23RD MARCH 2019

THEME: “The Sun, the Earth and the Weather”

1. World Meteorological Day takes place every year on 23 March and commemorates the coming into force on 23 March 1950 of the Convention establishing the World Meteorological Organization. It celebrates and showcases the essential contribution of National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs) to the safety and wellbeing of society through data collection from all over the world to help us understand the weather and its impact on our lives better. 

2. World Meteorological Day 2019 is devoted to the theme The Sun, the Earth and the Weather and reflects the core purpose of WMO and the essential role of NMHSs in monitoring the Earth System in order to deliver daily weather forecasts and advise policy makers about climate variability and change. In doing so, the WMO community supports actions that protect lives and property from extreme weather and builds long-term climate resilience.

3. Climate change is one of the top global concerns. We in Brunei Darussalam share this concern.

4. Climate change has led to an increase in heat extremes, and new temperature records – at local daily levels as well as at national, regional and global level. Heat waves are starting earlier and ending later in the year and becoming more frequent and intense as a result of climate change.

5. Climate models project increases in mean temperature in most land and ocean regions, hot extremes in most inhabited regions, heavy precipitation in several regions and the probability of drought and precipitation deficits in some regions. Climate-related risks to health, livelihoods, food security, water supply, human security, and economic growth are projected to increase with global warming.

6. Understanding how the Sun influences weather and climate phenomena is therefore critical to the core mission of WMO towards building resilient societies. National Meteorological and Hydrological Services provide expertise and services both to harness the power of the Sun and to protect us from it. These include 24/7 weather observations and forecasts, as well as monitoring of atmospheric greenhouse gases, ultraviolet radiation, aerosols and ozone and their consequent effects on people, climate, air and water quality and marine and terrestrial life.

7. With today’s technology, it’s hard to imagine a time when we didn’t know what the weather was going to be like. In today’s digital economy and smart nation environment, technology becomes the enabler to help socialize and disseminate weather information better and more effectively to the public at large.

8. In Brunei Darussalam, in light of the 4th Industrial Revolution (IR4.0), disseminating and forecasting weather information effectively and efficiently will incessantly depend on internet access and ongoing technological progress so that information can continuously be shared seamlessly and accurately in real time. This is because such information could very well determine life or death as well as determine effective and necessary mitigation or preventive measures towards protecting life as well as property as urgently and as timely as possible.

9. The Ministry of Transport and Infocommunications through the Brunei Darussalam Meteorological Department (BDMD) therefore strives to meet these challenges not only from the technological perspective but also in actively assessing and developing the department’s human resource development program. In this respect, upskilling and reskilling as required in the IR4.0 environment of personnel in areas of weather forecasting and observation have been in the forefront of training programmes.

10. The last two years have seen BDMD personnel undergoing online training as well as local and overseas training to increase the department’s capacity especially in data retrieval, data analysis and digital forecasting techniques. This is the relevance we seek for meteorological services in a digital economy.