Editing IPCC:AR6/WGI/Chapter-12 (section)

=== 12.6.2 Assessment of Climate Services Practice and Products Related to Climate Change Information ===

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The climate services landscape is fast growing and very broad, as reflected in the vast diversity of practices and products that can be found in the peer-reviewed literature ( ''very high confidence'' ). However, a large part of climate services practices and products is published in ‘grey’ literature (i.e., non-peer reviewed or non-academic) by private consultancy and non-scientific civil organizations, many of which are not in the public domain. In addition, the respective climate service context of a specific stakeholder in a sector dictates what climate information is required and on what scales and in what format it is most usefully provided. The extent and type of engagement between scientists and users is another critical aspect of climate services (see Cross-Chapter Box 12.2, Figure 1, and [[IPCC:Wg1:Chapter:Chapter-10#10.5|Section 10.5]] ). The assessment here can thus only provide a partial and rather general representation of available practices and products in the evolving climate services field.

User needs and decision-making contexts are very diverse and there is no ‘one size fits all’ solution to climate services ( ''very high confidence'' ) ( [[#Hewitt--2017b|Hewitt et al., 2017b]] ; K. [[#Vincent--2018b|]] [[#Vincent--2018|Vincent et al., 2018]] b ). In many cases this requires recognizing that stakeholders make decisions through a combination of scientific information and additional values ( [[#Vanderlinden--2017|Vanderlinden et al., 2017]] ; [[#Parker--2019|Parker and Lusk, 2019]] ; see also Sections [[IPCC:Wg1:Chapter:Chapter-1#1.2.3|1.2.3]] and [[IPCC:Wg1:Chapter:Chapter-10#10.5|10.5.4]] ). The emerging climate service literature may clarify some features of climate information requested by users, for instance climatic impact-driver identification and prioritization through stakeholder engagement; the specification of thresholds for various regions/sectors; the types of metrics (magnitude/intensity, frequency, duration, timing, spatial extent) that are of primary interest; and decision support systems where informatics allow stakeholders to custom-make impact-relevant thresholds and then query databases to understand current and future characteristics ( [[#Bachmair--2016|Bachmair et al., 2016]] ; [[#Buontempo--2020|Buontempo et al., 2020]] ). However, users also ask for capacity building activities related to basic knowledge in climate change sciences and climate-related risks ( [[#De%20Bruin--2020|De Bruin et al., 2020]] ; [[#Sultan--2020|Sultan et al., 2020]] ).

Since AR5 and SROCC (Chapter 2) there has been considerable progress in understanding climate information user needs ( [[#Baztan--2017|Baztan et al., 2017]] ; [[#Golding--2017a|Golding et al., 2017a]] , b, 2019; [[#Bruno%20Soares--2018a|Bruno Soares et al., 2018a]] ; [[#Hewitt--2018|Hewitt and Golding, 2018]] ; [[#Singh--2018|Singh et al., 2018]] ; [[#Sivakumar--2018|Sivakumar and Lucio, 2018]] ; [[#Bessembinder--2019|Bessembinder et al., 2019]] ; [[#Hewitt--2020b|Hewitt et al., 2020b]] ; [[#Sultan--2020|Sultan et al., 2020]] ; Y. [[#Wang--2020|]] [[#Wang--2020|Wang et al., 2020]] ), better facilitation of user engagement ( [[#Buontempo--2014|Buontempo et al., 2014]] , 2018; [[#Buontempo--2018|Buontempo and Hewitt, 2018]] ) and an appreciation from climate scientists of the need to involve communication specialists and social scientists to support the co-design and co-development process that is fundamental to a successful climate service ( [[#Buontempo--2014|Buontempo et al., 2014]] ; [[#Gregow--2016|Gregow et al., 2016]] ; [[#Damm--2020|Damm et al., 2020]] ).

Climate services require user engagement and can take various forms in which climate information and data are delivered or communicated to the users ( ''very high confidence'' ). Different levels of user engagement exist, which can range from passive engagement to interactive group activities, to focused relationships between climate service provider and users. These result in different types of climate service products including websites, capacity building, and co-design of tailored climate indices (Cross-Chapter Box 12.2, Figure 1; [[#Hewitt--2017a|Hewitt et al., 2017a]] ). The fundamental basis for climate service development is the co-production process between climate service provider and user ( [[#Valiela--2006|Valiela, 2006]] ; [[#Briley--2015|Briley et al., 2015]] ; [[#Golding--2017a|Golding et al., 2017a]] ; K. [[#Vincent--2018a|]] [[#Vincent--2018|Vincent et al., 2018]] a ; [[#Bruno%20Soares--2019|Bruno Soares and Buontempo, 2019]] ; [[#Schipper--2019|Schipper et al., 2019]] ), which can be very resource intensive ( [[#Buontempo--2018|Buontempo et al., 2018]] ; [[#Falloon--2018|Falloon et al., 2018]] ; [[#Kolstad--2019|Kolstad et al., 2019]] ) and varies strongly from case to case ( [[#Reinecke--2015|Reinecke, 2015]] ; [[#Bremer--2019|Bremer et al., 2019]] ; [[#Goodess--2019|Goodess et al., 2019]] ; [[#Jung--2019|Jung and Schindler, 2019]] ). Climate services scholars and practitioners can better facilitate and embrace the knowledge co-production process if it is recognized as a multi-faceted phenomenon with several dimensions (e.g., constitutive, interactional, institutional, pedagogical, empowerment) ( [[#Kruk--2017|Kruk et al., 2017]] ; [[#Knaggård--2019|Knaggård et al., 2019]] ; [[#Weichselgartner--2019|Weichselgartner and Arheimer, 2019]] ).

Information moves from ‘useful’ to ‘usable’ only when users effectively incorporate this information into a decision process ( [[#Lemos--2012|Lemos et al., 2012]] ; [[#Bruno%20Soares--2016|Bruno Soares and Dessai, 2016]] ; [[#Prokopy--2017|Prokopy et al., 2017]] ; see also WGII, Chapter 17). Climate services include a range of knowledge brokerage activities such as: identifying knowledge needs; dissemination of knowledge; coordinating and networking; compiling and translating; building capacity through informed decision-making; analysing, evaluating and developing policy; and personal consultation (e.g., [[#De%20Bruin--2020|De Bruin et al., 2020]] ). When analysing four European climate services, [[#Reinecke--2015|Reinecke (2015)]] found that different climate services emphasized different knowledge brokerage activities.

There are various types of climate service providers and products related to key sectors and regions, such as those described in Sections 12.3 and 12.4 ( [[#Hewitt--2017b|Hewitt et al., 2017b]] ). For instance, studies have described sectoral climate services in support of agriculture ( [[#Falloon--2018|Falloon et al., 2018]] ; [[#Hansen--2019|Hansen et al., 2019]] ), health ( [[#Jancloes--2014|Jancloes et al., 2014]] ; [[#Lowe--2017|Lowe et al., 2017]] ), tourism ( [[#Morin--2018|Morin et al., 2018]] ; [[#Damm--2020|Damm et al., 2020]] ; [[#Matthews--2021|Matthews et al., 2021]] ), energy ( [[#Troccoli--2018b|Troccoli, 2018b]] ; [[#Goodess--2019|Goodess et al., 2019]] ; [[#Soret--2019|Soret et al., 2019]] ), disaster risk reduction ( [[#Golding--2019|Golding et al., 2019]] ; [[#Street--2019|Street et al., 2019]] ), water ( [[#van%20den%20Hurk--2016|van den Hurk et al., 2016]] ; [[#Vano--2018|Vano et al., 2018]] ), ocean and coastal ecosystems ( [[#Weisse--2015|Weisse et al., 2015]] ; [[#Le%20Cozannet--2017|Le Cozannet et al., 2017]] ), cities ( [[#Rosenzweig--2014|Rosenzweig and Solecki, 2014]] ; [[#Rosenzweig--2015|Rosenzweig et al., 2015]] ; [[#Gidhagen--2020|Gidhagen et al., 2020]] ), and cultural heritage ( [[#ICOMOS--2019|ICOMOS, 2019]] ). Many countries (including almost every country in Europe – see Atlas.8.2) have established a climate service centre, which follow different practices of user engagement and provide different products (e.g., [[#Kjellström--2016|Kjellström et al., 2016]] ; [[#Skelton--2017|Skelton et al., 2017]] ; [[#Kolstad--2019|Kolstad et al., 2019]] ). Climate services in other countries may be distributed across agencies and programmes, although these are often not centrally coordinated ( [[#Parris--2016|Parris et al., 2016]] ). One of the key pillars of the GFCS is the Climate Services Information System (CSIS), which is the principal mechanism through which information about past, present and future climate is archived, analysed, modelled, exchanged and processed for users ( [[#Hewitt--2020a|Hewitt et al., 2020a]] ). Some national governments also have organized national climate projections to be used for official planning (e.g., [[#EEA--2018|EEA, 2018]] ). A list of available national products (e.g., observational datasets) and projections can be found in the [[IPCC:Wg1:Chapter:Atlas|Atlas]] (e.g., Atlas.1.4).

Figure 12.12 maps a general categorization of practices and products that have emerged from reviewing climate service literature and user interviews ( [[#Visscher--2020|Visscher et al., 2020]] ). The categories range from very generic products or expert analysis focused particularly on climate information (climate-centric approaches) to more integrated products that include shared open-source products and capacity building as well as tailored products that treat climate information as part of a larger decision-making context (climate-inclusive approaches). Three specific examples that elaborate in more detail on specific practices and products related to those general categories are provided in Cross-Chapter Box 12.2.

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[[File:c4d63952d748298ec4b3de32e7bb1a12 IPCC_AR6_WGI_Figure_12_12.png]]

'''Figure 12.12''' '''|''' '''Illustration of different types of climate services.''' Products, for instance, can focus only on climate-related information or can be designed to integrate climate information with other decision-relevant context (vertical axis) and they can be very generic in terms of relevance to a wide range of sectors or stakeholders or customized to fit the needs of a specific sector or stakeholder (horizontal axis). Figure adapted from [[#Visscher--2020|Visscher et al. (2020)]] .

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