Figure 4 (
4b) depicts the land-based stations of the WMO's Global Observing System, which is derived from the National Meteorological and Hydrological Services of WMO Members, as well as the SASSCAL Weather Net network in Southern Africa. Overall, although long time series of meteorological **data** are crucial in the context of climate change research, meteorological observations also show a strong bias towards Southern Africa. With regards to oceanic observations, figure 4(c) illustrates that, compared to the Mediterranean Sea, the oceans surrounding the African continent are only sparsely monitored by the global oceanic observation networks identified in this study.
