Climate change has made weather patterns harder to predict, and extreme events like droughts and floods more frequent and severe. In this changing climate, accurate and localised weather information are vital decision-making tools and crucial to build the resilience of local communities. Existing mobile network infrastructure can be used to provide high resolution rainfall data using commercial microwave link (CML) data from their mobile backhaul network. This approach radically increases the quantity of observations available – e.g. 19,000 CMLs vs 50 weather stations in Nigeria – and has been shown to be on par with rain gauge, and outperform, satellite rainfall data.

This webinar recording includes a short presentation of the findings from the recently published GSMA report ‘Enabling climate services through mobile network operator data’, a short case study of how mobile operator Dialog Axiata contributes to climate services in Sri Lanka, and a panel discussion with Priyanka Dissanayake, World Bank; Frank Annor, TAHMO; Tharusha Wanigasekera, Dialog Axiata Sri Lanka; and Remko Uijlenhoet, TU Delft, on the challenges and opportunities of using CML data for climate services in low- and middle- income countries.