Does AI mean we need to do climate services differently?

The knowledge base to support climate change adaptation is rapidly growing with the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 2022 report on impacts, adaptation and vulnerability with over 34,000 citations; nearly three times compared to its predecessor published in 2014. This information is complex, requiring specialist knowledge to interpret the science and further expertise to understand how to act upon the information. The small pool of experts across the world presents a challenge with the need of an ever-growing set of decision-makers who need tailored information.

To date, most attention has focused on the use of machine learning for climate science rather than the application of AI technologies to enhance climate services provision. With the advent of public access to large language models and more generally, generative AI technologies, we consider here the opportunities that they bring to solve the problems around delivering climate services but also the implications on the pillars of saliency, credibility and legitimacy.

We present the findings from the “Towards AI for Climate Services” workshop held on 22 February 2024 in the UK which aimed to understand if and how AI technologies could help to address existing challenges in the sector. Participants represented academic, public and private providers of climate and AI services. Discussions focused on three aspects: challenges in climate services that AI technologies are addressing, emerging risks with employing AI technologies and pathways to mitigating these risks.

We will show that while many of the issues raised are not exclusive to using AI technologies, their rapid development and accessibility suggest that the climate services sector need to urgently engage with the debate