Namibia Meteorological Service: Climate & Data Bank Services

Namibia Meteorological Service - Climate & Data Bank Services

1. About climate data and its importance

It is data on climate elements recorded at meteorological stations, processed and stored for use in sectoral applications that are sensitive to climate.

2. Major users

Users of climatological data and information cover a very wide spectrum of sectors, which include:

Ø Agriculture

Ø Environment and Natural Resources

Ø Water Resources

Ø Disaster Management

Ø Climate Change, variability and impact studies

Ø All modes of transport (Air, Land and Sea)

Ø Building and Construction

Ø Health

Ø Legal and Insurance

3. Data Management

Management of climatological data involves several interdependent stages which include the following:

(a) Data Collection: The data is collected from the network of meteorological stations spread across the country.

(b) Transmission: The data is then transmitted to the climate data centre located at Meteorological Service’s head office in Windhoek at monthly, 10-daily and other operational

time-scales, mainly by postal, telephone and fax systems.

(c) Processing: At the data centre, the data is first checked for completeness and obvious errors before being entered to a computer based digital database. This stage includes concurrent quality control done during the data-entry sessions, and a dedicated validation process done after data-entry.

(d) Digital Archives: The data that have gone through data-entry, quality control and validation are kept offline, for security purposes, in a systematic manner.

(e) Retrieval: As needed, data that are online or purposefully brought back online, are retrieved in a variety of customized formats for use within and outside the Meteorological Service.

4. Available data sets

(a) Daily data set - comprising

(i) daily rainfall data
Rainfall data is obtained from all categories of climate stations in addition to the rainfall-only stations operated by volunteer individuals and organizations. Rainfall observations in Namibia began in the early 1890s at a few places including Windhoek (about 1891). Now, there are about 200 rainfall stations, although not all maintain an uninterrupted reporting programme during any given year.

About 700 rainfall stations that operated at some point in the past have closed down, leaving behind useful records of varying lengths.

Currently (March 2003), the rainfall data set is the largest and most comprehensive data set, holding about 150 000 daily records from about 120 stations, including those that have since closed.

(ii) Other surface data – mainly made up of daily maximum and minimum temperature, Relative Humidity, Atmospheric Pressure, and Wind from 14 stations with varying record lengths.

(b) Upper air data
Available on paper manuscripts only for the one upper air station, Windhoek.

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Planned Network of Principal Climatological Stations (New plus Existing) – see Larger map.

Our Mission is provide quality climate services to all sectors of the Namibian economy whose operations are sensitive to, and depend on climate in order to maximize their resource utilization for the benefit of the people of Namibia as well as the international community as a whole, both present and future generations.