Regional Meteorological Structure in the Caribbean · Regional Meteorological Structure in the...

Regional Meteorological Structure in the Caribbean

� British Caribbean Meteorological Service (1951);

� Caribbean Meteorological Service (1962);

� Caribbean Meteorological Organization (CMO) (1973)

– Special Agency with functional autonomy

Caribbean Meteorological Organization

OBJECTIVE

“The Organization shall have as its objectives the promotion and co-ordination of regional

activities in the field of Meteorology and allied sciences.”

The Caribbean Meteorological Organization

� Provision of meteorological services to civil aviation ;

� Co-operation with other services to provide an efficient hurricane warning system;

� Provision of meteorological information and advice to Member States ;

� Collection and analysis of all relevant meteorological data available and publication of results;

� Co-operation with meteorological services;

� Execution of basic scientific observations in keeping with its objectives;

� Participation in the work of the appropriate international organizations particularly the World Meteorological Organization and the International Civil Aviation Organization;

� Participation in work in applied meteorology, agricultural meteorology, hydrology and associated research of direct interest to the Region

� Co-operation with all relevant scientific institutions

Functions of the Organization:


� Anguilla

� Antigua and Barbuda

� Barbados

� Belize

� British Virgin Islands

� Cayman Islands

� Dominica

� Grenada

� Guyana

� Jamaica

� Montserrat

� St. Kitts/Nevis

� St. Lucia

� St. Vincent and the Grenadines

� Trinidad and Tobago

� Turks and Caicos Islands

Membership

Caribbean Meteorological Organization

CMC

CIMH CMOHU

CMF

• Caribbean Meteorological Council (CMC)

• Caribbean Meteorological Organization – Headquarters Unit (CMO-HU)

• Caribbean Institute for Meteorology & Hydrology (CIMH)

• Caribbean Meteorological Foundation (CMF)

Organs

Mandate of the Caribbean Institute for Meteorology & Hydrology

“… to assist in improving and developing the Meteorological and Hydrological Services as well as providing the awareness of the benefits of Meteorology and Hydrology for the economic well-being of the CIMH member states. This is achieved through training, research, investigations and the provision of related specialized services and advice”.

Functions of the Caribbean Institute for Meteorology & Hydrology

� WMO Regional Training Centre - Train various categories of meteorological and hydrological personnel

� Operate as a centre of research in meteorology, hydrology and associated sciences

� Regional Climate Data Centre - Data collection, storage, & dissemination

� Regional Instrument Centre – Develop, maintain, repair, and calibrate meteorological & hydrological instruments

� Regional Centre of Excellence for Satellite Meteorology

� Preparing to enter the demonstration phase to become the WMO Caribbean RCC

� Advisor to regional governments on matters related to meteorology, climate & hydrology

� Provide specialized services to industry

CIMH's Achievements in 2011

� CIMH made notable contributions to the Caribbean in:� Disaster risk reduction;� Climate change adaptation;� Training, education, research & development

� These contributions supported:� Sustainable socio-economic development;� Reductions in the loss of life and property in the Caribbean.

� Products and services developed by CIMH to support disaster risk reduction are being used by the international community.

� Worked with international organizations to address the region's long term training needs.

� Contributions likely represented a positive return on investment.

� The event resulted in significant damage to national infrastructure with nearly all bridges in the impacted area experiencing some level of damage from the debris flows;

� Public transport was significantly disrupted;� Many houses adjacent to water courses

experienced some level of damage;� Many communities were without water in

some of the impacted areas;� Estimated losses were in the EC 10s of

millions. � Weather radar data was collected from

Martinique and compared to field measurements from CWSA.

� A report was prepared on the event that explained why the event was extreme.

Support to St. Vincent and the Grenadines Following April, 2011 Floods



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Support to Dominica Following the Matthieu Dam Failure

� Following the Matthieu Dam Failure, CIMH responded to requests for technical assistance to assess the situation from the Government of Dominica and CDEMA

� CIMH liaised with local personnel to visit the site and surrounding areas

� Prepared a report addressing the stability of the site, down stream impacts and required site monitoring, safety considerations

Elevated ledge

MatthieuLake

Small pond

Stream?

Support to Dominica Following the Matthieu Dam Failure

� CIMH Continues to support the Phase 2 of the JICA-CDEMA CADM project which is being implemented in 5 CDEMA Participating States (Guyana, Dominica, Saint Lucia, Belize and Grenada). During 2011, CIMH focused primarily on the design and implementation of the flood realtime early warning system (EWS) featuring a common alerting protocol (CAP) in country identified critical watersheds;

� Parameters measured are stream level and rainfall intensity;

� The system utilizes local GSM connections to transfer data between observation stations and internet connection nodes. Data is sent via email to the Institute;

� The system has been demonstrated to be effective based on the observed message passing between two sites in Belize and CIMH.

� This activity will continue into 2012.

JICA-CDEMA CADM Phase 2(Early warning system – with CAP Protocol)

JICA-CDEMA CADM Phase 2(Early warning system – with CAP Protocol)

Caribbean Dewetra Platform

� Strengthening civil protection mechanisms by capacity development for early warning systems, information dissemination, and institutional coordination for disaster management and response in CARICOM Member States by:

� Developing a sustainable network of realtime decision support centres to facilitate early warning and post disaster recovery and their integration into national and regional planning;

� Strengthening national disaster mechanisms to incorporate best practices in volunteerism; enhanced institutional capacities; and support to tsunami public educational programmes.

� Participating States for the pilot phase are Barbados and the OECS, however, all regional states can currently derive benefits from the platform.

� Project to support NMHS participation in CDEMA CDM 2011.


Primary Centre

Backup Centre


DATA FUSION

�Data Ingestion�ProcessModelingSocio-

EconomicData

VulnerabilityAssessment

HazardAssessment

�ScenarioDevelopment

�RiskAnalysis

OnlineDecisionSupportForum


� Accomplishments to date include:� Development of the framework

� Implementation of the framework

� Selection of 4 key pilot countries

� 14 persons trained in Italy to use the platform

� Agreement to fund upgrades to observation stations in states

� Platform integrated in regional decision-making in 2011

� Volunteerism component of the project implemented

� Caribbean Tsunami Information Centre funded

Mainstreaming and Sustainability Adaptation of the platform will depend on mainstreaming and sustainability

� Capacity development� Demonstrated value for the community

of users� Links with other initiatives� Continuous funding

Caribbean Agrometeorological Initiative

The Caribbean Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology (CIMH) in partnership with the Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute (CARDI) World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs) of ten Caribbean member States have received a grant from the European Union through the African Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP) Science and Technology (S&T) Programme for the Caribbean Agrometeorological Initiative (CAMI).

Caribbean Agrometeorological Initiative

� Objective

� To increase and sustain agricultural productivity at the farm level in the Caribbean region through improved dissemination and application of weather and climate information using an integrated and coordinated approach. The results are expected to benefit the farming community in the Caribbean Region.

� Training of personnel of Meteorological and Agricultural Services, CARDI and CIMH in relevant aspects of agro-meteorology.

� Assist the farming community in the Caribbean region through provision of information through the regional network of Meteorological and Agricultural Services and research institutes on predictors of the rainy season potential and development of effective pest and disease forecasting systems for improved on-farm management decisions

Caribbean Agro-meteorological Initiative

� Objective• Preparation and wide diffusion of a user-friendly weather and

climate information newsletter and organization of forums with the farming community and agricultural extension agencies to promote a better understanding of the applications of weather and climate information and to obtain feedback to provide better products from the meteorological services for use by the farming community.

• Organization of regular forums with the farming community and agricultural extension agencies to promote a better understanding of the applications of weather and climate information and to obtain feedback to provide better products from the meteorological services for use by the farming community.


� Recent workshops in the region included:

� Pest and disease modeling workshop;

� National farmers forums in several countries:

� Trinidad and Tobago

� Dominica

� Grenada

� St. Vincent and the Grenadines

� Antigua

� Stint Lucia

� Rainfall analysis workshop;� Products:

� National and regional agro-meteorological bulletins

• 2009-2010 drought one of the most severe droughts on record

• Most countries were not informed early about the drought conditions and several were ill prepared for it• Impacted water supply and agriculture• Increased food prices and caused social

agitation• Drying conditions captured on the CIMH

products• CIMH alerted the region to the drought in

January 2010• Information provided likely reduced losses• Joint paper (CIMH & CEHI) presented to

CARICOM Heads & COTED on the drought and short and long term approaches to mitigate the problem


Hydrology Training

� Hydrological Observers� Four week course designed to train technicians on applications of hydrology

databases, basic hydro-meteorology observation techniques, and field activities.

� General Technicians� Six month course with students being trained in the fundamentals of surface

water hydrology and hydrogeology. The course also covers water quality monitoring, basics of surveying, and instrument maintenance.

� Higher Technicians� This is an eighteen months course and is designed to allow personnel with

several years experience to gain further knowledge in hydrology

� M.Sc. Natural Resource and Environmental Management specializing in Water Resources Management (joint with CERMES, University of the West Indies)� The programme provides students with training in advanced techniques

suitable for addressing a broad range of water resources issues.

Research, Development, Technical & Advisory Services, & Collaborations

� National Water Monitor concept recently piloted to look at the current state of water in the form of rainfall at the national level;

� Requires precipitation data from distributed rainfall recording stations to compute drought indices;

� Will be expanded to support forecasting the state of water at the national level 3-6 month into the future using regional climate models.

Running cumulative 48-hour precipitation output from 48-hour high resolution (4 km) numerical weather prediction model run over Haiti watersheds. Ideal for assessing the potential for flooding and landslides due to multiple precipitation evens over 48 hours.

Modeled water depths across the watershed after the start of the event.


CMO Impacts Reporter



�Most significant changes in projected rainfall, especially for the Northern and Southern Caribbean�N. Caribbean- projected decrease in precipitation of at least 20-30%�Eastern Caribbean there is no significant change, generally the precipitation is projected to either increase or decrease by up to 10% with a bit more increase projected for the northernmost Leeward Islands/Lesser Antilles�Southern Caribbean precipitation is expected to increase especially across northern Guyana and Venezuela where increases of about 20-30% are predicted.

CIMH 20-km Resolution Climate Simulations(June, July & August 2100)

Work funded by the World Bank, CCCCC and MRI Japan


• CIMH is currently designing & implementing a hydrometeorologicalearly warning system for at risk communities in critical watersheds in CADM Phase II participating countries (Belize, Saint Lucia, Dominica, Guyana and Grenada)

• Should be operational by 2011 hurricane season;

• CIMH recently completed a joint project with HR Wallingford (UK)for CROSQ to support regional building standards

• IDF curves and strategy developed by CIMH identified as the critical product for engineers

• CROSQ seeking additional funding to further develop these curves

• CIMH currently contributing to the development of the CCRIF Excess Rainfall Parametric Insurance Policy for the Caribbean

• Hardware and software to run operational model installed at CIMH• Likely that several countries would have received significant payouts in 2010


• Since BOG-46, CIMH has provided several regional Governments with advisory services in the area of water resources managementand planning

• Currently assisting the Government of Barbados with development of its new groundwater management strategy

• Provided Dominica with advice on sustainable water supply options• Represented the CARICOM Water Consortium at the September 2010

COTED Meeting

• CIMH continues to provide CDEMA, the ECDG-DM and international institutions with technical advice during passage of severe weather across the Caribbean. The information supports their scenario development and mobilization activities


� Island scale and focused groundwater and contaminant migration modeling requires hydro-meteorological inputs:

– Models support current management and future climate change adaptation assessments;

� Hydro-meteorological data often have gaps due to poor maintenance of the network or data stored in an unusable format;

� Missing data can be approximated using statistical algorithms; 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000

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Estimating missing data using analytical neural network.

Groundwater model being developed for Barbados.

• Application of Mesoscale Models to Support Meteorological Forecasting and Disaster Risk Reduction

• MM5V3 and WRF ver 2 & 3 used to support work• Model validation ongoing• Integration of modeling results into disaster management will

commence this year• Student interns are involved in this activity

• Climate Change Modeling• Use of the PRECIS model to support analysis of climate

change and climate variability across the Caribbean (MACC project)

• Use of WRF to perform regional climate runs• Introduction of Max Planck’s REMO model in 2010• Outcomes being used to support sectoral analyses (e.g.,

impact of climate change on agriculture)• Contribute to the efforts of the regional climate task team

• Support to Regional Post Impact Flood Assessment Teams & Risk Transfer Mechanisms

• Convert data to products to assess flood return periods for regional catastrophe insurance organization

Computational Meteorology & Climatology


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