Marine meteorology

The provision of marine weather services is an important function of the national meteorological services of coastal and maritime nations — including the Met Office. As well as forecasts the Met Office plays a major role in providing observations of weather at sea.

Global Collecting Centre for Marine Climatological Data

Under the Joint WMO/IOC Technical Commission for Oceanography and Marine Meteorology (JCOMM), intergovernmental body of experts, which provides the international co-ordination, regulation and management of marine meteorological services, the Met Office runs one of two Global Collecting Centres (GCCs). The GCC is run as part of the World Meteorological Organization's (WMO) Marine Meteorology Programme.

Aims

The aim of the Global Collecting Centre is to ensure that marine data are received from contributing members around the world and processed to an agreed standard. The data are then distributed on a quarterly basis to eight responsible members, each with their own area of responsibility.

These eight members are:

GCC Annual Report

At the end of each year the GCC Annual Report is published. This details data received and processed over the past year and also any new developments and future plans within the MCSS (Marine Climatological Summaries Scheme).

Covering letter (PDF, 132 kB)

Annual Report 2008 (PDF, 486 kB)

Update of code format

At the JCOMM-II meeting in Halifax, Canada in September 2006, a proposal to update the data exchange format and data standards was accepted (recommendation 9). This came into force on 1 January 2007.

The International Maritime Meteorological Tape (IMMT) format, for the exchange of delayed-mode observations, is now in its 3rd version: IMMT-III (PDF, 34 kB)

The Minimum Quality Control Standards (MQCS) are now in their 5th version: MQCS-V (PDF, 110 kB)

Consolidated MQC for Contributing Member software version 3 is now available from the World Meteorological Organization.

Contact the GCCs

United Kingdom GCC Met Office Saughton House Broomhouse Drive Edinburgh EH11 3XQ	Germany GCC Deutscher Wetterdienst KU24 / GCC P.O. Box 30 11 90 D-20304 Hamburg
	German GCC website
Email: gcc@metoffice.gov.uk	Email: gcc@dwd.de