scholarly journals Improving China’s Resilience to Climate-Related Risks: The China Framework for Climate Services

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 729-744
Author(s):  
Yujie Wang ◽  
Lianchun Song ◽  
Chris Hewitt ◽  
Nicola Golding ◽  
Zili Huang
Keyword(s):  
Climate Science ◽  
Climate Information ◽  
Adaptation To Climate Change ◽  
Climate Services ◽  
Climate Risks ◽  
User Communities ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
Climate Service ◽  
Key Aspects ◽  
Engineering Projects

AbstractThe primary needs for climate services in China, in the form of climate information for decision-making, are to better prepare for and manage meteorological-related disasters, adaptation to climate change, and sustainable development. In this paper, the vision, structure, content, and governance of the China Framework for Climate Services, which is designed to respond to these primary needs, is described. This paper reflects on practice, lessons, and experience developing and delivering climate services in China for disaster risk reduction, agriculture, water, energy, urbanization, and major engineering projects. Four key aspects of successful climate services are highlighted: the transition of climate research to operational climate services; delivering relevant, tailored, and usable climate information; effective engagement between users and providers of climate services; and building interdisciplinary professional teams. Key challenges and opportunities for climate services are recognized in this paper: a growing gap between climate science and services capability and societal need, a lack of awareness in user communities of the climate service value for their activities, and the important need for closer and more meaningful interactions between users and providers of climate services. The delivery and uptake of high-quality, relevant, usable, and effective climate services will facilitate climate-smart decisions that will reduce climate risks and improve Chinese societal resilience.

scholarly journals Trials, Errors, and Improvements in Coproduction of Climate Services

2019 ◽  
Vol 100 (8) ◽  
pp. 1419-1428 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik W. Kolstad ◽  
Oda N. Sofienlund ◽  
Hanna Kvamsås ◽  
Mathew A. Stiller-Reeve ◽  
Simon Neby ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Science ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Climate Information ◽  
Climate Data ◽  
Climate Services ◽  
Political Landscape ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
Service Projects ◽  
Climate Service

AbstractClimate change yields both challenges and opportunities. In both cases, costly adaptations and transformations are necessary and desirable, and these must be based on realistic and relevant climate information. However, it is often difficult for climate scientists to communicate this information to decision-makers and stakeholders, and it can be equally difficult for such actors to interpret and put the information to use. In this essay, we discuss experiences and present recommendations for scientists producing climate services. The basis is our work in several climate service projects. One of them aimed to provide local-scale climate data for municipalities in western Norway and to explore how the data were interpreted and implemented. The project was first based solely on climate science expertise, and the participants did not have sufficient competence on coproduction and knowledge about the regulatory and political landscape in which municipalities operate. Initially, we also subscribed to an outdated idea of climate services, where knowledge providers (climate scientists) “deliver” their information to knowledge users (e.g., municipal planners). Increasingly, as stressed in the literature on coproduction of knowledge, we learned that climate service should be an iterative process where actionable information is coproduced through two-way dialogue. On the basis of these and other lessons learned the hard way, we provide a set of concrete recommendations on how to embed the idea of coproduction from the preproposal stage to beyond the end of climate service projects.

scholarly journals Designing a Climate Service for Planning Climate Actions in Vulnerable Countries

Atmosphere ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 121
Author(s):  
Christiana Photiadou ◽  
Berit Arheimer ◽  
Thomas Bosshard ◽  
René Capell ◽  
Maria Elenius ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Science ◽  
Climate Impact ◽  
Climate Modelling ◽  
Climate Information ◽  
Climate Services ◽  
Web Based ◽  
Climate Service ◽  
Climate Analysis ◽  
International Experts ◽  
Active Interaction

The next generation of climate services needs not only tailoring to specific user needs but to provide, in addition, access to key information in a usable way that satisfies the needs of different users’ profiles; especially web-based services. Here, we present the outcomes from developing such a new interactive prototype. The service provides data for robust climate analysis to underpin decision-making when planning measures to compensate for climate impact. The goal is to facilitate the communication on climate information between climate modelling communities and adaptation or mitigation initiatives from vulnerable countries that are applying for funds from the Green Climate Fund (GCF). A participatory process was ensured during four workshops in four pilot countries, with an audience of national and international experts. During this process it was made clear that in all countries there is a strong need for knowledge in climate science, while in most countries there was also an increasing need of capacity in hydrological modelling and water management. The active interaction during the workshops was found necessary to facilitate the dialogue between service developers and users. Understanding the users, transparency on potentials and limitations of climate services together with capacity development in climate science and methods were required components in the development of the service.

scholarly journals Translational Science for Climate Services: Mapping and Understanding Users’ Climate Service Needs in CSSP China

2021 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-76
Author(s):  
Sarah Opitz-Stapleton ◽  
Roger Street ◽  
Qian Ye ◽  
Jiarui Han ◽  
Chris D. Hewitt
Keyword(s):  
Climate Science ◽  
Service Needs ◽  
User Engagement ◽  
Translational Science ◽  
Regular User ◽  
Climate Services ◽  
Weather Information ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Climate Service ◽  
User Groups

AbstractThe Climate Science for Service Partnership China (CSSP China) is a joint program between China and the United Kingdom to build the basis for climate services to support the weather and climate resilient economic development and welfare in China. Work Package 5 (WP5) provides the translational science on identification of: different users and providers, and their mandates; factors contributing to communication gaps and capacities between various users and providers; and mechanisms to work through such issues to develop and/or evolve a range of climate services. Key findings to emerge include that users from different sectors have varying capacities, requirements, and needs for information in their decision contexts, with a current strong preference for weather information. Separating climate and weather services when engaging users is often not constructive. Furthermore, there is a need to move to a service delivery model that is more user-driven and science informed; having sound climate science is not enough to develop services that are credible, salient, reliable, or timely for diverse user groups. Greater investment in building the capacity of the research community supporting and providing climate services to conduct translational sciences and develop regular user engagement processes is much needed. Such a move would help support the China Meteorological Administration’s (CMA) ongoing efforts to improve climate services. It would also assist in potentially linking a broader group of “super” users who currently act as providers and purveyors of climate services because they find the existing offerings are not relevant to their needs or cannot access CMA’s services.

scholarly journals Climatology in support of climate risk management

2015 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 536-553 ◽  
Author(s):  
Glenn McGregor
Keyword(s):  
Risk Management ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Climate Risk ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
Climate Information ◽  
Climate Data ◽  
Climate Risks ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Climate Risk Management ◽  
Climate Events

Climate risk management has emerged over the last decade as a distinct area of activity within the wider field of climatology. Its focus is on integrating climate and non-climate information in order to enhance the decision-making process in a wide range of climate-sensitive sectors of society, the economy and the environment. Given the burgeoning pure and applied climate science literature that addresses a range of climate risks, the purpose of this progress report is to provide an overview of recent developments in the field of climatology that may contribute to the risk assessment component of climate risk management. Data rescue and climate database construction, hurricanes and droughts as examples of extreme climate events and seasonal climate forecasting are focused on in this report and are privileged over other topics because of either their fundamental importance for establishing event probability or scale of societal impact. The review of the literature finds that historical data rescue, climate reconstruction and the compilation of climate data bases has assisted immensely in understanding past climate events and increasing the information base for managing climate risk. Advances in the scientific understanding of the causes and the characterization of hurricanes and droughts stand to benefit the management of these two extreme events while work focused on unravelling the nature of ocean–atmosphere interactions and associated climate anomalies at the seasonal timescale has provided the basis for the possible seasonal forecasting of a range of climate events. The report also acknowledges that despite the potential of climate information to assist with managing climate risk, its uptake by decision makers should not be automatically assumed by the climatological community.

scholarly journals Designing a Climate Service for Planning Climate Actions in Vulnerable Countries

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frida Gyllensvärd ◽  
Christiana Photiadou ◽  
Berit Arheimer ◽  
Thomas Bosshard ◽  
René Capell ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Development Process ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Climate Impact ◽  
Direct Access ◽  
Climate Modelling ◽  
Climate Information ◽  
Climate Services ◽  
Active Involvement ◽  
Capacity Level ◽  
Climate Analysis

<p>The next generation of climate services needs not only tailoring to specific user needs but also to provide access to key information in a usable way that satisfies the needs of different users’ profiles. This holds especially for web-based services. Here, we present the outcomes from developing such a new interactive prototype, known as Climate Information (https://climateinformation.org/). The service provides data for robust climate analysis to underpin decision-making when planning measures to compensate for climate impact. Readily available climate indicators will help defining future problems, assess climatic stressors, and analyse current and future risks. This makes a climate case, which is the basis for developing interventions and propose investments. The main goal of the platform is to facilitate the communication on climate information between climate modelling communities and adaptation or mitigation initiatives from vulnerable countries that are applying for funds from the Green Climate Fund (GCF).</p><p>A participatory process was ensured during four workshops in four pilot countries, organised by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), with the active involvement of national and international experts. During this process it was made clear, that there is a strong need for knowledge in climate science in all countries, while in most countries there was also an increasing need of capacity in hydrological modelling and water management.</p><p>The active interaction during the workshops was found necessary to facilitate the dialogue between service developers and users. The co-development process is not always institutionalised in many vulnerable countries and the capacity level restricts national entities to only act via international intermediaries. The level of knowledge and capacity in climate and hydrological science in the pilot countries varied significantly, which was an important obstacle when establishing a direct access modality to support different organisations. The diversity of user groups made it difficult to identify a “one-size-fits-all” for the web platform. Instead, a set of interactive tools was developed. Our interactions with the users, which covers a part of a co-development process, facilitated the dialogue between service developers and users. Understanding the users, transparency on potentials and limitations of climate services, and capacity development in climate science and methods were required components in the development of the service.</p>

Climate Services for Improving Society's Resilience in China

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yujie Wang ◽  
Lianchun Song
Keyword(s):  
High Efficiency ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Climate Services ◽  
Service Chain ◽  
Observation Network ◽  
Climate Service ◽  
Expert Team ◽  
Service Capability ◽  
Urbanization In China ◽  
Engineering Projects

<p><strong>ABSTRACT</strong></p><p>  With global warming and fast urbanization in China, more and more climate services are urgently needed to manage climate-related disasters better, adapt to a changing climate, and ensure sustainable economic development for improving climate-related society’s resilience. This paper describes the current primary needs for climate services and introduces a series of examples of climate services successfully provided to agriculture, water, energy, urban planning, major engineering projects and ecological economy in China.</p><p>These examples of climate services indicate that climate services play a very important role for improving climate-related resilience and sustainable development of society. During the development and implementation of these climate services, both benefits of climate services and some challenges for climate services have been found. The paper highlights the experiences and challenges of these climate services as following:</p><p>Firstly, climate services should be tailored to each user individually and be usable. Therefore, providers of climate services should enhance service capability and service consciousness. Secondly, building of interdisciplinary expert team is very important. It can bridge and narrow the gaps in whole climate service chain. Thirdly, climate service quality, observation network, spatial and temporal resolution of climate model and climate prediction accuracy need to be greatly improved. Finally, the feedback of climate service from users is also very important for high efficiency of climate services.</p>

The overwhelming jungle of climate information and the role of climate services.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlo Buontempo
Keyword(s):  
Climate Adaptation ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
Climate Data ◽  
Climate Services ◽  
National Programmes ◽  
Relevant Variables ◽  
Engineering Standards ◽  
Climate Service ◽  
Different Sources

<div>Climate adaptation often requires high resolution information about the expected changes in the statistical distribution of user-relevant variables. Thanks to targeted national programmes, research projects and international climate service initiatives  this kind of information is not only becoming more easily available but it is also making its way into building codes, engineering standards as well as the risk assessments for financial products.  If such an increase in the use of climate data can be seen as a positive step towards the construction of a climate resilient society, it is also true that the inconsistencies that exist between the information derived from different sources of information, have the potential to reduce the user uptake, increase the costs of adaptation and even undermine the credibility of both climate services and the underpinning climate science.</div><div>This paper offers a personal reflection on the emerging user requirements in this field. The presenation also aims at suggesting  some prelimimary ideas in support of the development of appropriate methodologies for extracting robust evidence from different sources in a scalable way.</div>

scholarly journals Delivering Climate Services: Organizational Strategies and Approaches for Producing Useful Climate-Science Information

2012 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth C. McNie
Keyword(s):  
Time Management ◽  
Information Needs ◽  
Social Process ◽  
Basic Research ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Climate Information ◽  
Organizational Strategies ◽  
Climate Services ◽  
Missed Opportunities ◽  
Science Information

Abstract Despite numerous and widespread calls for more “useful” climate-science information to inform policy, most climate science is still produced in a way that is consistent with the “linear model” of research that favors pure basic research over other approaches, resulting in missed opportunities to link useful climate science with decision makers. To improve the ability to adapt to a changing climate, it is necessary to improve the linkages between the production and supply of climate-science information with users’ needs to ensure that the climate science is contextual, credible, trusted, and understood by the users. This paper reports on research that evaluated how three Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments (RISA) programs produced useful climate information for improved decision support in a variety of sectors. Research indicates that these organizations utilized several processes and approaches to produce useful climate information, including identifying users’ information needs; translating, communicating, and sharing knowledge; producing and situating social capital; building capacity in the user community to understand and utilize the climate-science information; and maintaining a flexible and nimble organization guided by strong leadership. The process of linking the production and supply of climate-science information with users’ demands is a complex, highly contextual social process that requires ample resources and time management, research agendas that are “end to end” and can respond to changing contexts, and organizational commitment to support “use-inspired” research. Additional research is needed to improve evaluation methods and metrics used to assess climate-service organizations.

scholarly journals Does Transformational Adaptation Require a Transformation of Climate Services?

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva Boon ◽  
Hasse Goosen ◽  
Felix van Veldhoven ◽  
Rob Swart
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Climate Extremes ◽  
Practical Experience ◽  
Adaptation Strategies ◽  
Climate Services ◽  
Climate Risks ◽  
Knowledge Requirements ◽  
Climate Service

Cities, regions and countries are increasingly adapting to climate change. Adaptation approaches often build on disaster management activities to deal with climate extremes and make improvements to already existing systems to prepare for climate change, e.g., through water engineering or cooling existing buildings. But ideally, adaptation strategies aim also at tackling the root causes of climate risks through broader sustainable development pathways. Such transformational approaches, however, are still in their infancy. In this perspective paper we argue that there is a lack of guidance to support policy-makers to develop transformational adaptation strategies. There is a need and opportunity to develop climate services that support transformational adaptation. We explore how climate services can support transformational adaptation, drawing from literature, practical experience and illustrative examples. We identify four knowledge requirements: (1) system knowledge to identify the root causes and solutions; (2) inspirational and cross-disciplinary knowledge to develop a long-term vision; (3) a clear climate message and guiding principles to mainstream the vision; and (4) design principles that are connected to the priorities and interests of the stakeholders. We conclude that developing climate services for transformational adaptation involves a delicate process of simplifying and aggregating climate knowledge, as well as integrating it with knowledge about the physical, economic and social systems of cities and regions. This means that climate service providers need to widen their scope and skills, and collaborate with experts in the fields urban planning, landscape architecture, ecology, health, and sociology.

scholarly journals Risk management perspective for climate service development – Results from a study on Finnish organizations

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 293-304 ◽  
Author(s):  
Atte Harjanne ◽  
Riina Haavisto ◽  
Heikki Tuomenvirta ◽  
Hilppa Gregow
Keyword(s):  
Risk Management ◽  
Climate Risk ◽  
Service Development ◽  
Specific Information ◽  
Climate Information ◽  
Climate Services ◽  
Climate Risks ◽  
Information Tools ◽  
Weather And Climate ◽  
Climate Risk Management

Abstract. Weather, climate and climate change can cause significant risks to businesses and public administration. However, understanding these processes can also create opportunities. Information can help to manage these risks and opportunities, but in order to do so, it must be in line with how risk management and decision making works. To better understand how climate risks and opportunities are reflected in different organizational processes and what types of information is needed and used, we conducted a study on the perceptions and management of weather and climate risks in Finnish organizations and on their use of weather and climate information. In addition, we collected feedback on how the existing climate information tools should be developed. Data on climate risk management was collected in an online survey and in one full-day workshop. The survey was aimed to the Finnish public and private organizations who use weather and climate data and altogether 118 responses were collected. The workshop consisted of two parts: weather and climate risk management processes in general and the development of the current information tools to further address user needs.We found that climate risk management in organizations is quite diverse and often de-centralized and that external experts are considered the most useful sources of information. Consequently, users emphasize the need for networks of expertise and sector-specific information tools. Creating such services requires input and information sharing from the user side as well. Better temporal and spatial accuracy is naturally asked for, but users also stressed the need for transparency when it comes to communicating uncertainties, and the availability and up-to-datedness of information. Our results illustrate that weather and climate risks compete and blend in with other risks and changes perceived by the organizations and supporting information is sought from different types of sources. Thus the design and evaluation of climate services should take into account the context of existing and developing processes in organizational risk management.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document