Voluntary Observing Ship Global Data Assembly Centre - DWD
Original (non-English) name
Acronym
VOS-GDAC
Citation
Abstract
The DWD operates one of two VOS-GDACs (Voluntary Observing Ship Global Data Assembly Centres) for worldwide weather observations made by Voluntary Observing Ships. The VOS-GDACs ensure that data meet agreed quality standards and make the global collections available quarterly.
Since 1964, the collection of weather data on the world's oceans by ship crews, quality control and the provision and archiving of these weather observations has been internationally regulated by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). To improve the flow of observation data and to standardize quality control, two Global Collecting Centres (GCCs) were founded in 1993: GCC-Germany in Hamburg (DWD) and GCC-UK in Edinburgh (Met Office). In 2017 the Marine Climate Data System (MCDS) was established by the Joint WMO-IOC Technical Commission for Oceanography and Marine Meteorology (JCOMM). The MCDS coordinates the activities of new and already existing maritime meteorological and oceanographic data systems and since 2019 the former GCCs are working as VOS-GDACs in this new system.
National weather services participating in making meteorological observations from ships on the worldwide oceans operate Port Meteorological Officers (PMOs). PMOs install and check meteorological instruments on ships, instruct the crews in observing practices, collect data stored on the ships and carry out a standardized minimum quality control. Data is forwarded to the VOS-GDACs quarterly.
The VOS-GDACs verify that quality control has been carried out properly, assist countries having problems with data supply or quality control, archive the data and make it available for download.
All VOS-GDAC input and output files are stored in the GISC (Global Information System Centre of WMO) and can be retrieved by entering gcc* in the input field.