Corporate culture and strategy through to 2030 Protecting life and property. Producing economic benefits. A word from DWD President Prof. Dr Adrian Our daily lives are shaped by change. phenomena, such as thunderstorms. This also applies to the Deutscher The Deutscher Wetterdienst strives Wetterdienst and its topics of weather to become a central port of call, both and climate. We must be prepared here in Germany and worldwide, for for climate change, globalisation and climate monitoring, climate forecasting digital transformation as well as new and adaptation to climate change. statutory and political assignments to At the same time, we intend to intensify ensure that we can successfully fulfil our international commitments and our legal mandate today and tomorrow. networking – for example in data acquisition, in weather and climate For this reason, we have asked research and in strengthening resili- ourselves the following questions: ence to natural disasters. how might the world change during the next decade, and what must we do Achieving these objectives depends on in order to continue fulfilling our duty our ability to continue attracting skilled to protect life and property and produce and committed employees. We are in economic benefits? competition for the ‘brightest minds’ – nationally and internationally. On the following pages, we present We know full well that, despite our the Deutscher Wetterdienst’s most exciting tasks, we will only be perceived important strategic objectives for the as an attractive employer if we cultivate period 2020–2030 as our response a corporate culture of respect, esteem to these questions about the future. and open communication which fosters We have considered how we can use diversity. Our new guiding principles new technologies in the future to meet are committed to the goal of achieving expectations for more systematic just that. observation and measurement of the „Weather and climate know no borders. To an increasing weather in Germany and globally. extent, this is equally true for meteorology and all the tasks Our aim is to take entirely new and services it involves. This is why co-operation at all research approaches and to assume international levels has become indispensable to the National Meteorological or Hydrological Services. I am very pleased a leading global position in producing that the new strategy of the Deutscher Wetterdienst promotes accurate weather forecasts several Prof. Dr Gerhard Adrian even greater international co-operation.“ days in advance. One particular focus President of the Deutscher Wetterdienst Petteri Taalas will be on forecasting very small-scale Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and especially hazardous weather 2 3 The DWD‘s Guiding Principles The Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD) is ∙ anchored in Germany‘s constitution ∙ established as a federal authority and ∙ legitimised by federal law Values Our work is permeated by respectful co-operation with others, proactive responsibility for the work assigned to us, and appreciation of the role of change as a permanent element of our development and a prerequisite for Vision Mission the future. The DWD is an innovative meteoro- As the Federal Republic of Germany’s logical and climatological service which meteorological and climatological Our management culture is shaped by provides products and services based service, we stand for high levels of intense knowledge sharing, a culture on advanced scientific and operational quality, reliability and sustainability. of open information and principles expertise, addresses present and future We use analyses, forecasts and which enable employees to reconcile challenges and offers solutions in projections to describe the impact the demands of work, family and response. of meteorological and climatological personal needs. processes, including climate change. We answer questions on the weather We operate a high-performance We communicate with others in search and climate. meteorological infrastructure for of solutions. Open-mindedness and this purpose. a respectful and critical discourse are We are confident about the value of our sought and valued. work for society as a whole. We are actively engaged in the pursuit of new knowledge. Our strength lies in achieving more by We are passionate about our technical working together across the board and and scientific assignments and the We use modern digital technologies borders without any preconceptions pursuit of new knowledge. to provide the meteorological and and by accepting difference and climatological services our customers We make committed and recognised diversity. and parent/mandating authorities need contributions in co-operation with to take informed decisions. Our expertise and qualifications are a diverse range of national and actively developed, complement each international partners around the We co-operate with our national and other in teamwork and promote the world. international partners on the basis work of the DWD as a whole. of professional expertise, mutual confidence and trust. 4 5 The DWD’s Strategy 2020–2030 In order for the DWD to fulfil its legal mandate, we must press ahead with research and technological develop- ments in various areas, at the national level and in close co-operation with our A future full of challenges as amended in 2017, mandates us to international partners. We must also deliver public meteorological services adapt the communication of climate Drier and hotter summers with more to protect life and property and safe- and weather information to the needs heavy rainfall events are a threat to our guard key sectors of infrastructure in of our customers and society‘s changing population, damage our infrastructure Germany. Our mission is to engage in information culture. This also applies and are detrimental for agriculture research and offer advice on climate with regard to our responsibility as across large stretches of Europe. change and its impacts. an employer. The DWD’s regular annual press con- ference in Berlin is an opportunity In other words, the DWD‘s task is for broad, national media coverage to provide dependable support to of issues, such as extreme weather Germany and – within the framework events, climate change adaptation and of international co-operation – the services for the protection of life and international community in this period property. These examples demonstrate of rapid change. In this context, we eloquently how technical and scientific supply all our data free of charge to issues, such as climate change or the the Federation, the federal states and predictability of severe weather, as well the local and district authorities, which as advances in information and data require this information in order to technology are now enmeshed with fulfil their tasks in the fields of disaster action at all levels of society and with control, civil and environmental the building of resilient communities. protection. We also offer most of our data free of charge to the general These three challenges – scientific, public at www.dwd.de/opendata and technical and social – in a world of in the Geoportal for spatial data accelerating change are the context of Germany‘s national spatial data in which the DWD operates. The infrastructure (www.geoportal.de). Deutscher Wetterdienst Act (DWDG), 6 7 The ten lines of development in the Strategy 2020–2030 Our key task is to monitor the weather and the climate, to issue warnings in good time and to offer relevant advice. The challenge in this case lies in the technical recording and most precise scientific description possible of an extreme breadth of different atmospheric processes on all temporal and spatial scales. This information must then be processed and commu- We therefore face a future full of com- intelligently processed and transformed nicated in a way that is useful for plex, challenging and fascinating tasks. into information and knowledge. This users. The macro and micro aspects Our response is to concentrate all information must be made intuitively of weather and climate interact with our energies and focus our Strategy understandable and be communicated each other in space and time, beginning 2020–2030 on ten lines of development to our customers and the general public with small-scale thunderstorm cells, which will be critical in the next in a diverse range of products. The for example, right through to large- decade. One part naturally concerns remaining lines of development concern scale seasonal weather cycles and the the scientific and technological our future challenges as an employer, process of climate change over production of increasingly complex whereby the DWD is fortunate in being a period of decades. weather and climate services. Another very popular, particularly among highly part concentrates on how the growing qualified professionals, precisely flood of data in which this will result because it engages in interesting work – quite literally ‘big data’ – can be of great relevance to society at large. 8 9 First port of call for weather and climate 10 11 1. Data acquisition in the future On a global scale, this concerns the worldwide network of measurement The worldwide meteorological obser- stations hosted for the World vation system, to which the DWD Meteorological Organization (WMO), makes a substantial contribution, of which our observation network has to capture all these processes as forms a part. New ground-based seamlessly and in as much detail as remote sensing systems, which the current state of the art permits. produce a far more precise image of The precision with which weather can the three-dimensional structure of the be forecast and the climate predicted atmosphere, will become increasingly depends on the exactness of the avail- important. Our weather radar stations able data on the current state of the have played a key role over many years global ‘weather brew’. Our strategic and four more radar stations will close data acquisition line of development the existing gaps in the network by therefore focuses on the future of 2025. This concerns the metropolitan observing systems.