Climate forecasts enabled knowledge services, the CLARA project

Climate innovation and piloted climate services produce action-oriented knowledge that galvanise adaptation and transformational change, while unlocking Europe’s competitiveness and economic growth. Climate services help individuals and organizations make risk -informed decisions. Climate services are knowledge-intensive business services that employ advanced technological and professional knowledge. What characterises climate services is that both users and purveyors play a vital role in co-designing and co-producing the service solutions, ideally in a genuine and mutually beneficial partnership inspiring trust and users’ satisfaction. Climate services generate private and collective benefits. Historic climate records, catalogues of extreme events, reanalyses, forecasts, projections and indices used in outlooks, early warnings, vulnerability and risk assessments enable higher agricultural productivity, more efficient use and allocation of water, greater financial security and returns on investments, more reliable access to and production of renewable energy, and more effective protection of vulnerable communities and ecosystems. Over the past decades, the climate services have grown in numbers, quality and sophistication, stimulated by efforts under the World Meteorological Organisation’s Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS), and the Climate Services Partnership (CSP). The European Union (EU) made large investments in frontline systems enabling modern meteorological services under the Copernicus Earth observation programme (previously Global Monitoring for Environment and Security, GMES). In this paper we summarise the lessons learned from the H2020 CLARA project (Climate forecast enabled knowledge services), including the 14 climate services developed, the co-development process and the sustainable business models employed to ensure measurable and lasting impact.