On 20 December of 2016, China Integrated Meteorological Information Service System (CIMISS) has been put into operation, which marks national and provincial level meteorological departments possess unified data environment.

CIMISS is an integrated meteorological information sharing system, operates in national level and 31 provincial level meteorological services, includes data collection and distribution, quality control and products generation, storage management, sharing services and operation monitoring. CIMISS has established a standardization framework of meteorological data, data naming, format and algorithm, defined the unified meteorological data storage structure and data service interface, and realized the data synchronization and real-time & historical data integration management among national level and provincial level meteorological services.

Structure

CIMISS consists of five platforms including data collection and distribution, processing, storage management, sharing services and operation monitoring. It realizes data management for about 263 kinds of basic data resources. CIPAS has formed unified online services capabilities of national-level and provincial-level data of real-time and historical long data sequences. CIMISS provides data services for all-level operational allocation system via Meteorological Unified Service Interface Community (MUSIC) and convenient interface dissemination website.

Layout

CIMISS is operated in one national meteorological center and 31 provincial centers. All centers form a physical distribution, logical and unified information sharing platform through the national meteorological operational website. CIMISS achieves meteorological data centralization at national and provincial levels, forms two-level layout and four-level application data technical systems. Provincial-level CIMISS could directly support operational application at provincial, city and county levels.

Process

CIMISS collects and distributes domestic and overseas meteorological observation data and operational products, decodes meteorological data, controls data quality and processes products, and then uses database technology to carry out integrated storage management for real-time and historical data, provides data retrieval services for users through unified service interface.

“One-stop” meteorological data supply

Since August of 2014, National Meteorological Center and National Meteorological Information Center have set up a joint working group to carry out the application butt joint of MICAPS4 and CIMISS. Based on distributed data storage technology, they have established a CIMISS-MICAPS4 data environment which solves the key technical difficulties such as data reading efficiency and data service limitation and provides millisecond data access for MICAPS4 users. They have realized the access of core data including ground, upper-air, lightning, radar base data, radar PUP products, FY 2E/2G satellite data, and other model data from ECMWF, JMA, NCEP, T639, GRAPES. The entire data environment has been incorporated into CIMISS unified monitoring, operation and maintenance.

After finishing butt joint, MICAPS4 has been put into operation in national-level meteorological services. In addition, MICAPS4 has been expanded, deployed and operated in province-city-county-level meteorological services of Hubei, Hunan, Anhui and Yunnan. The data can be accessible within seconds.

In June 2016, CIMISS finished the storage of refined meteorological grid forecast products, constructed unified data environment for refined grid forecast and realized storage, management and sharing. By standardizing and managing grid products, it can achieve a regular stitching and rolling update data into the cloud synchronization to provide sharing services on the cloud. By following MUSIC interface standard specification, they developed data services interface to provide application and visit of intranet. It realizes centralized monitoring and real-time display of service conditions for operation process.

Support for provincial operational application and inter-provincial data sharing

CIMISS data environment has realized its connection with about 114 operational application systems in 31 provinces (autonomous regions、municipalities under State Council). Meteorological data needed by county-level MOPS are fully acquired from CIMISS via MUSIC. And MOPS is applied without any interruption at the national level based on unified data environment and access interface. During meteorological support for the G20 Summit, weather modification system has played a momentous role and realized the connection with CIMISS within several hours. CIMISS has also garnered wide application and realized connection with core operational systems in other provinces like Hubei, Guizhou, Guangxi, Shaanxi, Inner Mongolia, and Hunan.

CIMISS is equipped with the function of inter-provincial sharing and remote backup. Fundamental data category of CIMISS data environment database remains almost the same at the national level and each center at the provincial level. When CIMISS has malfunction in one provincial center, strategies can be formulated via MUSIC to conduct data emergency service. Emergency backup will furnish two methods of data switch in accordance with malfunction coverage.

CIMISS has achieved unified data environment at the national and provincial level for the first time as well as intensive data integration. It has also realized intensive integration of meteorological data, established unified data environment for the first time, and fundamentally resolved issues like repetitive data storage, data inconsistency, and lack of authoritative data.

CIMISS has formed two-level layout and four-level technical regime of data application. It has equipped provincial platform with the capability to support city-level and county-level operational systems. It can also realize provincial update of data and zero maintenance of station operational system, and make for simpler data procedures.

CIMISS has executed unified data standard and maintained data authority. CIMISS has altogether met 33 standards, among which 11 are meteorological data standards. Fundamental data, data processing computing method, data service interface standards are unified. Problems such as self-contained data standards, difficulty in promotion of operational application due to incompatibility have been addressed.

CIMISS has set up a uniform data service interface and a loose coupling between data system and operational application. CIMISS has established data service interface MUSIC with stable standard. Future technical system update and variation of data form will exert zero influence on operational application system, which can conspicuously enhance stability and sustainability of operational systems in terms of weather, climate, and scientific research.

Prospects of CIMISS

In the future, CIMISS will apply technologies such as cloud computing, big data, Internet of Things, mobile internet on the strength of mixed cloud structure technological update, and establish an open meteorological big data platform with integrated data acquisition, integrated processing, distributed storage, standard interface service, and unified operation, maintenance and monitoring capacity. It will constitute potent support for intelligent observation, accurate forecast, open service, and scientific management.(Feb, 20)

Reporter: Liu Zhao

Editor: Hao Jing, Liu Shuqiao