Key institutions

National Meteorological Service. Ministry of Land and Environment

National Meteorological Service. Ministry of Land and Environment

Type of Institution:

Government agency

Work field:

Adaptation

  • Water ressources
  • Awareness raising & training
  • Vulnerability and impact analysis
  • Legistative and institutional framework (political incidence)

Mitigation

  • Awareness raising & training
  • Legistative and institutional framework

Scope:

Jamaica

Services:

The National Meteorological Service (NMS) within the Ministry of Land and Environment (MLE) is appointed as the Focal Point for the UNFCC and is responsible to coordinate the preparation of the national communications. The Climate Branch of the NMS is the specialized unit on climate change. It is responsible for maintaining a current database of the climate of Jamaica and for the utilization of this data in informing productive sectors of the country. It consists of a Data Acquisition Section that sets up and maintains an islandwide network of rainfall and climatological stations; a Data Processing Section that gathers, archives and analyses the climatological data with a view to monitoring and assessing the climate of the island; and an Applied Meteorology Section that processes the needs of clients, which include crop water requirements, design criteria for hydrologists and engineers, and climatological information for resolving weather related legal and insurance issues.