Co-produced services
‘Co-production of weather and climate services for Africa’
Tuesday 12 July 2022
13:30 UK time / 08:30 Eastern time
Chair
Dr Vicky Boult, University of Reading
Speaker
Dr Linda Hirons, National Centre for Atmospheric Science, University of Reading
About the workshop
In May 2022, ecologists and climate scientists came together to better inform the future of our planet at Climate Science for Ecological Forecasting – a joint symposium by the British Ecological Society and the Royal Meteorological Society. Following this key event, we invite everyone to this free AER Live workshop.
In this workshop, Dr Linda Hirons draws on her experiences leading an African sub-seasonal forecasting testbed within the GCRF African SWIFT project to explore how a co-production approach can help develop effective weather and climate services. Specifically, she will draw on experiences across West and East Africa in sectors such as Energy, Health, Agriculture and Disaster Risk Reduction to discuss and evidence how co-production can increase the appropriate use of sub-seasonal forecasts for decision-making.
Related: “Co-designed ecological research for more effective management and conservation” in Issue 3:1 of Ecological Solutions and Evidence.
About the speaker
Linda Hirons is a Research Scientist with the National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS) at the University of Reading, UK. She has a background in Tropical Meteorology with a particular interest in the drivers of weather and climate variability and change over Africa. Her previous work has focused on understanding the sources of sub-seasonal (2-4 week ahead) predictability over Africa. This has led more recently to working with communities of forecasters, researchers and decision-makers in Africa to co-produce reliable and actionable forecast products on these timescales. She is passionate about seeing developments in scientific understanding lead to improvements in the forecasting and communication of high-impact weather events over Africa.
Watch the workshop here