The first learning resources of a Training Package aimed at strengthening the delivery of global and regional climate services is now available online in English to all WMO Members. The Training Package is being developed with support from the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) to assist in closing the gaps in the ability of WMO Members to deliver climate services.
Communities around the world have always faced climate variability and extremes; however, scientists expect that climate change will expose them to new challenges due to an increase in the frequency and intensity of such events. There is a dire need for high-quality climate services to reduce the associated risks and maximizing climate-related opportunities. Yet many countries lack the resources to do so, particularly the developing and least developed countries. It is the WMO mandate to improve understanding of the specific needs of every developing country and to support cooperation between its Members to enhance capacity development.
Following the Eighteenth World Meteorological Congress (Cg-18), the WMO Executive Council (EC) requested the development of training initiatives to address gaps in Member’s ability to deliver climate services. Under this framework, the WMO Education and Training Office and Climate Services Division started developing the Training Package to enhance the provision of high-quality climate services, tailoring it to countries that, for the most part, only require capacity development to address climate-related risks.
The team working on the package, organized two webinars in 2021. The first targeted professionals working to integrate climate science information into policy processes and documents like National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) and Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). The second explored how to generate sector-specific climate information for climate-sensitive sectors through the use of an open-source software package called Climpact. The webinars attracted over 400 attendees – professionals and students from more than 80 institutions in 48 countries.
Following the webinars, two workshops were organized to assist with the development of the training package:
- ClimAdapt Workshop: How to use climate information to support climate adaptation activities (2021) focused on the assessment climate risk, developing resources and planning for adaptation
- Climpact Workshop (2022) trained users to calculate climate indices using the software Climpact.
A self-paced online course was also developed to introduce the use of Climpact to calculate climate indices, specifically for planning in sectors such as disaster risk reduction (DRR), health, agriculture and water. A pilot version of the online course was made a pre-requisite to the Climpact Workshop in order to collect final reviews. The feedback highlighted the importance of having training resources for self-study, which permit learners to study anytime anywhere.
The Training Package will continue to be developed in 2022. More resources will be added, and the package will be translated into Spanish with localized content for WMO Region III (South America) and IV (North America, Central America and the Caribbean).
