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Pacific Meteorological Desk & Partnership

Overview of Meteorology in the Pacific

Meteorology is the scientific study of the weather and climate based on physics, mathematics and chemistry. It supports the operational delivery of weather and climate services that inform decisions in such fields as aviation, marine transport, public health, agriculture and food security, integrated coastal management, water resources, disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation.

National Meteorological Services (NMSs) work around the clock to provide vital weather and climate information. Read more

About PMC

The Pacific Meteorological Council (PMC) is a specialized subsidiary body of SPREP, established at the Fourteenth Regional Meteorological Services Directors meeting in Majuro, Republic of Marshall Island in August 2011 to facilitate and coordinate the scientific and technical programme and activities of the Regional Meteorological Services. The PMC replaces the Regional Meteorological Services Directors body and provides policy relevant advice to the SPREP Meeting on the needs and priorities of its member countries and territories in relation to meteorology (weather and climate) and related fields.

The PMC meets on a bi-annual basis.

The Pacific Meteorological Desk Partnership (PMDP)

The Pacific Meteorological Desk Partnership (PMDP) is a regional coordinated response to meeting weather and climate services development in the Pacific Islands region.

Endorsed at the 21^st Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Program (SPREP) Meeting, Madang, Papua New Guinea (PNG) in 2011 to renew a Pacific Island regional mechanism urgently needed to develop capacity and advance the sustainability of weather and climate services in Pacific Islands, the establishment of the PMDP serves as the regional weather and climate services coordination mechanism managed by the SPREP and WMO to deliver a regionally coordinated effort to service SPREP Members needs in the area of weather and climate services.

The Pacific Meteorological Desk Partnership is made up of two core components as described below. Both components play specific roles and interact closely together to provide combined efforts and outputs as a single Desk function.

The Apia Secretariat Component

This component is made up of the Apia-based Secretariats of SPREP and the WMO working in close collaboration, and represents two key coordination elements:

Overall coordination and leadership of the Pacific Meteorological Desk Partnership function in terms of linking national and regional priority needs,
Overall reporting responsibility of the Pacific Meteorological Desk Partnership function to the SPREP Meeting and the Pacific Meteorological Council, including monitoring and evaluation

ii. The Partners Component

The Partners Component refers to the collective of technical expert institutions that will form the key technical expertise that will be delivered to build the capacity of Pacific NMS. Key SPREP partners institutions include the US NOAA, Australian Bureau of Meteorology, New Zealand MetService and NIWA, JMA, JICA, Meteo-France, APCC, KMA, FMI, among others.

The goal and objectives of the Pacific Meteorological Desk Partnership is to improve regional coordination and advancing and sustaining the delivery of weather, climate and related services for the protection of life and property of Pacific island communities. Other core objectives are:

coordination of PICT national and regional priority needs with regard to weather and climate services development
joint planning and design of technical projects and programmes for delivery by technical agencies to build on complementation and replication of efforts, and minimizing inefficient resource use
governance relationship through Pacific Meteorological Council and implementation guidance through use of Pacific Strategic Action Plan for Meteorology 2012 – 2015.