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The gap between the availability of information in developed and developing
countries in the fields of climate and meteorology is described and detailed
in this report. It is based on a recent survey of scientists around the
world. The information divide results from the high cost of information
and lack of resources in many countries and can be compounded by language
difficulties and cultural differences. This has led to the breakdown in
the flow of weather and forecast data, the flow of journals to developing
countries, and the flow of the results of scientific work back to these
same journals from developing countries.
With the increasing electronic flow of information, many countries are also limited by costly and low-bandwidth access to the Internet. Several ideas for bridging the information divide are presented in this report, ranging from electronic distribution of journals, to increasing capacity to deal with information, to a commitment to include all users in new strategies for delivering information.
Dr. Andrew Gettelman conducted this study during 2001-2002, combining visits to eight developing countries with a survey of 50 scientists and journal editors around the world. The study characterizes the information divide and provides some suggestions for bridging it. It is available here in HTML and PDF. Another version of the report is scheduled to appear in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society during the summer of 2003.
