NOAA provides Central America life saving satellite weather technology

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Weather forecasting in Central America is getting a boost from some environmental satellite high-resolution imagery and data as part of a $1 billion, U.S.-financed reconstruction and development effort. The effort followed in the wake of Hurricane Mitch, a 1998 killer storm that took 11,000 lives. The satellites are operated by NOAA. The data they provide will help to improve weather forecasts throughout the region. The improved forecasts will assist warning efforts to save lives and property at risk from severe weather.

On July 26, the United States will transfer to Costa Rica a satellite ground station that will bring high-resolution digital imagery from NOAA's Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites to the Central American region. This system will allow weather forecasters in the region to perform quantitative analysis of the data, which will lead to enhanced forecasting. From a hub in San Jose, Costa Rica, the data will be distributed to meteorological services in Belize, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Panama.
"NOAA is proud to be a part of this multinational effort," said Gregory Withee, assistant administrator for NOAA satellite and information services. "Working with the U.S. Agency for International Development and with the nations of Central America, we are able to provide the satellite technology that will improve weather forecasts and warnings and save lives in the region."

This new system builds on NOAA's existing partnership with other nations in the Atlantic, Caribbean, and Central American region by employing the latest in satellite meteorological technology to improve hurricane warning systems and programs. In bringing this about, SICA (Sistema de Integracion Centroamericana), a presidential-level regional coordinating body located in San Salvador, El Salvador, and the Comite Regional de Recursos Hidraulicos (CRRH), a regional meteorological and hydrological organization, provided critical regional coordination with Central American governments.

"We are pleased to receive this capability that will greatly enhance our ability to provide more accurate and timely warnings to protect life, property, and our growing economies," said Eladio Zarate, director of the Instituto Meteorologico Nacional (IMN) in San Jose. "Costa Rica is proud to have been selected as the regional hub from which these critical satellite data will be provided to the region. We are particularly pleased that our Science and Technology Ministry has recently upgraded our Internet connectivity to allow us to share the data with other countries in the region."

Based on technical assessments conducted by NOAA, and consultations with the national meteorological services of the Central American countries and with CRRH, a determination was made that the region needed access to higher resolution meteorological data to support better and more accurate weather forecasts and hurricane threats. As a result of these recommendations, each national meteorological office will be equipped with special computers that will allow them to detect hurricanes, heavy precipitation, wildland fires, volcanic ash movement, and cloud movement with new data available every 30 minutes.

Through an international partnership, NOAA's National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service worked with Global Imaging, of Solana Beach, Calif., to install the GOES satellite data receive station. In addition, Colorado State University's Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere in Fort Collins, Colo., and the University of Wisconsin's Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies in Madison, Wis., developed and implemented systems architecture and training programs for meteorologists from the Central American region to help them take advantage of the new technology.

NESDIS is the nation's primary source of space-based meteorological and climate data. NESDIS operates the nation's environmental satellites, which are used for weather forecasting, climate monitoring, and other environmental applications such as fire detection, ozone monitoring, and sea surface temperature measurements. NESDIS also operates three data centers, which house global data bases in climatology, oceanography, solid earth geophysics, marine geology and geophysics, solar-terrestrial physics, and paleoclimatology.

Relevant Web Sites

Report and Satellite Images on Hurricane Mitch:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/ol/reports/mitch/mitch.html

NOAA's Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites:
http://www.oso.noaa.gov/goes/

NOAA Satellite Data Acquisition System for Central America:
http://www.cira.colostate.edu/RAMM/MitchProject/default.htm

Real-time Satellite Rainfall and Fire Products for Central America:
http://www.cira.colostate.edu/ramm/SICA/main.html

NOAA's National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service:
http://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/

IDB announces social inclusion program for Latin America, Caribbean

Program promotes indigenous groups, persons of African descent 

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has announced a new $250 million program to advance the inclusion of all ethnic and social groups -- specifically indigenous peoples and those of African descent -- into development projects for Latin America and the Caribbean.

In a June 18 statement, the IDB said its planned projects will include expanding the access of minority groups to universities in Brazil; a social emergency fund in Ecuador; support for an anti-poverty strategy and environmental protection in Bolivia; development of indigenous communities in Chile; education and culture programs in Guatemala; integral development of ethnic groups in Honduras; and land titling and registration in Peru.

In addition, technical cooperation projects will include training for Costa Rican youth of African descent, and the recovery of basic productivity of Garifuna communities in Central America.  The Garifuna, who have their own language and culture, are the result of the intermingling of African slaves, the indigenous people of the Caribbean, and some Europeans.

IDB President Enrique Iglesias said social exclusion is a "critical issue for the development of persons of African descent and indigenous peoples, and for Latin America and the Caribbean as a whole."

Iglesias, speaking at a June 18 conference on race, ethnicity and inclusion at IDB headquarters in Washington, called the costs of exclusion high.  "Only by utilizing the existing skills and capacities of the indigenous peoples and persons of African descent can the economies of the region substantially grow," he said.

Also speaking at the conference was United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson, who praised an initiative by multilateral organizations to focus on development with an eye toward including minority groups.  "There is a deep sense of pain and anger at the depth of discrimination, lack of recognition and exclusion, compounded by coping with extreme poverty" in many sectors of the population, she said.

Robinson welcomed the search for what she called a "shared vision" on the development of Latin America and the Caribbean, with the purpose of putting the fight against racism and discrimination high on the international agenda.

The IDB said that during the conference, government officials, academics, and other experts analyzed the causes and economic and political consequences of exclusion and examined examples of successful national and regional programs that guarantee broad access to markets and social services.  They also reviewed the most effective legal and political policies to end exclusion, the IDB said.

A CD-ROM on the conference is available from the IDB by e-mailing the organization at: <inclusionsocial@iadb.org>.