National Meteorology Agency: Publications


	Announcement of Research Call, 2019/2020
	Download in PDF format 1 Announcement of Research Call, 2019/2020 For Meteorological personnel in the National Meteorological Agency Meteorological personnel are hereby invited to submit research proposal for the following eight major areas (Topics): - Topic number 1: -Belg forecast verification over Ethiopia Topic number 2: - Climate Classification of Ethiopia. Topic number 3: - Updating Kiremt Rainfall Characteristics over Ethiopia Topic Number 4: - Assessing Scientific Seasonal Weather Forecasting and Indigenous Knowledge Systems in Pastoral and Agro Pastoral areas of Ethiopia Topic number 5: - Contribution of Seasonal Rainfall to Basins of Ethiopia Topic number 6: -Analyzing the impact of Elnino and IOD on Kiremt Rainfall over each of the Regional States of Ethiopia. Topic number 7: - Weather Forecast and Delivery Systems of Regional Meteorological Service Centers. Topic number 8: - Identification of Best Method to Assess Customer Satisfaction on Climate Services over Ethiopia. 1. Background of the call The National Meteorological Agency Research Policy is aimed at encouraging greatly the involvement of the meteorological personnel in Research activities targeting the improvement of the operational services of the Agency, in the area of Forecasting and early warning, in the area of data quality and in the area of applied meteorological services. According to the Business Process Re-engineering of the research process, the new paradigm shift has been to involve the Meteorological Personnel in the technical directorates of the Agency, in research activities, for the improvement of the technical operational activities of the Agency. 2 Moreover, the implementation of the Business Process Score Card system in the Agency has identified the Research Process as one of the three focus area. User feedbacks collected from the workshops during the National Framework for Climate Services, and National Climate Output Forums are also used to identify and develop the research themes. This announcement of research call in the Agency for meteorological personnel is intended to involve more meteorological personnel of the Agency. Successfully implemented research projects based on this call for research proposal would have the chance of a reward, based on the assessment of the research result by the research and studies directorate. 2. Objective of the Call Objective of this call is for the improvement of the operational services of the Agency. 3. Research Themes: - Research Theme 1: - Belg forecast verification over Ethiopia given at the Headquarter level. The National Meteorological Agency issues Belg season forecast since 1987. One method of improving the forecast is to undertake verification study of the given forecasts and the observed patterns. Forecast verification involves exploring and summarizing the relationship between sets of forecasts and observed data. It checks the accuracy, reliability and quality of the forecast as well as the value. Though the Agency has been issuing the seasonal forecast, only Kiremt season forecast verification has conducted and published recently. Therefore, the call for this theme is to undertake verification study of the Belg probabilistic forecast using the available data. Research Theme 2: - Climate Classification of Ethiopia The Climate classification of Ethiopia being used in the Agency is more than 20 years old and needs updating using the available data existing in the Agency. Moreover, when customers ask for Climate Classification of Ethiopia, they usually ask the most recent 3 work. Thus it has become important to include this work to be undertaken. The person who is supposed to win this research them is required to undertake all the data collection, analysis in map forms, Tables and written descriptions and which can be ready for Publishing. Research theme 3: - Updating Kiremt Rainfall Characteristics over Ethiopia It is known that NMA has been started issuing seasonal climate prediction since 1987 on national level, currently seasonal climate information of rainfall characteristics like onset, cessation and duration of kiremt season being offered for the user in the agency lasted more than 14 years’ research output. Nowadays, due to changing of earth climate WMO updated historical base period (1961-1990) to current base period (1981- 2010). Taking in to account, the new base period, increased number of meteorological stations, user curiosity to know exact time of the rainfall characteristics, and ambition of the agency to provide world class service, updating kiremt rainfall characteristics is crucial. Thus, in order to advance seasonal climate outlook of the agency, it would be expected from the research winner to appropriately assess the methodology in order to calculate (compute) the above parameters inclusive of number of rainy days, rainfall totals, length of dry and wet spells of rainfall indices (Note: variability & trend analysis for each rainfall characteristics is mandatory) Research theme 4: - Assessing Scientific Seasonal Weather Forecasting and Indigenous Knowledge Systems in Pastoral and Agro Pastoral areas of Ethiopia NMA in collaboration with different partners has developed National Framework for Climate Services (NFCS) in Ethiopia, among the project activities, Development of knowledge and Evidence based for Advancing Applied Meteorological Services has enabled to identify too many research topics including the proposed title. Hence, under the charging climate integrating climate information (scientific and indigenous) is vital to alleviate climate related hazards, otherwise lack of adaptive capacity to current and future climate variability and change does not allowed sustainable agricultural production. Therefore, the award winner need to assess meteorological, biotic, astronomic and relief feature indicators to forecast weather and climate conditions inclusive of their usage for different livelihood activities. Research theme 5: - Contribution of Seasonal rainfall to Basins of Ethiopia Currently NMA has more than 1300 meteorological station across the country, but well documented contributions of each stations rainfall to different catchments/Basins over the country for hydro meteorological services issued from Head quarter and 4 Regional meteorological service center is missing. Careful assessment of water resources and reasonable needs of the basin or region for various purposes like drinking water, irrigation, hydropower and navigation is important for planning of water resources development in a basin /region. Hence, spatial and temporal distribution of rainfall and number of raining days from each identified station to the catchment need to be studied and mapped by the granted researcher. Research theme 6: - Analyzing the impact of Elnino and IOD on Kiremt rainfall over each of the Regional States of Ethiopia. Many studies on the impact of Elnino on Ethiopian rainfall have been made. But there are limited research outputs on the impact of Elnino on kiremt season, especially Elnino impact on amount and distribution of kiremt rainfall over each of the regional states. Such studies are important to improve the seasonal forecast provided by regional meteorological service centers. It also helps the government to make proactive measures. Research theme 7: - Automating Weather Forecast and Delivery Systems of Meteorological Service Centers Weather forecasting and delivering the product to user’s community are two independent systems that require continuous improvement in line with the dynamics of user’s demand. By this proposal an attempt will be made to improve both the weather forecasting as well as the delivery systems of Regional Meteorological service centers by developing packages of computer programs that can create auto connection with NWP systems, reading model products, make downscaling and posting the customized product to service centers website and users email automatically without human interaction. This system is not a standalone system but rather it uses the privileges available in Global (NOAA, ECMWF, UKMET…) and National level NWP systems. Research theme 8: - Identification of Best Method to Assess Customer Satisfaction on Climate Services over Ethiopia. Assessment of National Framework for Climate Service which was undertaken recently in priorities sector over selected districts of the country and role of NMA stated within the GTP, clearly stated the need to design appropriate mechanism to continuously assess customer satisfactions of climate service. Hence, the study need to address appropriate mechanism to assess customer satisfaction of climate services being offered by NMA, which in turn improves service provision of the agency. 4. Eligibility criteria 5 This announcement for call on research proposal is only for meteorological personnel working in the National Meteorological Agency. It is expected that the Directorate with which you are working should also send an endorsement letter to the Meteorological Research Directorate. 4.1 Research project eligibility  Research projects are to be carried out for a period of minimum of 9 months and maximum 12 months.  Maximum budget for the proposed research project (Per diem, stationary) should be up to 30,000.  Research Projects proposed through team work will have a high chance of acceptance. 4.2 Contract The research contract will be governed by the rule developed by MRSD. 5. Evaluation criteria: - All research proposals will be assessed and evaluated by the Research Board of the Agency based on the Research policy and the Research directive of the Agency. Moreover, the following eight points, which are considered international standards for the assessment of research project proposals will also be included i.e., Scientific Excellence and Research proposal quality, likelihood impact of the research output on the improvement of the Agency?? operations, demand led(degree to which the proposed research work is in demand by the Agency), Research communication and dissemination(Degree to which research outputs are likely to be communicated across a variety of publication formats and types) and lastly Value for money(Cost of proposed research and value for money considered with relation to its significance and scientific Quality and impact). 6. Application Procedure The Research proposal application should be prepared as per the format on page 5 and the soft copy should be sent to the e-mail address of amake2008@gmail.com copied to abateyy@yahoo.com For further information, if you have enquiry, you can get the required information from the Meteorological Research and Studies Directorate. 6 7. Dead line The dead line for the application for this call for proposal is October 28, 2019. Research Proposal Application Format 1. Title of the Research Proposal: - 2. Name and Address of the Investigator(s): - 2.1 Name: - 2.2 Directorate/RMSC of the Investigator: - 2.3 e-mail of the investigator: - 2.4 Telephone No. Mobile Office 3. Beneficiaries of the research output (Briefly describe the potential contributions the research will make). 4. Data sets you intend to use (It would be much advisable to use most of the data which can be available in the National Meteorological Agency) 5. Methodology that you intend to use including statistical models or formulae. 6. Work plan of the major activities 7. Requested Budget Break down 8. Any support needed for the implementation phase of the Research Project, if it is accepted. Back to List

Announcement of Research Call, 2019/2020