Weather and Climate Services in Africa as Digital Public Goods

Mapping Intimacies ◽

10.5194/ems2021-474 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Jelmer Jeuring ◽

Anders Sivle ◽

Håvard Futsæter ◽

Vegard Bønes ◽

Kristine Gjesdal ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Public Goods ◽

Public Good ◽

Weather Data ◽

Climate Information ◽

Pilot Phase ◽

Climate Services ◽

Important Indicator ◽

Wide Range ◽

Weather And Climate ◽

Meteorological Institute

The global digitalization of societies is arguably one of the most influential&#160; drivers of change in the development, implementation and dissemination of weather and climate information. From observations and measurements, to communication of weather warnings, the value chain of Weather & Climate Services (WCS) is increasingly characterized by digital interactions. Yet, digitalization occurs at different paces across regions, depending on a wide range of (local) socio-economic factors. Access to digital information is an important indicator of socio-economic development, and as such strongly embedded in the UN&#8217;s Sustainable Development Goals. Particularly in the context of objectives to provide equal access to information, education and knowledge, open weather data can provide significant benefits in developing countries, and contribute to meeting various SDGs.&#160;Many NMHSs, including the Norwegian Meteorological Institute, currently provide access to weather data under open access licences. One of its most important open data data services is MET Norway Weather API, a global location based time-series forecast service. Recently this api has formally been recognized as a Digital Public Good.&#160;Open weather data can provide opportunities to improve the forecasting capacity of African NMHSs and improve the quality of weather and climate information in African countries. With the objective to provide leading examples of the potential of open weather data as Digital Public Good, the Norwegian Meteorological Institute has been funded by NORAD to explore this potential in a pilot project together with African NMHSs. We present insights and experiences from the pilot phase of our collaboration with NMA in Ethiopia, and DCCMS in Malawi. We reflect on the challenges and successes of the first phase of this project. Also, we present an overview of key factors that need consideration when aiming to transform open weather data into value-added services that meet user-oriented criteria of Digital Public Goods. Finally, we provide an overview of next steps to move beyond the pilot phase.

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

10.5194/ems2021-460 ◽

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

FOCUS-Africa 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.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.For all the FOCUS-Africa&#8217;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.FOCUS-Africa's expected impacts are:<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&#8217;s access to climate services</li> </ul>

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From climate information to climate services: the need for a Belgian climate service centre

10.5194/ems2021-34 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Rozemien De Troch ◽

Piet Termonia

Keyword(s):

Service Provision ◽

Scientific Research ◽

Climate Projections ◽

Research Institutions ◽

Climate Information ◽

Climate Services ◽

Climate Research ◽

Scientific Expertise ◽

The Creation ◽

Meteorological Institute

The Belgian expertise with respect to climate research is very fragmented and led by both federal (like the Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium, hereafter RMI) as well as regional scientific research institutions and universities. Furthermore, both in societal, research as well as policy context there is an increasing need for detailed, quantitative, reliable and consistent climate information and services, in particular linked to the expected climate changes and its impacts in different sectors (e.g. water, agriculture, energy, health, transport).To make all this scientific expertise and climate information available in a coordinated and, above all, user-friendly way, a Belgian climate centre or a one-stop shop for climate research and services would fully address the needs. With its long-standing scientific expertise and service provision, RMI plays a crucial role in fulfilling this growing need for climate information and services.Hence, RMI has elaborated a proposal on the creation of a Belgian climate centre. For the creation of such centre it is preferable to use existing collaborations from previous or ongoing research and service-provision activities in Belgium, requiring a structural cooperation in which each members&#8217; expertise can be fully deployed. In the context of a previous research project, a large consortium of Belgian research institutions active in regional climate modelling, calculated for the first time a consistent set of high-resolution climate projections and sectoral impacts for Belgium. Nevertheless, it should be emphasized that the number of models used was far too limited to develop reliable information of the future climate. Moreover, this was a one-time project and there is currently an urgent need to update the climate projections to meet the new scientific requirements of the IPCC's new sixth Assessment Report.One of the activities of the centre would thus be the coordination of the climate research based on scientific research projects. Furthermore, in order to ensure the continuous development and provision of climate services based on this objective and scientifically based expertise coming from Belgian climate scientists, the climate centre would carry out two main core tasks: (i) the production and storage of climate information and (ii) the support for the development of climate services.The financing and implementation of a Belgian climate centre, would provide a structural framework for climate research and services, establishing partnerships with the various regions and communities, at both policy and research levels. In this way, RMI, as national meteorological institute and at the start of the climate services value chain, can guarantee a continuous scientific expertise and respond to the major needs for climate information and services at national and international level.

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Create weather ecosystems to make weather and climate services more efficient in developing countries

10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-4587 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

pascal Venzac ◽

christine David ◽

morgane Lovat

Keyword(s):

Developing Countries ◽

Business Model ◽

Local Development ◽

Rain Gauge ◽

Weather Data ◽

Sustainable Business ◽

Climate Services ◽

Private Companies ◽

Local Populations ◽

Weather And Climate

Create weather ecosystems to make weather and climate services more efficient in developing countriesPascal Venzac, Christine David, Morgane LovatWeatherForce &#8211; FranceOver the last decade, extreme events are more and more frequent and/or intensive. 85% of the world's population is affected by these events. But, 75% of the most vulnerable countries has no or little reliable, accurate and effective weather information. Effective forecasts and early warnings could however make the difference between life and death in those countries. Weather data are crucial for local populations and governments who can exploit it to optimize their economic development and prevent major social and health crises.By international agreement, National Meteorology and Hydrology Services (NMHS) are the government's authoritative source of weather, climate and water information. But, some NMHS in developing countries have difficulties to deploy and maintain operational infrastructure like rain gauge recorder for example. In addition, rain gauges provide only local information, measuring rainfall level in the specific geographic location.WeatherForce was created in August 2016, by two experts from M&#233;t&#233;o-France Group (French National Meteorological Service) to help meet the challenges of national weather services in developing countries.WeatherForce works in close partnerships with NMHS to strengthen their fundamental role and implement weather ecosystems for local development with a sustainable business model.The WeatherForce platform, first weather collaborative platform is designed to help:<ul><li>public institutions that need accurate weather data or predictive indicators to help them make informed decisions to protect local populations and infrastructures.</li> <li>universities or research institutes that need a platform to easily access data to code, modify and share their algorithms.</li> <li>startups incubators that look for reliable data to create innovative applications to help local populations cope with climate change</li> <li>private companies that need custom weather services to improve their performance.</li> </ul>Our platform aggregates global data (satellite images, global forecasts, etc.) transposed into a local geographic context (IoT sensors, local stations, field expertise). It is opened to local research and innovation ecosystems to offer them access to its qualified data and develop new weather indicators contributing to the creation of a meteorological common.WeatherForce aims to increase local sustainability by making weather data available to all through a weather ecosystem.Regarding the business model, it is based on revenue sharing, the NMHS receives a commission payment in relation to the revenue generated. WeatherForce sells services to private companies (agribusiness...) and shares the part dedicated with NMHS. The contribution from NMHS is based on the local expertise and data. We do not ask the NMHS to pay a subscription fee for the platform.To summarize, we create through Public Partner Engagement (PPE) weather ecosystems that promote dialogue between private actors and public authorities; collaboration for better policies, new business opportunities and sustainable business model.The WeatherForce solution connects local actors to each other but also to the rest of the world thanks to our open-source platform designed to allow collaborations between other weather ecosystems worldwide.

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Why the use of weather and climate information is essential for SDG implementation

10.5194/ems2021-482 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

David Griggs

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Sustainable Development ◽

United Nations ◽

Sustainable Development Goals ◽

Climate Information ◽

Climate Services ◽

2030 Agenda ◽

Weather And Climate ◽

Decision Making Processes ◽

Development Goals

The United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is an ambitious plan for &#8220;people, &#8220;planet and prosperity&#8221;. At its core are the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the achievement of which is critically affected by weather and a changing climate. To that end emphasis has been given to delivering weather and climate services, with information packaged in ways that support timely decision making.Yet often these approaches tend not to address which decision-making processes need what information, why they need it, or what form they need it in. They have also tended to be focussed on specific situations and SDGs (such as SDG 14, 15) where the need for weather and climate information is clear and obvious.In this presentation, we will look at how weather and climate information impinges on different decision making contexts, requiring that information to be tailored in new ways. In doing so we will identify key action areas that need to be addressed to improve integration of weather and climate information into SDG decision making.&#160;

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Mapping Tourism Stakeholders’ Weather and Climate Information-Seeking Behavior in Fiji

Weather Climate and Society ◽

10.1175/wcas-d-16-0078.1 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 9 (3) ◽

pp. 377-391 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

J. Nalau ◽

S. Becken ◽

S. Noakes ◽

B. Mackey

Keyword(s):

Information Seeking ◽

Early Warning Systems ◽

Climate Impacts ◽

Small Island ◽

Information Seeking Behavior ◽

Climate Information ◽

Climate Services ◽

Tourism Sector ◽

Weather And Climate ◽

Seeking Behavior

Abstract Tourism is inherently dependent on weather and climate, and its sustainability and resilience to adverse weather and climate impacts is greatly enhanced by providing tailored climate services to tourism sector stakeholders. Climate services need to integrate standard weather forecasts, with early warning systems, seasonal forecasts, and long-term projections of climatic changes in order to meet the information needs of the sector. While a growing number of studies address the potential climate change impacts on tourism, little is known about how the tourism sector accesses, uses, and analyses the available weather and climate information. This research presents findings from an exploratory study on weather and climate information-seeking behavior of 15 private and public tourism sector stakeholders in the Republic of Fiji. The results show a variety of weather and climate information-seeking paths in use, which differ depending on levels of professional responsibility, weather and climate literacy, and information and digital competency. Those with high weather information literacy access a broader variety of sources. Hence, their interpretation does not focus only on their own location, but “weather” is seen as a broad spatial phenomenon that might or might not result in adverse effects in their location. Understanding diverse weather and climate information-seeking paths can aid in better targeting climate and adaptation services across different stakeholder groups. Especially in the context of small island developing states (SIDS), the integration of traditional, local, and scientific knowledge as information sources is likely to provide a more useful and context-specific basis for climate adaptation planning within the sector.

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Farm service agency employee intentions to use weather and climate data in professional services

Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems ◽

10.1017/s1742170517000783 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 33 (3) ◽

pp. 212-221 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Rachel E. Schattman ◽

Gabrielle Roesch-McNally ◽

Sarah Wiener ◽

Meredith T. Niles ◽

David Y. Hollinger

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Service Providers ◽

Professional Services ◽

Weather Data ◽

United States Department ◽

Service Agency ◽

Climate Information ◽

Weather And Climate ◽

The Future ◽

Farm Service Agency

AbstractAgricultural service providers often work closely with producers, and are well positioned to include weather and climate change information in the services they provide. By doing so, they can help producers reduce risks due to climate variability and change. A national survey of United States Department of Agriculture Farm Service Agency (FSA) field staff (n = 4621) was conducted in 2016. The survey was designed to assess FSA employees’ use of climate and weather-related data and explore their perspectives on climate change, attitudes toward adaptation and concerns regarding climate- and weather-driven risks. Two structural equation models were developed to explore relationships between these factors, and to predict respondents’ willingness to integrate climate and weather data into their professional services in the future. The two models were compared with assess the relative influence of respondents’ current use of weather and climate information. Findings suggest that respondents’ perceptions of weather-related risk in combination with their personal observations of weather variability help predict whether an individual intends to use weather and climate information in the future. Importantly, climate change belief is not a significant predictor of this intention; however, the belief that producers will have to adapt to climate change in order to remain viable is. Surprisingly, whether or not an individual currently uses weather and climate information is not a good predictor of whether they intend to in the future. This suggests that there are opportunities to increase employee exposure and proficiency with weather and climate information to meet the needs of American farmers by helping them to reduce risk.

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Provision of Climate Services for Agriculture: Public and Private Pathways to Farm Decision-Making

Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society ◽

10.1175/bams-d-17-0253.1 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 99 (9) ◽

pp. 1781-1790 ◽

Cited By ~ 9

Author(s):

Tonya Haigh ◽

Vikram Koundinya ◽

Chad Hart ◽

Jenna Klink ◽

Maria Lemos ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Information ◽

Sources Of Information ◽

Climate Services ◽

Public And Private ◽

For Profit ◽

Key Stakeholders ◽

Weather And Climate ◽

Private And Public ◽

Management Recommendations ◽

Information Providers

AbstractThe pathways between climate information producers and agricultural decision-makers are evolving and becoming more complex, with information increasingly flowing through both public and for-profit intermediaries and organizations. This study characterizes the various channels of climate information flow, as well as the needs and preferences of information intermediaries and end users. We use data from a 2016 survey of farmers and agricultural advisors in 12 U.S. Corn Belt states to evaluate perceptions of climate information and its usability. Our findings reinforce the view that much weather and climate information is not reaching farmers explicitly but also suggest that farmers may not be aware of the extent to which the information is packaged with seed, input, or management recommendations. For farmers who are using weather and climate information, private services such as subscription and free tools and applications (apps) are as influential as publicly provided services. On the other hand, we find that agricultural advisors are engaged users and transformers of both public and private sources of weather/climate information and that they choose sources of information based on qualities of salience and credibility. Our results suggest that climate information providers could improve the use of information in agriculture by engaging advisors and farmers as key stakeholders and by strategically employing multiple delivery pathways through the private and public sectors.

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Understanding Women’s Needs for Weather and Climate Information in Agrarian Settings: The Case of Ngetou Maleck, Senegal

Weather Climate and Society ◽

10.1175/wcas-d-15-0075.1 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 8 (3) ◽

pp. 247-264 ◽

Cited By ~ 28

Author(s):

Edward R. Carr ◽

Grant Fleming ◽

Tshibangu Kalala

Keyword(s):

Information Needs ◽

Climate Information ◽

Climate Services ◽

Social Differences ◽

Weather Information ◽

Design And Implementation ◽

Related Development ◽

Weather And Climate ◽

The Village ◽

Precipitation And Temperature

Abstract While climate services have the potential to reduce precipitation- and temperature-related risks to agrarian livelihoods, such outcomes are possible only when they deliver information that is salient, legitimate, and credible to end users. This is particularly true of climate services intended to address the needs of women in agrarian contexts. The design of such gender-sensitive services is hampered by oversimplified framings of women as a group in both the adaptation and climate services literatures. This paper demonstrates that even at the village level, women have different climate and weather information needs, and differing abilities to act on that information. Therefore, starting with preconceived connections between identities and vulnerability is likely to result in overgeneralizations that hinder the ability to address the climate-related development and adaptation needs of the most vulnerable. Instead, as is demonstrated in this paper, the design and implementation of effective gender-sensitive climate services must start with the relevant social differences that shape people’s livelihoods decisions and outcomes, including but not limited to gender.

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Climate Services for eXtremes: Bi-directional knowledge transfer for developing adaptation strategies in agriculture and forestry on the example of the 2018-2020 summer drought in Germany.

10.5194/egusphere-egu21-13157 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Karsten Haustein ◽

Diana Rechid ◽

Florian Knutzen ◽

Markus Groth ◽

Paul Averbeck ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Knowledge Transfer ◽

Extreme Weather ◽

Research Strategy ◽

Adaptation Strategies ◽

Point Of View ◽

Summer Drought ◽

Climate Information ◽

Climate Services ◽

Forestry Sector ◽

Weather And Climate

The main goal of Climate Services for eXtremes (which in is an integral part of the ClimXtreme framework) is to advance our understanding of the intensity as well as the spatio-temporal distribution of extreme weather and climate events, but tailored to the needs of stakeholders in the agricultural and forestry sector. The project is designed to optimise the communication between scientists and decision makers and thus to maximise the mutual benefit with regard to climate adaption. The scientists involved learn from the interview partners what climate information is actually required on the ground to facilitate the development of adaptation strategies, whereas the sector experts gain insights into the capabilities and limits of state-of-the-art climate information.In order to increase the efficiency of the knowledge transfer between scientists and stakeholders, we introduce a process-chain based approach: (i) the sector-specific identification of the characteristics of extreme weather conditions in close cooperation with partners from forestry and agriculture, (ii) the analysis of past and future weather and climate extremes with various statistical techniques, (iii) the investigation of the effects of these extremes by means of forest and agricultural case studies, and (iv) the development of possible needs-based adaptation strategies to future climatic conditions and extreme events based on this information.The extended summer drought in Germany during the warm seasons 2018 to 2020 is the perfect testbed for the approach, given the wide-ranging consequences this multi-year event had especially on the forestry sector. The event will be analysed from a probabilistic point of view, i.e. what is the return time and what were the causal factors from an atmospheric dynamic and teleconnection point of view. There is also potential to investigate the role of climate change in terms of altered risks. With this information, we can offer initial guidance for the project partners as to what they have to prepare for. But crucially, the interview feedback will help guide our ultimate research strategy. It will be a function of spatial scale, indices of interest as well as scope and complexity of the data and services our partners require. The new insights will serve as a basis to investigate such extreme drought events under potential future climate conditions.&#160;

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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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