SASSCAL is committed to improve the density of the weather stations in space in order to improve the quality of the forecast. The Minister of Education, Science, Vocational Training and Early Childhood Dr. John Phiri has encouraged South Africa Science Service Centre for Climate Change and Adaptive Land Management (SASSCAL) to double their research efforts.
Dr. Phiri was speaking during the handover ceremony of 10 Automatic Weather Stations (AWS) by the Germany Federal Government worth 50 million Euros at the University of Zambia recently.
“If SASSCAL doubles their research efforts it will help government safe guard the lives of the people as the government cannot make decisions without information” he said.
He explained that the weather stations will help in developing methods to improve fertility, adaption of production techniques as well as improvement in information flow between farmers and research institutions.
The Minister said the construction of the automatic weather stations represent the technological advancement of Zambia.
And SASSCAL Regional Scientific Coordinator, Professor Norbert Jurgens, said the automatic weather stations measure permanently important factors like rainfall, temperature, wind direction and wind speed.
“The weather stations automatically send data upon measurement every 15 minutes, it consists of a tower with an antenna which sends out an SMS through the cell phone network to the next tower of the cell phone network and the signal SMS arrives on the computer at the meteorological department,” he explained.
Professor Jurgens added that the computer has a program which receives and analyses the weather data which is sent to Germany were it is published on the internet.
He said SASSCAL is committed to improve the density of the weather stations in space in order to improve the quality of the forecast.
The AWSs have been erected in 10 different locations around the country namely, Lusaka International Airport, the University of Zambia, Sesheke, Samfya, Mwinilunga, Serenje, Kasempa, Zambezi, Kabwe Mulungushi and Kalabo.