Julian Hunt, of the Department of Earth Sciences, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, and House of Lords, London SW1A 0PW, UK, writes in Nature’s Correspondence section this week:
I warmly approve your Editorial ‘Millennium development holes’ (Nature 446, 347; 2007) about the lack of weather data from African and other developing countries. A further problem is that when measurements have been taken they are often not disseminated to interested organizations within their own country, let alone beyond it.
Both aspects became very apparent at the second international conference on coastal zones in sub-Saharan Africa held in Ghana in 2005 . Excellent data taken by Ghana’s meteorological service along the coast, showing steadily rising temperatures and decling rainfall over 20 years, are not widely known even at the African Centre of Meteorological Application for Development at Niamey in Niger. I found a similar situation in the West Indies. These local time series show the seriousness of the problem of climate change for these countries.
There is currently no financial or other incentive to share these data. African colleagues complain that, even if they send the data to international centres, they cannot benefit, as they do not receive current issues of the journals and bulletins where the results are published.
One way forward, which I have been pursuing by lobbying UK ministers and others, is to ensure that the latest publications of such literature are sent, at no cost, to the regional and national meteorological services that are providing data in developing countries. The UN Food and Agricultural Organisation is already providing current literature to some agricultural centres in the world’s poorest countries, through its AGORA programme. The OARE programme, launched last November, has similar arrangements for the environmental-science literature, including weather and climate journals — and more countries are being included in the programme next year.
These are suitable projects for extension to more countries, and for further donations from environmental and other charities. The media organizations that focus on ghoulish pictures of climatic devastation around the world might also contribute.
Nature adds: Primary research papers and other content in Nature and all Nature Publishing Group journals are made freely available online to readers in countries that are members of AGORA, OARE or HINARI, which covers health. These provide information in a timely fashion to people who might not otherwise be able to obtain it or obtain it promptly. See the author and reviewers’ website for more details.