Contributions to the Improvement of Climate Data Availability and Quality for Sub-Saharan Africa

Frank Kaspar,Axel Andersson,Rainer Hollmann,Markus Ziese

doi:10.3389/fclim.2021.815043

Abstract

Reliable weather observations are the basis to assess climate change and variability. Compared to other regions of the world, long time series of weather observations are sparse in many countries of Sub-Saharan Africa. Various activities at national or international level are ongoing to improve the availability and quality of climate databases. Here, we present ongoing international contributions with a focus on representative examples 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 also quality control is performed and data are made publicly available. Recent climate observations can be complemented by digitization of historical hand-written weather observations which are available in distributed archives. 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. Based on these examples the paper illustrates the variety of ongoing international efforts in support of regional observation-based climate information, but also identifies the needs for further activities.

Highlights

In recent decades the mean temperature of the African continent has increased at a rate comparable to that of most other continents (WMO, 2020)
Surface radiation, and cloudiness, are important parameters for applications in the energy sector or for modeling evaporation in applications related to water or vegetation
The “second edition of the Surface Solar Radiation Data Set - Heliosat” (SARAH-2, together with the update to SARAH-2.1) is a satellite-based climate data record of a set of radiation parameters: solar surface irradiance, surface direct irradiance, sunshine duration, spectral information, and the effective cloud albedo. They are derived from satelliteobservations of the visible channels of the MVIRI and the SEVIRI instruments onboard the geostationary METEOSAT satellites (Kothe et al., 2017; Pfeifroth et al., 2017, 2018, 2019)

Summary

INTRODUCTION

In recent decades the mean temperature of the African continent has increased at a rate comparable to that of most other continents (WMO, 2020). The GCOS Surface Network Monitoring Centre (GSNMC) monitors the exchange of monthly climate reports (“CLIMAT”) These data are collected, quality-controlled, archived and published through international data centers. Several international data centers collect recent observations and historic time series of meteorological data and use them to derive assessments of climate and climate change at the regional and global scale. The Section “International Availability of Regional Climate Observations” provides information on the status of regional data availability based on the monitoring activities of the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) Surface Network Monitoring Centre (GSNMC). The GCOS Surface Network Monitoring Centers (GSNMC, operated by DWD and the Japan Meteorological Agency JMA) monitors the global exchange of CLIMAT reports. The need for improvement of local capacities for data handling and transmission has already been identified and initial steps have been undertaken (see section “International Cooperation”)

Background

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS