Options and challenges for collaboration on climate service related activities at KNMI and KMI

National meteorological institutes have generally a longstanding scientific expertise in climate research, climatological observations, and state-of-the-art climate modelling. In the context of climate change this expertise and service provision of climatic data, information and knowledge is of crucial importance to meet the societal needs. Furthermore, in each country the provision of climate services is generally arranged differently and strongly determined by governance, the official strategy and tasks of the meteorological institutes, as well as financing.

To better align the activities between national climate service providers, the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute and the Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium successfully applied for the ERA4CS action for the exchange of staff, aiming to contribute to the alignment of R&D programmes, tools/instruments and/or climate related agendas of both countries.

In the context of climate services, previous interactions between both institutes are mainly related to sporadically contacts between scientists in need of climatological data or information on methods for the definition of e.g. climate scenarios. However, Belgium and the Netherlands are neighbouring, both small countries, and climate change doesn’t stop at the border. Furthermore, coastal and inland regions along the borders are yet very sensitive to the impacts of climate change, and thus might cause cross-border issues in the future.

Therefore, a two-way visit of senior staff responsible for climate services in both institutes is planned for early 2020. The visits aim to identify the differences and similarities on how climate services are currently provided and the broader context in which climate services are developed and delivered (legal mandate, what other organisations deliver climate services, relation with policy e.g. National Adaptation Strategies). More specifically, the services related to both current and future climate conditions (i.e. climate scenarios), the respective impact sectors and users/stakeholders of the climate services and the interaction with them, the used tools and methods for the creation of climate services, and the outreach and communication strategies for climate services will be discussed through informal interactions, meetings and presentations.

An overview of these discussions together with conclusions on how climate-service related actions can be aligned and consolidated within future collaborations, will be presented.