World Weather Watch (WWW)

At the global level, the WMO World Weather Watch (WWW) Programme is the international cooperative programme which arranges for the gathering and distribution, in real time on a worldwide scale, of meteorological information including marine weather and oceanographic observations, forecasts and other bulletins. The World Weather Watch is composed of coordinated national systems operated by national Meteorological Services. Its three components are the Global Observing System (GOS) which provides the observed data, the Global Data-processing System (GDPS) which produces analyses and forecasts and the Global Telecommunication System (GTS) which relays information around the globe.

The provision of marine weather services is dependent on a steady flow of accurate and timely observations of wind, weather, waves, air and sea temperatures, ice conditions and other elements from the oceans of the world. Consequently, WMO through its Members undertakes a worldwide, round-the-clock monitoring effort to take the pulse of the weather and climate at the ocean surface, under the umbrella of the World Weather Watch Programme. This huge effort involves the ongoing collection of weather, wave, sea temperature and other observations from almost 7000 commercial ships enrolled in WMO's Voluntary Observing Ships programme, from drifting and moored meteorological buoys, automated shipboard data collection platforms, oil rigs and coastal automatic weather stations.

WMO and its Members work closely with the Intergovern-mental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), maritime organizations, shipping lines, the oil industry and other interests to maintain and improve these ocean observation programmes. Ocean observations are relayed around the globe via WMO's Global Telecommunication System for use in the preparation of weather, wave and ice forecasts and to provide climatological information for planning and design purposes. In addition, meteorological sensors on orbiting and geostationary satellites continuously observe the atmosphere and the oceans, feeding images of cloud systems, sea ice and other data to the GTS, global, regional and national forecast centres and data archives. The capabilities of the latest generation of ocean satellites, which provide an unprecedented level of detail on the structure and features of the world's oceans, offer great potential for further development of predictive capability on a broad spectrum of timescales.