Minutes Technical Climsoft Meeting at ICPAC, Friday, 14 July 2023 - climsoft/Climsoft GitHub Wiki

Date and Time

Friday, 14/07/2023 at 11:00 UTC+3

Location

IGAD Climate Prediction and Applications Centre (ICPAC)

Attendees

  1. Okoth Kabaka (ICPAC);
  2. Herbert Misiani (ICPAC);
  3. Samuel Machua (Climsoft);
  4. Patrick Munyoki (Climsoft); and
  5. Marcellin Habimana (Climsoft).

Meeting Agenda:

  1. How both teams can work together and integrate well to support ICPAC Regional Climate Centre (RCC);
  2. Update on previous meeting discussion on the need to develop a software for decoding and integration of GTS data in the existing ICPAC database managed by Climsoft;
  3. Data Rescue initiative for ICPAC member Countries; and
  4. Training/capacity building for ICPAC member Countries (R-Instat/Climsoft).

Meeting actions

  1. Climsoft team hosted at ICPAC has the responsibility and expertise to support ICPAC on following areas: Climate Data Management using Climsoft, Data Rescue and Climate data analysis using R-Instat software. Continuous collaboration of both teams in the above mentioned areas and involvement of ICPAC data management team in Climsoft activities (technical discussions, Climsoft development, trainings, etc.,) is required and should continue in the future. Both teams have been collaborating and are working together to organise, centralise and integrating data shared regularly by ICPAC member countries via email and data from automatic Weather Stations (AWS) in one place through Climsoft, Climate Data Management System (CDMS) installed at ICPAC and providing regional capacity building on data management, data analysis where required . Action: Marcellin and Hebert to follow up on this.
  2. Since there is no fund under the CLIMSA project to support the development of GTS data decoder software, Climsoft team was requested to find another way to assist the development of this important tool. Action: Samuel to think on this and update the team on the progress.
  3. Data rescue activities require enough funds to procure hardware, hire temporary staff to conduct data rescue activities, etc. NORAD project does not have enough funds to procure data rescue equipment but training in data management and analysis may be possible in this project. Action: Hebert to follow up on this and update the team on the progress.
  4. A meeting for Climate Data managers from ICPAC member countries will be convened after the forthcoming GHACOF event in August 2023 to discuss on data policy and sharing, data management in the region, etc.,,,. Climsoft team will be invited in this event to meet and discuss with Data managers on Climate data management challenges in NMHSs of their respective countries, following the outcomes of the discussions, a possibility for a face to face training for Climate data managers will be explored. Action: All to follow up on this.
  5. A virtual training workshop will be convened by ICPAC in early August 2023 to prepare for PRECOF capacity building for ICPAC member countries. Participants will be trained on how to analyse climate data to produce climate extremes using R-Instat software. Action: Patrick to discuss with Roger stern ASAP on his availability to animate this virtual training and update the ICPAC team.

Next Technical Meeting.

Friday, 03/11/2023