These days is taking place the kick-off meeting of the European project Climateurope2, an ambitious project aiming to address the need for timely delivery and effective use of climate information. The event is hosted by the Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change (CMCC) in Lecce (Italy) on 27 and 28 September 2022, and it marks the start of the project, which will run from September 2022 until February 2027.

Funded with 8.7 million euros, Climateurope2 is a 4.5-year Horizon Europe project led by the Barcelona Supercomputing Center - Centro Nacional de Supercomputación (BSC-CNS)—an entity which receives 1.7 million—to support the climate services community and propose standardisation procedures for future equitable and quality-assured climate services, solutions based on scientific evidence designed so that all sectors of society can make better decisions to mitigate or adapt to the effects of climate change.

To address the exposure to current climate variability, it is necessary to provide the best climate information promptly since it plays an essential role in achieving a green recovery and climate neutrality in Europe. This can be accomplished if climate information is adequately delivered, used effectively, and integrated with other building elements to manage risks better and take advantage of opportunities.

In this context, Climateurope2 aims to take stock of the climate services and broader standardisation practices developed so far, as well as to compile basic climate information and trust requirements for quality-assured and science-based climate mitigation policies and adaptation options. The project will then use the collected information to propose a taxonomy of climate services and suggest community-based good practices and guidelines, proposing standards, and kick off standardisation processes for those climate services components that are sufficiently mature. It will pave the way to provide quality assurance for all the components of a climate service and propose verification and certification criteria that could lead to user-friendly labelling. These contributions will promote sustainable development and increased uptake of climate services.

“Standards and quality management processes already exist for meteorological data and systems, established and governed by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), but these aspects have not been thoroughly addressed yet for climate services,” says ICREA Professor Francisco Doblas, director of the Earth Sciences Department at the BSC, an international reference in climate research. And he adds “quality assurance, relevant standards, and other forms of assurance such as guidelines, good or recommended practices when standards are either not available or not appropriate, and criteria for labelling and certification are needed at the supply and demand interface, both in the public and private realms. This is fundamental to ensure that the services meet the agreed minimum requirements, convey suitable saliency, credibility, and legitimacy, and develop a robust and trustworthy climate services market.”

To this end, the three main objectives of the project are (1) the development of standardisation procedures and recommendations for quality-assured climate services; (2) the support of an equitable European climate services community, bringing together different actors of this community and a wider audience interested in climate services. As part of the project, tools will be developed and used to foster interaction, knowledge sharing, and market exploration; and (3) the enhancement of the uptake of quality-assured climate services to support adaptation and mitigation to climate change and variability by providing recommendations to make climate services more prominent, credible, and legitimate, as well as promoting confidence building between supply and demand. All types of climate services and market actors, public and private, for-profit and not-for-profit, will be considered.

An interactive and user-friendly participatory platform will also be developed, engaging the climate services community to play an active role in improving, refining, and validating the proposed good practices, recommendations, standardisation processes, and guidelines.

All this effort will take place in parallel with a whole series of communication, dissemination, and outreach activities to support the communities involved in European climate services. Such activities range from festivals, webstivals, art-science calls, roadshows, and collaborations with museums to capacity-building and training sessions, and actions associated with journalists' networks.

The BSC contribution to Climateurope2 is very relevant as it not only leads the coordination and management of the entire project but also leads the data analysis and processes development and the communication, dissemination, and exploitation of the outcomes, but also co-leads the elaboration of a framework for equitable standardisation and support, as well as participates in all the other work packages, devoted to business innovation, market development, policy support for climate, and community engagement.

The Climateurope2 consortium is made of 33 parties (29 beneficiaries, 1 affiliated entity, and 3 associated partners) from 13 countries that cover a large spectrum of expertise and capabilities, being able to integrate approaches from the social sciences and humanities to a wide range of technical expertise and climate services experience. This transdisciplinary nature of the consortium will allow the exploration of broad aspects of the climate services value chain and is indispensable for building a community of practice for the standardisation and support of climate services. It includes outstanding institutions such as the UK Met Office, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF).

Climateurope2, towards supporting and standardising climate services in Europe and beyond!