REPORT OF THE GCOS-CBS-LC NOAA/NCEI Bryant Korzeniewski Meteorologist (STG, Federal Contractor), NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information September 2016 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration | National Centers for Environmental Information

NCEI Lead/Archive Centre Responsibilities Mr. Bryant Korzeniewski joined the GCOS Team in 2011 to oversee collection of GCOS Data for WMO Region Association (RA) IV. Is NCEI’s Point-Of-Contact with the RA IV Technical Representatives Runs NCEI’s GSN and GUAN Monthly Reports Activities extend to other WMO Regions, especially for those related to GUAN Data. Responsibilities include NCEI’s and WMO RA IV’s Focal Point for the Annual World Weather Records (WWR) Submissions. Mr. Jay Lawrimore, Chief of NCEI Center For Weather and Climate’s Dataset Section, continues leadership of these activities. This has enabled NCEI to provide the most optimal attention to Lead Centre activities.

US CLIMAT Messages NOAA/NCEI/CWC continues to calculate and transmit US CLIMAT messages This transferred from NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center to NCEI that in October 2009. Few problems have occurred during the production of the US CLIMAT Messages. One instance of the US CLIMAT reports being reproduced after notification by DWD: To correct processing errors for some stations. Were retransmitted post-correction.

Web Accessible Summary Reports The Lead/Archive Center at NCEI continues to provide web accessible GSN and GUAN reports on a monthly basis. The reports are available at ftp://ftp0.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/gcos/. The reports provide monthly summaries of the total number of hourly and synoptic reports received at NCEI. Lead Centres are invited to review the reports and provide feedback on their usefulness and recommendations for enhancements. NCEI updates these reports around the 15th of each calendar month for the previous data-month. For GSN, Maximum of 744 hourly reports each month for each station and a maximum of 248 synoptic reports from 2005 through Present Regarding last bulleted item: Some years preceding 2005 still contain totals exceeding those limits, but will be reprocessed following agreement that these changes are acceptable.

RA IV CLIMAT REPORTING State of CLIMAT reporting in RA IV remains generally strong NCEI continues to collect and process CLIMAT messages on a routine basis These provide an important foundation for US and WMO climate monitoring activities through the Global Historical Climatology Network-Monthly (GHCN-M) dataset State of the Climate (SOTC) Monthly Reports Average of 180 GSN stations in Region IV provided CLIMAT messages in 2015 Average of 340 RBCN stations in Region IV provided CLIMAT messages in 2015

Stations Reporting all 12 months of the year (red), RA IV CLIMAT REPORTING Stations Reporting all 12 months of the year (red), from 6 to 11 reports (blue), 1 to 5 reports (green) and 0 reports (gray)

OVERALL CLIMAT REPORTING Percentage of Stations Reporting >= 10 data-months per data-year of non-missing CLIMAT Reports

OVERALL CLIMAT REPORTING Number of Stations Reporting >= 10 data-months per data-year of non-missing CLIMAT Reports

CLIMAT Receipt By GSN Stations

CLIMAT Receipt by RBCN Stations

CLIMAT Receipt 2710 CLIMAT Stns Rcvd at NCEI An average of 2700 CLIMAT messages are received at NCEI each month, compared to only ~1200 in September 2004 and ~2300 in September 2013. Receipt of CLIMAT Messages includes GTS, BUFR, E-mail and Parcel Post. On average, less than 50 stations received via e-mail or parcel post are keyed by NCEI each month. Approximately 235 Non-Published stations are processed each month (shown as blue dots), compared to ~400 in September 2013. 2710 CLIMAT Stns Rcvd at NCEI May 2016 (red=published, blue=non-published, WMO Vol A.)

CLIMAT Receipt 2710 CLIMAT Stns Rcvd at NCEI May 2016 (red=published, blue=non-published, WMO Vol A.)

CLIMAT Receipt via ASCII

CLIMAT Receipt via BUFR

Delayed Mode CLIMAT Reports NCEI now receives less than 50 delayed reports of CLIMAT summaries and corrections on a regular basis each month. This includes reports sent by either parcel post or e-mail. Combined, they provide many reports either are not available or correct those that have been received via the GTS.

Canadian CLIMAT In Canada some periods of system outage occurred in the past three years This caused the loss of CLIMAT data at multiple GSN Stations: Clyde River (71358)  Outage as of 10/21/2015, but resumed GSN with 12/2016 Data Robertson Lake (71490) 9/2015-Present due to storm damage at this remote site; expected resolution was no earlier than July 2016 Big Trout Lake (71844) Decommissioned per EC as of early 12/2013, but still appears in monthly reports by DWD; removed by NCEI for 2014 and forward given GENOT was expected Other stations are no longer contributing to the GSN program as of April 2015 Estevan A/ (71862) replaced by Estevan RCS (71559) in 2015 Yarmouth A/ (71603) replaced by Yarmouth RCS (71884) in 2015 Slave Lake AB (71069) replaced by Slake Lake R (71693) in 2015

GUAN Ongoing rehabilitation and system improvement efforts have led to the continued increases in the collection of and reporting of data from the GUAN Network More than 160 GUAN stations were operating at some point during 2015. NCEI’s Integrated Global Radiosonde Archive (IGRA, DSI-6351) serves as the database for the GUAN. Version 2 of IGRA was released in August 2016. Additional historical upper-air observations that have been digitized over the past decade. 30% increase in available soundings and twice as many stations as Version 1 of IGRA. NCEI provides a GUAN Monthly ‘silent’ Stations Report to WMO Monthly report of inquiries submitted and feedback received by NCEI of ‘silent’ stations ‘silent’ stations that are missing data based their identification within the NCEP and NCEI GUAN Monthly Reports.

GUAN The number of GUAN sites that have met the minimum performance requirements for all variables.

GUAN Problem Sites During the past 6 months, the following stations have either provided no observations (in bold) or have had recent problems: RA I: 61995 Vacoas, Mauritius (only reporting PILOT Observations) 63894 Dar Es Salaam Airport, Tanzania (hydrogen generator issues) 62721 Khartoum, Sudan (unknown issue; no available contact) 67774 Harare/Belvedere, Zimbabwe (unknown issue; contact non-responsive) 62414 Asswan, Egypt (unknown issue; contact non-responsive) *resumed submitting as of August 2016* 64910 Doaula, Cameroon (only reporting PILOT Observations) *resumed submitting as of August 2016* RA II: 41780 Karachi, Pakistan (only reporting PILOT Observations) 48453 Bangna Agromet, Thailand (bidding process) 48327 Chiang Mai, Thailand (bidding process) 43599 Gan, Maldives (resumed observations as of May 2016)

GUAN Problem Sites During the past 6 months, the following stations have either provided no observations (in bold) or have had recent problems: RA III: 84008 San Cristobal, Galapagos (hydrogen generator issues) 84628 Lima/Callao, Peru (supply issues) RA IV: 78762 Juan Santamaria, Costa Rica (resumed observations as of June 2016) RA V: 91517 Honiara, Solomon Islands (Awaiting new sponsor for purchase of sondes) 92035 Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea (late update per WMO was lack of funds for operations)\ RA VI: 37789 Yerevan Arabkir, Armenia (unknown issue; contact non-responsive)

Ways To Improve Lead Centre Monitoring Restore Annual Updates of Station Listings for GSN and GUAN (last update was in early 2014) Need To Strive For A Most Up-To-Date GCOS Focal Point Contacts Listing GCOS Focal Points Need to be highly encouraged to reply back in a timely manner to Lead Centre E-mail Inquiries Foster Further Development Of Our Lead Centre Working Relationships We’ve improved our respective monitoring over the years, but there’s always room for improvement!

To Contact NCEI’s GCOS Team Report Issues with GSN and GUAN Stations Reply To NCEI’s Inquiries for GSN or GUAN Data Inquiries About NCEI’s Monthly Reports GCOS.NCDC@noaa.gov GCOS Team Members: Bryant.Korzeniewski ( Bryant.Korzeniewski@noaa.gov ) Jay Lawrimore ( Jay.Lawrimore@noaa.gov )

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