Climate services in the UK Met Office – challenges and solutions

Abstract

The development, delivery, uptake and use of climate services face numerous challenges including the fact that decision-makers often need information that is beyond the current scientific capability, insufficient capacity amongst climate service providers to be able to meet the demands from decision-makers, shortcomings in the awareness and understanding of available knowledge, and insufficient understanding by climate service providers of the needs of decision-makers. This article provides examples of the UK Met Office’s international climate service activities in Commonwealth small island states, China and Europe, highlighting specific challenges. Based on experiences developing and delivering climate services and collaborating with a range of actors, some approaches that help overcome, or at least reduce, these challenges include undertaking focused user engagement, collaboration and partnerships, developing prototypes and conducting trials of these prototypes with the users, evolving the science and the services based on the users’ needs to better serve societal needs.