India is launching a national framework for climate services

What’s in today’s article?

• Why in news?
• What is Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS)?
• News Summary: India is launching a national framework for climate services
  • What is NFCS?
  • Why the NFCS is needed?
  • NCFS in other countries

Why in news?

• India is embarking on a major programme to launch its maiden national-level framework towards providing climate services and information.
• The National Framework for Climate Services (NFCS) is spearheaded by the India Meteorological Department (IMD).
• NFCS is based on the Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS).
• It envisions to bring a seamless working platform for users of climate information and services, and help decide and mitigate climate risks for key sectors — agriculture, energy, disaster management, health and water.

What is Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS)?

• Background
  • The announcement to establish a GFCS was made during the third World Climate Conference held in Geneva in 2009.
  • This framework is led by National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHS) in their respective nations.
• About
  • GFCS is a partnership of governments and organisations at a global level, for the production and better usage of climate information and services.
  • It aims to facilitate researchers and users of climate information and services to join hands in order to make informed and actionable decisions for the long-term betterment.
• Functions
  • GFCS envisages to generate high-quality data from national and international databases on temperature, rainfall, wind, soil moisture and ocean conditions and other vital weather parameters.
  • This is aimed at creating long-term historical averages of these parameters, as well as maps, risk and vulnerability analyses, assessments and long-term projections and scenarios.
• Five major components under GFCS
  • These are Observations and Monitoring, Research, Modelling and Prediction, Climate Services Information System, User Interface Platform and Capacity Building.
  • At present, the priority sectors where the GFCS focuses upon are agriculture and food security, energy, health, water and disaster risk reduction.

News Summary: India is launching a national framework for climate services

What is NFCS?

• About
  • In lines with the global framework, the national framework will be based on country-specific weather and stakeholder needs.
  • It will be a multi-stakeholder platform to enable the development and delivery of climate services.
  • The goal of NFCS is to coordinate institutions so they can work together to: Co-design, Co-produce, Communicate, Deliver, Use climate.
  • Along with the identified sectors of focus, India could add other relevant sectors like transport, tourism and other emerging sectors from time to time.
• Nodal agency

o The nodal agency for the formulation and implementation of the national framework in India will be the IMD.

• Function
  • Initially, the NFCS will work in bridging functioning gaps between the various agencies who require climate services.
  • These include the hydrological, power, renewable energy, transport, dams and irrigation, health agencies are central, state and other levels.

Why the NFCS is needed?

• There remain many gap areas across terrains and the seas, wherein no weather data is available.
• There is a lack of long-term (100 years or more) climatological data from the Himalayan regions, the oceans, besides inexistence of radar and satellite-based climatology.
• With NFCS, the Met department aims to:
  • strengthen the observational network on land and the seas,
  • improve the data inflow and eventually use it to run weather and climate models for deriving climate predictions.
• The climate data and information products will help identify agricultural production, health trends, population distribution in high-risk areas, road and infrastructure mapping for the delivery of goods and other socio-economic variables.
• The early implementation and acceleration of NFCS will be possible when planned in a mission-mode and is driven by the country’s highest decision-making office.

NCFS in other countries

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• Since the 2009 declaration of frameworks for climate services, Switzerland, China, Germany and the United Kingdom have launched the NFCS.
• With the first workshop organised recently in Pune, India has joined Cuba, Ghana, Liberia, Malawi, Nigeria, etc. where the NFCS-related national consultation workshops are being planned.

India will be soon releasing the statement of NFCS after consensus received from the key partnering stakeholders.

Q1) What is India Meteorological Department (IMD)?

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) is the national meteorological service of India. It was established in 1875. The IMD is an agency of the Ministry of Earth Sciences.

Q2) What are climate services?

Climate services (CS) may be defined as scientifically based information and products that enhance users’ knowledge and understanding about the impacts of climate on their decisions and actions.

Source:

• Why India is launching a national framework for climate services
• Global Framework for Climate Services