About African Regional Climate Centre

 

WMO Regional Association I Pilot African Regional Climate Centre (WMO RA I Pilot African RCC).
High impact and/or extreme climate events (e .g droughts , floods) usually occur in many countries of a given region at the same time making it difficult for any individual nation to better estimate their effects based on information from that nation alone. WMO has defined a 3 level meteorological infrastructure at global, regional and national levels to address his member’s needs for climate services with:

- Global Producing Centres for Long Range Forecasts (GPCs)
- Regional Climate Centres (RCCs)
- National Meteorological and Hydrological Services


All WMO members have endorsed the concept of RCCs and urged for their establishment following all applicable WMO technical documents and regulations including manuals, guides, guidelines, standards and best practices.
Under the current procedures established by the joint leadership of WMO Technical Commissions for Climatology and Basic Systems, each potential RCC or RCC network should demonstrate capabilities. After completion of the pilot demonstration phase, a formal designation process is initiated. More details on the designation process is available at:
http://www.wmo.int/pages/prog/wcp/wcasp/documents/RCC_flyer_April2010_EN.pdf

 

 

WMO regional Association I (WMO RA I) for Africa, spanning from humid equatorial rainforest climate regimes through semi arid and arid tropical regimes, hyper arid or desert regimes to subtropical Mediterranean and southern hemispheric climate regimes exhibits a wide range of climate processes and phenomena. RA I is also recognized as the most vulnerable region to climate change because of the heavy reliance of countries in the region on climate sensitive natural resources and mostly poor people. Therefore, good climate services are highly required from policy makers to end users in rural communities across Africa.

 

Global scale climate information from GPCs has been found useful at continental to sub-continental levels and lacking the needed details for effective use at national level. The African RCC will work to transform global products to higher resolution national and sub-national information for country users. African Countries data and products will also be consolidated into regional climate services from sub-regions and the continent as a whole.

 

More importantly, the African RCC is a centre of excellence that assist WMO members in RA I to deliver better climate products and services including regional long range forecasts, climate monitoring information, data and training services. Research and development, infrastructural capacity development and overall coordination of climate centres across Africa are highly recommended.

 

The primary clients of the African RCC are NMHSs of RA I and RCCs covering each of the five Regional Economic Communities of Africa (ECOWAS-RCC, IGAD-RCC, SADC-RCC, North African RCC-Network and Central African RCC).

 

The African RCC is a single multifunctional Centre covering all Africa and coordinating all other RCCs of sub-regional scales.

 

In WMO RA I

WMO Regional Association I for Africa encompasses 54 NMHSs. It is guided by plenary sessions of the members which take place every 4 years ( XV-RA I in 2010)