Understanding the Needs and Gaps in Climate Services across Kentucky

On 16-17 July 2024, the Kentucky Climate Center (KCC) hosted an intensive one-and-a-half-day “Kentucky Climate Services Summit” in the state capital of Frankfort, Kentucky, with the primary goal to better understand and document the needs and gaps in climate services as recognized by stakeholders across the Commonwealth. Sponsored by the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), American Association of State Climatologists (AASC), Climavision, and the KCC, approximately 50 participants attended daily, including representatives from a wide variety of federal, state, and local governments, as well as industry, academic and non-profit organizations. The workshop facilitated six panel discussions, each focused on climate-sensitive sectors important to the state: (1) Energy & Transportation; (2) Water & Agriculture; (3) Environment & Conservation; (4) Industry & Commerce; (5) Media & Forecast Providers; and (6) Hazard Mitigation & Emergency Management. These sectors are key partners in increasing community resiliency moving forward.

Attendee participants identified several common overarching gaps in current weather enterprise services. These gaps include: (1) Need for more local, higher-resolution observations; (2) Need for more accurate, short-term forecasts and long-term (S2S, annual) outlooks; (3) Need for widespread adoption of common data formatting, protocols, and metadata; and (4) Need for widespread data and product organization. Overall, participants agreed that existing products and services were sufficient for them to do their work; however, they asked for more resources in helping them find, organize, and integrate the data, products and services now available. This presentation will review how the various sectors utilize current climate services and discuss the gaps that remain.