The world is currently undergoing significant climate change processes. Extreme weather events are increasing in number and power. OTT HydroMet, developer and manufacturer of environmental monitoring solutions, provides systems to investigate and monitor climate- and weather-related risks.
Modern telemetry systems and robust, reliable sensors opened the possibility to site monitoring stations even at the most remote places in the world. But every region and project holds its special challenges. Thus, OTT HydroMet set up an international team of specialists to build early warning systems, hydro-meteorological networks, road weather monitoring networks, and other solutions around the world.
The end users are predominantly key government organizations, national meteorological and hydrological institutes. These are the large national, federal and government agencies that are working to protect the climate of their nation.
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The Changing Instrumentation Needs of Meteorologists
Electronics have rapidly changed, and instrumentation has modernized and developed over time. The conventional techniques of performing analog measurements have all been replaced by digital methods. Now, with machine learning and artificial intelligence, sophistication is being introduced into the new instrumentation.
Modern instrumentation is much smarter than what was used 20 to 30 years ago. OTT HydroMet aim to educate customers on how to buy the best quality instrumentation fitting their purpose.
This may not necessarily be the lowest cost instrumentation, but an instrument that provides a highly practical opinion on the life cycle, where the cost of the life cycle of the product is less expensive.
Meteorologists are experts in their scientific field, and OTT HydroMet aims to supply them with robust and reliable hardware to ensure that this knowledge is utilized in the most optimal way.
How Data Requirements Have Evolved
As technology has developed, so have the requirements for data. A number of monitoring stations in the past, particularly in developing nations or in high-growth markets, were manual. People would manually observe the data, and transmit this over radio, phone, telegraph or microphone.
The demand for data in the modern era is almost instantaneous. Real-time data is being used more frequently as scientists aim to understand more about what is happening now and aim to predict what will arise in the next 24, 48 and 72 hours.
Predictions and projections are made more accurate through the use of precise instrumentation and frequent data collection. Recently, there has been a peak in demand for high quality instrumentation that provides accurate data.
The Role of Telemetry in Meteorological and Hydrology Systems
If the entire value chain is evaluated, meteorological and hydrology systems depend on the measurement of parameters, data collection, data transmission in real-time and processing the data to provide a meaningful outcome. The world is now outcome-dependent.
All the systems that OTT HydroMet provides must have an outcome. The company works with its customers to ensure that the data is not simply gathered and stored as a number but also provides an impactful result. This allows meteorologists to make critical decisions using this data so they can protect lives and property.
How Real-Time Monitoring Informs Government Response to Climate Change
The need for climate change action has been demonstrated recently in the Glasgow COP26 Summit for climate change. Twenty of the most developed nations will discuss how to collectively reduce the carbon footprint and emissions and achieve carbon neutrality by 2045 or 2050.
As the global temperature is increasing, the majority of companies are creating significant development plans to reach carbon neutrality.
In several recent UN reports, the majority of countries list climate change as a top priority. Many countries are collectively committing to spending nearly a hundred billion dollars a year to combat climate change.
Most of these developments will only be realized if strong observation networks exist internationally, supplying detailed amounts of data so that scientists, decision-makers and governments can make informed decisions.
Many of the efforts behind these developments are driven by natural disasters, which besides the COVID-19 pandemic, have been the largest disasters in recent years.
Hurricanes, storms and typhoons can displace many people, along with damaging properties and casualties, which can cost the government billions of dollars and more in the long term.
Natural disasters increase taxes and cause displacement, poverty and hunger, and not all these outcomes can be prevented. However, if early warning can be given, it will enable governments to reduce the damage. Early notification is an area that receives significant investment in climate-related activities.
Low-lying coastal areas are impacted the most
For example, the WMO and other United Nations are working on the small island developing states, the Pacific Coastal Islands in the Caribbean. The islands in this region are highly impacted by climate change and are vulnerable to high and rising sea levels.
These small island developing states are recognized as a unique group of developing countries that face distinct environmental and socioeconomic vulnerabilities because of the standard of living, the resources available to them and their location.
As low-lying coastal countries, they have similar challenges in sustainable development, with the addition of limited resources, vulnerability to external shocks and natural hazards, significant dependency on external trade and growing populations.
OTT HydroMet worked on a large project from the European Union Commission through the five Cs; Climate Center for Climate Change Control. They provided 50 automatic weather stations with real-time monitoring, which utilized satellite data. These were installed in 13 separate countries to allow them to effectively monitor their network.
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This information has been sourced, reviewed and adapted from materials provided by OTT HydroMet - Meteorology.
For more information on this source, please visit OTT HydroMet - Meteorology.