New climate service initiative under the Nordic Framework for Climate Services

We are excited to introduce a newly established initiative within the network Nordic Framework for Climate Services (NFCS), focusing on national climate services in the Nordic-Baltic countries.  

NFCS operates under NORDMET and has in the last few years cooperated within two activities related to new climate normals and heavy rainfall. With the completion of these activities, The Norwegian Meteorological institute (MET Norway) suggested revitalizing a previous activity focusing on climate services. In December 2022, the Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI) organized a workshop to establish a network and explore potential avenues for collaboration. The following countries were represented at the workshop and presented their respective national climate service: Norway, Latvia, Estonia, Iceland, Sweden, Finland, Lithuania and Denmark.

Climate change affects all countries and regions. Nordic countries (five) and Baltic countries (three) are located in the northern region of Europe, where the processes and impacts of climate change are quite similar.  Adequate provision of climate services can not only improve and strengthen knowledge about climate change, but also reduce the negative impacts of climate change. Communication, cooperation, exchange of knowledge and good practices among countries in the region can contribute to better knowledge about climate change and climate change impacts across the region. 

While the level of development of climate services varies across these countries, common concerns were also identified. Amongst common activities and concerns we can mention

• Updating the knowledge base for national and local climate adaptation following the Sixth Assessment Report from IPCC
• New sectors focusing on climate adaptation such as finance, insurance and health
• Increasing need for sector specific climate indices
• Data management and resources, code sharing and version control
• Challenges related to outreach and communication. 

At EMS we will present and compare national climate services of these eight countries and highlight opportunities for future collaboration under very limited resources.