ERA4CS Additional Activities: Mapping of European and International Activities

ERA4CS Additional Activities:
Mapping of European and International
Activities

Work Package 7 - Deliverable 3
Delivery date: 30.1.2017 (revision 6.10.2017)
Dissemination Level: Public

Authors: Mikko Strahlendorff (FMI, Patrick Monfray (ANR), Jörg Cortekar (GERICS), Bart van den Hurk (KNMI), Thanasis Sfetsos (DEMOKRITOS), Chris Hewitt (UKMO), Fernando Belda (AEMET) and Harilaos Loukos (Climate-KIC)

Lead beneficiary: FMI

Project full title: ERA- NET Cofund “European Research Area for Climate Services”

Grant Agreement number: 690462

Funding scheme: Horizon 2020 SC5-02-2015

Project acronym: ERA4CS Project start date: 1^stJanuary 2016 Duration: 60 months

Table of contents

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EU-MACS and MARC O .............................................................................................................................................1 9 Other Projects Listing..............................................................................................................................................1 9

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ERA-NET Additional Activities WP 7: Research for Climate Services: Joint Analysis and Vision

Task 7.3: Mapping of European and international activities

Introduction

The UNFCC Paris Agreement is giving a formal frame to the efforts of UN countries to both mitigate climate change and adapt to it. It is setting targets to 2° and perhaps 1.5° global mean temperature increase, and we know that this will requires both drastic adaptation public policies and drastic mitigation public policies. Climate services are relevant to both policies and have been highlighted in the Paris Agreement under the Article 7 Adaptation goals for an area to be strengthened with cooperation actions.

The Joint Programming Initiative Climate is joining European countries to make climate research together in many disciplines and in the ERA4CS European research area for climate services ERANET this effort is concentrating on emerging climate services to aid society in mitigating and adapting to climate change. In the ERA4CS work package 7 JPI Climate actions are being reviewed and analysed in view to other relevant climate services actions. For this JPI Climate wants to find out all relevant activities and actors for climate services, especially in Europe, but also on global scale. In ERA4CS work package 7 task 2 a survey is made to map national level actions in all European countries. In task 3 this report is compiling together the supranational, European scale and global initiatives. The task 3 focus is especially on investigating what actions the initiatives have formally adopted to do and whether their funding is secured or depends on the goodwill of other entities to perform the actions. This report also tries to map the connections that JPI Climate has to these activities.

The process for this report was to first find relevant documents that describe strategies and plans of climate service actions from the ERA4CS partner network. In the next steps these documents or web resources were analysed for references to climate services or JPI Climate and how the initiative is being resourced. The editors finally drafted short summaries of this analysis into the texts of this report.

This report has been compiled by an editing team lead by Mikko Strahlendorff (FMI) including Patrik Monfray (ANR), Jörg Cortekar (GERICS), Bart van den Hurk (KNMI), Thanasis Sfetsos (DEMOKRITOS), Chris Hewitt (UKMO), Fernando Belda (AEMET) and Harilaos Loukos (ClimateKIC). The report is open for comments and additions to the ERA4CS partners and all the network contacts that have been identified in in the ERA4CS kickoff meeting.

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Global initiatives

The World Meteorological Organization is the most active international organization active in the domain of climate services. Other less organized initiatives are also very relevant for climate services as global frameworks.

World Meteorological Organisation

Overarching WMO climate services actions is the general World Climate Program¹. WMO has many programs also outside of WCP and here are listed the most relevant ones for climate services. Generally WMO is not resourcing activities as such, but they are performed on the resources of its members while WMO organises the coordination. WMO has no direct link with JPI Climate.

Global Framework for Climate Services

GFCS²provides a worldwide mechanism for coordinated actions to enhance the quality, quantity and application of climate services.

Specific information regarding to projects being developed under the umbrella of WMO are described in:

http://www.wmo.int/gfcs/projects-map http://www.wmo.int/gfcs/projects-list

Global Climate Observing System

The Global Climate Observing System (GCOS)³is a WMO-led co-sponsored programme of WMO, the IOC of UNESCO, UNEP and ICSU. The GCOS is built on existing operational and scientific observing, data management and information distribution systems. It is based upon an improved World Weather Watch Global Observing System, the Global Ocean Observing System, the Global Terrestrial Observing System, the WMO global observing systems and the maintenance and enhancement of programmes monitoring other key components of the climate system, such as the distribution of important atmospheric constituents (including the Global Atmosphere Watch). The vision of the GCOS programme is that all users have access to the climate observations, data records and information, which they require to address pressing climate-related concerns. GCOS users include individuals, national and international organizations, institutions and agencies. The role of GCOS is to work with partners to ensure the sustained provision of reliable physical, chemical and biological observations and data records for the total climate system – across the atmospheric, oceanic and terrestrial domains, including hydrological and carbon cycles and the cryosphere.

¹World Climate Program, weblink accessed October 2016

http://www.wmo.int/pages/prog/wcp/index_en.html

²Global Framework for Climate Services, weblink accessed October 2016,

http://www.wmo.int/gfcs/

³Global Climate Observing System, weblink accessed October 2016,

http://www.wmo.int/pages/prog/gcos/index.php

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World Climate Research Program

The mission of the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP)⁴is to facilitate analysis and prediction of Earth system variability and change for use in an increasing range of practical applications of direct relevance, benefit and value to society. The overall objectives of the World Climate Research Programme are to determine:

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To what extent climate can be predicted; The extent of human influence on climate.

World Climate Services Program

The scope of World Climate Services Programme (WCSP)⁵spans across four inter-related areas:

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Climate data and analysis; Climate monitoring, watch and prediction; Climate system operation and infrastructure; Climate adaptation and risk management; thereby serving as the Climate Services Information System and a part of the User Interface Platform components of the GFCS. These areas are implemented in two main streams:

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Climate Data and Monitoring

http://www.wmo.int/pages/prog/wcp/wcdmp/index_en.php

Climate Applications and Services

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http://www.wmo.int/pages/prog/wcp/wcasp/wcasp_home_en.html

WCSP contributes to improve the availability and access to reliable data, advancement of the knowledge in the area of climate data management and climate analysis, definition of the technical and scientific standards, and development of activities to support them in countries. Climate data management will include data rescue, development and coordination of a global climate data management system compatible with the WMO Information System (WIS).

Global Program on Climate Change Vulnerability, Impacts and Adaptation

The Global Programme of Research on Climate Change Vulnerability, Impacts and Adaptation (PROVIA) represents an interface between the research community and decision makers and other stakeholders to improve policy-relevant research on vulnerability, impacts and adaptation (VIA), allowing scientists to coordinate and facilitate the dissemination and practical application of their research. PROVIA helps international community of practice share practical experiences and research findings by improving the availability and accessibility of knowledge to the people that need it most. PROVIA aims to do so together with collaborative partners, knowledge networks, and the larger VIA community, by identifying research needs and gaps, helping scientific community to mobilize and communicate the growing knowledge-based on VIA so that governments and other main stakeholders are able to solicit scientific knowledge into their decision making processes.

⁴World Climate Research Program, weblink accessed October 2016, https://www.wcrp-

climate.org/

⁵World Climate Services Program, weblink accessed October 2016,

http://www.wmo.int/pages/prog/wcp/wcsp.html

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Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

One of the main IPCC activities⁶is the preparation of comprehensive Assessment Reports about the state of scientific, technical and socio-economic knowledge on climate change, its causes, potential impacts and response strategies. The IPCC also produces Special Reports, which are an assessment on a specific issue and Methodology Reports, which provide practical guidelines for the preparation of greenhouse gas inventories.

Since its inception in 1988 the IPCC has prepared five multivolume assessment reports. The Fifth Assessment Report was released between September 2013 and November 2014.

There is a Data Distribution Centre where one can download climate data, socio-economic and environmental information.

http://www.ipcc-data.org/

Group on Earth Observation

GEO is an organisation formed of both Member States and Partner organisations. It has almost 100 hundred State members and even more Partners. Climate Services are mentioned many times in the 2017-2019 Workprogramme⁷. The Work Programme is however mostly for prioritising international actions into three categories: community activities, GEO initiatives and GEO flagships. Many climate services are found in here as they reference actions taken in Member States or like the Copernicus climate change service (see Copernicus chapter) or the WMO Global Framework for Climate Services. For flagships GEO wants to organise a sustained international support all over the globe, initiatives have to demonstrate their sound resourcing to be awarded the GEO initiative status, for community activities there are no guarantees for funding, but like the Copernicus example, some of the best supported actions are referenced here.

Here’s the complete list of direct climate service references in the work program:

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Access to climate data in GEOSS o Earth System Grid Federation and World Climate Research Program commitments aim to build data infrastructure for data dissemination of huge climate data sets
Copernicus Atmospheric monitoring service CAMS (see Copernicus chapter) Copernicus Climate Change service C3S (see Copernicus chapter) GFCS - GEO collaboration

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o Agriculture, disasters, energy, health and water related data exchange actions are resourced by the GFCS office and the GEO secretariat
In addition to these direct references, most of the activities in the GEO work programme are monitoring our planet and in this way either directly or as an impact analysis have data and information about climate change. Resourcing is not born directly from GEO, but the work programme is having a specific chapter on resourcing for all actions, so it is a useful tool for analysing international actions relevant for climate change. JPI Climate is not referenced in the work program.

⁶Intergovernmental panel on climate change, weblink accessed October 2016,

https://www.ipcc.ch/activities/activities.shtml

⁷GEO Workprogramme 2017-19, weblink accessed 4.10.2016, http://www.mediafire.com/file/8fsjyg0xhxcavvs/GEO-XIII-5-3_2017-19_Work_Programme.pdf
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Future Earth

Future Earth is a major global research platform providing the knowledge and support to accelerate our transformations to a sustainable world. It is widely open to scientists of all disciplines, natural and social, as well as engineering, the humanities and law. Bringing together and in partnership with existing programmes on global environmental change⁸, Future Earth is an international platform to coordinate new, interdisciplinary approaches to research on three complementary themes: Dynamic Planet, Global Sustainable Development and Transformations towards Sustainability. Furthermore, it is also a platform for international engagement to ensure that knowledge is generated in partnership with society and users of science.

Current activities include actually:

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23 Global Research Projects , in particular related to CC: o Monsoon Asia Integrated Regional Study (MAIRS ) o Global Carbon Project (GCP )