World Climate Services Programme

The World Climate Services Programme (WCSP) is a component of the World Climate Programme (WCP) and contributes to improving the availability of, and access to, reliable climate data, monitoring and forecasts. This is achieved through collaborative and interdisciplinary activities involving up-to-date methods, tools and systems.

The Programme promotes the development of appropriate institutional mechanisms and operational infrastructure to generate, exchange and disseminate quality information on climate and provides guidance on related applications and services. 

The WCSP spans four inter-related areas:

• Climate data and analysis;
• Climate monitoring, watch and prediction;
• Climate system operation and infrastructure; and
• Climate adaptation and risk management.

The objectives of the World Climate Services Programme (WCSP) are:

• Coordination of:
  • the development of high quality climate datasets and related data management systems;
  • systems, tools and products for monitoring and analysis of the climate system at various scales;
  • methods and tools for operational climate predictions;
  • consensus-based climate updates and climate watches;
• Facilitation of:
  • interactions between operational and research communities;
  • the development of networks of global, regional and national climate centres;
  • definition and standardization of operational climate prediction products;
• Development and implementation of climate services at the national level; and
• Identification and sharing of best practices for the application of climate information.

The World Climate Services Programme (WCSP) is guided by the Commission for Climatology (CCl). It interacts closely with the Commission for Basic Systems (CBS), the Commission for Agricultural Meteorology (CAgM) and the Commission for Hydrology (CHy).

The Programme serves as the WMO vehicle for implementing the Climate Services Information System (CSIS) and a part of the User Interface Platform (UIP) components of the Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS).

These areas are implemented through two WCSP components:

• Climate Data and Monitoring
• Climate Applications and Services

The Climate Data and Monitoring component provides international coordination of WMO Climate System Monitoring. Its priorities include the provision of guidance on climate data and climate assessment and monitoring and the publication and dissemination of WMO authoritative reports on the status of the global climate.

The Climate Applications and Services component fosters the effective application of climate knowledge and information for the benefit of society and the provision of climate services, including the prediction of significant climate variations, both natural and as a result of human activity.