Steering Committee of the Indian Ocean Data Rescue Initiative INDARE-SC Country Presentation By

1. Steering Committee of the Indian Ocean Data Rescue Initiative INDARE-SC Country Presentation By Dookharansing SEETOHUL Meteorologist

3. History • Measurement of Meteorological parameters started since 1874 • Additional observations obtained from an observatory in the capital and a number of agricultural establishments • In 1902, the first Meteorological outstation was set up in Rodrigues. • In 1922, upper air wind monitoring was launched at Vacoas • In 1925, the Meteorological Headquarters moved from Pamplemousses to Vacoas • In 1939-1945, outstations were set up in Diego Garcia, St. Brandon and Agalega to cater for military needs.

4. In 1950, the Meteorological observatory focused attention mainly on meteorological functions and gave up other activities such as Astronomy, Seismography and monitoring of ozone at the surface • In 1959, the Observatory’s name was changed to Meteorological Department because of its new priorities • In 1960, radiosonde ascents were started at Vacoas to observe vertical distribution of temperature and humidity • In 1968, Mauritius acceded to independence and became a full member state of the World Meteorological Organisation and in view of its Regional and International activities, the department became the Meteorological Services

5. Data • The Mauritius Meteorological Services possesses over 50 years of climate data for a good number of stations fairly well distributed spatially over the Republic • In 1994, setting of AWS started • At Present • 2 Main Stations ( Vacoas Headquarter and Plaisance –Airport) • 23 AWS • Agricultural institutions & Sugar Estates • Volunteers • Some rainfall stations have records of over 100 years.

6. Type of data • rainfall • temperature (Maximum, minimum) • temperature (dry bulb, wet bulb and dew point) • relative humidity • wind direction & speed • visibility • cloud • sunshine • radiation • evaporation • atmospheric pressure • vapour pressure • soil temperature • upper air data • thunderstorm days

7. Archiving • Hourly, 3-hourly & daily values of most of the elements exist in electronic format. Otherwise, hard copies are available as well. • Statistics: Means, normals, extremes, standard deviations etc. Climate Maps • Climate maps, showing isolines prepared with data collected over a long period of time are available for the following elements: rainfall, temperature, sunshine and radiation. Wind isotach and wind rose have also been computed.

8. Outer Island Stations Data • Synoptic stations have also been established at Rodrigues, St Brandon and Agalega since the late fifties. • The same type of data is available from these sites for a period of over 50 years.

9. Current Status • No Data Base: Data is still archived in EXCEL sheets • Raw Data still in hard copy • Used CLICOM in 1980’s, CLIMSOFT never worked because of incompatibility issues • Use R CLIMDEX software for analysis and assessing of impacts of climate change

10. Projects • Plan to buy a proper data base software for archiving and generate climate products • Digitize and Archive all available data

11. Proposals • Financial Support – Lack of financial resources • Capacity building in both hardware and software • Guidance

12. THANK YOU