Translational Science for Climate Services: Mapping and Understanding Users’ Climate Service Needs in CSSP China

• Published in: Journal of Meteorological Research Vol. 35; no. 1; pp. 64 - 76
• Main Authors: Opitz-Stapleton, Sarah, Street, Roger, Ye, Qian, Han, Jiarui, Hewitt, Chris D.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Beijing The Chinese Meteorological Society 01-02-2021
• Subjects: Atmospheric Protection/Air Quality Control/Air Pollution; Atmospheric Sciences; Climate Science for Services Partnership (CSSP) China; Earth and Environmental Science; Earth Sciences; Geophysics and Environmental Physics; Meteorology; Perspectives; usefulness; climate services; credibility; information users; diverse decision contexts; information providers
• DOI: 10.1007/s13351-021-0077-3
• EISSN: 2198-0934
• ISSN: 2095-6037

The Climate Science for Service Partnership China (CSSP China) is a joint program between China and the United Kingdom to build the basis for climate services to support the weather and climate resilient economic development and welfare in China. Work Package 5 (WP5) provides the translational science on identification of: different users and providers, and their mandates; factors contributing to communication gaps and capacities between various users and providers; and mechanisms to work through such issues to develop and/or evolve a range of climate services. Key findings to emerge include that users from different sectors have varying capacities, requirements, and needs for information in their decision contexts, with a current strong preference for weather information. Separating climate and weather services when engaging users is often not constructive. Furthermore, there is a need to move to a service delivery model that is more user-driven and science informed; having sound climate science is not enough to develop services that are credible, salient, reliable, or timely for diverse user groups. Greater investment in building the capacity of the research community supporting and providing climate services to conduct translational sciences and develop regular user engagement processes is much needed. Such a move would help support the China Meteorological Administration’s (CMA) ongoing efforts to improve climate services. It would also assist in potentially linking a broader group of “super” users who currently act as providers and purveyors of climate services because they find the existing offerings are not relevant to their needs or cannot access CMA’s services.