Sir

I warmly approve your Editorial 'Millennium development holes' (Nature 446, 347; doi:10.1038/446347a 2007) about the lack of weather data from Africa and other developing countries. A further problem is that when measurements have been taken they are often not disseminated to interested organizations within their own country, let alone beyond it.

Both aspects became very apparent at the second international conference on coastal zones in sub-Saharan Africa held in Ghana in 2005 (see http://www.acops.org/CoZSSA/CoZSSA_conf_report_Jan06.pdf). Excellent data taken by Ghana's meteorological service along the coast, showing steadily rising temperatures and decling rainfall over 20 years, are not widely known even at the African Centre of Meteorological Application for Development at Niamey in Niger. I found a similar situation in the West Indies. These local time series show the seriousness of the problem of climate change for these countries.

There is currently no financial or other incentive to share these data. African colleagues complain that, even if they send the data to international centres, they cannot benefit, as they do not receive current issues of the journals and bulletins where the results are published.

One way forward, which I have been pursuing by lobbying UK ministers and others, is to ensure that the latest publications of such literature are sent, at no cost, to the regional and national meteorological services that are providing data in developing countries. The UN Food and Agricultural Organisation is already providing current literature to some agricultural centres in the world's poorest countries, through its AGORA programme (http://www.aginternetwork.org/en). The OARE programme (http://www.oaresciences.org/en), launched last November, has similar arrangements for the environmental-science literature, including weather and climate journals — and more countries are being included in the programme next year.

These are suitable projects for extension to more countries, and for further donations from environmental and other charities. The media organizations that focus on ghoulish pictures of climatic devastation around the world might also contribute.