18 October, 2022 @ 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm CEST
Interactive session that investigated current and emerging key challenges, producing a roadmap to inform GCOS, WCRP, GEO and ESA programmes.
About
This World café session was focused on developing community ideas to strengthen the observational-modelling interface towards meeting near term and emerging scientific needs. This fast-paced interactive session on Day 2 of the GCOS 2022 conference investigated the current and emerging key challenges and developed a provisional community roadmap of practical actions which were displayed on Day 3 of the conference and are being used to support evolving GCOS, WCRP CMIP and ESMO and ESA work programmes.
The session was Chaired by Jörg Schulz, EUMETSAT with introductory talks from:
- Susanne Mecklenburg, ESA
- Richard Jones, UK Met Office
- Sabrina Speich, Ecole Normale Supérieure – Paris Sciences Lettres University and Co-chair GOOS/GCOS/WCRP Ocean Physics and Climate panel
The World Café involved two sessions. Attendees had the opportunity to switch topics during the break. Three topics were run online in advance of the event. Discussion points from those events were incorporated in the session feedback and for the co-development triangle topic these were also built on, by the chairs at the in-person event. All sessions were reported back during the harvest.
The harvest
Meeting the demands of high-resolution modelling (ocean) Chaired online by Magdalena Balsameda, ECMWF & Claire MacIntosh, ESA Climate Office
Addressing extremes and compound events Chaired online by Faye Cruz, Manila Observatory & Fredolin Tangang, National University of Malaysia.
A co-development triangle – how to develop productive feedback between modelling, observation, and downstream user communities? Chaired online by Bernardino Nhantumbo, Mozambique National Institute of Meteorology & Chris Lennard, University of Cape Town.
The remaining sessions took place in person. Representatives of the event partners also provided their key take-homes. Here is the recording of these:
Challenge topics and chairs
- Observations and reanalysis for model evaluation Chaired by Richard Jones, UK Met Office
- Developing a shared understanding of observational uncertainty Chaired by Joaquín Muñoz Sabater, ECMWF and Jacqueline Boutin, CNRS/Laboratoire d’Océanographie et du Climat-Expérimentations et Approches Numériques, Paris.
- Representing the carbon cycle and carbon-climate feedbacks Chaired by Malcolm Davidson, ESA Head of Earth Obs Campaigns
- Achieving integrated and harmonised analysis ready data Chaired by Alison Waterfall, STFC-UKRI and Amy Doherty, UK Met Office
- Meeting the demands of high-resolution modelling (atmosphere) Chaired by Rainer Hollmann, DWD
- Meeting the demands of high-resolution modelling (land) Chaired by Gaby Langendijk, GERICS & Darren Ghent, NCEO University of Leicester
- [Online] Meeting the demands of high-resolution modelling (ocean) Chaired by Magdalena Balsameda, ECMWF & Claire MacIntosh, ESA Climate Office. Note online only, event took place on the 17 October at 09:00 UTC
- [Online] Addressing extremes and compound events Chaired by Faye Cruz, Manila Observatory & Fredolin Tangang, National University of Malaysia. Note online only, event took place on the 17 October at 07:00 UTC
- A co-development triangle – how to develop productive feedback between modelling, observation, and downstream user communities? Chaired by Florian Franziskakis GEO & Carlo Buontempo, Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), ECMWF. This was also held online. The online event was chaired by Bernardino Nhantumbo, Mozambique National Institute of Meteorology & Chris Lennard, University of Cape Town. The online event took place on the 17 October at13:00 UTC.
World Café
A world café is a structured conversational process for knowledge sharing in which groups of people discuss a topic at several small tables like those in a café. For more information on this format visit: http://theworldcafe.com/key-concepts-resources/world-cafe-method/
Event report
A summary report was issued on the 19th October to the GCOS conference organisers. Download the report to organisers by following this link (opens in new tab).
Report highlights:
Discussion was vibrant and brought out many ideas for actions to further enhance collaboration and co-development across the modelling, observation and user communities.
Current bottlenecks identified:
- Developing climate observation networks – The modelling and observation communities need to identify priority in-situ reference observation gaps needed for modelling evaluation, earth observation validation and improved physical process understanding. For example, where appropriate, citizen science should be embraced with new technologies developed to safeguard reliability and quality.
- Urgent action at international and national scale to ensure open access climate data for all – There are crucial gaps in access, important for both observation and modelling, are not only causing known biases, errors and assumptions but is also holding back scientific capability from progressing and innovating at the frontiers of climate science in specific regions of the world, particularly in Asia and Africa.
- Transforming climate data into information relevant for decision making – The modelling and observation communities need to establish information and format requirements from climate data users and implement standardisation of data formatting, vocabulary, uncertainty and data processing traceability throughout the data chain; from raw to product, using consistent and standardised recording methods within the metadata.
- Building and sustaining climate data records – Action is required to sustain maintenance and evolution of, established, harmonised in-situ, earth observation and reanalysis datasets with open access to ensure maximum impact and global equity. New Essential Climate Variables are required for urban and ocean modelling which will help support and inform decision making on adaptation to climate change in urban and coastal environments.
In the report a vision for the future emerging from the Roadmap was set out:
By 2050, we imagine GCOS to …
- be sustaining and promoting observation data diversity, quality control, innovation
and traceability within a collaborative and efficient global observational framework.. - be responsible for maintaining, having established, a global common data reference
policy for observations. This should include, but not be limited to in-situ referencing
systems and agreements with meteorological agencies around the world for fair
distribution and access to data for climate science - be responsible for coordinating and promoting maintenance of and evolution of,
established, harmonised in-situ, earth observation and reanalysis datasets with
open access to ensure maximum impact and global equity.
Event Legacy
A number of the key points raised in the report to organisers were included in the closing conference statement. View online the GCOS Conference Statement.
The CMIP IPO, in support of WCRP ESMO and ESA Climate Office, will publish an initial roadmap report, drawing on the ideas shared, challenges identified, and suggestions made during the session, identifying a timeline and steps required for cross-community collaboration and tool development to support a strengthened observation-modelling interface to enhance further understanding of climate change and better support near term and future needs for climate information.
The outcomes of this event are providing ideas and momentum to:
- Practical actions to further strengthen links between the modelling and observational communities.
- The evolving ESMO objectives.
- Relevant WCRP Lighthouse Activities.
- CMIP7 planning.
- Obs4MIPs
- ESA CMUG
- GEO
- The development process for the ESA Climate-Space programme,
Community roadmap
Outputs from table discussions were collated and digitised to form a roadmap covering short (1-3years), medium (5 -9years) and long (10 years and towards 2050) terms, available below. Find out more about how this community roadmap is evolving here.
Related events
The roadmap is live and will remain open for new submissions until the WCRP Open Science Conference in Rwanda, 23-27 October 2023. A second World Café will be run by the event partners with a focus on the Global South and on prioritisation to inform a detailed extract of the roadmap for the next 3 years.
