Dr. Iván Mersich, President of the Hungarian Meteorological Service,

Ladies and Gentlemen:

On behalf of the Secretary General of the World Meteorological Organisation and on my own, allow me to welcome the holding of the Third Seminar on the Homogenisation and Quality Control of Climatological Databases. WMO is always ready to encourage the holding of such Seminars in as far it helps develop the science of climate data collection and analysis.

Seminars of this type stress the need for good and reliable data. They remind us that with the state of the climate and that of the atmosphere there is the need for regular assessment and systematic monitoring so as to mitigate the impact of climate change and variability. We must also remind ourselves that for this exercise we are monitoring temperature fluctuations of decimals of a degree and sea-level change in cms. From this it follows that inaccurate data is as good as no data at all for the purpose of climate monitoring.

It will be recalled that the WMO since its establishment, has succeeded to organise an efficient method of data collection and its dissemination among its Members. It is this exchange of climate data and the systematic analysis of these data which in fact have permitted the timely discovery of the state of the climate. Based on this ascertainment, WMO in collaboration with UNEP established the IPCC which has the task of assessing the climate based mainly on climate data analyses in published and peer reviewed scientific technical literature. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UN FCCC) also derived its source and inspiration on the findings of the IPCC and on the WMO-established system of data collection and analysis.

At recent meetings of the UNFCCC Conference of Parties (COP), all agree that data is a precious commodity so much so that, the attention of all concerned are constantly drawn to the need to have well-kept and standardised observing stations. In a recent past WMO has taken three important steps concerning data and for the assessment of global climate:

1. To emphasize its role as a provider of reliable scientific information on climate and its variability, WMO began in 1993 issuing annual Statements on the Status of the Global Climate. In the 1999 edition, it was reported that the mean, global temperature at the earth's surface has risen in the order of 6 tenths of a degree over the period of global instrumental temperature records which dates back to 1860.

2. The preparation and adoption of Resolution 40 by Congress 12. Through this step WMO committed itself to "broadening and enhancing the free and unrestricted international exchange of meteorological and related data and products.

3. The efforts of WMO to draw the attention of all players in the climate arena of the need to consolidate the observing mechanism, i.e stations operated by WMO Members. Both Cg-13 and EC-52 took note of this fact and one of the items of discussion at the last Coference of Parties dealt with this issue.

WMO has constantly urged its Members to provide additional data and products to sustain WMO and other UN-Oreganisation's programmes at the global, regional and national levels especially for the purpose of climate change detection and climate variability studies.

In a supportive role, the WMO Commission for Climatology has since long been giving top priority to the importance of accurate data. It started this move by recommending the setting up of climate reference stations which if organised as recommended should yield high quality data. The Commission also has among its rapporteurs experts of high caliber for the analysis of data and some of whom are present in this very room. It has always kept a Working Group to deal with all aspects of data collection and quality control. It also, for this same purpose initiated actions for the establishment of Climate Computing Systems such as the CLICOM and is now even working on better performing Climate Database Management Systems. The development of climate change indices through the CCl/CLIVAR Joint Working Group on Climate Change Detection is another indication of the importance the Commission places on to the question of climate and data.

WMO therefore looks foreward to obtaining concrete suggestions from this Seminar on ways and means of improving the collection, quality control and archiving methods of climate data.

To end, allow me, on behalf of WMO, to congratulate the Hungarian Meteorological Service for creating a tradition in conferencing on this important topic, as this is the third of the series.

Thank You.