New data and improved data processing for ECA&D and ICA&D

The International Climate Assessment & Dataset (ICA&D) contributes to the provision of climate services in regions across the world. ICA&D provides both climate data and tools for climate monitoring. It supports the WMO Regional Climate Centers in carrying out their mandatory functions. 

In WMO Regional Association VI (Europe and the Middle East), the European Climate Assessment & Dataset (ECA&D) has fulfilled this role for the last 25 years. It is what the ICA&D concept was derived from. ICA&D has already been implemented by the Indonesian meteorological service as the Southeast Asian Climate Assessment & Dataset (SACA&D) and is currently in development in the Caribbean, West Africa and Southern Africa regions.  

ICA&D facilitates the sharing of daily meteorological surface observations from countries in a given region with meteorological services in that region and with scientists worldwide, and derives climate monitoring products from these observations. Examples are the climate indices of extremes, such as the number of warm or dry days, which can be monitored over time to assess climate change.  

In the last few years, EU regulations have led to the sharing of more and more national weather data in Europe. A large number of new daily time series became available for ECA&D, also in previously data sparse areas such as Italy. This increase in data also requires us to upgrade our data processing techniques to be able to efficiently and reliably serve the information products. 

Here we will give an overview of the new data that’s available for ECA&D, the plans for improved data processing and the status of the implementation of ICA&D systems around the world.