1. Page 1 © Crown copyright 2005 Workshop on Metadata Beijing27-29 September WMO Interoperability – the vision Gil Ross (Met Office UK) Metadata workshop; Beijing

2. Page 2 © Crown copyright 2005 Workshop on Metadata Beijing27-29 September The “Vision” Thing -  The “Vision” Thing  Bush – the Elder  NOT Pliny the Elder or Pitt the Elder  But I’m not any of them  So  Can I articulate a WMO vision?

3. Page 3 © Crown copyright 2005 Workshop on Metadata Beijing27-29 September WMO Interoperability  WMO is HIGHLY interoperable  for over 50 years  but in a closed user group  which is admittedly large (187 member states)  but which mainly talks to itself  WMO has its own processes and protocols  and formats  and data types  and networks  and software  and justified self-importance (but too much …)

4. Page 4 © Crown copyright 2005 Workshop on Metadata Beijing27-29 September Surface Observations 0000Z 20th September http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/nwp/observations/data_coverage/index.html

5. Page 5 © Crown copyright 2005 Workshop on Metadata Beijing27-29 September Aircraft Observations 0000Z 20th September http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/nwp/observations/data_coverage/index.html

6. Page 6 © Crown copyright 2005 Workshop on Metadata Beijing27-29 September WMO Interoperability  But this isn’t the big-wide-world  It isn’t even all WMO Commissions  We need even better interoperability  in WWW  with the rest of WMO  with USERS of our data  with cheap software  on everybody’s laptop  Isn’t this the remit of the National Centres?  I’d say – NO.

7. Page 7 © Crown copyright 2005 Workshop on Metadata Beijing27-29 September Interoperability  Consider the following graphic.  It happens to be created by MetO but  It has a map background,  Some contours, that has access to,  Data,  Sensible weather objects created by a forecaster, but could be another Met Service,  A legend including a logo.

8. Page 8 © Crown copyright 2005 Workshop on Metadata Beijing27-29 September Components of a chart

9. Page 9 © Crown copyright 2005 Workshop on Metadata Beijing27-29 September WMO Interoperability World Weather Watch Climatology Oceanography Agriculture etc.etc. The Big Wide World NMS

10. Page 10 © Crown copyright 2005 Workshop on Metadata Beijing27-29 September Standards and Interfaces  TBWW has standards and interfaces which are becoming ubiquitous and cheap  Specialised formats are being ignored, circumvented and made obsolete  specialised formats and protocols do have their place in closed systems – e.g. GTS  however they should be presented externally in more widely recognised standards  So WMO should have unified standards to present data and services to TBWW

11. Page 11 © Crown copyright 2005 Workshop on Metadata Beijing27-29 September And…  don’t pay for development costs (not all)  implementation costs are cheaper  software we develop and use can be universal  economies of scale  choose successful standards  rather than be bleeding edge  ride the wave rather than buck the trend  expect to follow industry upgrade paths  secure(r) future

12. Page 12 © Crown copyright 2005 Workshop on Metadata Beijing27-29 September Standards and Interfaces  What are these standards?  Most likely  Web Services  data GRID  OGC and ISO  Catalogue services  WMS – web mapping service  WFS – web feature service  WCS – web coverage service  XML – GML  Catalogues and repositories

13. Page 13 © Crown copyright 2005 Workshop on Metadata Beijing27-29 September Catalogues and repositories  metadata catalogue  feature catalogue  schema repositories  vocabularies  Question - What is the difference?  Answer - it isn’t entirely clear and - there isn’t a unique answer  Identifiers (not file naming system)  gazeteers  locations  CRS coordinate reference systems  service catalogues WMO already does this but not in the modern way

14. Page 14 © Crown copyright 2005 Workshop on Metadata Beijing27-29 September What do we do now?  Get involved  Develop content for the catalogues  Metadata  Features and coverages  Observations and Measurement  CSML  GML  Gazeteers  Vol 9 is good  ICAO codes – not good  CRS definitions

15. Page 15 © Crown copyright 2005 Workshop on Metadata Beijing27-29 September What do we do now (2)  Vocabularies  communityTopicCategory and keywords - a WMO taxonomy  Parameter lists, definitions  GRIB and BUFR tables  WWW usage  CF convention for netCDF  Climatology and Oceanography usage  Develop services – at NMS level and get involved again - a number of different contexts