World Meteorological Organization, WMO - was established in 1950 and became a specialized agency of the United Nations in 1951. The WMO is headquartered in Geneva with regional offices around the world.

Activities

The WMO was created to promote

• efficient exchange of meteorological observations worldwide
• standardization of meteorological data
• cooperation between meteorological and hydrological services
• development of national meteorological services in less developed countries
• research and training in meteorology and related fields.

The WMO operates various scientific and technical programmes on a range of issues, including

• meteorology (weather and climate)
• operational hydrology and water resources
• environment
• related geophysical sciences

World Weather Watch System

The WMO programme World Weather Watch combines data processing and coordinates observation and communication systems from a worldwide network of stations operated by members.

Global Atmosphere Watch

Global Atmosphere Watch (GAW) is a network of stations monitoring the critical atmospheric parameters and providing scientific data needed to understand and ultimately predict environmental changes on both regional and global scales.

Structure

The World Meteorological Congress is the supreme body of the WMO. Delegates from all member states meet every four years to approve the programme.

The Executive Council conducts all activities of the WMO in accordance with the decisions of the Congress. The council meets once a year or more.

The six regional associations - Africa, Asia, Europe, North and Middle America, South America, Western Pacific - meet every four years to coordinate the decisions of the Congress within their respective regions.

The eight technical commissions are composed of experts for the study of specific areas of competence.

Secretariat, headed by the Secretary-General, is the administrative, documentation and information center.

IPCC

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the United Nations body for assessing the science related to climate change. IPCC was established by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in 1988. Its initial task was outlined in UN General Assembly Resolution 43/53 of 6 December 1988. The objective of the IPCC is to provide governments at all levels with scientific information that they can use to develop climate policies. IPCC reports are a key input into international climate change negotiations.

More on WMO

The WMO website provides background information, news, programmes, projects, publication lists and essential fulltext reports and documents.

WMO e-Library provides free access to a vast collection of publications on meteorology, climatology, hydrology, and related fields.