CROATIAN CLIMATE OBSERVING SYSTEM

30 CROATIAN CLIMATE OBSERVING SYSTEM
- Terrestrial domain - no programmes have been developed which would operationally
safeguard and use satellite data.
7. Difficulties met in the setting up and development of operations
in the climate observing systems in Croatia and institutions
responsible for the different observing networks in
Croatia
7.1 Main difficulties
- Lack of coordination at national level among networks in different climate system
domains or even within particular climate system domains.
- No focal point at national level where all stakeholders (users, related institutions, the
public) could receive information on who is responsible for the maintenance of a particular
network, how is maintenance carried out, what data are available, how can
data be accessed and at what conditions.
- In some domains (particularly in oceanic and terrestrial programmes) measurements
are not systematically approached and are performed as part of a project, which
means they are carried out only as long as the project is funded.
7.2 Institutions responsible for the different climate system networks in
Croatia
There are many reasons affecting changes in the existing climate system observing networks:
professional, user, political, historical and other. Changes are also influenced by
technological development and by extraordinary events, most often natural catastrophies
(e.g. tsunami - at global level) calling for new observing systems and the improvement of
existing ones. It would be useful to precisely know, at least at data level, what observing
systems exist, what they do, how data can be accessed and under what conditions. This
would prevent monopolising and the duplication of observing systems as well as help the
planning of new systems and the use of data from the existing systems.
In Croatia, several institutions perform observations within national networks. In some
areas and for some activities, specific-purpose, user-related observing networks have been
set up.
It is certainly important to differentiate national observation networks providing data
for public use, from user networks, set up in defined areas to solve a technological or
security problem.
For historical, user, political, professional and implementation reasons, there is actually
no operative organisation of climate system domains (atmospheric, oceanic, terrestrial)
observing networks in Croatia. The MHS observing system, besides atmospheric and
hydrological observations, performs a considerable number of observations of the oceanic
and terrestrial climate domains. This is because of the historical conditions ruling the
setting up of networks, the possibility of cheaper implementation at already existing stations
with observers and the necessary infrastructure, the concentration of adequate staff
for infrastructure and system maintenance etc.