As a core part of global meteorological data exchange, China Meteorological Administration (CMA) has continuously enhanced the discovery, collection, sharing and service of global meteorological data. It is committed to exploring the value of the data, enabling global meteorological data to flow to where it is needed, contributing more value to global disaster prevention and mitigation, climate change mitigation and adaptation, and sustainable development.

Meteorological data spring from complex and diverse sources. To realize the orderly flow and sharing of meteorological data, a powerful meteorological big data center is imperative. For a long time, CMA has collected global multi-layer data resources through 5 main channels, with an annual increment of 15.2PB and a daily increment of 41TB.

CMA information system

Through Global Telecommunication System (GTS) of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO),178 kinds of international meteorological data resources divided in 8 categories are collected on a daily basis. After collecting and sorting, the data is exchanged with the world through GTS, with daily provision of data service volume reaching 1.1TB and annual external data service volume reaching 400TB.

Since 2011, CMACast has covered more than 20 countries and territories in Asia-Pacific region, providing 392 kinds of data in 12 categories and broadcasting hundreds of GB of data every day. When Pakistan was battered by floods in 2022, the data provided by CMACast came to its aid.

At the same time, the observation data of FENGYUN meteorological satellites are shared through cooperation and benefits the world. In April 2022, extreme precipitation surfaced in South Africa. FY-2H and FY-3D conducted continuous monitoring services in response to severe rainstorm and flooding,which was recognized by the government of South Africa.

Collection and distribution is only the first step in giving play to the value of meteorological data. For a long time, CMA has endeavored to dig more value of the data and products exchanged by GTS, so as to further boost the ability of meteorological data in supporting global monitoring, forecasting, and service operation.

In September 2022, after long-term research, CMA added 72 kinds of data products based on exchange data of GTS, which played an instrumental role in reducing numerical weather prediction errors, expanding the monitoring scale of satellite remote sensing, and enhancing global monitoring and forecasting capabilities.

Global data reception and service

Statistics show that the new products have enriched global daily precipitation and temperature data, noticeably improved the real-time monitoring of severe weather, and shortened the daily rainstorm monitoring time from 2 days to 6 hours.

Editor: Wang Wan