1. WMO Information System (WIS)
World Meteorological Organization Working together in weather, climate and water
WMO
WMO Information System (WIS)
UNGIWG-11 – Plenary Meeting
David Thomas
Project Manager WIS
WMO; Observations and Information Systems Department

2. Information for Emergency Management Decision Makers
What we are trying to achieve
Getting the infrastructure in place
Managing data policy
Use of the Internet and dynamic systems
e.g. web services
Need for authoritative UN reference data sets
e.g. Political boundaries
Linking to the WMO Information System
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share with you some of the lessons learnt from the implementation of WMOs Information System (WIS). WIS has a long heritage in the World Weather Watch Programme of WMO known as the Global Telecommunication System (The GTS). The main aim of WIS was to open up the GTS type of services to all WMO programmes and WMO partner organizations, making more use of the internet and adding discovery access and retrieval (DAR).
By the end you should have an idea of what we are trying to achieve in WMO, the role of the infrastructure, and some other aspects listed here.
14 March 2011
Information for Emergency Management Decision Makers

3. Information for Emergency Management Decision Makers
WMO
189 Member states and territories
Collaboratively supporting each others activities
Continuously collecting and sharing observations, analysing the atmosphere and oceans
Create and share products ranging from historic information to long-term climate prediction.
Provides warnings for weather, climate and water events that account for 90% of natural disasters
Supports many other disasters such as chemical and nuclear accidents, fires and volcanic ash
WMO has 189 member states and territories.
They collaboratively support each others activities through continuously taking and sharing observations to analyse the atmosphere and oceans. They use this information to provide their climate, weather and water related services including historic information to the provision of extended climate predictions.
An essential activity is the provision of forecasts and warnings for weather, climate and water events that account for 90% of natural disasters.
These services include other disaster events such as chemical and nuclear accidents, fires and even volcanic ash.
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Information for Emergency Management Decision Makers

4. Information for Emergency Management Decision Makers
Contributing Centres
Hundreds of centres around the globe contribute various data and services
All are owned and operated by Members, coordinated through WMO programmes and partner organizations
Many types, WMC, RTH, RSMC, RCC, NCC, NMC ...
WIS categorises these into three types of centres.
National Centres (national focus)
Data Collection or Production Centres (regional or international focus)
Global Information System Centres (WIS clearing house and hub)
All must be connected in some way in order to share
WMC – world meteorological centres (Melbourne; Moscow and Washington)
RTH – Regional Telecommunication Hubs (33 that form up the connectivity of the GTS)
RSMC – Regional Specialised Meteorological Centres
RCC – Regional Climate Centres
NMC – National Meteorological Centres
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Information for Emergency Management Decision Makers

5. WMO Information System
Data streams
Critical
Timely
DAR
Here we see the telecommunications view of WIS. It is made up of a core network connecting GISCs and Area Meteorological Data Communications Networks (AMDCNs) connecting GISCs to their local DCPCs and NCs.
WMOs global telecommunications systems (GTS) and the internet make up the bulk of the connectivity within WIS, and includes all the advanced satellite systems such as the Integrated Global Data Distribution System (IGDDS).
Distribution of information in WIS is basically three streams. One is the real time push of data set up to support operational- and time- critical activities. This is based mainly on the WIS Core network and AMDCNs. The second stream is for timely distribution which is also mostly via push but more able to tolerate service levels of the internet. It includes the movement of very large data and products which are cost inhibitive on the private networks. The third stream is the DAR – “Discovery Access and Retrieval” which is based largely on the internet and ad hoc pull.
The architecture of WIS is designed to make participation relatively easy. Data centres that wish to be in WIS only need to comply with those interfaces that relate to the types of services they wish to use, and most will be via the internet. Participation in the WIS private networks such as the GTS requires more rigorous compliance.
Internet
WIS Core Network
AMDCNs
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Information for Emergency Management Decision Makers

6. Information for Emergency Management Decision Makers
WIS Interfaces (
Interface Technical Specification Identifier
Interface Technical Specification Name
Required for: NC
DCPC
GISC
WIS-TechSpec-1
Uploading of Metadata for Data and Products 
WIS-TechSpec-2
Uploading of Data and Products
WIS-TechSpec-3
Centralization of Globally Distributed Data
WIS-TechSpec-4
Maintenance of User Identification and Role Information
WIS-TechSpec-5
Consolidated View of Distributed Identification and Role Information
WIS-TechSpec-6
Authentication of a User
WIS-TechSpec-7
Authorization of a User Role
WIS-TechSpec-8
DAR Catalogue Search and Retrieval
WIS-TechSpec-9
Consolidated View of Distributed DAR Metadata Catalogues
WIS-TechSpec-10
Downloading Files via Dedicated Networks
WIS-TechSpec-11
Downloading Files via Non-dedicated Networks
WIS-TechSpec-12
Downloading Files via Other Methods
WIS-TechSpec-13
Maintenance of Dissemination Metadata
WIS-TechSpec-14
Consolidated View of Distributed Dissemination Metadata Catalogues
WIS-TechSpec-15
Reporting of Quality of Service
The 15 WIS interfaces are described in more detail on the web (at under the WIS Compliance Specifications GISC, DCPC and NC and the soon to be published Manual on WIS.
These interfaces are divided into five main groups.
Uploading and downloading of metadata and managing the central repository
Uploading and downloading of data and products
User management and security
Discovery, Access and Retrieval
Service monitoring
Generally speaking, multiple standards may apply to any particular interface so participants can choose those that suit them the best.
However, for interoperability to be effective, metadata and search need to be more closely defined and are based on iso19115 and iso respectively.
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Information for Emergency Management Decision Makers

7. marine warnings in area bounded by 40W to 10W and 45N to 70N
Search Request
marine warnings in area bounded by 40W to 10W and 45N to 70N
GISC – DAR service
Security/authentication/authorization and even charging is managed by each service provider
Search Results
Information request to custodian
User searches for metadata then retrieves information from data custodian
Retrieve information
Centre publishes metadata to GISC DAR catalogue
Looking more closely at Discovery Access and Retrieval, a user finding metadata in the GISC catalogue will be directed to the data custodian, most likely a DCPC or NC to access the actual information. In this way, all the security, charging and volume measurements are managed at the data download stage by the custodian, not by the GISC. For instance, using the Global Marine Distress Signal System (GMDSS), a user could be directed to the GMDSS web site as follows:
The GMDSS publishes its metadata to the GISC catalogue (advising it has forecasts and warnings for Metarea One)
The user wants to search the metadata and retrieve information (for example “marine warnings in area bounded by 40W to 10W and 45N to 70N”)
The user searches the GISC DAR service for information (ie sends a search request to the GISC)
The DAR returns a list of solutions to the user (such as a sorted list of possible marine forecasts and warnings registered at the GISC – several of which point to the website
The user selects a solution and visits the custodians centre, in this case the GMDSS website
The centre then downloads the data to the requestor
Security, authentication, authorization and even charging mechanisms are managed by the centre. WIS does not try to enter into financial actions or, outside of collaborative virtual organisation agreements, try to pass user roles or validation to the custodian.
NC/DCPC information access service
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Information for Emergency Management Decision Makers

8. Information for Emergency Management Decision Makers
Web Services
So what UNGIWG can learn from WIS, let’s look more closely at a type of service that would support decision makers. Here is the Met Office trial service showing rainfall. See
This information can provided in this pictorial form which, if you visit the site, you will see moves nicely from past radar rainfall data to modelled predicted rainfall rates. This graphical display may be enough information for many decision makers who are happy to look at an image to get an overview. However, if i needed to set up a service that read the data and combined with my own to trigger actions, I would need to use the registered service and access real data rather than images. For example, I could use rainfall rates of above 16mm per hour reported in a catchment area for 20 minutes to alert the local council to close off minor roads downstream that may be subject to flash flooding.
Although WIS is involved in the collection and sharing of much of the data on this page, it is this dynamic provision of graphical and other formats suitable for ingestion or use of in emergency managers own systems that makes up the last mile of connectivity between WMO Members and its users.
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Information for Emergency Management Decision Makers

9. Information for Decision Makers
On this Sentinel site established to support fire services across Australia, the data comes from different sources (mostly Geoscience Australia and the Bureau of Meteorology). Web services allow us to chain this satellite cloud information together with the satellite detected ground fires to create a product that looks like it comes from one place. The hardest thing about setting up these types of service is getting the agreements in place between organizations to allow each other to use the others data. Issues such as proper identification of data source need to be respected and fully addressed too. This is even harder internationally.
WMO has in place a treaty between all Members to exchange essential data freely between all Members. This is known as Resolution 40 (of Cg 12). A similar resolution is in place for hydrological data as a special case. These agreements underlie WMOs core operational activities and make life a lot easier for those using this data. However, Resolution 40 has a second component referred to as additional data. Many data streams, such as the Hot Spots here, or the radar data on the UK site are not considered as “essential data” and have stricter usage policies. For WIS to be effective it has had to make sure it always respects the custodians data policies. This is one reason why that although the latest essential data will be available direct from the GISC, most users will be steered by the metadata towards the custodian data centres.
A lot of additional data in WIS is used by Members and cannot be redistributed. However, in some cases, Members can make the data more widely available for support of emergency events, but they have to always respect the data custodians wishes. As in previous DAR slide, the security and user management as an important role of the data centre.
It is not difficult to appreciate that although we might choose to cache some data such as DEMs and political boundaries for performance, if a service was to be set up across a region such as northern Africa (eg incorporating Western Sahara and Morocco), it would want to make sure it had the authoritative political lines. In fact, once service I would want UNIGWG to provide is a Web Mapping Service (OGC WMS) of UN approved political boundaries that we could use in dynamic web service based systems. I would recommend this be a publicly available resource.
14 March 2011
Information for Emergency Management Decision Makers

10. Information for Emergency Management Decision Makers
What we are trying to achieve
To facilitate getting the right information to the right place in the right format at the right time
Getting the infrastructure in place
Although WIS has private links between Members, the overall principle is of interoperability based on service oriented architecture
A standard metadata practice is a key ingredient (ISO19115)
Similarly for search, which is built on ISO23950 SRU
Managing data policy
Metadata plays a big role for informing on data policy
Access to data and products is up to the data centre to manage
14 March 2011
Information for Emergency Management Decision Makers

11. Information for Emergency Management Decision Makers
Use of the Internet and dynamic systems
WMS, WFS and WCS are useful ways to get spatial information into users systems (the last mile)
Daisy chaining of services creates powerful tools
Need for authoritative UN reference data sets
UNGIWG could facilitate making UN look more uniform if it provided a standard reference for UN Political boundaries (including WMS)
Linking to the WMO Information System
Point your catalogue to a GISC or include SRU search interface
You do not have to hold all data in every location as long as you can access it.
14 March 2011
Information for Emergency Management Decision Makers