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

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

<p>The H2020 MED-GOLD Living Lab ”Turning climate information into value for traditional Mediterranean agri-food systems” 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. </p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p>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).</p><p>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. </p><p>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’ 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.</p><p>The majority enjoyed the opportunity to engage with real-problems and stakeholders, working in multidisciplinary teams and engaging with experts in climate services.</p><p>Taking into account the circumstances of the COVID-19 emergency and based on the feedback by the participants, the Living lab was a  successful experiment that could be replicated and further enhanced for the second training event, MED-GOLD Living Lab 2021 planned for late spring 2021.</p>

scholarly journals Demonstrating the full-value chain of climate services in Southern Africa: the FOCUS-Africa project

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roberta Boscolo ◽  
Hamid Bastani ◽  
Asmerom Beraki ◽  
Nicolas Fournier ◽  
Raül Marcos-Matamoros ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Food Security ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Value Chain ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
End Users ◽  
Climate Change Scenarios ◽  
Climate Information ◽  
Climate Services ◽  
Wide Range

<p><strong><em>FOCUS-Africa</em></strong> is an EU Horizon 2020 project funded to co-develop tailored climate services in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region. The project, led by the WMO and started in September 2020, gathers 16 partners across Africa and Europe jointly committed to addressing the value of climate services for key economic sectors in Africa: agriculture and food security, water, energy, and infrastructure.</p><p>The project is piloting eight case studies (CSs) in five different countries involving a wide range of end-users. New services derived from seasonal and decadal forecasts are applied for food security and crop production in South Africa, Malawi, Mozambique, and Tanzania. High-resolution climate projections, as well as historical climate reanalyses, are used to support planning and investment decisions for: a railway infrastructure and a mix of renewable energies in Tanzania, hydropower generation assessment under climate change scenarios in Malawi, and water resources management in Mauritius.</p><p>For all the FOCUS-Africa’s case studies, socio-economic impact assessment of the delivered climate services will be carried out in collaboration with the CS leaders, service providers, and end-users, by providing ex-ante and ex-post evaluations grounded in the Global Indicator Framework for the Sustainable Development Goals. The project will align the capacity development efforts with those promoted by WMO for enhancing the capabilities of the NMHSs to deliver climate services to users and will make sure that the project's innovative processes and tools will be part of the WMO training curricula.</p><p>FOCUS-Africa's expected impacts are:</p><ul><li>Build a strong link between the climate scientific community and stakeholders in the SADC region by leveraging the advanced scientific knowledge and strong networks of the implementing team, and by establishing dedicated channels of communications, so as to target the full value chain of our users, from the start of the project</li> <li>Advance the way in which climate information is developed by characterising end-use requirements through regular engagement</li> <li>Contribute to the advancement of the scientific knowledge in the region and strengthened support for international scientific assessments through publications and reports such as those relevant for the IPCC, through the innovative science developed by FOCUS-Africa</li> <li>Demonstrate the effectiveness of the climate information by strengthening the adaptive capacity of end-users by delivering tailored, actionable, and exploitable climate services and by estimating their socio-economic benefits across the full value chain.</li> <li>Enhance policy-making for climate adaptation in the project and other countries</li> <li>Increase women’s access to climate services</li> </ul>

scholarly journals Experiences with virtual schools on “Climate data for impact assessments”

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janette Bessembinder ◽  
Judith Klostermann ◽  
Rutger Dankers ◽  
Vladimir Djurdjevic ◽  
Tomas Halenka
Keyword(s):  
Summer School ◽  
Climate Modeling ◽  
Virtual Schools ◽  
Virtual School ◽  
Climate Data ◽  
Climate Services ◽  
Impact Modelling ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Impact Models

<p>The provision of climate services to users is a fast developing field. In support of this development, the IS-ENES3 project, funded within the EC Horizon2020 program, organized three schools on “Climate data for impact assessments” in 2020 and 2021. In an Autumn school, a Spring school and a Summer school, climate scientists and impact scientists were brought together. An important aim of the schools was to enhance interaction between Vulnerability-Impact-Adaptation (VIA) researchers, climate services providers and climate researchers. Another aim was to provide an overview of information on climate modeling, climate data, impact modelling and climate services based on the work of the IS-ENE3 project.</p><p>In the first three weeks a series of lectures was given, covering topics such as climate data and modelling, impact models, portals for accessing and processing climate data, setting-up impact assessments, and communication of results to stakeholders. In the last three weeks the participants worked in small groups of one climate scientist with one impact scientist on a case study under the guidance of the course lecturers. Impact and climate researchers were combined on purpose to let them experience how they could help each other.</p><p>Originally the schools were planned to take place on-site (e.g. in Prague) during one week; however, due to COVID-19 the schools had to be transformed to virtual schools with two weekly sessions during six weeks. Although the virtual set-up had some disadvantages (e.g. less possibilities for networking), there were also some advantages (e.g. the possibility to record the lectures and make them available to a broader audience; more time to explore and work with climate data in between the sessions, no CO<sub>2</sub> emissions for travelling). During this presentation we will present the set-up of the schools and the conversion to a virtual school. We will focus on the lessons learnt and the evaluation of the virtual schools by the participants and give some recommendations for similar schools and how to link the climate and VIA research communities .</p>

ENACTS: Transforming Climate Services Across Africa

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

<p>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, 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.</p>

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

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-33 ◽  
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).

scholarly journals ENACTS: Advancing Climate Services Across Africa

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.

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

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

<p>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.  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’ 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.</p>

scholarly journals ERS International Congress 2020: highlights from the Paediatric Assembly

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 00893-2020
Author(s):  
Cristina Ardura-Garcia ◽  
Sara Cuevas-Ocaña ◽  
Nadine Freitag ◽  
Asterios Kampouras ◽  
John A. King ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cystic Fibrosis ◽  
Maternal Obesity ◽  
Mode Of Delivery ◽  
Early Career ◽  
Respiratory Physiology ◽  
International Congress ◽  
Respiratory Morbidity ◽  
Multidisciplinary Teams ◽  
Wide Range

In this review, the Paediatric Assembly of the European Respiratory Society (ERS) presents a summary of the highlights and most relevant findings in the field of paediatric respiratory medicine presented at the virtual ERS International Congress 2020. Early Career Members of the ERS and Chairs of the different Groups comprising the Paediatric Assembly discuss a selection of the presented research. These cover a wide range of research areas, including respiratory physiology and sleep, asthma and allergy, cystic fibrosis, respiratory infection and immunology, neonatology and intensive care, epidemiology, bronchology and lung and airway development. Specifically, we describe the long-term effect in lung function of premature birth, mode of delivery and chronic respiratory conditions such as cystic fibrosis. In paediatric asthma, we present risk factors, phenotypes and their progression with age, and the challenges in diagnosis. We confirm the value of the lung clearance index to detect early lung changes in cystic fibrosis. For bronchiectasis treatment, we highlight the importance of identifying treatable traits. The use of biomarkers and genotypes to identify infants at risk of long-term respiratory morbidity is also discussed. We present the long-term impact on respiratory health of early life and fetal exposures to maternal obesity and intrauterine hypoxia, mechanical ventilation hyperoxia, aeroallergens, air pollution, vitamin A deficient intake and bronchitis. Moreover, we report on the use of metabolomics and genetic analysis to understand the effect of these exposures on lung growth and alveolar development. Finally, we stress the need to establish multidisciplinary teams to treat complex airway pathologies.

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

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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