Review of Meteorological Data Sharing Project in China

Xiong Anyuan

(National Meteorological Information Centre, CMA)

Abstract

Under the financial support of MOST (Ministry of Science and Technology), CMA (China Meteorological Administration) has launched “Meteorological Data Sharing Project” in 2001. From then on, with an aim to find a better solution of series problems of data sharing, we have done researches systematically and practiced extensively. Now major progress has been achieved. We have tentatively drawn up a suit of data management rules, produced more than 100 datasets, constructed data service platform. Further information about the four key aspects of our achievements is expounded as below:

1、Studies on sharing strategies and technical standards establishment

As a premise, to ensure Meteorological Data Sharing Project can be effectively developed in an orderly way, we have plotted basic strategies for data sharing and established a series of technical standards on the basis of Meteorological Laws of the People's Republic of China, No.40 Resolution of WMO (World Meteorological Organization) and Measures for Meteorological Data Sharing (issued by CMA).

(1) Strategies for meteorological data sharing: In consideration of the actual situation of China and CMA, we have made an orderly classified sharing strategy and implemented it step by step. In general, it means providing different level data to different level users with different priorities. Standards of Meteorological Data Sharing Classification and Standards of Grading Meteorological Data Users were issued accordingly.

(2) Data management standards: For the purpose of effectively and rationally administrating meteorological data, a series of standards have been developed including Metadata Standards of Meteorological Datasets、Classified Naming and Coding Rules of Meteorological Datasets、Criterion of Making and Archiving Meteorological Datasets、Description Composing Standards of Meteorological Datasets , etc.

2、Datasets Development

As a most important part of meteorological data sharing system construction, 105 datasets which consist of 13 different types (including surface, upper-air, radiation, oceanic，satellite, scientific experiments data, etc.) have been produced and totally amount to more than 1000GB. With unified metadata standard、coding classification and naming rules, these datasets are featured of integrated series、reliable qualities and standard formats.

Besides, different quality control approaches on surface、upper air and radiation data have been proposed and studied to ensure the quality of sharing meteorological data. Homogeneity tests also have been applied to surface temperature data series and some correction measures have been adopted. After efforts, a batch research results have been achieved.

3、Data-sharing Network

With beneficially probing into its contents, structural and functioning framework, China Meteorological Data Sharing Service Platform(http://data.cma.gov.cn), a distribution services network, was primarily built. The system is jointly constituted by national and provincial data-sharing system, with one main-platform and several sub-platforms. Those platforms are distributed in physical addresses but unified in logic, on which the information is released basing on the unified metadata standard. After login, users can visit our sites of high transparency with different powers according to their level. Online retrieving and downloading services of data distributed in different nodes are also offered.

4、Application of Meteorological Data Sharing Services

Since 2001, according to Measures for Meteorological Data Sharing (issued by CMA), on the basis of classification sharing strategy, our sharing services have gotten steadily promotion and been widely acclaimed by experts and the public. Combined with online and off-line services, a large amount meteorological data were provided free for the society especially the science circle. Accumulated visitor sessions of our websites are over 260,000. Registered users exceed 600 and come from more than 400 departments all over the country, related to universities、institutions、government、army forces、scientific researches and so on. Besides, up from only 10GB in 2002, data downloaded online have sharply risen to more than 4800 GB in 2005. And so far, more than 2700 users have directly come to our reception center and data 600GB totally were offered off-line.