There is growing awareness around the world among governments, businesses and the general public of risks arising from changes to our climate. Some climatic changes could be unprecedented in their harmful socioeconomic impacts, while others, with sufficient forewarning and planning, could offer benefits. To help manage potential impacts, decision-makers need to have access to, and use, high-quality, timely, relevant, up-to-date, and credible climate information about the past, present, and future. Such climate information includes data, knowledge, and sectoral information on impacts and risks. We refer to the provision and use of such information as climate services.

Three World Climate Conferences (WCCs; summarized below) held over the past 40 years have each led to landmark global climate initiatives of key societal significance laying the foundation for the development of climate services, based on the activities and leadership from a number of programs, initiatives, and individuals (Fig. 1).

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Schematic of key events relating to the development of climate information for decision-making.

Citation: Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 101, 2; 10.1175/BAMS-D-18-0211.1

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WCC-1, held in 1979, led to the establishment of the World Climate Programme (WCP), the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP), and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The goal of WCP is to improve our understanding of the climate system and to apply that understanding for the benefit of societies in coping with climate variability and change. The WCRP aims to determine the predictability of climate and the effect of human activities on climate. The IPCC serves to provide governments with rigorously assessed scientific information to inform mitigation and adaptation policies, as well as to inform international climate change negotiations. Even though the IPCC produced their first assessment report in 1990 conveying the risks posed by a changing climate (Fig. 1), the institutional capacities and capabilities to respond to such risks are still not adequately in place, particularly on regional and national scales. The recent IPCC Special Report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C (IPCC 2018) has renewed the urgency to step up efforts to mitigate the risks associated with climate change in line with the commitments outlined in the Paris Accord. In particular, article 7 of the Accord calls for the strengthening of scientific knowledge on climate, including research, systematic observation of the climate system, and early warning systems, in a manner that informs climate services and supports decision-making.

WCC-2, held in 1990, led to the establishment of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS). The UNFCCC is an intergovernmental platform to facilitate the response to the threat of climate change worldwide (e.g., UNFCCC 2015). GCOS ensures that the observations and information needed to address climate-related issues are obtained and made available to users, and underpin adaptation measures. The WCP has evolved since WCC-2, and is now composed of the GCOS, the WCRP, the World Climate Services Programme, and the World Adaptation Science Programme.

In addition to the entities described above that arose out of WCC-1 and WCC-2, other programs of activities were established to provide improvements in observations and climate monitoring, better understanding of climate processes, climate variability and change, and improvements in predictions of the future. However, the delivery of the resulting climate information in a way that is usable, useful and sustained for decision-makers (viz., the climate services) was receiving far less attention and society was therefore not benefitting sufficiently from the available information. While weather services from a wide range of weather service providers routinely help weather-sensitive decision-making from a few hours to several days ahead, similar services for decisions on longer time scales from monthly to multidecadal were much less well established.

Recognizing this gap, the World Climate Conference-3 (WCC-3) in 2009 focused on empowering decision-makers with appropriate climate information to meet society’s climate-related challenges. It brought together heads of states, government ministers, industry representatives, and scientific and technical experts from many fields of practice to discuss the needs for enhanced development and delivery of climate services, and improved coordination between relevant actors. The conference concluded with strong recommendations that existing initiatives needed to be coordinated and strengthened and new infrastructure needed to be developed (WMO 2009). The conference called for the establishment of a Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS; www.wmo.int/gfcs) to enable better management of the risks of climate variability and change, and adaptation to and mitigation of climate change, through the development and incorporation of science-based climate information and prediction into planning, policy, and practice.

Parallel to the establishment of the GFCS, and following up to WCC-3, the first International Conference on Climate Services (ICCS-1) was held in 2011. A key objective of ICCS-1 was to establish a network of climate service practitioners, with support from an international set of partners with experience in the design, implementation, and use of climate services. An informal international Climate Services Partnership (CSP; www.climate-services.org) was established after ICCS-1 to serve as a platform for collaboration and knowledge sharing among a wide range of actors, and to advance climate service capabilities worldwide. The CSP has been organizing the ICCS in different locations around the world, with the most recent ICCS-5 held in 2017 in South Africa. The CSP also facilitates working groups that advance discussion on topics of interest to the partners, such as socioeconomic benefits of the climate services, and ethics for climate service providers (Adams et al. 2015).

Significant progress developing, delivering, and using climate services has been made in the 10 years since WCC-3 and its call to establish a Global Framework for Climate Services. Many organizations, companies, and national institutions are now actively developing climate services, and a growing number of decision-makers are keen to benefit from such services from a range of climate service providers. This paper highlights the role of the GFCS in this worldwide effort to advance climate services, and describes successes, challenges, and potential solutions to further advance climate service development, provision and use.

Progress under the global framework for climate services

Following the recommendations arising from WCC-3, an intergovernmental process established a taskforce of high-level independent advisors to make recommendations on the priorities and proposed elements of the GFCS and the next steps for its implementation. In 2012, an Extraordinary Session of the World Meteorological Congress established the Intergovernmental Board on Climate Services (IBCS) as the governing body of the GFCS, and subsequently the Partners Advisory Committee (PAC) of key stakeholders. The World Meteorological Congress adopted the GFCS’s implementation plan defining deliverables and targets to be realized over 2-, 6-, and 10-yr horizons starting in 2013. In 2019, as part of a reform of WMO governance, the World Meteorological Congress decided to dissolve the IBCS and adopt a new Climate Coordination Panel as the oversight and implementation mechanism for the GFCS (WMO 2019).

From the outset, several key challenges and guiding principles were recognized for this global effort (Hewitt et al. 2012). The key challenges included inadequate availability and quality of climate data in many parts of the world, a need to create or improve access to climate services by potential users in almost all countries, and limited climate literacy and capacity to deal with climate-related risks in many countries and climate-sensitive sectors. Furthermore, users and providers of climate services had limited experience collaborating, and needed to interact more effectively if the quality of future climate services were to match user requirements.

The guiding principles included prioritizing capacity development in developing countries vulnerable to climate impacts, promoting the free and open exchange of climate relevant data where possible, providing climate services primarily for the public good, and facilitating and strengthening existing activities and not duplicating. A cornerstone of these principles is to build partnerships involving all stakeholders. This is essential for developing, delivering, and using climate services, and for creating a market of organizations delivering, investing in, and using the services.

Ensuring active engagement from key organizations has proven challenging, with such a broad range of actors including UN agencies, international organizations, climate service-related programs, users, providers, donors, governments, nongovernmental organizations, private sector organizations, and national meteorological and hydrological services (NMHSs). A GFCS activity with dedicated responsibility to engage key international organizations has been the creation of the PAC. The PAC currently consists of 22 international organizations and has provided valuable perspectives from the user community. The PAC has given direction to the GFCS implementation, but the broader engagement of the organizations required to enable efficient coordination on national-level activities has been somewhat limited.

The GFCS has focused on climate services for agriculture and food security, disaster risk reduction, health, water resources, and energy. These climate-sensitive areas present pressing and immediate opportunities for bringing benefits to human safety and well-being through climate risk management, including climate adaptation and mitigation. The GFCS has completed two phases–the first (start up) phase in 2013–14, and the second (scale up) phase in 2015–18. These first two phases have focused on: establishing governance, management and reporting frameworks, developing regional and national capacities, engaging user communities, and implementing high-priority proof-of-concept projects, such as Assessing Sustainability and Effectiveness of Climate Information Services in Africa (https://gfcs.wmo.int/Sustainable_CIS), and the GFCS Adaptation Programme in Africa (https://gfcs.wmo.int/GFCS_APA_II).

Important contextual changes have occurred since the GFCS was formally established in 2012. Three global landmark processes are the Paris Agreement of the UNFCCC, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–30, and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. In 2015 the Green Climate Fund (GCF) became operational and is the main financial mechanism for supporting climate action under the Paris Agreement. Numerous projects funded by a range of national and international development agencies (such as the World Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development, European Commission, the U.K. Department for International Development, the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation, Environment and Climate Change Canada) have been actively supporting climate resilience, climate risk management, and climate change adaptation. To succeed, these agreements, frameworks and projects require scientific data, knowledge, and timely and accessible services to support effective climate action.

More than 40 developing countries have identified developing weather and climate services as a key action for their resilient development planning and as a pillar of their ability to commit to the Paris Accord under their nationally determined contributions (World Bank 2019). The number of actors that include climate services in their climate adaptation, climate resilience, and disaster risk reduction programs is growing. This growth in demand for services requires an increase in sector-tailored and end-user-focused climate service capabilities, as well as coordination to avoid fragmentary, contradictory, and piecemeal implementation. The GFCS is intended as a much-needed mechanism for providing a credible, accessible, and integrative platform for enhancing coordination, guiding, and supporting climate services activities worldwide. It has been an effective catalyst for establishing and strengthening regional and national capacities and structures. The following section provides some examples of the successes.

Examples of GFCS success at the regional scale

While the GFCS is a global mechanism, it is typically at the regional, national, and local scales that the societal benefits are realized. Early climate service design principles at these different scales were developed by the GFCS through a series of exemplars and consultative strategic documents (Hewitt et al. 2012) informed by earlier work (e.g., NRC 2001, among others). More recent research has reinforced many of the earlier conclusions on building capacity, particularly within NMHSs to transform them into national climate service centers (such as Mahon et al. 2019), the benefits of coproducing user-oriented climate information (Vincent et al. 2018), opportunities and challenges associated with commercializing climate services (Webber and Donner 2017), and the role of different actors and different approaches in the design of climate services (Christel et al. 2018).

To bring together national, regional, and international climate experts, the WMO, NMHSs, regional institutions, and other international organizations initiated an approach of Regional Climate Outlook Forums (RCOFs) in the late 1990s to produce consolidated regional climate outlooks based on climate predictions through expert assessment in several different regions of the world (Buizer et al. 2000; Ogallo et al. 2008; Gerlak et al. 2018). The early RCOFS were primarily focused on seasonal time scales as modulated by El Niño–Southern Oscillation events and were not yet focused on longer-term variations and changes. Through interaction with users in the key economic sectors of each region, extension agencies and policymakers, the RCOFs support access to credible climate information, and assess the likely implications of the climate outlooks on key sectors in the given region and explore the ways the outlooks could be used by the regional stakeholders. The process typically includes the following components:

• 1) meetings of regional and international climate experts to develop a consensus-based regional climate outlook for the coming season, typically in a probabilistic form based on a range of credible climate predictions;

• 2) interactive sessions involving climate scientists and representatives from the user sectors, for the identification of impacts and implications and for the formulation of response strategies;

• 3) a training workshop on seasonal climate prediction to strengthen the capacity of the national and regional operational climate experts; and

• 4) special outreach sessions, involving media experts, to develop effective communications strategies.

In 2017, the WMO undertook a review of the RCOF process. The review examined the interpretation, creation, and dissemination of regional climate outlooks. The review also considered the high expectations and requirements of stakeholders for more actionable climate information tailored to their needs (WMO 2017a). The review provided recommendations toward a new generation of RCOFs characterized by a transition to objective forecasting approaches to regional climate outlooks, identification of end-use priorities, codesign and operationalization of tailored products, user feedback, systematic evaluation of socioeconomic benefits, and the introduction of training workshops that address specific competencies across regions. The new generation of RCOFs will help enhance the core capacities of providers as well as users of climate services and will facilitate two-way linkages between them.

Examples of GFCS success at the national scale

National Frameworks for Climate Services (NFCS) provide an effective way to establish institutional mechanisms to coordinate, facilitate and strengthen collaboration among national institutions and other key stakeholders, to improve the production, tailoring, communication, delivery, and use of climate services for national and local communities. Development of an NFCS typically includes the following steps (see WMO 2018):

• 1) assess the baseline on climate service capacities at the national level, to identify key stakeholders (including developers, providers, investors, and users of the services), map existing services, and establish capacities;

• 2) organize a national consultation workshop to bring together the stakeholders, and identify gaps and key elements for the development of a plan of action for NFCS implementation;

• 3) develop and endorse a national strategic plan and costed action plan for establishment and operation of the NFCS; and

• 4) launch the NFCS, implement the national action plan, and monitor and evaluate.

NFCSs are increasingly being recognized as a useful mechanism for the development and consolidation of national capacities, connection to policy processes, and formalizing partnerships and working modalities with key sectoral organizations. For example, the GCF has recognized the NFCS as a foundational step for the implementation of projects. The World Bank has used the NFCS to inform its hydrometeorological investments in several countries as well as some of the strategic dialogues under the Pilot Programme for Climate Resilience (PPCR). Similarly, the French Development Agency used the NFCS to inform their overseas development investment activities. The Climate Investment Fund’s Climate Risks and Early Warning Systems program (CREWS) has used the NFCS approach to identify priorities and costed action plans. In the case of Burkina Faso alone, the NFCS process has guided over $25 million of investment.

A different example of success at the national scale is the joint GFCS and Copernicus Climate Change Data climate data rescue activities through the International Data Rescue (I-DARE) portal (www.idare-portal.org/) to provide guidance material and support national data rescue in countries with high risk of data loss due to the data being stored on perishable media.

Challenges and potential solutions

At the time of writing, the GFCS is entering its third major phase (2019–23), aiming to better ensure the sustainability, and necessary financial investments of the main components of the GFCS, and to provide further support to institutional mechanisms for climate service delivery and uptake. A focus is to improve those areas of the climate services chain that are less mature, in particular the provider-user engagement and the Climate Services Information System. Focus in these areas will also foster enhanced linkage to other important foundational pillars such as observations, monitoring, and research.

While the GFCS has demonstrated success, a number of challenges impede progress:

• The hub of climate service activities nationally most naturally fits within a NMHS, but many NMHSs are focused on weather-oriented activities (typically for aviation) and have not fully embraced the ethos, business model, or value-chain approach for climate services, nor do all NMHSs have dedicated resources to sustain ongoing engagement with their users.

• Many regions and countries have insufficient capability and capacity to develop and deliver climate services. This can undermine confidence in national service providers, sending users in search of alternative and sometimes less credible services. The ability to build service capacity is often compounded by competition among national bodies for funding. There are also major imbalances regarding access to the essential services, and there is no relationship between the level of climate risks that a country faces and the level of per capita spending on developing climate information in that country (Georgeson et al. 2017). The lack of resources, capability and capacity is at odds with the growing demand for climate services, and severely hampers proper codevelopment and delivery of sustainable climate services that can help society make effective decisions.

• The gap between the needs of the decision-makers and the scientific and operational capabilities is often large, be it around understanding climate variability and climate change, or climate modeling capability for climate predictions and climate projections, or observational datasets, or downstream applications needed by decision-makers. The scientific capability is often developed to address research questions, but not tailored to an operational setting. Developing science and services of value for societal issues often needs to be multi- and interdisciplinary and to be performed in conjunction with a range of stakeholders.

• There are inherent limits to what science can offer. There will always be unanticipated climate shocks and missed opportunities, there will be anticipated shocks and opportunities that did not materialize, and there will be forewarned shocks whose impacts cannot be completely mitigated either because those shocks are too severe or because of lack of resources to successfully intervene.

• It is challenging to ensure that the beneficiaries of investments in climate services are sufficiently involved in establishing the utility of climate services development. Effective engagement between the users and the providers of climate services is demanding and can be very time consuming depending on what level of engagement is appropriate in each case (Hewitt et al. 2017).

• Obtaining and providing credible, useful, accessible, and timely climate information at spatial and temporal scales that decision-makers find actionable and valuable is difficult. For example, decisions are often made locally, such as at the scale of a farm, a town or a river, and the climate information is often considered scientifically credible at a much coarser resolution.

• The monitoring and evaluation framework for the GFCS was only partially implemented because of a lack of sufficient resource, particularly in terms of monitoring and evaluation personnel and partner engagement. Going forward, a priority should be to ensure the dedicated resource and skills are in place and the monitoring and evaluation framework implemented.

To alleviate the above challenges and accelerate the successful development of climate services, we highlight the following suggestions as key strategies for transforming climate services.

Enhance information management at the global, regional, and national scales.

One of the key pillars of the GFCS is the Climate Services Information System (CSIS; Fig. 2). The CSIS is the principal mechanism through which information about past, present, and future climate is archived, analyzed, modeled, exchanged, and processed for use. Regional and national entities currently have access to multiple sources of climate information, but they must identify the most robust signals, assess the reliability of the information, and likely future states of the climate in their respective locations on their own. The CSIS provides expert guidance and training in interpreting and using the information to help regional and national users identify the information of most use for their areas of interest, including in applying the information in developing products.

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A regional approach to implementing the Climate Services Information System.

Citation: Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 101, 2; 10.1175/BAMS-D-18-0211.1

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The CSIS has facilitated climate service development by regional and national providers, expanded the RCC, RCOF, and National Climate Outlook Forum (NCOF) operations, and developed a prototype climate services toolkit. This toolkit includes knowledge, software tools, datasets, and training materials to enable scientific and technological advances to be used in the provision of climate services. For example, in the health community, the development of tailored climate products begins with integrated climate and epidemiological data to analyze how, where, and when the occurrence of disease may be influenced by climatic conditions. Integrated climate and health surveillance systems are useful to health authorities to enable retrospective analysis, the real-time monitoring of climate-sensitive disease risks, and the development of early warning for climate-sensitive diseases such as dengue or cholera (Shumake-Guillemot and Fernandez-Montoya 2016).

Many climate services and applications require long-term and high-quality climate data (Brunet and Jones 2011). Climate risk management and adaptation efforts such as risk mapping, impact modeling, forecasting of extreme events, attribution services, and decadal climate prediction activities all require high-quality long-term datasets. Accordingly, data recovery and restoration (including generating dynamical reanalysis products) of climate time series remains a high priority.

Future opportunities for advancing the use of climate services for climate risk management

Given the progress made so far in ensuring that climate services are used more widely and more effectively in decision-making, as well as the challenges highlighted above there are also exciting opportunities. The GFCS and actors engaging in it are ideally placed to serve as a focus for change as this global framework enters its next phase from 2019 onward. The GFCS has helped evolve the regional development, coordination, and delivery of climate service activities, and has created a national service-oriented culture within the context of a NFCS, allowing a range of sectors in the public and private domain to engage in climate services within many countries.

NMHSs are a specific category of organization in national climate service activities, often acting as the nation’s hub. The role of NMHSs is becoming more important in the climate change arena through participation in climate change committees, national adaptation plans, and strategies for climate resilience. Climate change data and information derived from observations and modeling is recognized as having significant value (World Bank Climate Change Knowledge Portal; http://climateknowledgeportal.worldbank.org). The NMHSs through the NFCS process have an opportunity to improve collaboration with sectoral partners and other key actors to coproduce tailored services on impacts, risks, and in some cases options for action. Sustained support between NMHSs and other key actors on the specific climate service situation in their respective territories is needed. However, some countries may face similar challenges, and there is an opportunity to share knowledge from developing climate services. It is a testament to the success of the GFCS that so many NMHSs have become actively engaged in climate service development and delivery in recent years, such as through engagement in the Intergovernmental Board on Climate Services, but most tangibly borne out by the fact that to date 47 NMHSs are already engaging in developing their nations’ NFCS, 19 of which are already established and 18 more are well underway.

Climate services are steadily and successfully being used by a growing number of decision-makers in both the public and private sectors. Ensuring that the beneficiaries of the services are better involved will drive user-focused development of scientific and technical capability and user-focused development of the climate services built on that capability. Such developments will ultimately enable better risk management and better-informed climate-smart decisions.

Funding and prioritized investment in climate service development is of course essential to support the necessary resources and scientific and technical developments, as well as to influence and drive a service-oriented culture and to engage decision-makers and key influencers. A portfolio of funding from diverse investors (including research funding bodies) would be beneficial but needs coordination to avoid fragmented implementation. Working with donors and development banks will help to ensure resources are targeted to regional and national priorities that will enhance the donor’s mission, for example, through the GCF, CREWS, International Finance Institution grants and loans, and bilateral donors. An example of work between international funders, RCCs, and NMHSs is the European Commission’s funding of the Euroclima+ program in South America. The RCCs and NMHSs together with various public institutions are working to strengthen the capacity of the NMHSs to deliver and communicate timely, relevant, and sector-tailored climate information and knowledge focused on drought and extreme events.

To conclude, major progress has been made over the past decade developing, delivering, and using climate services. There are many challenges for improving the development, uptake and use of climate services for climate-smart decision-making and we have provided several recommendations to address such challenges. This paper provides a summary of barriers and opportunities that could be further explored in more detail elsewhere. In particular, we anticipate that new challenges, not yet fully realized, are likely to emerge around the need for some common standards for climate services, ethics, common language and terminology, and seamless services across weather and climate time scales.