1. ENVIRONMENTAL AGENCY OF THE REPUBLIC OF SLOVENIA www.arso.gov.si Meteorological network, archives and data management in Slovenia Zorko Vičar EARS, Data Control Department

2. ENVIRONMENTAL AGENCY OF THE REPUBLIC OF SLOVENIA www.arso.gov.si Abstract The history of the meteorological measurements, time series, measuring network, archive and database, procedure for control and data access in Slovenia. The climate regime in Slovenia is very complex and it demands a dense meteorological network. The first preserved series of meteorological measurements started in 1850 in the capital city Ljubljana. In year 2007 Meteorological Office has more than 280 meteorological stations different types, one meteorological radar, EUMETSAT products, more than 50 stations in other departments, 164 redundant instruments and for control 63 GTS stations from neighbour countries are used. Our meteorological database system has a twofold nature at the moment because there are both: the old ascii file system database and a new relational database system for easy access in Postgres on Linux. We mostly use web tools: PHP, Perl, JavaScript, for control. We still keep the classical meteorological measurements with a paper bulletin together with the automatic stations, remote sensing and retain the paper and digital archives.

3. ENVIRONMENTAL AGENCY OF THE REPUBLIC OF SLOVENIA www.arso.gov.si Position and relief of Slovenia - a different kind (types) of climate

4. ENVIRONMENTAL AGENCY OF THE REPUBLIC OF SLOVENIA www.arso.gov.si Some meteorological extremes

5. ENVIRONMENTAL AGENCY OF THE REPUBLIC OF SLOVENIA www.arso.gov.si Meteorological network - chronology Slovenia’s meteorological network covers an area of over 20,000 square km. Our climate regime is very complex and demands a dense meteorological network. The first preserved series of meteorological measurements started in 1850 in the capital city Ljubljana. The meteorological network in Slovenian territory expanded to 85 stations at the end of the 19th century. 1940 - 183 stations (climate and precipitation) 1950 - 200 stations 1997 - 360 stations 2007 - 212 stations

6. ENVIRONMENTAL AGENCY OF THE REPUBLIC OF SLOVENIA www.arso.gov.si All types and number of meteorological stations in 2007 1 PRECIPITATION - 175 2 CLIMATE - 26 3 SYNOP - 13 4 AUTOMATIC-METEO - 32 5 AUTOMATIC-EKO - 12 6 AUTOMATIC-HIDRO - 23 7 AUTOMATIC- RADIOLOGICAL - 23 8 AUTOMATIC-EKO-OLD - 0 9 AUTOMATIC-OTHERS - 20 10 SYNOP-GTS - 20 11 AUTOMATIC-CONSUMER - 1 12 ELE-RECORDER - 36 13 PHENOLOGICAL - 64 14 SUNSHINE RECORDER - 22 15 PRECIPITATION-TOTAL - 11 16 AVALANCHE - ? 17 PLUVIOGRAPH - 37 18 ANEMOGRAPH - 2 19 THERMOGRAPH - 36 20 HYGROGRAPH - 36 21 AGRO – 0 ? 22 BAROGRAPH - 14 23 AUTOMATIC-GTS – 20 ? 24 FOREIGN-GTS - 63 25 SNOW-COVER - 7

7. ENVIRONMENTAL AGENCY OF THE REPUBLIC OF SLOVENIA www.arso.gov.si Classical meteorological network of daily precipitation 2007 (175)

8. ENVIRONMENTAL AGENCY OF THE REPUBLIC OF SLOVENIA www.arso.gov.si Climate and synop meteorological network 2007 (26 + 13)

9. ENVIRONMENTAL AGENCY OF THE REPUBLIC OF SLOVENIA www.arso.gov.si Pluviograph meteorological network 2007 (37)

10. ENVIRONMENTAL AGENCY OF THE REPUBLIC OF SLOVENIA www.arso.gov.si Meteorological network of automatic stations 2007 (67)

11. ENVIRONMENTAL AGENCY OF THE REPUBLIC OF SLOVENIA www.arso.gov.si Meteorological network in 2007

12. ENVIRONMENTAL AGENCY OF THE REPUBLIC OF SLOVENIA www.arso.gov.si Summary The data are generated from stations of different types: fully automatic stations, automatic stations with an observer and stations without any automatic data registration. Thirteen synop stations, including 4 airports (24 obs/day), still have professional observers. All other stations are automatic or involve volunteers. The maximum (108) of climate stations was noted in 1973 and the maximum (245) of precipitation stations was recorded in 1978. Our highest location of a synop station is at Kredarica with an elevation of 2514 m, while the lowest location of a synop station is at Portorož Airport near the Adriatic coast with an elevation of 2m. The Slovenian meteorological network also contains 37 mechanical pluviographs, 22 sunshine recorders and some other special devices, redundant mechanical instruments (thermographs, hygrographs). The automatic network encompasses: 32 meteorological stations, 23 automatic hydrological stations with meteorological instruments, 12 automatic ecological stations with meteorological instruments, 1 automatic oceanic buoy with meteorological instruments. The data collected by the automatic stations has a sampling interval of 5 minutes for precipitation and 30 minutes for other variables, with statistic inside interval (max., min., avg. values).

13. ENVIRONMENTAL AGENCY OF THE REPUBLIC OF SLOVENIA www.arso.gov.si The elevation distribution of stations in year 2000

14. ENVIRONMENTAL AGENCY OF THE REPUBLIC OF SLOVENIA www.arso.gov.si Archive and the Meteorological database (MDB) Meteorological database system has a twofold nature at the moment because there are both the old ascii file system database and a new relational database system for easy access in Postgres. In the MDB two types of tables exist – input tables with original data and user tables with controlled data for clients. In the MDB there are also relational tables with derived data (monthly data, e.g., mean, extreme, sum, number of days with,...). Data rescue activities in the Meteorological Office include the preservation of all climate data and corresponding metadata collected in the national meteorological network in the territory of Slovenia and their transfer from paper records to a digital form in order to be imported into a relational database for easy access. The automatic data are routinely imported into the relational database. The data in the user tables have quality flags. All data, historical data coming from the old time series archive as well as actual data collected from the operational station networks, are processed and put into the database using the same software system.

15. ENVIRONMENTAL AGENCY OF THE REPUBLIC OF SLOVENIA www.arso.gov.si In 2001 all paper records were moved to an appropriate archive where the temperature-humidity conditions correspond to the requirements of such premises. The first preserved meteorological measurements started in 1850 in the capital city Ljubljana.

16. ENVIRONMENTAL AGENCY OF THE REPUBLIC OF SLOVENIA www.arso.gov.si Data access, we mostly use web tools: PHP, Perl, JavaScript We have developed simple web services to access meteorological data directly from the MDB – user-friendly Internet connections between client and the MDB.

17. ENVIRONMENTAL AGENCY OF THE REPUBLIC OF SLOVENIA www.arso.gov.si PSQL, PHP web review of metatables (metadata).

18. ENVIRONMENTAL AGENCY OF THE REPUBLIC OF SLOVENIA www.arso.gov.si Future plans 1)We plan to renew automatic meteorological network up to year 2013 (50% of EU donation ?) We want that automatic stations will work more stable, with less cutout of... 2) We still keep the classical meteorological measurements with a paper bulletin together with the automatic stations, remote sensing and retain the paper and digital archives.