Return to diagram
GSN Monitoring Centers in Germany and Japan
GCOS has welcomed the offers from the Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD) in Germany and Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) to act as "Monitoring Centers" (MCs) for the real time distribution of the GSN data. Such a "lead center" in the WMO system is an operational center that carries out additional quality control on the data in the course of its use and reports the detection of consistently low quality data to the WMO Secretariat and the collecting activity for remedial action.
See Annex C of the Report of the Second Joint CCl/CBS Meeting on the GCOS Surface Network, De Bilt, The Netherlands, 25-27 June, 1997 for information on some of the QC procedures that are available for use with the GSN data.
The two MCs will provide real-time monitoring and quality control of the CLIMAT data for the user community. The monitoring products will include information on data availability, timeliness and quality. The quality-controlled data and the products will be made available in near real-time, on a monthly basis to, the National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs), the World Data Center A (WDC-A) for Meteorology in the US, and others for use in a variety of climate change products.
The monthly data is submitted to the WDC-A for archival and to provide clients not on the GTS with access to the quality controlled data in a timely manner.
Both centers intend to work with an identical database and use the same software. The centers will use the CLIMAT messages collected up to the 20th day of the month. The MCs will deliver the monitoring products on the 10th day of the following month. Nevertheless, GSN CLIMAT data could be made available sooner.
To avoid duplication of work, the JMA and DWD agreed on individual areas of responsibility, i.e., RA II, RA III, RA V for JMA; and RA I, RA IV, RA VI for DWD.
Return to diagram
GSN Lead Analysis and Archive Center (NCDC)
GSN Analysis Center
The US National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) in Asheville, North Carolina, is the GSN Analysis Center. In this role NCDC is acting as a CBS Lead Centre for GCOS Data. The GSN Analysis Center provides higher-level quality control of both the daily and monthly GSN data.
• For the daily data, this will include updating and quality-controlling the data, applying bias corrections, calculating monthly statistics from daily data and providing daily and derived monthly data, metadata and products to users;
• For the monthly data, this will include analyzing the data; improving bias adjustments and the monthly station data base; creating global and regional monthly statistics; and developing and providing gridded products with reduced biases;
• The centre will also report on historical data and metadata reception.
GSN Archive
The US National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) also serves as the GSN Archive. It had been decided that the archive should be co-located with a World Data Centre (WDC) or recognized, established data centre for meteorology.
• It will archive both the monthly and the daily data (in delayed-mode), as well as historical data, including metadata, for each station.
• A GSN archive will make all GSN data and products available to all potential users on a free and unrestricted basis.
• Data in the WDC may come either from data available at WDCs (e.g., from the Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN)); from quality-controlled data available at the Monitoring Centres; from data submitted, upon request, by national centres (e.g., NMHSs) and available digitally and updated on a routine basis, or from any other source openly available to the archive for unrestricted further distribution.
Return to diagram
WMO, GCOS Secretariat
The WMO Secretariat receives reports and statistics on stations that are producing consistently low quality data. The WMO Secretariat notifies the appropriate agency in the Member country giving advice and requesting the resolution of problems in data collection and submission.
Return to diagram
Users of GSN Data
Services to Users from the GSN Archive
Content: Copies of monthly and daily data and supporting meta data on request
Format: Various including ASCII files and documents.
Frequency: On request.
Availability: On request and online
Reason: To make the data available to users of GSN data for research, engineering, strategic planning, medium to long term forecasting, etc.
Return to diagram
Submissions of Delayed Mode Data to the GSN Analysis and Archive
Content: Copies of the monthly and daily data in digital form for the GSN stations, with supporting meta data in regard to instrumentation, QC, and analysis, etc.
Format: Digital with supporting meta data in digital or analogue form.
Frequency: Submitted on a regular basis.
Availability: Available from the GSN Archive after further processing and quality control.
Reason: To provide data that have been quality controlled by the originator with complete and accurate supporting meta data for the GSN Archive.
Return to diagram
QC'd Monthly Data and Monitoring Products
Content: Monthly data after QC by the GSN Monitoring Centers with information on monitoring results.
Format: As mutually agreed.
Frequency:. Monthly
Availability: These data and information are available to any interested users.
Reason: Data are supplied for further analysis and quality assessment by the GSN Analysis Center and for archival in the GSN Archive for delayed mode users.
Daily and Monthly Data on the GTS
Content: SYNOP and CLIMAT reports for the GSN stations containing daily and monthly averages of temperatures, pressures, precipitation, etc .
Format: WMO Code form FM 71-XI CLIMAT, FM 12-XI SYNOP.
Frequency: Monthly
Availability: Available to all organizations with access to the GTS.
Reason: To provide data for monitoring of atmospheric climate variables. The SYNOP data provides individual observations that can be used for quality assessment of CLIMAT data and for more detailed analyses of trends and variability. The data are also used by NMHSs for operational forecasting and other purposes.
Return to diagram
Requests for Conformance to Standards and Agreements
Content: Summaries of reoccurring errors or missing data
Format: ASCII files and documents.
Frequency: As required
Availability: To member state operating the GSN stations in question
Reason: To advise on problems with data availability and errors and to request the operator to address the problems to achieve at least minimum standards for the station.
Return to diagram
Monthly Monitoring Products
Content: A monthly evaluation of the quality of the data from the GSN stations
Format: Documents and statistical presentations on station performance
Frequency: Monthly
Availability: To NMHSs
Reason: To facilitate rapid response to data problems by the NMHSs to ensure the highest quality of GSN data.
Return to diagram
Stations with Persistent Problems
Content: This report is prepared as and when required for GSN stations that exhibit persistent problems.
Format: Documents that identify stations and problems
Frequency: As required
Availability: Only to monitoring centers and the WMO Secretariat
Reason: The WMO Secretariat is responsible for contacting the operators of stations with persistent problems to request action to fix the problem or conform to standards.
Return to diagram
