German colonies).

International data centers, such as the Global Precipitation Climatology Centre (GPCC), collect international data. They perform quality-control of these observations and provide derived products in support of global and regional climate assessments. These activities can also contribute to the improvement of national climate databases, as e.g., demonstrated in a cooperation among selected countries with the SASSCAL initiative (Southern African Science Service Centre for Climate Change and Adaptive Land Management). Satellite-based observations are an additional source that can provide climatological information for selected parameters. In particular, the METEOSAT satellite series provides valuable data for the African continent. The Satellite Application Facility on Climate Monitoring (CM SAF) provides high resolution climate data covering the last decades derived from observations of such meteorological satellites.

Reference:

Kaspar, F., Andersson, A., Ziese, M., Hollmann, R. (2022). Contributions to the Improvement of Climate Data Availability and Quality for Sub-Saharan Africa. Front. Clim. 3: 815043. https://doi.org/10.3389/fclim.2021.815043