The National Centre for Hydro-meteorological Forecasting (NCHF) has been
connected to the Vietnam Research and Education Network (VinaREN)
since 2006, which has significantly helped the centre improve the
quality of weather forecasting and disaster warnings.
According to NCHF, the network became a key channel in collecting and
exploiting data sources from international forecast centres.
At present, VinaREN includes six network operation centres (NOC),
connecting more than 60 member networks from hundreds of research
institutes, universities, scientific organisations, data centres and
hospitals in 11 provinces and cities nationwide.
VinaREN allows Vietnam’s community of researchers and educators to
make high-speed connections with over 50 million colleagues working at
more than 8,000 centres worldwide, helping them share information on
science and technology and promoting cooperation through remote
education and health check-ups, grid computing, cloud computing,
weather forecasting and climate change response.
Dr. Nguyen Hong Van from the VinaREN management centre said through
using the high-speed network, several units operating in
hydrometeorology forecasting frequently connect with data centres in the
US, Canada and the Asia-Pacific region to gather data on global
models.
At present, NCHF also exploits some
sources of remote sensing observation data such as data from the Multi
Functional Transport satellite (MTSAT) and the Atmospheric Motion
Vectors (AMV) satellite via VinaREN. The move helps improve the
operation of regional weather forecast models and meets the demands of
short and medium-term forecasts.
It also supports
internal and external research activities in sharing data related to
hydro-meteorological and climate change forecasts, especially storm
projections over the East Sea.
According to
experts in the field, VinaREN provides access to more sources of data
and useful referential products for forecasters, especially in short and
medium-term forecasts.
VinaREN plays a key role in
collecting data sources in NCHF. Total volume of data exploited via the
network is estimated to account for more than 90 percent of data
collected from all sources by the centre.
Since
2011, the VinaREN management centre has teamed up with agencies and
organisations operating in the fields of hydrology and environment to
build a network for collecting and sharing data from remote sensing
satellites with the aim of responding to climate change.
Thanks to VinaREN, the cost of purchasing remote sensing images to
serve teaching and study reduced remarkably as many images can be
downloaded for free from satellites in under an hour.-VNA