Atmospheric Data Collection, Processing and Database Management in India Meteorological Department

Abstract

The availability of a proper meteorological database is a major prerequisite for studying the processes of climate by scientists and policy makers. The acquisition of pertinent meteorological data, timely access and database management are important components that make the climate information valuable. New technologies in the field of communication and great strides in the automation age have offered new ways of making data products available to the user community. Data collection and database management are the key components of the availability of climate data. Due to increased observation frequency, huge amounts of data are received at data centres. Fast and effective quality control for identification and flagging of suspicious observations is needed at the data centres to provide easy access to information and dissemination of quality assured observations to the users. India Meteorological Department (IMD) collects, processes, archives and disseminates a wide range of weather, climate and other environmental data generated by the department’s observational network.With the installation of ‘CliSys’ Climate Database Management System (CDMS) in the National Data Centre located at Pune, the data acquisition and processing operations have been automated. This system provides a set of tools and procedures that allow all data relevant to climate studies to be properly stored and managed. It serves the main objectives of climate data collection, storage, quality control, easy access, data protection, climate data analysis and customized product generation.