Monitoring climate change

The science of climate change, which has developed over the last century or so, has benefited greatly from the parallel development of ICTs. ITU work in this area focuses on the use of ICTs (including radio and telecommunication technologies, standards and supporting publications) for weather forecasting, climate monitoring, predicting, detecting and mitigating the effects of natural disasters. The role of ICTs in weather and climate monitoring is clearly shown in the structure of the World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO) World Weather Watch (WWW), which comprises three integrated core system components as follows:

The Global Observing System (GOS) provides observations of the atmosphere and the Earth’s surface (including oceans) from the globe and from outer space (see Figure 3). The GOS uses remote sensing equipment placed on satellites, aircraft, radiosondes and relay data to environment control centres.

The Global Telecommunication System (GTS) — radio and telecommunication networks for real-time exchange of a huge volume of data between meteorological centres.

The Global Data Processing System (GDPS) — thousands of linked mini, micro and supercomputers, processes an enormous volume of meteorological data and generates warnings and forecasts.

Figure 3 — WMO Global Observing System Note — NMS stands for national meteorological service. Source: WMO and ITU Handbook, " Use of Radio Spectrum for Meteorology".

The majority of countries use the WWW system. It saves thousands of lives every year. ICT form the backbone of the WWW. All ITU Sectors contribute to the development and implementation of the core system components.

The Global Observing System is based on the use of satellite and ground-based remote sensors (active and passive) employed by the meteorological satellite, Earth-exploration satellite and meteorological aids radiocommunication services, which play a major role in climate monitoring and weather forecasting (see a sample of an application in Figure 4). It is essential that these services have sufficient spectrum and that the frequencies allocated to them remain free of interference. That is why the ITU Radiocommunication Sector (ITU–R) plays an essential role in climate monitoring. ITU–R Study Group 7 (“Science services”) develops the “Remote Sensing”, or “RS” series of ITU–R Recommendations and reports. These are used for the design and operation of radiocommunication systems monitoring climate change. Study Group 7, in conjunction with WMO, developed the ITU/WMO Handbook, “Use of Radio Spectrum for Meteorology”. The handbook describes modern radio technologies, tools and methods employed by WWW. Study Group 5 (“Terrestrial services”) produced “Intelligent Transport Systems” as Volume 4 of the ITU–R Handbook on “Land Mobile”, which describes how to use cars as environment monitoring equipment (by collecting environmental data and sending them using wireless connections). Other ITU–R study groups, especially Study Group 4 (“Satellite services”) and Study Group 5 develop radiocommunication standards used in the design and operation of satellite and terrestrial systems for disseminating climate monitoring information.

The studies carried out by ITU–R study groups, decisions of radiocommunication assemblies as well as the treaty-status decisions of world radiocommunication conferences provide the necessary support for the development and utilization of different systems such as:

weather satellites that track the progress of hurricanes and typhoons and weather radar for tracking tornadoes, thunderstorms, and the effluent from volcanoes and major forest fires;

radio-based meteorological aid systems that collect and process weather data; and

different radiocommunication systems (satellite and terrestrial) used for dissemination of information concerning different natural and man-made disasters.

The World Radiocommunication Conference in 2007 (WRC-07) recognized that the radio-frequency spectrum is a critical resource for remote sensing used by the GOS. It considered several issues related to the use of remote sensing and allocated additional spectrum, approved protection criteria for such systems and requested ITU–R to carry out new studies for the future development of remote sensing (see Resolution 673 of WRC-07 on “Radiocommunications use for Earth observation applications”). The results of the studies will be considered by the next WRC in 2011.

Figure 4 — Mediterranean sea surface temperature map from Envisat’s Advanced Along Track Scanning Radiometer (AATSR) instrument One of the key factors influencing climate change as well as violent storms and hurricanes is the increasing ocean surface temperature. The global control of the ocean temperature is being carried out by remote sensors from satellites. Modern tools measure the sea surface temperature with an accuracy of up to 0.2º C. These data are used for weather forecast, prediction of natural disasters and climate monitoring. Source: European Space Agency (http://www.esa.int/).

The Global Telecommunication System is built on standards (or Recommendations in ITU parlance) developed by ITU–T and ITU–R. The next-generation networks (NGN) and supporting ITU–T Recommendations will facilitate data exchange between environment control centres. This should improve the quality of monitoring and forecasting.

The Global Data Processing System is used for computer modelling of the Earth’s atmosphere. Meteorological services are among the most demanding users of the world’s fastest supercomputers, and produce progressively more sophisticated general circulation models of the climate. For instance, the Hadley Centre for Climate Change in the United Kingdom runs a variety of climate models on a suite of NEC SX-6 supercomputers which have processing power equivalent to 1000 times that of a top-of-the-range desktop computer.

In ITU’s Telecommunication Development Sector (ITU–D), work includes implementing the decisions of the World Telecommunication Development Conference of 2006 (WTDC-06). ITU–D, in cooperation with other Sectors, produces publications (including a special report on the use of remote sensing developed in accordance with Question ITU–D 22/2). It also organizes workshops, seminars and meetings on the introduction and use of ICT for climate monitoring in developing countries. During the “Global Forum on Effective Use of Telecommunications/ICT for Disaster Management: Saving Lives” in December 2007, BDT in cooperation with BR organized a “Workshop on the Role of Remote Sensing in Disaster Management”. The workshop provided information on the use, and critical role, of remote sensing technologies in disaster management in general and climate monitoring in particular.

In order to improve environmental monitoring, ITU has established and strengthened strategic partnerships with WMO and other United Nations agencies, international and national organizations, as well as NGOs and the private sector involved in climate change monitoring. These include meteorological agencies, the Group on Earth Observation (GEO), EUMETSAT, ESA, the Space Frequency Coordination Group (SFCG), JAXA, NOAA, NASA and RSA.