An Overview of European Efforts in Generating Climate Data Records

Abstract The Coordinating Earth Observation Data Validation for Reanalysis for Climate Services project (CORE-CLIMAX) aimed to substantiate how Copernicus observations and products can contribute to climate change analyses. CORE-CLIMAX assessed the European capability to provide climate data records (CDRs) of essential climate variables (ECVs), prepared a structured process to derive CDRs, developed a harmonized approach for validating essential climate variable CDRs, identified the integration of CDRs into the reanalysis chain, and formulated a process to compare the results of different reanalysis techniques. With respect to the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), the systematic application and further development of the CORE-CLIMAX system maturity matrix (SMM) and the spinoff application performance metric (APM) were strongly endorsed to be involved in future implementations of C3S. We concluded that many of the current CDRs are not yet sufficiently mature to be used in reanalysis or applied in climate studies. Thus, the production of consistent high-resolution data records remains a challenge that needs more research urgently. Extending ECVs to close climate cycle budgets (e.g., essential water variables) is a next step linking CDRs to sectoral applications.

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Climate Change Explorer: Extracting localized data for developing Climate Services

10.5194/egusphere-egu21-12336 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Christine Nam ◽

Bente Tiedje ◽

Susanne Pfeifer ◽

Diana Rechid ◽

Daniel Eggert

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Regional Climate Model ◽

Climate Model ◽

Regional Climate ◽

Heavy Precipitation ◽

Climate Projections ◽

Climate Data ◽

Climate Services ◽

Mitigation And Adaptation ◽

Data Formats

Everyone, politicians, public administrations, business owners, and citizens want to know how climate changes will affect them locally. Having such knowledge offers everyone the opportunity to make informed choices and take action towards mitigation and adaptation.&#160;In order to develop locally relevant climate service products and climate advisory services, as we do at GERICS, we must extract localized climate change information from Regional Climate Model ensemble simulations.&#160;Common challenges associated with developing such services include the transformation of petabytes of data from physical quantities such as precipitation, temperature, or wind, into user-applicable quantities such as return periods of heavy precipitation, e.g. for legislative or construction design frequency. Other challenges include the technical and physical barriers in the use and interpretation of climate data, due to large data volume, unfamiliar software and data formats, or limited technical infrastructure. The interpretation of climate data also requires scientific background knowledge, which limit or influence the interpretation of results.&#160;These barriers hinder the efficient and effective transformation of big data into user relevant information in a timely and reliable manner. To enable our society to adapt and become more resilient to climate change, we must overcome these barriers. In the Helmholtz funded Digital Earth project we are tackling these challenges by developing a Climate Change Workflow.&#160;In the scope of this Workflow, the user can easily define a region of interest and extract the relevant climate data from the simulations available at the Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF). Following which, a general overview of the projected changes, in precipitation for example, for multiple climate projections is presented. It conveys the bandwidth, i.e. the minimum/maximum range by an ensemble of regional climate model projections. We implemented the sketched workflow in a web-based tool called The Climate Change Explorer. It addresses barriers associated with extracting locally relevant climate data from petabytes of data, in unfamilar data formats, and deals with interpolation issues, using a more intuitive and user-friendly web interface.&#160;Ultimately, the Climate Change Explorer provides concise information on the magnitude of projected climate change and the range of these changes for individually defined regions, such as found in GERICS &#8216;Climate Fact Sheets&#8217;. This tool has the capacity to also improve other workflows of climate services, allowing them to dedicate more time in deriving user relevant climate indicies; enabling politicians, public administrations, and businesses to take action.

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Building synergies in regional climate services for Southeast Asia: The ASEAN Regional Climate Data, Analysis and Projections (ARCDAP) workshop series.

10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-15094 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Gerald Lim ◽

Aurel Moise ◽

Raizan Rahmat ◽

Bertrand Timbal

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Data Analysis ◽

Southeast Asia ◽

Climate Model ◽

Global Climate ◽

Global Climate Model ◽

Regional Climate ◽

Early Warning Systems ◽

Climate Data ◽

Climate Services

Southeast Asia (SEA) is a rapidly developing and densely populated region that is home to over 600 million people. This, together with the region&#8217;s high sensitivity, exposure and low adaptive capacities, makes it particularly vulnerable to climate change and extremes such as floods, droughts and tropical cyclones. While the last decade saw some countries in SEA develop their own climate change projections, studies were largely uncoordinated and most countries still lack the capability to independently produce robust future climate information. Following a proposal from the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) Regional Association (RA) V working group on climate services, the ASEAN Regional Climate Data, Analysis and Projections (ARCDAP) workshop series was conceived in 2017 to bridge these gaps in regional synergies. The ARCDAP series has been organised annually since 2018 by the ASEAN Specialised Meteorological Centre (hosted by Meteorological Service Singapore) with support from WMO through the Canada-funded Climate Risk and Early Warning Systems (Canada-CREWS) initiative.This presentation will cover the activities and outcomes from the first two workshops, as well as the third which will be held in February 2020. The ARCDAP series has so far brought together representatives from ASEAN National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs), climate scientists and end-users from policy-making and a variety of vulnerability and impact assessment (VIA) sectors, to discuss and identify best practices regarding the delivery of climate change information, data usage and management, advancing the science etc. Notable outputs include two comprehensive workshop reports and a significant regional contribution to the HadEX3 global land in-situ-based dataset of temperature and precipitation extremes, motivated by work done with the ClimPACT2 software.The upcoming third workshop will endeavour to encourage the uptake of the latest ensemble of climate simulations from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6) using CMIP-endorsed tools such as ESMValTool. This will address the need for ASEAN climate change practitioners to upgrade their knowledge of the latest global climate model database. It is anticipated that with continued support from WMO, the series will continue with the Fourth workshop targeting the assessment of downscaling experiments in 2021.

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Threshold or Limit? Precipitation Dependency of Austrian Landslides, an Ongoing Challenge for Hazard Mapping under Climate Change

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su12156182 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 12 (15) ◽

pp. 6182

Author(s):

Ivo Offenthaler ◽

Astrid Felderer ◽

Herbert Formayer ◽

Natalie Glas ◽

David Leidinger ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Forest Cover ◽

Spatial Information ◽

Critical Threshold ◽

Hazard Mapping ◽

Small Scale ◽

Observation Data ◽

Earth Observation Data ◽

Rain Events ◽

Observation Bias

Climate change is set to increase landslide frequency around the globe, thus increasing the potential exposure of people and material assets to these disturbances. Landslide hazard is commonly modelled from terrain and precipitation parameters, assuming that shorter, more intense rain events require less precipitation volume to trigger a slide. Given the extent of non-catastrophic slides, an operable vulnerability mapping requires high spatial resolution. We combined heterogeneous regional slide inventories with long-term meteorological records and small-scale spatial information for hazard modelling. Slope, its (protective) interaction with forest cover, and altitude were the most influential terrain parameters. A widely used exponential threshold to estimate critical precipitation was found to incorrectly predict meteorological hazard to a substantial degree and, qualitatively, delineate the upper boundary of natural conditions rather than a critical threshold. Scaling rainfall parameters from absolute values into local probabilities (per km²) however revealed a consistent pattern across datasets, with the transition from normal to critical rain volumes and durations being gradual rather than abrupt thresholds. Scaled values could be reverted into site-specific nomograms for easy appraisal of critical rain conditions by local stakeholders. An overlay of terrain-related hazard with infrastructure yielded local vulnerability maps, which were verified with actual slide occurrence. Multiple potential for observation bias in ground-based slide reporting underlined the value of complementary earth observation data for slide mapping and early warning.

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Worldwide Survey of Awareness and Needs Concerning Reanalyses and Respondents Views on Climate Services

Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society ◽

10.1175/bams-d-14-00271.1 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 97 (8) ◽

pp. 1461-1473 ◽

Cited By ~ 14

Author(s):

H. Gregow ◽

K. Jylhä ◽

H. M. Mäkelä ◽

J. Aalto ◽

T. Manninen ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Online Survey ◽

Reanalysis Data ◽

Japan Meteorological Agency ◽

Observation Data ◽

Climate Services ◽

Weather Forecasts ◽

Data Policy ◽

Earth Observation Data ◽

Environmental Prediction ◽

Agriculture And Food

Abstract A worldwide online survey about user awareness of reanalyses and climate services was conducted in the period from November 2013 to February 2014 by the Coordinating Earth Observation Data Validation for Re-Analysis for Climate Services (CORE-CLIMAX) project. The 2,578 respondents were mostly users of global reanalyses [particularly the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) reanalyses]. They answered queries arranged in 11 sections by choosing from preprepared check-box responses and left several hundred free comments. Here, we analyze responses related to characteristics of reanalysis data and the perceived obstacles for using reanalysis in climate services. After examining responses from all survey participants, we focus on the answers from subgroups working in specific disciplines related to natural resource management: freshwater, agriculture and food production, forestry, and energy. Although the survey attracted mostly self-selected respondents from the education and public research and development (R&D) sectors, one-third of the energy-related subgroup were from the private sector. A large majority (91%) of the respondents use ECMWF reanalyses, but other reanalysis products are also widely used by them. Respondents expressed desire for reanalysis development in the areas of 1) training and online plotting tools, 2) more frequent updates, 3) explanations about uncertainties (the energy subgroup emphasizes this), 4) smaller biases, 5) less restrictive data policy, and 6) higher temporal and spatial resolution (the energy and water subgroups highlight this). Additionally, the subgroups (excluding energy) expressed interest in including in future climate services activities for applied weather and climate research for impact assessment and/or statistical impact analyses for improving weather warnings and their criteria.

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Exploring Climate Change Effects on Vegetation Phenology by MOD13Q1 Data: The Piemonte Region Case Study in the Period 2001–2019

Agronomy ◽

10.3390/agronomy11030555 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (3) ◽

pp. 555

Author(s):

Filippo Sarvia ◽

Samuele De Petris ◽

Enrico Borgogno-Mondino

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Vegetation Index ◽

Normalized Difference Vegetation Index ◽

Arable Land ◽

Observation Data ◽

Climate Change Effects ◽

Earth Observation Data ◽

Nw Italy ◽

Terra Modis ◽

Phenological Metrics

Rising temperature, rainfall, and wind regime changes, increasing of frequency and intensity of extreme events are only some of the effects of climate change affecting the agro-forestry sector. Earth Observation data from satellite missions (often available for free) can certainly support analysis of climate change effects on vegetation, making possible to improve land management in space and time. Within this context, the present work aims at investigating natural and agricultural vegetation, as mapped by Corine Land Cover (CLC) dataset, focusing on phenological metrics trends that can be possibly conditioned by the ongoing climate-change. The study area consists of the entire Piemonte region (NW-Italy). MOD13Q1-v6 dataset from TERRA MODIS mission was used to describe pluri-annual (2001–2019) phenological behavior of vegetation focusing on the following CLC classes: Non-irrigated arable land, Vineyards, Pastures, and Forests. After computing and mapping some phenological metrics as derivable from the interpretation of at-pixel level NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) temporal profile, we found that the most significant one was the maximum annual NDVI (MaxNDVI). Consequently, its trend was analyzed at CLC class level for the whole Piemonte region. Natural and semi-natural vegetation classes (Pastures and Forests) were furtherly investigated testing significance of the Percent Total Variation (TV %) of MaxNDVI in the period 2001–2019 for different altitude classes. Results proved that Non-irrigated arable land showed a not significant trend of MaxNDVI; differently, vineyards and forests showed a significant increasing one. Concerning TV %, it was found that it increases with altitude for the Forests CLC class, while it decreases with altitude for the pastures class.

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Modelling coffee leaf rust risk in Colombia with climate reanalysis data

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences ◽

10.1098/rstb.2015.0458 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 371 (1709) ◽

pp. 20150458 ◽

Cited By ~ 25

Author(s):

Daniel P. Bebber ◽

Ángela Delgado Castillo ◽

Sarah J. Gurr

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Leaf Rust ◽

Disease Risk ◽

Meteorological Data ◽

Animal Health ◽

Infection Risk ◽

Plant Diseases ◽

Observation Data ◽

Climate Data ◽

Coffee Leaf Rust

Many fungal plant diseases are strongly controlled by weather, and global climate change is thus likely to have affected fungal pathogen distributions and impacts. Modelling the response of plant diseases to climate change is hampered by the difficulty of estimating pathogen-relevant microclimatic variables from standard meteorological data. The availability of increasingly sophisticated high-resolution climate reanalyses may help overcome this challenge. We illustrate the use of climate reanalyses by testing the hypothesis that climate change increased the likelihood of the 2008–2011 outbreak of Coffee Leaf Rust (CLR, Hemileia vastatrix ) in Colombia. We develop a model of germination and infection risk, and drive this model using estimates of leaf wetness duration and canopy temperature from the Japanese 55-Year Reanalysis (JRA-55). We model germination and infection as Weibull functions with different temperature optima, based upon existing experimental data. We find no evidence for an overall trend in disease risk in coffee-growing regions of Colombia from 1990 to 2015, therefore, we reject the climate change hypothesis. There was a significant elevation in predicted CLR infection risk from 2008 to 2011 compared with other years. JRA-55 data suggest a decrease in canopy surface water after 2008, which may have helped terminate the outbreak. The spatial resolution and accuracy of climate reanalyses are continually improving, increasing their utility for biological modelling. Confronting disease models with data requires not only accurate climate data, but also disease observations at high spatio-temporal resolution. Investment in monitoring, storage and accessibility of plant disease observation data are needed to match the quality of the climate data now available. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Tackling emerging fungal threats to animal health, food security and ecosystem resilience’.

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DRIAS: a step toward Climate Services in France

Advances in Science and Research ◽

10.5194/asr-6-179-2011 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 6 (1) ◽

pp. 179-186 ◽

Cited By ~ 18

Author(s):

J. Lémond ◽

Ph. Dandin ◽

S. Planton ◽

R. Vautard ◽

C. Pagé ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Regional Climate ◽

Numerical Data ◽

Easy Access ◽

Climate Projections ◽

Climate Data ◽

Climate Services ◽

Mitigation And Adaptation ◽

Societal Needs ◽

Access To Data

Abstract. DRIAS (Providing access to Data on French Regionalized climate scenarios and Impacts on the environment and Adaptation of Societies) is a 2-yr project (2010–2012). It is funded by the GICC (Management and Impact of Climate Change) program of the French Ministry of Ecology, Sustainable Development, Transportation, and Housing (MEDDTL). DRIAS is to provide easy access to French regional climate data and products in order to facilitate mitigation and adaptation studies. The DRIAS project focuses on existing French regional climate projections obtained from national modelling groups such as: IPSL, CERFACS, and CNRM. It is more than a data server, it also delivers all kinds of climate information from numerical data to tailored climate products. Moreover, guidance is to be provided to end-users in order to promote best practices and know-how. Whilst the project is coordinated by the Department of Climatology at Météo-France, a multidisciplinary group of users and stakeholders at large concerned by climate change issues is also involved with the project. The ultimate goal will be to identify societal needs, validate the decision making processes, and thus facilitate exchanges between producers and practitioners. Key results from the DRIAS project will contribute to the implementation of French Climate Services.

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Climate services for winter tourism in Romanian mountains

10.5194/egusphere-egu21-11216 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Roxana Bojariu ◽

Liliana Velea ◽

Anisoara Irimescu ◽

Vasile Craciunescu ◽

Silvia Puiu

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Hospitality Industry ◽

Business Environment ◽

Climate Change Scenarios ◽

Climate Data ◽

Climate Services ◽

Winter Climate ◽

Future Projections ◽

Winter Tourism ◽

Wide Range

WeCTOU (http://wectou.meteoromania.ro/) which delivers climate and environmental information tailored for tourism at 160 locations in Romania is a provider of climate services developed and operated by National Meteorological Administration. &#160;European Commission and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) through the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) have provided the financial support. WeCTOU aims to extend its climate services and in this context, we have taken into account the needs of stakeholders interested in winter tourism in Romanian mountains using observations from national meteorological network together with reanalysis and model products extracted from the Climate Data Store developed at the ECMWF. Stakeholders interested in winter tourism in Romanian mountains span a wide range of categories from central and local administration to representatives of hospitality industry and individuals. In 2019, the Romanian Ministry of Economy, Energy and Business Environment, also responsible of tourism certified 195 ski slopes located in 20 Romanian counties. We use the ensemble distribution of number of days with snow depth larger than 30 cm from future projections covering the period 2021-2040 under climate change scenarios to provide a first guess assessment of future profitability of Romanian ski resorts compared with the reference period 1976-2005. This type of indicator together with climate products related to snow making are important for identifying opportunities for future investments in winter tourism. They are also important in general urban planning for localities which have to change their profile from winter resort to one which serve guests year-round. &#160;Especially for tourists and hospitality industry, we use future projections of indicators relative to present conditions (2021-2040 vs. 1976-2005) such as the ensemble distribution of number of days with snow layers having depths larger than 30 cm during winter holidays (22 Dec- 04 Jan). Also, we have shown how testing all these winter climate services with the interested stakeholders has guided us during the incremental developing stages to shape the final design. &#160;&#160;

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FAIR principles for climate services information systems

10.5194/ems2021-488 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Nils Hempelmann ◽

Ingo Simonis ◽

Carsten Ehbrecht ◽

David Huard

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Information Systems ◽

Community Integration ◽

Climate Impact ◽

Climate Data ◽

Effective Response ◽

Climate Services ◽

Response Strategies ◽

Fair Principles ◽

The Web

Ongoing climate change is increasingly impacting ecosystems and living conditions. To understand climate change effects on all scales ranging from regional to global and to develop appropriate response strategies, reliable, easily accessible climate location information is crucial. The United Nations framework of climate change policy emphasizes the role of open data as an essential component to enable efficient implementation of appropriate climate change strategies. Data offered at the various portals and climate services needs to be Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR). This is particularly important when several communities need to work together in order to develop the most effective response strategies. These communities not only involve climate scientists and meteorologists, but also climate impact analysts, hydrologists, agronomists, urban planners, ecologists, and many more. Screening the web for available data, it becomes apparent that there is no shortage of portal solutions built upon climate data archives. Portal solutions have turned out in the past of often being targeted towards a specific, and sometimes rather small, number of users from within a single community. Cross-community integration and thus enhanced reusability and interoperability was not in focus. Due to recent ongoing international domain crossing efforts, FAIR principles are increasingly respected also for the portal architectures of the information systems itself. For example, the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) develops standards and best practices that enable FAIR principles across communities.FAIR principles across communities require a set of essential ingredients to work effectively. These ingredients include metadata models that allow discovery (Findable), interfaces to access the data (Accessible), data models that are well documented (Interoperable) and can be efficiently consumed by others (Reusable). Because data volumes are continuously growing and therefore require new approaches for efficient data processing, OGC has extended the &#8216;Reusable&#8217; component in FAIR. &#8216;Reusable&#8217; now includes mechanisms for executing applications close to the physical location of the data. What was previously a data provisioning system now needs to be extended to support processing capacities up to the level where user-defined applications can be deployed and executed. In a sense, for data to be FAIR, it needs to be accompanied by equally FAIR services.&#160;This presentation is showing current realisations of leading climate services information systems that implement the extended FAIR principle. The presentation will sort out roles and capabilities of standardized web APIs that can be assembled in line with data and processing environments for interoperable climate data across communities in the most efficient way. Once paired with OGC&#8217;s new &#8220;Applications-to-the-Data&#8221; architecture and strong metadata models, the web APIs enable effective integration of climate data with data from other disciplines within state-of-the art cloud environments that feature not only reusability of data, but also of applications, data processes, and scientific workflows.

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C3S: current status and future plans

10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-19725 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Carlo Buontempo

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Current Status ◽

Climate Data ◽

Climate Services ◽

Data Store ◽

The World ◽

The Future ◽

Future Plans

This years marks the end of the first delegation agreement between the Eurpean Commission and ECMWF for the implementation of the Copernicus Climate Change Service. In the last five years the service was first established, then opened the Climate Data Store and finally became operational attracting the attention of over 30.000 users from all over the world who access tens of global dataset and dowload data at a rate of 50 TB/day to develop climate services.The paper presents the current status of the implementation of the programme and illustrate some of the options -including changes in the portfolio of the programme- that are currently being considered for the evolution of the service in the future.

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