Added value for science and society through connecting communities at DWD

The German Weather Service, DWD, is the national meteorological and climatological service that provides products and services based on advanced scientific and operational expertise to address present and future societal challenges. Through targeted research we enhance the information content, relevance, utility and acceptance of weather and climate products and services.

Our motto is "Weather and Climate from one hand". Through our strategy for probabilistic seamless prediction we develop observing and prediction systems for weather, climate and atmospheric composition. We interact closely with different user communities to understand their needs, help them understand our capabilities, and develop tailored products and services. All georeferenced data from our observations and models is available as Open Data. Through our WarnWetter App we provide the general public and civil protection personnel with warnings and information on the current weather situation. Together with our partners we provide user-oriented climate information relating to sectors such as health, agriculture, tourism or water resources management through the German Climate Portal. Currently we are working with different national and regional institutions to develop a natural hazards portal.

For effective service delivery we must bridge the gap between different communities. We connect the operational and academic communities through the Hans Ertel Centre, our extramural research programme, and engagement in major national and international research programmes. We connect governmental research with stakeholders through the expert network of our ministry and through co-design with stakeholders such as the regional flood forecasting authorities and renewable energy providers. We connect with our international partners to advance seamless earth system prediction worldwide. Key aspects to connecting communities are to support, nurture and promote a transdisciplinary workforce, to build sustainable and long-term transdisciplinary cooperations in natural, social and behavioural science with the academic community, to make operational tools, data and infrastructure available for external partners, and to help potential users find, understand and use our data and services.