Stories from Walter Ukaegbu, Abuja
The West African Science Service Centre on Climate Change and Adapted Land Use (WASCAL), has dedicated 10 Automatic Weather Stations (AWS), to the Nigerian Metrological Agency (NiMet) out of the 50 earmarked for the West African region. This is in fulfilment of its mandate to support countries in all areas related to climate change and adapted land use.
This was disclosed during the visit of Dr. Seyni Salack, Coordinator, Observation Networks and Seasonal Forecasting, WASCAL, to NiMet in Abuja.
DG, NiMet, Prof. Sani Abubakar Mashi, disclosed that NiMet had 54 network stations, which he described as grossly inadequate.
He said: “One principal focus of the agency right now is to see that we increase the density. We are being very ambitious. We are hoping that before the end of the year, we want to increase it from less than 100 to 1000.”
He revealed that NiMet was the first meteorological agency in Africa to be ISO 9001:2015 certified and promised to maintain the standard and pledged to cooperate and support all activities of WASCAL.
Salack explained that his mission was to asses the national observation networks available particularly, the weather and climate observation network and see how WASCAL could support NiMet to upgrade and increase the numbers and be able to manage the whole system together.
He noted that the joint production and ownership was also to enable WASCAL solve research questions.
As part of the partnership, WASCAL engaged NiMet technical officers in a three-day workshop on Weather/Climate, Infrastructure and Services.
He expressed WASCAL’s readiness to partner with the agency in the areas of capacity building, research and development as well as data sharing.