The Use of Climate Information for Climate Resilience and Adaptation: Current Practices

Mapping Intimacies ◽

10.21203/rs.3.rs-329862/v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Xianfu Lu

Keyword(s):

Financial Institutions ◽

Public Discourse ◽

Climate Model ◽

Critical Infrastructure ◽

Infrastructure Development ◽

Climate Information ◽

Climate Data ◽

Climate Services ◽

Resilient Infrastructure ◽

Current Practices

Abstract With the need for action on adaptation gaining growing attention in public discourse on climate change, the use of climate data from observations and climate model simulations has been rapidly expanding. This includes areas such as designing climate-resilient critical infrastructure and valuating assets of financial institutions. How climate information is applied in these emerging areas of adaptation practice has significant practical, economic and financial implications. Using a set of case studies, this paper illustrates the current practices of how climate information is applied to inform climate-resilient infrastructure development in multilateral climate funds and development banks, and to assess physical climate risks by financial institutions. Two main challenges are identified: a disconnect between what climate data is needed to inform certain decisions and analyses and what is currently available, and a lack of common standards and professional scrutiny around the provision of climate services. Opportunities to help address these challenges are highlighted for the providers and users of climate information.

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ENACTS: Transforming Climate Services Across Africa

10.5194/egusphere-egu21-39 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Tufa Dinku

Keyword(s):

Effective Means ◽

National Level ◽

Columbia University ◽

Climate Information ◽

Climate Data ◽

Climate Services ◽

Spatial And Temporal Scales ◽

Institutional Infrastructure ◽

International Research Institute ◽

Information Products

Despite recent and mostly global efforts to promote climate services in developing countries, Africa still faces significant limitations in its institutional infrastructure and capacity to develop, access, and use decision-relevant climate data and information products at multiple levels of governance. The Enhancing National Climate Services (ENACTS) initiative, led by Columbia University&#8217;s International Research Institute for Climate and Society, strives to overcome these challenges by targeting the way climate-sensitive decisions are made at the local, regional, and national levels. The ENACTS approach is executed by working directly with the National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHS) to build capacity for improving the availability, access, and use of quality climate data and information products at relevant spatial and temporal scales. The ENACTS approach has shown to be an effective means to transform decision-making surrounding vulnerabilities and risks at both national and local scales in over a dozen countries at the national level as well as at regional level East and West Africa. In the ENACTS approach, challenges to the availability of climate data are alleviated by combining quality-controlled station observations with global proxies to generate spatially and temporally complete climate datasets. Access to climate information is enhanced by developing an online mapping service that provides a user-friendly interface for analyzing and visualizing climate information products. Use of the generated climate data and the derived information products are promoted through raising awareness in relevant communities, training users, and co-production processes.

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Satellite-based climate information within the WMO RA VI Regional Climate Centre on Climate Monitoring

Advances in Science and Research ◽

10.5194/asr-11-25-2014 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

pp. 25-33 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

A. Obregón ◽

H. Nitsche ◽

M. Körber ◽

A. Kreis ◽

P. Bissolli ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Regional Climate ◽

Regional Scale ◽

European Space Agency ◽

Environmental Data ◽

Product Portfolio ◽

Climate Information ◽

Climate Data ◽

Climate Services ◽

Climate Monitoring ◽

The World

Abstract. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) established Regional Climate Centres (RCCs) around the world to create science-based climate information on a regional scale within the Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS). The paper introduces the satellite component of the WMO Regional Climate Centre on Climate Monitoring (RCC-CM) for Europe and the Middle East. The RCC-CM product portfolio is based on essential climate variables (ECVs) as defined by the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS), spanning the atmospheric (radiation, clouds, water vapour) and terrestrial domains (snow cover, soil moisture). In the first part, the input data sets are briefly described, which are provided by the EUMETSAT (European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites) Satellite Application Facilities (SAF), in particular CM SAF, and by the ESA (European Space Agency) Climate Change Initiative (CCI). In the second part, the derived RCC-CM products are presented, which are divided into two groups: (i) operational monitoring products (e.g. monthly means and anomalies) based on near-real-time environmental data records (EDRs) and (ii) climate information records (e.g. climatologies, time series, trend maps) based on long-term thematic climate data records (TCDRs) with adequate stability, accuracy and homogeneity. The products are provided as maps, statistical plots and gridded data, which are made available through the RCC-CM website (www.dwd.de/rcc-cm).

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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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ENACTS: Advancing Climate Services Across Africa

Frontiers in Climate ◽

10.3389/fclim.2021.787683 ◽

2022 ◽

Vol 3 ◽

Author(s):

Tufa Dinku ◽

Rija Faniriantsoa ◽

Remi Cousin ◽

Igor Khomyakov ◽

Audrey Vadillo ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Multiple Scales ◽

Effective Means ◽

National Level ◽

Climate Information ◽

Climate Data ◽

Climate Services ◽

Spatial And Temporal Scales ◽

Institutional Infrastructure ◽

International Research Institute ◽

Information Products

Despite recent and mostly global efforts to promote climate services in developing countries, Africa still faces significant limitations in its institutional infrastructure and capacity to develop, access, and use decision-relevant climate data and information products at multiple levels of governance. The Enhancing National Climate Services (ENACTS) initiative, led by Columbia University's International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI), strives to overcome these challenges by co-developing tailored, actionable, and decision-relevant climate information with and for a wide variety of users at the local, regional, and national levels. This is accomplished through an approach emphasizing direct engagement with the National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHS) and users of their products, and investments in both technological and human capacities for improving the availability, access, and use of quality climate data and information products at decision-relevant spatial and temporal scales. In doing so, the ENACTS approach has been shown to be an effective means of transforming decision-making surrounding vulnerabilities and risks at multiple scales, through implementation in over a dozen countries at national level as well as at the regional levels in both East and West Africa. Through the ENACTS approach, challenges to availability of climate data are alleviated by combining quality-controlled station observations with global proxies to generate spatially and temporally complete climate datasets. Access to climate information is enhanced by developing an online mapping service that provides a user-friendly interface for analyzing and visualizing climate information products. Use of the generated climate data and the derived information products is promoted through raising awareness in relevant communities, training users, and co-production processes.

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Supporting users to implement uncertainty of climate change information in adaptation studies

10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-18769 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Gabriella Zsebeházi ◽

Beatrix Bán

Keyword(s):

Climate Models ◽

Climate Model ◽

Regional Climate ◽

Regional Climate Models ◽

Climate Projections ◽

Web Portals ◽

Climate Data ◽

Adaptation Studies ◽

Climate Services ◽

Model Simulations

There is a growing need to develop climate services both at national and international level, to bridge the gap between the providers and the end-users of climate information. Several national climate services are aiming to serve the local users&#8217; needs by creating web portals. Thanks to this trend, the number of available climate data (both measured and modelled) is rapidly growing and often there is not any personal contact between the users and the climate scientists via the web portals. Therefore, it is important to make this service usable and informative and train the potential users about the nature, strengths and limits of climate data.Within the framework of a national funded project (KlimAdat), the regional climate model projections of the Hungarian Meteorological Service are extended and a representative climate database is developed. Regular workshops are organised, where we get hands-on information about the requirements and give training about climate modelling in exchange. One of the most discussed issue during the workshops is tackling with uncertainty information of climate projections in climate change adaptation studies. The future changes are quantified in probabilistic form, applying ensemble technique, i.e. several climate model simulations prepared with different global and regional climate models and anthropogenic scenarios are evaluated simultaneously.In order to help the users orienting through the mushrooming climate projections, a user guide is prepared. Topics are e.g. how to select model simulations, how to take into account model validation results and what is the difference between signal and noise. The guideline is based on 24 simulations of the 12-km resolution Euro-CORDEX regional climate models, driven by the RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios. Two target groups are distinguished based on the required level of post-processing climate data: 1) climate impact modellers, who need large amount of raw or bias corrected data to drive their own impact model; 2) decision makers and planners, who need heavily processed but lightweight data. The purpose of our guideline is to provide insight into the customized methodologies used at the Hungarian Meteorological Service for fulfilling users&#8217; needs.

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Trials, Errors, and Improvements in Coproduction of Climate Services

Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society ◽

10.1175/bams-d-18-0201.1 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 100 (8) ◽

pp. 1419-1428 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

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.

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The role of knowledge networks in facilitating the creation of climate information services

10.5194/egusphere-egu21-7570 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Francesca Larosa ◽

Marta Bruno-Soares

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Diffusion Of Innovations ◽

Information Services ◽

Knowledge Networks ◽

Knowledge Network ◽

Climate Information ◽

Climate Data ◽

Structured Interviews ◽

Climate Services ◽

Under Performing

Knowledge networks are collections of individuals who work together across organizational, spatial and disciplinary boundaries to develop and share a body of knowledge. Climate services are tools and applications that help support decision-making by transforming climate data into information tailored to specific users. They call for co-development practices to facilitate successful collaboration between different stakeholders. Knowledge networks for climate services are intermediaries that can facilitate the interaction between upstream (providers) and downstream (users) actors operating at various scales (local, national, regional and supranational). Such knowledge networks can therefore assist decision-making processes of a wide set of users by creating networking opportunities and disseminating usable climate information. The aim of this work is to frame and assess the efficiency of knowledge networks for climate services in promoting innovation and facilitate its diffusion. We used semi-structured interviews with knowledge networks managers to collect information about their purpose, process and audience. &#160;We then assess the efficiency of knowledge networks by performing content analysis of interviews with knowledge network managers and by checking for the existence of inconsistencies or gaps with the initial objectives. We find that knowledge networks for climate services pursue four objectives: coordination, innovation promotion, science-policy interface and support to members. We also find that knowledge networks are well-recognised players in disseminating knowledge and opportunities to climate services practitioners and policy makers. However, we observe a lack of adequate tools to monitor the activities of different members. On the communication side, knowledge networks for climate services mostly interact with developers of climate services but face challenges in sharing members&#8217; activities with users. Our work fills a significant knowledge gap and helps providing new tools of performance assessment in absence of a clearly defined methodology. The identification of bottlenecks and under-performing mechanisms in the climate information services sphere allows the elaboration of strategies to improve the status quo and facilitates the diffusion of innovations such as climate services.

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Transforming Access to and Use of Climate Information Products Derived from Remote Sensing and In Situ Observations

Remote Sensing ◽

10.3390/rs13224721 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (22) ◽

pp. 4721

Author(s):

Gloriose Nsengiyumva ◽

Tufa Dinku ◽

Remi Cousin ◽

Igor Khomyakov ◽

Audrey Vadillo ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Remote Sensing ◽

Decision Making ◽

Information Needs ◽

Climate Information ◽

Climate Data ◽

Climate Services ◽

International Research Institute ◽

Combining Data ◽

Information Products ◽

User Friendly

Making climate-sensitive economic sectors resilient to climate trends and shocks, through adaptation to climate change and managing uncertainties associated with climate extremes, will require effective use of climate information to help practitioners make climate-informed decisions. The provision of weather and climate information will depend on the availability of climate data and its presentation in formats that are useful for decision making at different levels. However, in many places around the world, including most African countries, the collection of climate data has been seriously inadequate, and even when available, poorly accessible. On the other hand, the availability of climate data by itself may not lead to the uptake and use of such data. These data must be presented in user-friendly formats addressing specific climate information needs in order to be used for decision-making by governments, as well as the public and private sectors. The generated information should also be easily accessible. The Enhancing National Climate Services (ENACTS) initiative, led by Columbia University’s International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI), has been making efforts to overcome these challenges by supporting countries to improve the available climate data, as well as access to and use of climate information products at relevant spatial and temporal scales. Challenges to the availability of climate data are alleviated by combining data from the national weather observation network with remote sensing and other global proxies to generate spatially and temporally complete climate datasets. Access to climate information products is enhanced by developing an online mapping service that provides a user-friendly interface for analyzing and visualizing climate information products such as maps and graphs.

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MED-GOLD Living Lab 2020: the story of an online training event

10.5194/egusphere-egu21-9904 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Alessandro Dell'Aquila ◽

Sandro Calmanti ◽

Luigi Ponti ◽

Marta Bruno Soares ◽

Massimiliano Pasqui ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Summer School ◽

Early Career ◽

Multidisciplinary Teams ◽

Climate Information ◽

Climate Data ◽

Climate Services ◽

Living Lab ◽

Wide Range ◽

Training Event ◽

On Line

The H2020 MED-GOLD Living Lab &#8221;Turning climate information into value for traditional Mediterranean agri-food systems&#8221; was implemented as a solution to deal with the coronavirus pandemic and the resulting travel restrictions. Originally planned as a summer school in Cagliari in Italy, this training event was held online over five weeks between May and June 2020. This work describes the main features of the MED-GOLD Living Lab 2020, including the necessary steps and the strategy adopted to turn the originally planned physical summer school into an online event.&#160;The MED-GOLD Living Lab 2020 was dedicated to early career scientists and professionals in the areas of climate science, agriculture, economy, social sciences and communication. The Living Lab has been conducted as an on-line event for five weeks, from May 25 to June 25, with weekly interactive webinars by speakers across different disciplines and on-line working groups with multidisciplinary teams, supported by scientists from the MED-GOLD experts as mentors.Participants have been challenged by real users of climate information to develop prototype climate services for the agri-food sector, building on the knowledge and skills shared during the event.Early career scientists and professionals with a wide range of individual profiles have been encouraged to apply and join the multidisciplinary teams: climate scientists, agronomists, software developers (R, Python), economists, social scientists, communication and visual communication experts.The purpose of the Living Lab was to demonstrate to the participants the MED-GOLD concepts and methodologies to develop climate services as well as become familiar with climate data and tools made available through the Copernicus Climate Data Store (CDS).An online feedback form was distributed to participants in the last day of the living lab. Overall the feedback received was very positive with all respondents stating that they would recommend this living lab to others. The majority of respondents were positive about the overall content, design and delivery of the living lab.&#160;However, the interactive aspects of the Living Lab could be further improved not only to ensure that the interactions between participants (e.g. to pursue their work group are effective but also in terms of ensuring that the time at which the living lab runs fits with participants&#8217; own commitments. Potential ways of overcoming these could be to e.g. allocate a specific slot during the living lab programme for group work as well as to identify specific dates/time slots to run future living labs together with participants.The majority enjoyed the opportunity to engage with real-problems and stakeholders, working in multidisciplinary teams and engaging with experts in climate services.Taking into account the circumstances of the COVID-19 emergency and based on the feedback by the participants, the Living lab was a&#160; successful experiment that could be replicated and further enhanced for the second training event, MED-GOLD Living Lab 2021 planned for late spring 2021.

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