The US, Spain and Norway pledged more than $20 million for a program aiming to improve weather forecasting in a hundred lower-income countries and small island states.
Weather forecasting depends on reliable meteorological data. But many lower-income countries lack the infrastructure needed to measure and predict the weather. 鈥淭here are huge data gaps,鈥� says at the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO). He says many lower-income countries and small island states collect considered essential by the WMO, such as temperature and wind speed.
These gaps can make short and long-term forecasts in those countries less reliable, leaving people more vulnerable to floods, droughts, storms and heat waves, says Repnik. The missing data also make climate models and forecasts elsewhere on the globe less reliable, and are needed to calibrate satellites. 鈥淲eather doesn鈥檛 stop at borders,鈥� says at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts in the UK.
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Last year at the COP26 climate conference, the WMO and other United Nations agencies launched a program to augment data collection in these regions. Known as the Systematic Observations Financing Facility (SOFF), the program aims to raise $400 million from wealthy countries and other donors to finance basic meteorological observations in the poorest countries and small island states. This includes long-term support for training meteorologists in partner countries, rehabilitating existing weather stations and installing new ones.
At COP27 last week, the WMO announced the through the program. These include 13 countries in Africa, four in Asia, four in Latin America and the Caribbean and five Pacific island countries. The countries were selected because of the importance of their data for global weather models as well as the feasibility of improving systems there, says Repnik.
The US, Spain and Norway also each announced new funding pledges, bringing the total raised so far to $50 million, including contributions from five other countries and the Nordic Development Fund 鈥淔or the first time I鈥檓 fairly confident鈥� the program is going to happen, says Pappenberger.
The project feeds into a larger UN initiative launched at COP27 to marshal $3.1 billion of investments for in lower-income countries, including for weather-related disasters like floods and storms. Debates about higher-income nations paying reparations to vulnerable countries and financing the hundreds of billions of dollars needed to adapt to climate change have played a central role in the conference.
Madagascar is among the first countries that will see support through the program, which has three years from June to deliver results, says Repnik.
This year, six tropical cyclones hit Madagascar, killing more than 200 people and almost a million more.
Speaking at COP27, , director general of the country鈥檚 national meteorological service, said better forecasts would help reduce the impacts of such disasters.
She told 快猫短视频 the program will help reach minimum standards, but the country will still be far from its goal of running at least one weather station in each of the country鈥檚 119 districts. 鈥淪OFF can鈥檛 do everything because the gap is so huge.鈥� She says the health and agricultural sectors are the largest users of weather data in the country.
at Tufts University in Massachusetts says improving forecasts is among the most cost-effective ways of helping vulnerable countries adapt to climate change.
But she says far more substantial investment in early warning systems are needed to act on those forecasts, and even then, much more is required for countries to adapt to climate change. 鈥淲e need to be careful that early warning systems don鈥檛 trap people into thinking that they are prepared for climate change.鈥�
