The European Union Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) at ECMWF

Copernicus is the European Commission’s flagship Earth observation programme that delivers freely accessible operational environmental data and information services. The Europan Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) has been entrusted to operate two key services of the Copernicus programme, which will bring a consistent standard to the measurement, forecasting and prediction of atmospheric conditions and climate change.

The goal of Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) is to become an authoritative Cimate Service in Europe, delivering quality-assured and state-of-the-art climate information, building upon the latest science in Europe. C3S also ambitions to enable downstream climate services by providing data, tools and good practices to intermediaries and consultancies supporting adaptation policies and businesses at regional and local scales.

C3S routinely monitors and analyses a wide variety of Essential Climate Variables (ECVs) to build a global picture of the climate of our Earth's System and its evolution, from the past to the future, as well as developing customisable climate indicators for relevant economic sectors, such as energy, water management, agriculture, insurance, health, urban planning, etc.

C3S is now becoming operational, the technical infrastructure is being developed and the first industrial activities have been kicked off. Climate monitoring information is routinely produced and available at http://climate.copernicus.eu/monthly-maps-and-charts (see Figure), and multi-model seasonal forecast products are routinely produced and are accessible full, free and open.

This paper will present how the Service is being implemented at ECMWF, its functionalities, and how it interacts with the climate service community at large (e.g. The WMO GFCS, the NCEI, etc.). The most recent achievements of the Service will be presented, with a focus on its sectoral end-to-end demonstrators (water management, energy, etc.) that highlight the value of deriving high quality and business relevant climate impact indicators in support of decision making for climate adaptation strategies. Last but not least, the definition of a roadmap towards a fully operational European Climate Change Service will be discussed.