[1] Understanding how extremes are changing globally, regionally, and locally is an important first step for planning appropriate adaptation measures, as changes in extremes have major impacts. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's synthesis of global extremes was not able to say anything about western central Africa, as no analysis of the region was available nor was there an adequate internationally exchanged long-term daily data set available to use for analysis of extremes. This paper presents the first analysis of extremes in this climatically important region along with analysis of Guinea Conakry and Zimbabwe. As per many other parts of the world, the analysis shows a decrease in cold extremes and an increase in warm extremes. However, while the majority of the analyzed world has shown an increase in heavy precipitation over the last half century, central Africa showed a decrease. Furthermore, the companion analysis of Guinea Conakry and Zimbabwe showed no significant increases.

Described herein is the first version release of monthly temperature holdings of a new Global Land Surface Meteorological Databank. Organized under the auspices of the International Surface Temperature Initiative (ISTI), an international group of scientists have spent three years collating and merging data from numerous sources to create a merged holding. This release in its recommended form consists of over 30 000 individual station records, some of which extend over the past 300 years. This article describes the sources, the chosen merge methodology, and the resulting databank characteristics. Several variants of the databank have also been released that reflect the structural uncertainty in merging datasets. Variants differ in, for example, the order in which sources are considered and the degree of congruence required in station geolocation for consideration as a merged or unique record. Also described is a version control protocol that will be applied in the event of updates. Future updates are envisaged with the addition of new data sources, and with changes in processing, where public feedback is always welcomed. Major updates, when necessary, will always be accompanied by a new journal paper. This databank release forms the foundation for the construction of new global land surface air temperature analyses by the global research community and their assessment by the ISTI's benchmarking and assessment working group.

Abstract.A major task of the newly established "Southern African Science Service Centre for Climate Change and Adaptive Land Management" (SASSCAL; www.sasscal.org) and its partners is to provide science-based environmental information and knowledge which includes the provision of consistent and reliable climate data for Southern Africa. Hence, SASSCAL, in close cooperation with the national weather authorities of Angola, Botswana, Germany and Zambia as well as partner institutions in Namibia and South Africa, supports the extension of the regional meteorological observation network and the improvement of the climate archives at national level. With the ongoing rehabilitation of existing weather stations and the new installation of fully automated weather stations (AWS), altogether 105 AWS currently provide a set of climate variables at 15, 30 and 60 min intervals respectively. These records are made available through the SASSCAL WeatherNet, an online platform providing near-real time data as well as various statistics and graphics, all in open access. This effort is complemented by the harmonization and improvement of climate data management concepts at the national weather authorities, capacity building activities and an extension of the data bases with historical climate data which are still available from different sources. These activities are performed through cooperation between regional and German institutions and will provide important information for climate service related activities.

s s e l a a r , A lb e r t M . G . K l e in T a n k , G e r a r d V a n D er Sc h r ie r , M a r ia m a S. A b a s s , O m a r B a d d o u r , A r y a n F.V. V a n En g e l e n , A n d r e a Freire, P eer H e c h l e r , B a y u Im b a n g L a k s o n o , Iq b a l , R u d m e r Jil d e r d a , A n d r e K a m g a Fo a m o u h o u e , A rie K a t t e n b e r g , R o b e r t L e a n d e r , R o d n e y M a r t In e z G u i n g l a , A l b e r t S. M h a n d a , Ju a n Jose N ie t o , Su n a r y o , A ris Su w o n d o , Y u n u s S. Sw a r i n o t o , a n d G e V erver

In the mid-1980s, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) began a major initiative, the CLICOM (CLImate COMputing) project, to support the storage and management of climatological data, particularly in developing countries. The CLICOM project was characterised by a common software shared by almost 100 countries. In 2010 the picture has completely changed. It is no longer one but several Climate Data Management Systems (CDMSs) that are now available to National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs). New CDMSs fall into a number of categories whose technical solutions, functions and commercial policies differ. We discuss the methods used to distribute these CDMSs as well as their worldwide installation, and we propose a way to assess their implementation.