World Bank, together with World Meteorological Organization and the Met Office (UK), published a report which explores the significant societal benefits of weather forecasting especially when its accuracy is improved through meteorological monitoring, modelling and computing. But what does this actually entail? Lead author Daniel Kull and co-authors explained that improving the accuracy of the data is achievable by investing in surface-based observations in data-sparse regions such as SIDS. With this weather data gap fulfilled, “weather-sensitive sectors such as agriculture, energy, transport and construction, and disaster risk management can benefit by over US$ 160 billion per year [worldwide].” With all these in mind, the authors suggest that investing in countries where data are sparse is needed to increase the number of observations—with high confidence that this could create the highest impact on the quality of weather predictions and climate analysis products. For SIDS bridging this data gap could support building the resilience needed to safeguard these sectors in the future.
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