FUNCTIONS
The Research Division at the Kenya Meteorological Department is charged with the responsibility of coordination research activities in the Department and the public Universities and also work closely with the National Research Institutes. The Division disseminates research findings through organizations of international conferences, workshops and seminars which are held fairly frequently. The Division takes the lead in developing projects in priority areas designed to advance sustainable human development in Kenya. Key priority areas of research are in the fields of weather prediction, climate variability and change and in applied meteorology.
For the future, it is the intention of the Kenya Meteorological Department and the Institute for Meteorological Training and Research in particular; to create an effective research infrastructure which would enable meteorologists and other allied professionals to focus on national meteorological research needs based on relevant programmes with the potential for generating appropriate technologies for development.
FACILITIES
The Kenya Meteorological Department maintains a large data bank for all meteorological parameters, with records going back some 100 years. Data processing facilities including up-to-date processing software is available for use by researchers.
The Division maintain data bases such as ISIS for research work completed by various scientists from different institutions in the country such as drought, climate change etc.
NOTABLE COMPLETED RESEARCH
Considerable research work has already been published in proceedings of conferences such as :
Proceedings of the first Technical Conference on Meteorological Research in Eastern and Southern Africa, Nairobi, Kenya 6-7 January 1987; Technical conference No1/87, Kenya Meteorological Department, 1988 PP341.
Proceedings of the second Technical Conference on weather forecasting in Eastern and Southern Africa; 3-7 September 1990, Technical Conference No2/1991: Kenya Meteorological Department.
Other significant work already completed can be found in proceedings of national conferences on meteorological research and applications 25-28 August, 1989, and 5-9 Dec. 1994 respectively. A number of Research reports on different topics are also available.
SEMINARS AND SPECIAL EVENTS
Seminars on topical subjects are organized weekly - every Thursday afternoon. Most of these are given by scientists from the Department. Visitors from outside the country are also regularly scheduled to give special seminars of interest to the local scientists. The Kenya Meteorological Society and the Meteorological Department are now regularly organizing joint National Workshops and international conferences. Future announcements for these events will be available in our web-site.