World Meteorological Organization

The GAW Capacity Development Program was developed in order to:

• Document past and ongoing capacity development efforts across the GAW sub-groups
• coordinate future activities across the relevant sub-groups
• establish best practices in the capacity development efforts

A compendium of the Capacity Development activities within the GAW Programme can be found here.

This has been done with the following activities, targeting outreach, training and education:

Station Personnel Training

• GAWTEC: The GAW Training and Education Center has offered intensive hands-on training for GAW station personnel
  • These courses have covered a variety of GAW topics such as aerosols, UV radiation, reactive gases, greenhouse gases and data evaluation
  • A webinar series in collaboration with the YESS Community was started in 2020
• Twinning by QA/SAC Switzerland and WCC-Empa
  • Hands-on partnerships with selected GAW stations in data-sparse regions
  • Teaching at training workshops in a variety of locations on a variety of topics
  • General advice on technical matters of in-situ gas observations
  • Training of system staff during system and performance audits
  • See QA/SAC Switzerland and WCC-Empa for more information

 

 

Student Training

• Summer school on Solar Radiation Based Established Techniques for Atmospheric Observations (SORBETTO)
  • This event was held for the first time in 2018, and again in 2020
  • It offers education in ground-based and satellite solar radiation measurement techniques
• Summer school at Hyytiälä GAW station on atmospheric observations of aerosols, clouds, and trace gases for PhD and advanced MSc students

 

Instrument Calibration and Comparison Activities

• Dobson calibration activities
  • Transferring instruments to data sparse regions for inter-comparison
  • Training courses are also held for Dobson operators and technicians
• WMO-GAW Brewer Ozone Spectrophotometer Workshops and Operator Courses: a collaboration between EUBrewnet and WMO-GAW
  • A collaborative opportunity for the community to share scientific and technical advancements related to Brewer operation, calibration, data processing and data management
  • This is to build understanding of the progress, advancements, challenges, and needs of individual stations, users, and networks
  • Provides advice and answers practical questions from the community, particularly for new operators, in aspects of Brewer operation, characterization, calibration and data submission
• JOSIE-SHADOZ Ozonesonde Campaign
  • Held in 2017, it included lectures on sonde quality assurance, the importance of metadata reporting, troubleshooting and training of/knowledge-sharing between operators
  • Served to update the Standard Operating Procedures
  • WCCOS and QA/SAC on O3S often do individual consultations or coaching for O3S-stations as well

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Modeling Training

• Contributed to training materials and best practices for Chemical Weather/Air Quality Forecasting
• Prediction and Forecasting Improvement for Africa (PREFIA)
  • Aims to develop and improve air quality prediction and forecasting capabilities, as well as related meteorological analysis for African applications through an international science and training effort
  • This involves model a inter-comparison exercise as well as an individual model and ensemble approach
  • The first workshop was held in 2019
• Seamless Prediction of Air Pollution in Africa Workshops (SPAPA)
  • Held in 2017 and 2019
  • Collaboration between Monitoring, Analysis and Prediction of Air Quality (MAP-AQ) core group and GAW teams (SAG-GURME and SAG-Application)
  • Main objective of these workshops was to establish several projects and a network of partners with complementary expertise to develop and implement a forecast and assessment system for air quality over Africa

The work from the GAW Capacity Development projects can be read about in 

• Training Materials and Best Practices for Chemical Weather/Air Quality Forecasting
• WMO Bulletin Vol. 68(2): Sustainability of Atmospheric Observations in Developing Countries by Laj et al. (2019)

The WMO Global Campus has also been created as a searchable calendar of learning events for WMO Members, including the capacity development efforts of GAW.