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Weather Observations Website (WOW)
Aidan Green, 22nd February 2014
Talk Plan
• Long history working with citizen scientists
• The Weather Observations Website (WOW)
• Collaboration
• Questions and discussion
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Long & proud history of working with citizen scientists...
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Weather Observations Website
• wow.metoffice.gov.uk
• More observations required for forecasters, prediction models, & verification.
• WOW is a portal for sharing observations.
• Automatic collection from automatic weather stations.
• Manual input of data – e.g. daily climate observers
• Ad-hoc weather reports – e.g. weather photos; twitter snow reports; impacts of the weather.
© Crown copyright 2014 Met Office
© Crown copyright 2014 Met Office
• Upload and download of historic datasets
• Map, tabular and graphical views of data for different time periods
• Metadata important – drives star rating system
• Built on Google Cloud infrastructure – resilient, scalable & flexible
Weather Observations Website
WOW by numbers...
• WOW – since launch in June 2011:
• Over 200 million observations submitted;
• Over 4,800 different weather observing sites established;
• Over 775,000 site visits, from 192 different countries.
• Won 2 UK IT Industry Awards in 2012 recognising collaborative approach and innovative use of Cloud Technology.
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Future Plans
• PhD studentship and development of plans for quality assurance and data assimilation of user contributed observations – including new layers & feedback to users.
• Further collaboration with schools and Department for Education to improve its use as an exciting teaching aid;
• Greater use of new weather ‘impacts’ reports – floods, damage to property, disruption to transport etc;
• Rolling developments based on user feedback;
• Development of social aspect (Twitter, Facebook, smartphones, forums, etc);
• Growth through collaboration.
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Collaboration essential for success
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© Crown copyright 2014 Met Office © Crown copyright 2014 Met Office
Summary
• The Met Office has a long and proud history of working with citizen scientists.
• The Weather Observations Website (WOW) is our most recent citizen science initiative, and has been a huge success.
• Over 200 million observations submitted;
• Over 4,800 different weather observing sites established;
• Over 775,000 site visits, from 192 different countries.
• Collaboration is key to success of citizen science initiatives, and will essential for the continued growth & success of WOW.
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Any questions?
QUESTIONS &
DISCUSSION
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