Design of Data Collection Related to the Climate in the Tropics
Weather and climate are usually distinguished by different timescales. While weather lasts typically a few days, climatological periods are derived from monitoring the averages of meteorological data over longer time spans. Today, modern measuring instrum
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Abstract
Weather and climate are usually distinguished by different timescales. While weather lasts typically a few days, climatological periods are derived from monitoring the averages of meteorological data over longer time spans. Today, modern measuring instruments are used to measure, analyze, and predict weather and climate all over the world. The better part of these instruments is installed on the ground, while others are also set on weather balloons, aircrafts, on satellites, or on ships and buoys on the seas etc. Many countries have established national weather systems and services which are collecting, editing, and preparing national climate data. However, the spatial coverage of meteorological ground stations used for these datasets is quite different around the globe, and ground climate observation sites are often limited to single-point locations in well-populated areas and/or regions which are easy to access (e.g., coastal areas). Consequently, other options have to be considered to close the existing gaps between ground climate monitoring sites. Remote sensing through radar and satellite observations is one suitable tool to ensure climate investigations in isolated regions and can help to understand weather and climate processes at different time scales. Additionally to ground-based weather monitoring and remote sensing model, reanalysis data have become common in climate science during the last years. Keywords
Climate data • Meteorological Data • Climate measurement • Tropics
T. Peters (*) Institute of Geography, Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Erlangen, Germany e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] # Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2016 L. Pancel, M. Ko¨hl (eds.), Tropical Forestry Handbook, DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-54601-3_43
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Weather and climate are usually distinguished by different timescales. While weather lasts typically a few days, the standard WMO (World Meteorology Organization) climatology period is derived from monitoring the averages of meteorological data over a 30-year time span which is updated every 30 years (the last WMO standard climatology period was from 1961 to 1990; the adjacent one will cover the time span from 1991 to 2020). Thus, climate involves the averaging of multiple weather events. Today, modern measuring instruments are used to measure, analyze, and predict weather and climate all over the world. The better part of these instruments is installed on the ground, while others are also set on weather balloons, aircrafts, on satellites, or on ships and buoys on the seas. Modern climate sensors can be used alone but are often combined in a weather station. This allows scientists to collect greater amounts of weather information and to investigate the multiple relations between different climate factors such as temperature, humidity, wind, etc. Typical weather stations measure pressure, different temperatures, wind speeds and directions, humidity, solar radiation, and precipitation and are designed to a
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