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ATER World Meteorological Organization

COMMISSION FOR OBSERVATION, INFRASTRUCTURE AND INFORMATION SYSTEMSFirst Session (Third Part)12 to 16 April 2021, Virtual Session

INFCOM-1(III)/ INF. 5.1.3(2)

Submitted by:Secretary-General

1.IV.2021

WMO INFORMATION SYSTEM (WIS) MONITORING PROCEDURES AND METADATA QUALITY INDICATORS

Integrated WWW Monitoring and WIGOS Data Quality Monitoring web tool

The Integrated WWW Monitoring is the integration of the Annual Global Monitoring (AGM) and the Special MTN Monitoring (SMM) in one single scheme. It requires National Meteorological Centres (NMC) and Regional Telecommunication Hubs (RTH) to monitor the exchange of observational data on the Global Telecommunication System (GTS) and send the statistics to the WMO Secretariat for elaboration and publication of the results (see Guide on the implementation of Integrated WWW Monitoring for more details). It is a global monitoring exercise taking place four times a year and requiring specific software in all the participating Centres and at the WMO Secretariat.

The WMO Integrated Global Observing System (WIGOS) Data Quality Monitoring System (WDQMS) is described in Manual on the WMO Integrated Global Observing System (WMO-No. 1160) attachment 2.4. WDQMS monitoring web tool was developed by the Intercommission Coordination Group on WIGOS (ICG-WIGOS) and is operated by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). It monitors the availability and quality of observational data based on near-real-time statistics provided by participating WIGOS monitoring centres, currently: the German Weather Service (DWD), the ECMWF, the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) and the United States National Centres for Environmental Prediction (NCEP). The tool links availability and quality of surface-based observational data from those WIGOS Monitoring Centres with the WIGOS metadata and user requirements from OSCAR, providing information on network/station issues to WMO Members and to Regional WIGOS Centres (RWCs) for follow up.

The following figures show the WDQMS web tool providing information on the availability of data from surface and upper-air stations.

Figure 1: Availability of surface pressure observations on 23/2/2021, 15–21h synoptic interval as seen by NCEP

INFCOM-1(III)/INF. 5.1.3(2), p. 2

Figure 2: Availability of upper-air observations on 23/2/2021,21–3h synoptic interval, as seen by JMA

WDQMS was initiated as a pilot project in 2017 and reached operational status in 2020 providing regular updates on the quantity and quality of observations.

IWM and WDQMS are providing similar statistics of observational data. However, WDQMS is providing near-real time updates and web accessible maps, while IWM is a quarterly exercise requiring a longer data collection process. The Commission for Basic Systems (CBS) recognized the potential for WDQMS to replace IWM and with Decision 10 (CBS-16) - Amendments to the Guide on the Implementation of the Integrated World Weather Watch Monitoring, decided to keep the two systems in parallel operation. Due to the modern design, the near-real-time provision of statistics and the extensibility to cover all WIGOS networks and other needs the Standing Committee for Information Management and Technology (SC-IMT) supports the further development of WDQMS and suspension of the IWM exercises.

Review of requirements for WIS monitoring

The WIS is a complex data sharing framework requiring an appropriate monitoring function to ensure that the operational level of the WIS functions is delivered regularly.

WIS monitoring principles and activities are explained in the Guide to WMO Information System (WMO-No. 1061) Part VIII Monitoring of WIS. The operational activities are continuously monitored through a collaborative effort of the Global Information Systems Centres (GISCs) performing a GISC Watch monitoring described in the Guide to WIS.

The focus of the current monitoring activities is on the exchange of information, while the evolution toward WIS 2.0 and the retirement of the GTS requires different types of monitoring, including the close monitoring of the transition from GTS to the new exchange mechanisms of WIS 2.0 and to measure the progress of the implementation of WIS 2.0.

The SC-IMT has formed a Task Team on WIS Monitoring (TT-WIS-Monitoring) as part of the Expert Team on Operations and Monitoring (ET-OM) to review the requirements of the WIS monitoring with the view to update the current monitoring practices to support WIS 2.0 implementation.

INFCOM-1(III)/INF. 5.1.3(2), p. 3

WIS Metadata Key Performance Indicators

The WIS metadata catalogue is an essential component of the WIS infrastructure and enables discoverability of the data in WIS as well as providing valuable metadata to the users. It is responsibility of the WIS Centres publishing data to provide the appropriate metadata for the purpose of describing the data and making them discoverable and accessible. The metadata quality is critical for the effectiveness of data discoverability and accessibility in WIS. Therefore, there is a need of monitoring and improving the metadata quality and at this purpose the SC-IMT has formed a Task Team on WIS Metadata (TT-WIS-Metadata) as part of the Expert Team on Metadata Standards (ET-Metadata) with the objective to further develop WIS Core Metadata Profile and provide a framework for monitoring and improving the quality of WIS metadata. TT-WIS-Metadata has drafted a set of WIS Metadata Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to provide measurable and valuable quality assessment rules that can be applied to metadata records using the WMO Core Metadata Profile (WCMP) 1.3 and ISO 19115:2003/19139:2007 as defined in the Manual on the WMO Information System: Annex VII to the WMO Technical Regulations (WMO-No. 1060), Appendix C.

The WIS Metadata KPIs are designed to help metadata providers in the curation of discovery metadata, to help GISCs measure the quality of metadata published by National Centres (NCs) and Data Collection and Processing Centres (DCPCs), and to support routine evaluation for continuous improvement and useability of metadata in the WIS.

Each of the 12 KPIs describes what is being measured, a rationale, the rules for implementation, scoring details, and guidance for improvement.

The first version of KPIs is available at https://community.wmo.int/wis-metadata-kpis and it will be use in the implementation of a WMO Core Metadata Profile Test Suite in Python (pywcmp) for the analysis of the WIS metadata catalogue. A first development version of pywcmp is available from the GitHub repository of the ET-Metadata at https://github.com/wmo-im/pywcmp. The package will provide scores for WIS metadata published by the WIS Centres and those scores will be made available so that publishers will be able to improve the quality of their metadata.

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