ES1.5

The UK has many elements of a strong National Framework for Climate Services, including national and regional networks, the UK national climate projections, and effective themed user groups which feed into activities such as the development of new climate projections. Work under the UK Climate Resilience Programme has engaged with stakeholders across the UK climate services community to understand the need and desire to develop this further. This presentation will focus on recent work funded by the UK Climate Resilience Programme on the need for a UK national framework for climate services.

The creation of a National Framework for Climate Services (NFCS) is recommended to help coordinate, facilitate, and strengthen collaboration among the UK climate services community and improve the co-production, tailoring, delivery and use of science-based climate information and services. Without an NFCS the UK will likely fail to properly benefit from the activities and legacy of current public and private sector programmes and initiatives through a lack of continuity and continued difficulties bringing together multi and trans disciplinary approaches to adaptation and building resilience.

The recommendation is made following an 18-month project which engaged with more than 80 representatives from more than 60 organisations across the UK to determine the need for and benefits of implementing an NFCS.  National Frameworks are recommended by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) led Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS) and there is evidence of benefit provided by NFCS in other nations.

The UK’s framework for climate services should (1) provide a driving force and mechanism for the pull-through and implementation of new data, knowledge and practices, aligned with national adaptation and resilience priorities; (2) enable knowledge exchange by building a UK community to link up different actors, promoting common language and understanding; and (3) establish and promote good practice, quality standards, and ethical practices within the UK community, as well as engage internationally and offer leadership where appropriate through partnership and collaboration.

How to cite: Wilson, L., Golding, N., Hewitt, C., Lowe, J., Dunbar, T., and Harrison, M.: Addressing the need for a UK National Framework for Climate Services., EMS Annual Meeting 2022, Bonn, Germany, 5–9 Sep 2022, EMS2022-84, https://doi.org/10.5194/ems2022-84, 2022.

National and international climate services support adaptation to climate change. Climate services should aim to deliver climate service products, which are useable, useful, accurate and suitable for users. Good practices for the design of climate services include transdisciplinary approaches and co-creation of climate service products.

The advancement of effective adaptation measures to climate change requires continuous interactions between climate service providers and users of the products. To assess the effectiveness of this co-creation endeavours evaluation is crucial. At present, output and outcome assessments are conducted occasionally in the climate services research field but they are performed ex-post and do not help to adjust the ongoing process of co-creation.

Thus, the focus of the presented work is on the formative evaluation of the co-creative development of science-based climate service products. It is done during the run-time of a project with the intention to reflect and readjust the processes. To find the related evaluation criteria, we analysed in detail the process of co-creation of climate service products in the knowledge transfer project ADAPTER (ADAPT tERrestrial systems, https://adapter-projekt.org/). In ADAPTER, simulation-based climate service products have been developed together with key partners and practitioners from the agricultural sector, to support decision-making in the context of climate change adaptation.

Starting with the empirical identification of the main characteristics of the product development process, six sub-processes were determined. Then, questions for a formative evaluation were assigned to the different steps and sub-processes. Finally, a literature review on quality criteria in transdisciplinary research delivered additional qualitative aspects and served as theoretical basis. As a result, a scheme of quality criteria and related assessment questions for the different sub-processes in climate service development was created, based on both empirical and theoretical work. Of course, this formative evaluation scheme needs validation and testing but, at least, will be particularly helpful to reflect on and to improve the co-creation processes in climate services and enhance their quality.

How to cite: Keup-Thiel, E., Bathiany, S., Dressel, M., El Zohbi, J., Rechid, D., Schuck-Zöller, S., Suhari, M., and Timm, E.: Enhancement of quality in climate services – development of a formative evaluation scheme for co-creation processes, EMS Annual Meeting 2022, Bonn, Germany, 5–9 Sep 2022, EMS2022-38, https://doi.org/10.5194/ems2022-38, 2022.

Determining the current climate mean state (CCMS) on the regional and local scale is an important task of climate monitoring. The CCMS and the long-term climate change signal derived from it are relevant for a wide range of users. For climate variables with strong, possibly non-linear trends, accelerating climate change more and more disqualifies the use of traditional normals and long-term linear trends. Although several alternatives are in use, there are few comprehensive assessments of different approaches to estimate the CCMS, let alone a consensus on a new widely applicable standard. Here, we identify approaches based on historical data that allow accurate estimates, mainly using the example of the strongly changing Swiss mean temperature. The performance is assessed for the past and future combining long-term observations and climate projections with the centred 30-year mean (15 years observations, 15 years predictions) as CCMS benchmark. Several approaches, e.g. short-term linear trends, cubic splines and weighted local linear regression (LOESS) provide unbiased CCMS estimates for a broad range of climate scenarios and independent of trend magnitudes. Additional requirements such as the applicability to a wide range of variables, simplicity and the straightforward availability of uncertainty information are used to identify the most-suitable approaches. LOESS emerged as the most promising method in the overall assessment. KNMI already uses LOESS and MeteoSwiss plans to implement and use LOESS operationally in the near future. It will become MeteoSwiss’ new standard for determining long-term climate change signals and will also replace the Gaussian smoother currently used to visualise the evolution of climate variables.

How to cite: Scherrer, S. C., de Valk, C., Begert, M., Gubler, S., Kotlarski, S., and Croci-Maspoli, M.: Estimating the current climate mean state at regional to local scales, EMS Annual Meeting 2022, Bonn, Germany, 5–9 Sep 2022, EMS2022-93, https://doi.org/10.5194/ems2022-93, 2022.

Global warming is expected to alter the global hydrological cycle in addition to higher temperatures, higher global sea levels and melting ice. We present an analysis of how rainfall patterns have changed over the period 1950-2020 based on the ERA5 reanalysis, involving both aggregation and 2D Haar wavelet analysis. Our results suggest that there have been pronounced changes, such as increased activity in rain events with a size of less than 400 km. Such changes call for the need for global hydro-climate indicators that provide a summary of the state of the global hydrological cycle. We show that the typical total mass of water falling on Earth’s surface each day has gradually increased over the period, and the daily fraction of the global area on which it falls has diminished. Hence, the mean rainfall intensity has also increased. These findings imply two explanations for observed trends toward more extreme rainfall: (1) a more moist atmosphere and (2) the rainfall has increasingly become more concentrated in both time and space. One hypothesis is that these changes in rainfall patterns may be connected with changed conditions for convection in the atmosphere. We found that the energies in some of the wavelet components closely track the global mean temperature, which also may suggest a possibility to downscale statistics for rainfall patterns based on expected global warming. A practical consequence of these findings is an explanation for both more flooding in some places but also more drought in others. They also call for the need to include global hydro-climatological indicators in the widely used set consisting of the global mean temperature, global sea-level, CO2 concentrations and sea-ice extent.

How to cite: Benestad, R. E., Lussana, C., Lutz, J., Dobler, A., Landgren, O. A., Haugen, J. E., Mezghani, A., Casati, B., and Parding, K. M.: The need for global hydro-climatological indicators, EMS Annual Meeting 2022, Bonn, Germany, 5–9 Sep 2022, EMS2022-193, https://doi.org/10.5194/ems2022-193, 2022.

Driving safety is strongly weather dependent during the winter season, thus timely installation of winter tyres is essential when temperature falls to near 0 °C and the surface of the roads becomes slippery due to ice and snow. Sub-seasonal forecasts might provide useful information for tyre companies for operational planning of their logistic activities and preparedness. In the EU H2020 E-SHAPE project we co-created a user-oriented climate service providing tailored sub-seasonal predictions for the tyre companies in Finland. To increase the usability and uptake of the forecast products the service was co-created with the tyre and car service chain, Vianor Oy, through an iterative approach. In this study, we provide a short overview of the new sub-seasonal prediction service, emphasizing the challenges emerged during the creation and uptake by the user.

The end-user was engaged through dialog from the beginning of the design and development process to scope and explore their needs in terms of forecast products, and to align the complexity of visualization design and delivery method with their expertise. The user’s purpose was to apply the tailored sub-seasonal forecasts in the operational preparation for the high season, in marketing and in customer communication to facilitate safer driving. Taking this into consideration, a set of sub-seasonal forecast products relevant for winter driving safety were selected and designed with the user, i.e., winter tyre season (onset and offset), probability of snow cover, snow depth and probability of freezing temperature. Air temperature and snow depth variables from the ensemble prediction system from ECMWF were used as input data in the development of the sub-seasonal outlooks. The forecast model data was quality assessed and bias-adjusted using the ERA5 reanalysis as reference. The sub-seasonal outlooks are produced in operational runs, visualized through weekly maps, and disseminated to the users through an online user interface two times a week, on Tuesday and Friday. The service was piloted with Vianor for two winter seasons and improvements are being made based on user’s feedback and forecast product evaluation.

Although the user found beneficial the created climate service in decision making, their capacity and capability to incorporate the sub-seasonal climate information in their line of business proved to be more challenging. This was partly due to the longer time required to understand the potential value of using the forecast products but also in the difficulties of incorporating the new climate information to their workflow. The lessons learnt from this collaboration will contribute to better understanding of users’ engagement and co-production of sustainable and operational climate services.

How to cite: Vajda, A., Hyvärinen, O., Rantanen, M., Tack, A., and Mellin, M.: Co-creation of sub-seasonal prediction service for tyre companies in Finland, EMS Annual Meeting 2022, Bonn, Germany, 5–9 Sep 2022, EMS2022-236, https://doi.org/10.5194/ems2022-236, 2022.

Regional Climate Centres (RCCs) are regional, operational entities of the Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS) Climate Services Information System (CSIS). As such they are serving the members of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) through their respective National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs). Thus, RCCs are supporting NMHSs in meeting their national climate-related duties and better serving their users. RCCs are formally designated by WMO and are recognized as WMO Regional Specialized Meteorological Centres (RSMCs) in the WMO Manual on the Global Data-processing and Forecasting System (GDPFS).

WMO RCCs provide climate data sets, climate monitoring products, including climate watches, and long-range forecasting products. The details of the services provided by RCCs are developed jointly with the WMO Members in the region, based on their needs, and regularly reviewed. The RCC in Europe (WMO Regional Association (RA) VI) has been established in 2009 and designated in 2012 as a network of three nodes i.e. for climate data, climate monitoring and long-range forecasting. Each of these nodes is led by a NMHS, supported by a consortium of agencies providing regional or sub-regional contributions. A website (www.rccra6.org) allows access to the network, with links to the websites of the individual nodes. While most of the information is accessible without restriction, some content, like the Climate Watch Advisories (CWAs) is password protected, and may only be accessed with permission of the home country’s NMHS.

The presentation will demonstrate the many services offered by the WMO RA VI RCC Network through its members, lessons learned, and challenges ahead. It will be a kind of update to the information provided in the EMS/ ECAC 2012. 

How to cite: Bissolli, P., Rösner, S., Roebeling, M., Körber, M., and Kreis, A.: The RCC Network – climate services for WMO Members in Europe, EMS Annual Meeting 2022, Bonn, Germany, 5–9 Sep 2022, EMS2022-291, https://doi.org/10.5194/ems2022-291, 2022.

Humankind is currently experiencing changes in the climate system and more changes are projected to occur in the next decades. For the transport sector, it is not only important to contribute to the mitigation of climate change in order to limit climatic changes to a manageable level, but also to manage unavoidable changes and related impacts on infrastructure and mobility by adapting transport infrastructure assets and services to the new conditions in which they will operate. The challenge of providing a climate resilient transport system is taken up by the BMDV Network of Experts – a research network of seven Federal Agencies under the German Federal Ministry of Digital and Transportation (BMDV).

Transport infrastructures and traffic flows along the federal roads, railways and inland waterways vulnerable to climate changes today and in future are to be identified. This is done using specific impact models as well as climate indices that serve as proxies for expected damages. These climate change impact analyses are done based on common data sets, scenario assumptions and assessment methods that allow for a comparable assessment over all modes of transport. Climate impacts that are studied within the BMDV Network of Experts are storms―windthrow, heavy precipitation―flash floods, erosion and landslides, enduring precipitation―flooding, drought―low flows and embankment fires, and sea level rise―tidal dynamics. Exemplarily, adaptation measures are developed in order to increase the climate resilience of the transport modes.

The research network has a strong practical orientation; the demands and questions of the infrastructure operators are integrated in the conception of research questions. The data, methods and results obtained by the research program BMDV Network of Experts are included in the operational services within the DAS core service “climate and water” (https://www.das-basisdienst.de/) that was established in 2020. These services support the climate change adaptation of transport and mobility in Germany, while many of the specific data, methods and analysis tools are also relevant for other fields of action like water management, coastal protection, construction engineering or the energy sector. The ongoing close dialogue between science, policy and practice is thereby of great importance in order to provide useful and targeted services.

How to cite: Hänsel, S., Klippel, L., Brendel, C., Nilson, E., Schade, N., Meine, L., Herrmann, C., and Hache, I.: Increasing the resilience of the German transport system to climate change and extreme weather events, EMS Annual Meeting 2022, Bonn, Germany, 5–9 Sep 2022, EMS2022-525, https://doi.org/10.5194/ems2022-525, 2022.

Recent decades have shown significant advance in weather forecasting; sub-seasonal to seasonal forecast and climate prediction, including advances in a more seamless integration across the spatial and temporal scales of the knowledges these contain. Despite these advances, barriers remain to the uptake of climate services and the realising of their full value proposition. One dimension to overcoming some of the barriers is to recognise that stakeholders and decision makers consider multiple knowledges when taking climate relevant decisions; including their own local knowledges, perceptions and preferences, as well as the knowledges provided by scientific climate data and projections.

In this contribution we present the recently initiated EU-H2020 I-CISK research and innovation project. Through trans-disciplinary research this project aims to develop a co-production framework within which social and behaviourally informed climate services are co-designed, co-created, co-implemented, and co-evaluated with their intended users, as well as with other actors in the climate services value chain, including climate services purveyors, providers and data producers. We present initial results from the project in which multi-actor platforms are established in the seven living labs that are central to our research approach, and the design of the co-production framework. Pre-operational climate services will be co-created in these that showcase the framework in seaming together the patchwork of multiple scientific and local knowledges that meet identified climate information needs across multiple sectors and climate hazards; and that help foster the translation of climate services provided data into actionable information while considering reinforcing and balancing feedback loops associated to users’ decisions.

How to cite: Werner, M., Masih, I., Emerton, R., Pechlivanidis, I., Schaafsma, M., Pesquer, L., Di Baldassarre, G., van den Homberg, M., Mazzoli, P., Gamtkitsulashvili, M., De Stefano, L., Gräler, B., Bela, G., and Tzimas, A.: Seaming together a patchwork of knowledges: toward co-producing social and behaviourally informed climate services, EMS Annual Meeting 2022, Bonn, Germany, 5–9 Sep 2022, EMS2022-536, https://doi.org/10.5194/ems2022-536, 2022.

How to cite: Jefimow, M., Strużewska, J., Kłeczek, M., Sattari, A., and Norowski, A.: Snow depth, relative humidity, and total cloud cover for Poland based on downscaled EuroCORDEX ensemble., EMS Annual Meeting 2022, Bonn, Germany, 5–9 Sep 2022, EMS2022-614, https://doi.org/10.5194/ems2022-614, 2022.