Forecaster opens access to real-time data in boost for extreme weather warnings

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By Alison Withers

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) -Europe’s top weather forecaster said on Wednesday it had opened access to real-time data in a move that will support early warning systems for extreme weather events across the globe.

As climate change drives more frequent and intense weather, from heatwaves to floods and storms, getting access to quality data remains a central part of efforts to understand and manage the risks.

The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, backed by 35 mostly European countries, collects 800 million observations a day to help predict the weather, and oversees one of the world’s largest meteorological data archives.

As part of a regional push by some European countries to move to open data, the centre will make available about 16 times as much data in an unrestricted fashion as it does currently, but retain data service charges for users who take large volumes, its data policy lead said.

As the world gears up for the next round of climate talks in Brazil in November, adapting to climate extremes and getting data to those most impacted so they can better prepare remains a key need for developing countries.

Against this backdrop, the centre said it would also waive service fees to support some early warning forecasting for members of the World Meteorological Organization and would see how AI forecasts could assist developing countries with less access to their own national data or processing.

“If you have this disruptive technology, there’s always the danger that countries that are less well-resourced get left behind,” Florian Pappenberger, the director-general-elect for the centre, said.

“We’re aware that there’s a large part of the globe where accessing machine learning forecasts is challenging.”

(Reporting by Ali Withers;Editing by Alison Williams)