The UN's 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda sets a crucial target: eradicating hunger, yet progress has been insufficient. According to the FAO, more than 735 million people still suffer from hunger. This issue isn't evenly distributed globally; it hits hardest in less developed nations where agriculture sustains many livelihoods. Weather patterns, climate variations, and climate change all disrupt crop cycles, complicating agricultural planning and production.

To assist farmers, weather-based crop calendars have become invaluable. These calendars utilize historical rainfall data to offer practical insights into optimal planting and harvesting times for various crops and regions. Creating these calendars demands precise rainfall data to pinpoint the start and end of rainy seasons, alongside crop-specific knowledge like drought resistance and growth duration.

Determining the onset and end of the rainy season relies on complex threshold-based methods. These methods analyze accumulated rainfall over multiple days, incorporating additional criteria to avoid false alarms. By fitting this data to probability distributions, climatological expectations for early, normal, and late onsets and cessations of the rainy season are evaluated. The resulting crop calendar aligns early, normal, or late rainy season onsets with optimal sowing dates, while harvest dates are calculated based on sowing dates and crop growth cycles.

In collaboration with the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and initiatives like the Climate Risk and Early Warning Systems (CREWS) project in West Africa and the Enhancing Adaptive Capacity of Andean Communities through Climate Services (ENANDES) project in South America, a suite of tools has been developed. Following a comprehensive "from data to service" approach, these tools are accompanied by training events to empower local communities.

This process is exemplified through the utilization of rainfall data from Togo. By integrating meteorological insights into practical agricultural guidance, these initiatives strive to enhance food security and resilience in vulnerable regions. Ultimately, these efforts contribute to the broader mission of achieving the UN's Sustainable Development Goal of Zero Hunger by 2030.

How to cite: Aguilar, E., Boqué-Ciurana, A., Olano, J., Agniga, K., Grey, S., and Gascon, T.: Creating tools for the generation of weather-based crop calendars to support climate services, EMS Annual Meeting 2024, Barcelona, Spain, 1–6 Sep 2024, EMS2024-608, https://doi.org/10.5194/ems2024-608, 2024.

How to cite: Hoffmann, D., Parker, T., and Bhardwaj, J.: Enhancing Australia's Drought Resilience: Insights from the Australian Climate Service Hazard Teams, EMS Annual Meeting 2024, Barcelona, Spain, 1–6 Sep 2024, EMS2024-1023, https://doi.org/10.5194/ems2024-1023, 2024.

Climate services ecosystems are dynamic complex network of institutions, agents, information, knowledge, products and services functioning as a unit, at any (or across multiple) spatial or temporal scale(s), with the objective of supporting decision-making to enhance the resilience to a changing climate, and support countries and institutions to achieve their adaptation and mitigation goals while optimising available resources (González Romero et al., BAMS, sub-judice). 

Similarly to natural ecosystems, climate services ecosystems are self-contained and self-adjusting, having the ability to adapt in response to changes in the network or system (MilleniumEcosystemAssessment, 2003). Ideally, the more interconnected and interdependent the elements of the climate service ecosystem are, the higher the value and resilience of its network (e.g. Sawai 2013; Watts and Strogatz 1998).

Here, ecosystems of climate services in Guatemala and Chile are analysed and contrasted, using the González Romero et al (BAMS, sub-judice) approach, based on Dynamic Causal (Bayesian) Network Theory. Bayesian Network Analysis here aims at infering probabilities under changing conditions, like changes induced by programs, policies, budgets, institutional changes or any other external interventions. The causal assumptions that can be inferred from Bayesian Network Analysis identify relationships that remain invariant when external conditions change, allowing for the assessment of these changes, predictions of plausible scenarios and evaluation of counter-factuals and testable scenarios (e.g. Pearl, 2009). The assessment of causality derived from a Bayesian Network Analysis implies that the influence of one event onto another is stable and autonomous, so the change in one of them would necessarily result on a change in the linked event.

This research also involves an assessment of how optimal each network of climate services is, including potential improvements, and also an intercomparison -whenever possible- between the two sample ecosystems.

How to cite: Muñoz, Á. G., González Romero, C., García, A., Campos, D., and Alabweh, Z.: Ecosystems of Climate Services in Latin America: examples from Guatemala and Chile, EMS Annual Meeting 2024, Barcelona, Spain, 1–6 Sep 2024, EMS2024-965, https://doi.org/10.5194/ems2024-965, 2024.

The joint effects of natural climate variability and anthropogenic climate change pose unprecedented impacts to contemporary society. Adequate management of present and future climate risk not only enables society to decrease climate impacts, but also to take advantage of climate-related opportunities that can appear in the future. 

One way to understand the risk is in terms of both the related climate hazards and society’s vulnerability to such hazards.  Although there are multiple tools and services dealing with monitoring and forecasting of such hazards, even if those services were perfectly successful at identifying and forecasting the hazard occurrence and characteristics, the large vulnerability exhibited by society gets translated in most cases into a non-negligible climate risk.

Since vulnerability is a function of exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity, controlling these components is key to decrease climate risk. A concrete way to increase adaptive capacity, and hence decrease vulnerability, is by co-developing a set of complementary services –an ecosystem of services– that are fit for the purpose, and tailored to the concrete decision-makers’ demand. As such, these services should comprehensively consider hazards and vulnerabilities at multiple timescales, rather than focusing on one particular timescale (e.g. the next rainfall season, or the next few years).

At the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre, the Earth System Services group is working on the co-development of an ecosystem of financial services to increase adaptive capacity and thus transfer climate risk, across timescales. The approach can be defined as an optimised “Ready-Set-Go” approach (Goddard et al., 2014), in which optimisation occurs using Dynamic Causal Network Theory, enabling the identification of the most efficient network configurations to efficiently communicate and use climate information produced by the different actors in the ecosystem.

As part of this ecosystem of services, BSC is co-developing decision-maker-centred valuation approaches in which, for example, the quality and value of climate services is defined based on a combination of quantitative metrics to address multiple service attributes desired by the users of the services.  

The complementary financial tools part of the financial services ecosystems co-designed with decision makers at BSC involve instruments such as index-based (or parametric) insurance (IbI) and forecast-based action (FbA) -including forecast-based finance (FbF)-, with the particularity that the services’ triggers and thresholds are dynamically defined across-timescales, in contrast with the traditional approach that focuses on more static or stationary definitions related to the immediate timescale of interest. 

Some of these services are being implemented right now in Horizon Europe projects such as Adaptation-oriented Seamless Predictions of European ClimaTe (ASPECT) and Piloting Innovative Insurance Solutions for Adaptation (PIISA), and in Blending knowledge from climate predictiOns and pRojEctions to mAke the Spanish energy sector more resilient to climate variability and climate change (BOREAS).

How to cite: Muñoz, Á. G., Saklani, S., González Romero, C., and Soret, A.: “Ready-Set-Go!” optimisation: Towards an ecosystem of cross-timescale financial services to transfer climate risk , EMS Annual Meeting 2024, Barcelona, Spain, 1–6 Sep 2024, EMS2024-885, https://doi.org/10.5194/ems2024-885, 2024.

In recent years, shifts in climate patterns, coupled with emerging policy drivers and frameworks, have significantly heightened the demand for high-quality weather and climate information within organisations. This information is critical to support adaptation decision-making across short, medium, and long-term horizons. Despite substantial international efforts in climate services, such as the Copernicus program and the Global Framework on Climate Services, gaps persist in our understanding of how organisations are adapting to this evolving landscape and effectively utilising information. To address this gap, we conducted a quantitative survey in late 2023, involving over 1,800 climate-sensitive organisations across almost all European countries, with particularly high representation from countries with larger populations and economies. This survey focused mainly on perceived organisational impacts due to weather/climate and information use. 

Our findings highlight that extreme heat and heavy rainfall are the most impactful events affecting these organisations, with significant concerns centred around the safety of people, the integrity of premises, and the continuity of service delivery and production. Notably, 77% of respondents actively use weather and/or climate information, and 51% of non-users anticipate future needs, suggesting that nearly 90% of organisations recognise the value of this information. This widespread utilisation underscores the vital role of information in strategic planning and risk management. However, a strong reliance on weather forecasts and limited adoption of seasonal to decadal forecast information suggest needs are not being fully met. Approximately 30% of climate information users specifically point to issues with the accessibility, reliability, and customisation of climate information as areas requiring improvement. Furthermore, respondents not currently utilising climate information cite a lack of expertise/resources, perceived unreliability or inaccuracy, difficulty in comprehension, and unfamiliarity as major barriers. Both these findings indicate that improvements are necessary in the tailoring and accessibility of climate services. Additionally, there is a need to raise awareness about the value and limitations of climate information, and to assist organisations in building in-house capacity and expertise. This will enable them to confidently understand and effectively utilise information in their decision-making contexts.

In conclusion, our study reveals a strong demand for tailored, reliable, and accessible climate information within European organisations. It highlights the importance of continuous improvements in climate service development and the establishment of effective governance mechanisms and structures to ensure their sustainability and effectiveness. As we move forward, fostering better engagement strategies, managing user expectations, and addressing the challenges in providing high-quality climate information will be imperative for integrating actionable climate knowledge into organisational planning and operations, thus enhancing resilience across Europe.

How to cite: Grainger, S., Dessai, S., Taylor, A., Krzic, A., Davidović, U., Saklani, S., Mysiak, J., Gonzalez Romero, C., and Martins, H.: Climate information use in European organisations: Insights from a quantitative survey., EMS Annual Meeting 2024, Barcelona, Spain, 1–6 Sep 2024, EMS2024-894, https://doi.org/10.5194/ems2024-894, 2024.

As climate security is an emerging topic in research, civil society and decision-making, it is becoming an inescapable component of transdisciplinary discussions about climate change related risks. While it is important to discuss climate change in the context of security, it is also essential to keep asking questions such as: What do we mean by security? How can we ensure that security is implemented in socially just and environmentally friendly ways? What is the role of meteorologists, and research in general, in supporting truly cross-sectoral collaboration in understanding, mitigating and adapting to climate change related risks?

This presentation aims to answer these questions by discussing the wider societal context of meteorological research and some pitfalls of securitazation in the context of climate change, and by providing a practical example of transdisciplinary collaboration. The first ever Climate Security Festival was organized in 2023 in the Finnish Meteorological Institute by the Safer Climate network (based at the Institute for Atmospheric and Earth System Research (INAR), University of Helsinki) and the Committee of 100 in Finland. The transdisciplinary event gathered almost a 100 people together and utilized varying methods, including participatory activities and artistic approaches, to nurture a multifaceted understanding of climate security. The event program was focused around workshops, where people could share information, discuss and experience together in an open, low-hierarchy environment. The overall feedback of the event was very positive and resulted in new connections, experiences and continuing collaborations.

Collaboration, citizen engagment and social justice are included in numerous security and climate strategies, guidelines and legislations in local, national and international levels. For implementing these guidelines to raise awareness and mitigate climate related security threats, it is crucial to understand how to build and facilitate transdisciplinary collaborations that nurture learning, understanding and cross-sectoral science-based solutions. This can support us in avoiding polarization and conflicts within transdisciplinary research and the society at large.

How to cite: Rantanen, R.: No Climate Security Without Collaboration and Social Justice , EMS Annual Meeting 2024, Barcelona, Spain, 1–6 Sep 2024, EMS2024-463, https://doi.org/10.5194/ems2024-463, 2024.

The currently running “NCCS-Impacts” programme of the Swiss National Centre for Climate Services (NCCS) is dedicated to the analysis of selected cross-sectoral climatic impacts under future climate change in Switzerland. Previous work within the NCCS network such as the climate change scenarios CH2018 and hydrological scenarios Hydro-CH2018 serve as central pillars to carry out projects on the following aspects: (1) socioeconomic scenarios, (2) human and animal health, (3) ecosystem services, (4) supply chains, and (5) economic costs. The different projects are inter-linked with each other, share manifold synergies and jointly elaborate the two cross-cutting themes ‘social justice’ and ‘extreme events’.

In addition to the generation of new science-based insights on climatic impacts in Switzerland and their central challenges for the environment, economy and society, NCCS-Impacts also has a clear focus on the development and provision of actionable products for decision-makers in the field of climate adaptation and mitigation. To this end, the work in the five different projects follow a co-production approach with consortia composed of 17 partners from research and practice. The projects run from 2023 until 2025. 2026 will be devoted to a programme-wide synthesis.

Serving as a pit stop of the programme, this presentation will cover the main achievements reached so far. This includes intermediate results regarding the newly elaborated Swiss Socioeconomic Pathways (SSP-CH) and future projections on heat mortality and heat vulnerability aspects. The presentation will also reflect on experiences and lessons learnt made in terms of governance of the programme and provide a framework on how the project results are consolidated into the joint programme synthesis.

How to cite: Fischer, A., Hama, A. M., Gubler, L., Vicedo-Cabrera, A. M., Möller, A., and Croci-Maspoli, M.: Pit stop of the cross-sectoral programme “NCCS-Impacts”: preliminary results, lessons learnt and the way forward, EMS Annual Meeting 2024, Barcelona, Spain, 1–6 Sep 2024, EMS2024-157, https://doi.org/10.5194/ems2024-157, 2024.

The establishment of a National Framework for Climate Services in Ireland followed a low risk, yet high impact “project-first” approach to understand the national relevance and appetite for a coordinated approach to climate services. Rather than begin with a National Framework for Climate Services, and be unsure of its interest or value, this “project-first” approach allowed Met Éireann to identify relevant stakeholders, evaluate engagement and discover potential problems. As projects are time bound, this was a low-risk method of determining appetite for a more permanent national solution to provision and sharing of climate information.

Following the publication of the National Adaptation Plan and recommendations from the Irish Climate Change Advisory Council, there was an unprecedented requirement for accessible and robust climate information to support decision making and adaptation planning. At this time the Irish climate services landscape was fragmented and climate information for Ireland was developed in an ad hoc, project-to-project basis. There were no clear mechanisms or structures in place for establishing and maintaining sustainable climate services and partnerships between researchers, providers, policy makers and end users. Met Éireann saw the need for both the development of a common set of climate projections to help Irish society speak the same climate language and the establishment of a permanent national framework for climate services. This led to a national research call (to build national capability), from Met Éireann and in 2021 the TRANSLATE project was founded. TRANSLATE became the seed that led to the establishment of this permanent national framework.

National collaboration, knowledge sharing, and co-production of data and services are central to the TRANSLATE ethos. A key challenge of this project was bringing the whole Irish climate science and services community together and subscribe to a collaborative approach. Rather than work in isolation and leveraging Met Éireann’s position as the National Met Service, an organisation that naturally bridges the science-policy-user interface, Met Éireann brought together the national community – (all of whom would be required under a successful national framework) - under the TRANSLATE banner. This “all-Ireland” approach was so effective that it has led to the establishment of a permanent National Framework for Climate Services.

Here we describe an “all-Government” approach to building permanent mechanisms and structures for developing and maintaining sustainable and scalable climate services and partnerships across the science-policy-user interface by establishing an inclusive National Framework for Climate Services. We explore the challenges, barriers and successes in establishing and operationalising of a National Framework for Climate Services in Ireland.

How to cite: Scannell, C., Lambkin, K., and Delmar, J.: Ireland’s Route to a permanent National Framework for Climate Services, EMS Annual Meeting 2024, Barcelona, Spain, 1–6 Sep 2024, EMS2024-735, https://doi.org/10.5194/ems2024-735, 2024.

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

How to cite: Fung, F. and Mittal, N.: Does AI mean we need to do climate services differently?, EMS Annual Meeting 2024, Barcelona, Spain, 1–6 Sep 2024, EMS2024-489, https://doi.org/10.5194/ems2024-489, 2024.

Climate services typically provide information with the goal of supporting climate adaptation at the local level: a successful climate service is therefore one that has impact on society and that is used to make decisions. While quantifying this impact is essential for ensuring the continued relevance of the service and for justifying continued funding, it is not clear how best this should be done. For example, standard metrics used within academia, such as the number of citations a paper or dataset receives, are not relevant, as most users of a climate service are not engaged in the publication of manuscripts. Similarly, standard web-oriented metrics such as number of page views do not reflect how the data is actually used to make decisions, and their representativeness of impact is often clouded by GDPR and privacy requirements. Here we describe our attempts to quantify the societal impact of Klimaatlas, the Danish National Climate Atlas. We centre our work around an analysis of the DK2020 climate action plans prepared by all 98 municipalities in Denmark, focussing on cases both where Klimaatlas has been used extensively and where it has not been used at all to understand the reasons for these outcomes. We also analyse the results of a user satisfaction survey and follow up interviews to get a better understanding of how Klimaatlas is used. The work shows that over 90% of all municipalities in Denmark use Klimaatlas to some degree. The impact analysis also revealed uses of Klimaatlas in other layers of government, in education, literature and private industry, many of which we were previously unaware of. Here we will focus on the lessons learnt from this exercise, and in particular on the need to think impact assessments directly into the design of climate services from the very start. Clearly expressed requirements for how to cite the data can also aid impact tracking, as well as privacy-compliant mechanisms to track usage and the use of standard identifiers such DOIs.

How to cite: Jønsson, A. R., Lauridsen, M. H., Stensballe, J., and Payne, M. R.: How do we measure the impact of a Climate Service? Lessons learned from Klimaatlas, the Danish National Climate Atlas, EMS Annual Meeting 2024, Barcelona, Spain, 1–6 Sep 2024, EMS2024-725, https://doi.org/10.5194/ems2024-725, 2024.

Global temperatures have reached record high levels for 10 months in a row (Copernicus Monthly Climate Bulletin March 2024). At the same time the 2023-2024 cold season in the Nordic region had negative temperature anomalies from October to January, and the region therefore stood out from the rest of the world as a cold blue dot in a red hot world. 

A period of 5 days during January with particularly low temperatures, was classified as a severe cold spell by the World Weather Attribution group and therefore an attribution study of the event was performed. The Norwegian Meteorological Institute together with other institutes from the Nordic countries participated in the study. The results showed that the event would have been even colder had it not been for human made climate change. The rarity of the event was also described, which is an important perspective to provide within our climate services. We will present the findings, and will in addition give an overview on the experience from public outreach and communication of this study. 

Furthermore, we will present an analysis of the atmospheric characteristics that led to the persistent below normal temperatures in the region for the season overall. During the winter we gained experience on public outreach in a contrasting situation between the cold Nordic region and the rest of the globe. 

In addition to low temperatures, several places sat new records for snow depth during the winter. Recurring heavy snowfall events caused difficulties for public transportation systems and also led to school closures. These events got a lot of media attention since a large part of the population was affected, and we will present the researchers work together with the communication department at MET Norway on handling the media attention, as well as our services to municipalities and public transportation companies. 

We will highlight our experiences, including how the researchers within the climate services, forecasters and communication group  at MET Norway organized the work on public outreach in cooperation. There will be an emphasis in the presentation on the duality of communicating about a warm world and Europe at the same time as we had a severe cold wave in Scandinavia.

How to cite: Ødemark, K., Gangstø, R., and Hygen, H. O.: The cold blue dot - Winter of 2023 - 24 in Scandinavia, EMS Annual Meeting 2024, Barcelona, Spain, 1–6 Sep 2024, EMS2024-852, https://doi.org/10.5194/ems2024-852, 2024.

Nature and society are experiencing unprecedented challenges due to impacts of climate change. These impacts compromise the security of several sectors such as agriculture, biodiversity, water management, food production and economy. Changes in temperature trends, precipitation regimes and increased frequency of extreme climate events due to climate change affect crop production. Besides, natural climate variability at annual to decadal time scales also affects crop yields and alters the optimal crop seasons and varieties. Examples of climate events that affect agricultural productivity are shifts in the rainy season, more intense and frequent heatwaves, prolonged droughts and floods.

Decision-makers could use information on climate change and variability years in advance to develop adaptation policies to reduce risk and losses. Potential adaptation strategies are investment in new irrigation technologies, sustainable water management, selection of crop varieties, sustainable agricultural practices, purchase of pesticides, agroforestry and livelihood diversification. To support their decisions, climate information can be extracted from decadal climate prediction models, which have been recently shown to be skilful in predicting mean and extreme temperature and precipitation and drought conditions over several land regions.

To illustrate the climate services co-production based on multi-annual predictions, we present the implementation of two services. The services aim to support food security in Tanzania and Malawi, and wine sector activities in Catalonia, as part of the FOCUS-Africa and ASPECT projects. The climate information on multi-annual time scales has been provided through an interactive online website where the climate predictions and their quality can be accessed. In addition, co-designed multi-annual bulletins summarise the predictions in an accessible language and show maps of the most relevant variables and periods. Using these documents during in-person meetings helped involve participants, facilitate discussion, and concretise feedback. Co-production is an ongoing process of improving and tailoring climate information for its usability in decision-making processes.

How to cite: Delgado-Torres, C., Octenjak, S., Marcos, R., Doblas-Reyes, F. J., Donat, M. G., Milders, N., Pérez-Zanón, N., Soret, A., Terrado, M., Torralba, V., and Bojovic, D.: Co-production of multi-annual climate services to support food and wine production resilience, EMS Annual Meeting 2024, Barcelona, Spain, 1–6 Sep 2024, EMS2024-62, https://doi.org/10.5194/ems2024-62, 2024.

Current context of climate change is impacting many sector’s activities: rising temperatures or the increased frequency of extreme events is affecting water or energy demands, or the way and schedule for crop growing. Climate services based on seasonal forecasts can provide a useful tool helping to adapt current practiques to a new scenario.

However, and with the exception of certain “windows of opportunity”, skill of seasonal forecasts is in general limited within mid-latitudes, so the development of a service needs a careful selection of the sources of information, postprocessing and calibration. Here, we present two examples of services for water and agriculture sector making use of seasonal forecasts, both co-developed with users:

The first one has been developed jointly with water authorities in Spain, providing probabilistic forecasts of both high resolution precipitation and inflow for the majority of Spanish reservoirs during the 5 month period spanning from November to March.

The service makes use of different sources of information, including different runs from ECMWF-SEAS5 and empirical forecasts based on snow accumulation. The close relationship between accumulated winter precipitation and North Atlantic Oscillation over Iberia is used to calibrate and weight the ensemble based on a “Best NAO” hybrid forecast, improving the skill. Additionally, a downscaling methodology combining analogs and regression is applied, providing improved skill over a wider area.

The information is then feeded in a web visor available through AEMET web, developed jointly with users. Every year, information for the upcoming winter and new version of the web application is presented, and discussion on results, usability and possible improvements take place, keeping the service updated to user needs.

The second one provides crop yield forecasts for raind fed winter cereals (barley and wheat) over Castille and Leon. A vegetal model is run for every grid point every day of the season using observations. A particular day of the season, the model is coupled using medium range forecasts and then using both an ensemble based on climatology and ECMWF-SEAS5 downscaled forecasts, and results are compared. A set of synthetic observations, coupling vegetal model to ERA5, is produced and validated, in order to evaluate the performance. Information is then provided to users through the stakeholders in the region.

How to cite: Rodríguez-Guisado, E., Pérez Pérez, F. J., Domínguez Alonso, M., Abia-Llera, I., Sánchez-García, E., Villarino Barrera, I., Nafría García, D., and Peral García, C.: Climate Services for hidrology and agriculture: co-design and operation of services based on seasonal forecasting, EMS Annual Meeting 2024, Barcelona, Spain, 1–6 Sep 2024, EMS2024-1026, https://doi.org/10.5194/ems2024-1026, 2024.