1. OSCAR/Surface, Vol. A, and the WMO Members
… helping WMO adapt to the 21st century   OSCAR Side Event at 17th World Meteorological Congress
Geneva, May  
Lars Peter Riishojgaard, WIGOS Project Office
WMO Secretariat

2. OSCAR/Surface OSCAR/Surface is here, now what?
Inventory of ALL observational assets (stations/platforms) under WIGOS
Repository of WIGOS Metadata (which will hopefully be approved by Congress later in the Session)
Electronic, searchable, online, available for both automated ingest and manual editing of station information
Will in due course replace WMO Publication 9, Vol. A, but with much, much more information
Additional stations, additional systems (GAW, GCOS, hydrology, …), additional metadata
OSCAR/Surface is here, now what?
The central piece of the WIR will be a living, robust, modern, electronic inventory of all observing assets within WIGOS, including all relevant metadata and vocabularies. No meaningful network design activities, gap mitigation or resource optimization can take place without such an inventory. Accordingly, the development, operational deployment and operational uptake of OSCAR/Surface is assigned very high priority for WIGOS in the coming Financial Period.
It should be noted that while the initial development of this system is done primarily in collaboration between MeteoSwiss and WMO, the subsequent population of the system with station and metadata information will involve all WMO Members, and that very substantial human and financial resources will be needed to support this. Subsequent development of the WIR will address the migration and further development of the other two OSCAR databases, the development of the Gap Analysis Module, the Standardization of Observations Reference Tool (SORT), and the WIGOS Web Portal.
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3. OSCAR/Surface tentative timeline
Initial operational capability of OSCAR/Surface; 2nd half 2015
Transition from Vol. A to OSCAR/Surface completed; by 2017;
OSCAR/Surface as source of all capabilities and all mandatory metadata; by 2018
Roll-out and operational uptake of OSCAR/Surface will require very substantial support (financial and human resources) from the WMO Secretariat, TCs and Members
There are opportunities for Members to help with this! (secondments, voluntary contributions, experts to draft guidance material, offers to host WIGOS/OSCAR events, …)
The central piece of the WIR will be a living, robust, modern, electronic inventory of all observing assets within WIGOS, including all relevant metadata and vocabularies. No meaningful network design activities, gap mitigation or resource optimization can take place without such an inventory. Accordingly, the development, operational deployment and operational uptake of OSCAR/Surface is assigned very high priority for WIGOS in the coming Financial Period.
It should be noted that while the initial development of this system is done primarily in collaboration between MeteoSwiss and WMO, the subsequent population of the system with station and metadata information will involve all WMO Members, and that very substantial human and financial resources will be needed to support this. Subsequent development of the WIR will address the migration and further development of the other two OSCAR databases, the development of the Gap Analysis Module, the Standardization of Observations Reference Tool (SORT), and the WIGOS Web Portal.
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4. Plan for transition from Vol.A to OSCAR/Surface
Transition period: September October 2017.
In September 2015, National Focal Points will be given the opportunity to decide between:
providing their WIGOS metadata directly via OSCAR
continuing to provide their metadata through existing WMO procedures
Uploads will be possible through:
user editing via the web interface, and
machine to machine interfaces/web service
At that point (Sep 2015), OSCAR will become the official repository of WIGOS metadata, and will serve as the source for Vol. A

5. Plans for transition from Vol.A (Cont.)
OSCAR can generate reports similar to the existing Vol. A flat-files available on the WMO website. The new “Vol. A report” will maintain all current column headings but may not contain information in all columns.
Station information provided to WMO via current Vol. A procedures will be used to update WIGOS metadata in OSCAR.
Protocol and format for feeding information into OSCAR to be discussed by IPET-MDRD, and work completed by mid-2016
By September 2017, transition to OSCAR completed; Vol. A will officially cease to exist and related procedures used to maintain station information will be discontinued

6. What Members will need to do:
Comply with the WMO Technical Regulations; WMO-No. 49, Volume I, Part I – WIGOS and the Manual on WIGOS:
Keep records of WIGOS metadata
For those observations that are exchanged internationally:
Exchange also the associated WIGOS metadata
Review the information in OSCAR/Surface
Keep entries in OSCAR/Surface up to date
The more accurate and up-to-date the information in OSCAR/Surface is, the more useful it will be!

7. What the WMO Secretariat will do:
(WIGOS Project Office, OBS and other Technical Departments)
Guidance material
Planned to be developed and made available prior to the WIGOS Regulatory Material coming into force (proposed date: July )
Regional (Sub-Regional) Workshops
Planned to cover all Regions (each individual Member) with information and training Workshops
What is OSCAR/Surface?
What do you need to input?
What can you get out of it?
How do you interact with it?
Ongoing help-desk support
Mode of operation and resourcing still in development

8. Summary and Conclusions
OSCAR/Surface is expected to have a transformational impact on WIGO and on the ability of the Members to serve their constituencies
Will replace Vol. A, with more information, more observational assets, covering all WIGOS components and all WMO application areas
The operational uptake of OSCAR/Surface is critical to the success of WIGOS
This is a high-priority activity for the coming financial period
Supported through guidance material, Regional/Sub-Regional Workshops and other training events, with the goal of reaching out to each and every one of the 191 WMO Members
WMO and its Members are immensely grateful to MeteoSwiss and the Swiss government for their support
Additional resources will be needed to support further development and roll-out of OSCAR/Surface
Hands-on experience:
OSCAR Booth open for business in the lobby/registration area on level 0