Ghana Meteorological Agency (GMet) is pleased with its general daily weather forecast accuracy, noting that the precision of its projection can now be rated about 90 per cent.
The Agency’s channels of weather daily forecast dissemination have increased making it accessible to the public to plan and make critical decisions, according to Acting Director-General of the GMet, Mr Eric Asuman.
He made the submission in Accra while at a sub-regional workshop jointly organized by African Centre for Meteorological Applications for Development (ACMAD), the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and the African Union Commission funded by EU’s funded ClimSA programme.
Mr Asuman said the improved forecast service in recent times had been occasioned by technology and increased in trained meteorologists.
The Acting Director said a recent review of the aeronautical service showed that the accuracy had improved to nearly 90 per cent which satisfied the ICAO standards.
“There are people who still are not aware or still have some doubt but they should try our service and see. Those who patronize our service can testify,” he said.
He noted that with the support of government and non-state actors the Agency had been retooled to discharge their duty.
“At first our staff had to parodically visit weather stations to record data before analyzing to generate the forecast. Human error associated with this practice could not be ruled out, however, the automatic weather stations generate and transmit the forecast,” he said.
Dr Ernest Afiesimama, an official of the Africa Regional Office of WMO, said climate change was already happening around the world and in Africa.
He said in the coming years and decades, the effects of climate change were expected to be felt more severely in Africa given the high exposure, fragility, and low adaptive capacity of people, infrastructure and ecosystems.
Climate change impact, he said, posed significant risks to people’s health, peace, prosperity, infrastructure, and other economic activities across many sectors in Africa.
Dr Andre Kamga Foamouhoue, the Acting Director-General ACMAD, in a zoom telecast said better monitoring and understanding of climate threats and related losses and damage costs were needed to gauge priority areas for climate action.
The sub-regional workshop sought to share and review products available in Africa’s State of Climate (SoC) report, and identify additional Essential Climate Variables (ECVs) and actionable indicators for future SoC.
Participants were drawn from Uganda, Kenya, Cameroon, Mauritius, Angola, Burkina Faso and Seychelles) in Africa, Regional Centres, ACMAD, WMO, Global Climate Centres, and selected Universities.