WMO Integrated Global Observing System

Many systems, one framework

The World Meteorological Organization coordinates weather, climate and water observations, but each of its members runs its own stations and satellites, and partner systems such as ocean and research networks sit alongside them. WIGOS, the WMO Integrated Global Observing System, was designed to integrate them under common standards. Its pre-operational phase began in 2016, and the Eighteenth World Meteorological Congress adopted the transition to operational status in 2019. WIGOS became fully operational in January 2020.

It integrates the networks: the surface and upper-air stations of the Global Observing System, the satellites, and partner systems for ocean, hydrology, climate and atmospheric composition.

What it standardises

WIGOS sets common practices for many things that are easy to overlook. Every station has a WIGOS Station Identifier, a unique code that follows a standard pattern. A WIGOS metadata standard describes every station's location, instruments, exposure and history. A catalogue of requirements and capabilities, OSCAR, records what each observation is needed for and what each platform can deliver, and a data quality monitoring system compares stations' reports against the models.

Later, the Global Basic Observing Network set minimum requirements for the surface and upper-air observations each country should make and share, and a financing facility supports countries in meeting them.

A framework as an observatory

WIGOS has no instruments of its own. Its product is the ability to find out what is observed, where, how well and by whom, and to fill gaps by agreeing on minimum networks. It is the clearest example in the atlas that the next observatory may be a framework: made of rules, metadata and minimum networks that let many systems act as one.

Rules as infrastructure

The WIGOS standards are unglamorous: identifiers, metadata fields, quality indicators. Yet without them the global observing system could not tell whether two stations are the same, where they are or how they measure. The programme's effort goes into a long tail of national implementation, helping countries put their stations into the registry and fix their metadata. The result is slow but cumulative, and the visible gains are in the monitoring of data quality and in the planning of where new stations are most needed. It shows that identity and description are the first layer of any federated network. The framework also records, for each requirement, which application needs it, so a decision to close a station can be weighed against the forecasts and climate services that depend on it, instead of being made on cost alone.

Instruments and technologies

• WIGOS Station Identifier A four-part code that uniquely identifies every observing station in the world.
• WIGOS metadata standard A defined set of fields describing each station and its observations.
• OSCAR A database of requirements and capabilities used to plan observing systems.

Timeline

• 2016 Pre-operational phase begins.
• 2019 Eighteenth World Meteorological Congress (Cg-18) adopts the transition to operational status.
• 2020 WIGOS becomes fully operational in January.

Key lessons for observation today

• Identify everything A unique station identifier makes it possible to join records. Identity is the first piece of interoperability.
• Metadata is part of the observation The standard says what must be recorded about every station. Without it, data cannot be compared.
• Minimum networks close gaps Agreeing on a minimum set of observations for every country gives a floor for the global system. Minimum standards are a way to federate.

Sources

• WMO Community, WIGOS operational plan 2020–2023
• WMO Community, WIGOS
• World Meteorological Organization