User Engagement and Discovery of Needs for Climate Service

NOAA’s National Weather Service (NWS) Climate Services program is evolving to provide information at sub-seasonal to seasonal timescales to support users decision making. Climate-sensitive decisions are made in many sectors of the national economy such as health, agriculture, energy, planning and responding to disruptive weather and water events, and management of water and other natural resources. To provide more user-responsive products and services, NWS uses every opportunity to identify user needs, and then user needs must be validated to ensure they fall within NWS mission requirements.

The Climate Services Program directly engages users through its annual Climate Prediction Applications Science Workshop, which is held in partnership with state climatologists and other climate extension organizations. The 2019 workshop focused on “Climate Information for Coastal Risk Reduction.” Key takeaways from the meeting included:

• Good communication encourages people to change their habits, take action, and understand scientific realities
• Policies are needed to implement changes for adaptation to climate-related risks
• Building partnerships is essential to holistically and collaboratively developing and sharing information with stakeholders

• Science-based decision-making prevents decision-makers from repeating past mistakes

These recommendations play a critical role in planning and policies for NWS climate services, developing capacity for service provision, and, ultimately, better responding to user needs.