Understanding the information

Bruk

Technology for gathering and disseminating reliable climate information has improved, but climate information should be accompanied by services that communicate, train and help users understand how to interpret and act on the information received.

From your past experience, do the end users understand the climate information received?
What do you think can be done to improve the flow of information from the Meteorology / Climate Services and Agencies to the general public (end users)?

wkabukuru

Bruk Most end users have some understanding on weather information. The challenge is in presentation. There is a need to unpack weather and climate information to reach out more people and at the same time to increase appreciation of CIS. Unpacking weather information to generate more interest is a key tool in climate adaptation.

wkabukuru

Bruk Climate Information Services need to boost their communication skills and strive at creating narratives aimed at enhancing public consumption of climate information. This can be done in stages of it can be a finely thought out strategy to build key constituencies of critical masses who will assist in the furtherance of distilling climate information to the general public.

wkabukuru

Bruk End users of climate information may not have the time to interpret the climate information. As such the generators and producers of this content can go and extra mile and break down this information for different cadres of end users.

Reemabdulkarim1141983

Bruk
Sudan is most larg geographical and climatic diversity country in Africa. The level of mental and climatic culture varies from population to population, and urban dwellers are more aware of and culture of climate issues and nomadic people than pastoralists and farmers who follow traditional methods of obtaining climatic information. Therefore, institutional building and capacity building of relevant institutions in the country should be established and linked to the center, farmers and pastoralists. Finally, the quality of climate monitoring and access to accurate and reliable forecasts as accurate as possible, in addition to accurately indicating the weather and the activation of early warning systems in a sustainable manner and these plans, if implemented optimally through the Meteorological Authority Remote sensing centers will contribute to positive results in addressing the risks of climate change and is working on the ownership of climate information reliable
REEM
CSAYN
SUDAN

Jjemba

Dear participants, I am Eddie Jjemba a resilience advisor at the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre. It is my pleasure to facilitate this week's discussion. I look forward to learning from you and will be glad to share my experiences too.

Eddie

FionaPercy

Hello and welcome to Week 4 of the discussions. I am Fiona Percy, your moderator for this week. I work with CARE International on climate services in a number of programmes in Africa, including WISER. As a development and humanitarian NGO we are interested in how climate information can support farmers, pastoralists, local sector service providers and others to make more informed decisions for adapting to the felt impacts of climate change and climate variability, so that their livelihoods and incomes are climate resilient and climate risk proof.

The question for Week 4 introduced by Bruk is: Technology for gathering and disseminating reliable climate information has improved, but climate information should be accompanied by services that communicate, train and help users understand how to interpret and act on the information received.

From your past experience, do the end users understand the climate information received?
What do you think can be done to improve the flow of information from the Meteorology / Climate Services and Agencies to the general public (end users)?

Again we are dealing with complex and challenging issues. The questions for Week 4 have raised more questions than answers for me – which I encourage you to consider in this week’s discussions. How can we combine scientific information with local knowledge so that it is better trusted and relevant – also recognising that climate information is only one of several factors that inform users decisions for action? What opportunities can we create to enable interaction and discussions among providers, sector experts and users? - which help users to understand better what information is available and how to work with the uncertainties involved? - Which help providers to learn what information and products will be of value to users? - Which enable collective interpretation and ‘coproduction’ of advisories and communication plans?

Adaptation, risk management and climate resilience are the larger goals within which climate information services can be better valued and understood. This may lead to increasing demand and a more demand led service provision. How can NMHS and climate services engage actively in such initiatives and what is their role? And how can the science and its interpretation keep up with a growing demand?

CARE has developed a range of approaches which helps climate information ‘users’ to not only access information, but to participate in localising and interpreting it for use. Click on the climate services tab at this link: http://careclimatechange.org/our-work/alp/ for information on these approaches and their impacts so far. The most popular approach supports seasonal decision making using participatory scenario planning (See: https://careclimatechange.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/ALP_PSP_EN.pdf) to collectively interpret and communicate seasonal climate forecasts and advisories. Learning from these has shown several important points to consider, for example: end users are not passive recipients of information, their understanding, trust and confidence is increased when they are able to relate the information to the local context and participate in its interpretation. (See: http://careclimatechange.org/courting-complexity-climate-services-lessons-participatory-scenario-planning/)

Enjoy the continued discussions!

Jjemba

Well said Fiona.

At the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre, we have been keen to support end users of climate information first to understand it and thereafter use it. For example we co-created short videos such as the one below: El Nino crab https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIUSWEftN4w this explains what El Nino is and what it means for people living in different parts of the world. (Is the climate information understandable? From scientific graphs and maps to more innovative and interesting formats that help users appreciate the relevance of the content. In another project FRACTAL,we have been exploring the Climate Narratives-visual and stories co-created by scientists and city officials. The narratives explain different scenarios of the future climate of cities (http://www.futureclimateafrica.org/project/fractal/).

fatou_sima

Some understand and efforts are being done in enhancing the awareness of all the user community of CI and Climate Change particularly at the rural community through the support of the Gambia’s Climate Change Early Warning Systems (GCCEWS) Project at the Department of Water Resources.
Q: What do you think can be done to improve the flow of information from the Meteorology / Climate Services and Agencies to the general public (end users)?
- Collaboration between knowledge producers and users in order to share resources and lessons learned, improve the quality and utility of research and climate services, increase the successful transmission of climate information
- Integrating indigenous knowledge into forecasts and seasonal climate forecasts
- Strengthened the interpretation, understanding and dissemination of climate information among users through multi-stakeholder platforms

What are the major challenge with the CI you receive from the Meteorology Services?
• Late arrival of monthly returns from Network stations.
• Inadequate qualified personnel for development of CIS
 Inadequate High-speed internet connectivity

DavidLesolle

It is evident that users do not choose to apply climate services. This is evident in cases of weather and climate extremes - droughts, strong winds, floods etc. We still have causalities and losses.

There is need to simplify the information further and popularise the data and information output. When still at the Dept of Meteorological Services (Botswana) I had developed and ran a training course for volunteer rainfall observers. There are usually very many of such volunteers in our countries - these include school teachers (primary, secondary); police officers; agriculture officers; individuals: The course provided information on - How rainfall is formed (something we always assume!! we know and understand); Different types of rainfall and weather associated with rainfall (Storms, tornadoes, lightning, thunder...) - these are important as they clear any myths and also build an understanding for coping with the associated / resulting adverse weather and climate

oscar

D'après mes propres expériences, les utilisateurs finaux des services et informations climatiques n'ont pas une facilité d'accès à l'information climatique.Ceci est un potentiel frein à la compréhension des données climatiques.
D'autre part les populations locales en particulier ont un problème liée au niveau d'instruction ou d'éducation.
De nos jours il est impératif pour les gouvernements de mettre sur pied des politiques qui permettent un développement des capacités des utilisateurs pour une bonne compréhension et interprétation des données climatiques.
en outre, les canaux de distribution doivent être accessible et connus par les utilisateurs. Rappelons également l'existence des ambassadeurs chargé de la distribution des données en fonction des utilisateurs et de leur degré de compréhension.
Merci
Oscar

Reemabdulkarim1141983