Climate change: who says too much information leads to misinformation?

2 3

1. WHO 2014 - http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2014/air-pollution/en/

A changing worldEvidence shows that the global environment is changing and that human activities are having an impact.

- Rising sea temperatures, flooding, drought and melting ice are all indicators of a changing climate

- WHO statistics reveal that pollution and low air quality caused an estimated 7 million premature deaths in 2012 alone. 1

Faced with this knowledge, it is incumbent on policymakers, industry and the scientific community to equip society to adapt to our changing environment and try to prevent further harm.

The immediacy of the challenge and potential consequences of failure require innovative evidence based solutions.

Copernicus – A global sentinelWhen it comes to atmosphere and climate change it is the global picture that matters.

The first integrated network of its kind - built on cooperation between agencies across the globe – Copernicus brings tangible evidence to a field where speculation alone could lead to disaster, using a data-driven approach to reduce uncertainty and risk. It does not rely on theory or hypothesis, but on millions of readings every hour and a century long archive of data from thousands of land and marine based sensors as well as almost a hundred satellites. In future this will include the European Union’s Sentinel satellite network.

Along with the other Copernicus Services, these will transform the certainty with which governments and sectors such as energy and water supply and management can deliver their current and future services, adapt to climate change, invest for the future and steer policy. This is by allowing them to consider trends and variations on timescales of just a few days to decades in advance.

Delivering the programmeThe European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts is delivering two key parts of the programme and assisting with a third, bringing a consistent standard to how we measure, forecast and predict atmospheric conditions and climate change:

The Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring ServiceMonitoring changes in the chemical composition of our atmosphere as well as providing daily forecasts of air quality and greenhouse gases.

The Copernicus Climate Change Service (in development) Monitoring and analysing around 20 variables to build a global picture of our climate, as well as developing customisable climate projections in relevant economic sectors.

The Copernicus Emergency Management Service - FloodsSupporting improvements to flood forecasting and understanding of the frequency, variability and consequences of extreme weather events including floods, storms and droughts.

Land Monitoring

SatelliteMonitoring

MarineMonitoring

AirMonitoring

Measurement Analysis Application Use

Supercomputer

Data Archive

Future Scenarios

Forecasting

Atmosphere Monitoring

Climate Monitoring

20 climate variables

Million

s of

read

ings

per

hou

r

Government and Policymakers

Academic Expertise

Consultants and Startups

Industry

Scientific Community

The Public

A new European climate economyThe European Commission’s Copernicus programme is set to put the tools and information needed to equip society to understand and adapt to our changing environment in the hands of policymakers and companies like never before. It harnesses world leading science and technology to bring certainty to an uncertain world.

Information and analysis provided by the programme is already being used by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to assess the risk society faces from our changing climate.

Copernicus is Europe’s eyes on Earth and provides insight into our climate future, equipping society to:

- Mitigate the negative effects of climate change

- Adapt where change is unavoidable - Identify opportunities to succeed despite a changing world.

4 5

A world of information – Freely availableCopernicus consists of six services, all delivered by expert European organisations. The vast majority of the data used to underpin the services will be freely available, always.

That’s petabytes of data, each equivalent to one quadrillion bytes. To put that into perspective, our galaxy is home to around two hundred billion stars, if each individual star represented a single byte, we would need 5,000 galaxies to represent one petabyte of data.2

This commitment underlines the European Union’s determination to tackle climate change, not just as the right thing to do but as an economic necessity. As unrestrained

by borders as our climate, the data available freely through the Copernicus programme will enable all countries to mitigate, adapt and invest in a changing world.

It is already underpinning scientific work on climate change having been cited in more than 2000 separate papers, and can now be harnessed to develop new products and services across public health, energy, water, farming, transport, financial and even consumer sectors.

In time it may be commonplace to look up atmospheric and climate data in the same way as a weather forecast.

2. www.makeuseof.com 2012 - http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/memory-sizes-gigabytes-terabytes-petabytes/3. European Commission 2011 - http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-11-1524_en.htm4. European Commission 2015 - https://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/en/digital-single-market

5. International Energy Agency 2015 - http://wds.iea.org/wds/pdf/IEA_RDD_Factsheet_2015.pdf6. UN 2015 - http://www.un.org/sg/statements/index.asp?nid=8539

Certainty to invest – The energy sector The global demand for affordable clean energy is one of the major challenges facing society today. Investment in renewable sources of energy has increased substantially and in 2014 accounted for 20% of all research and design investment in the energy sector.5 UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has said an additional $100bn investment in sustainable energy a year is needed by 2020.6 Decisions on investment require access to key information on profitability and risk.

Predictive models can assess conditions in advance to enable grid planning - for example when cables need to be buried underground.

Copernicus data enables the development of tailored maps to assess the potential yield of wind and solar generation sites.

By monitoring and forecasting snow, ice and river runoff, Copernicus can support the planning of hydroelectric dam placement.

Copernicus monitors and provides daily forecasts for atmospheric conditions, allowing solar generators to plan for adverse conditions such as dust storms or high levels of aerosols.

Big data driven solutionsData is the gateway to new products and services as well as vital in underpinning effective policy and ensuring accountability.

Copernicus will not only enable better infrastructure management, but provide governments and industry with the data and tools they need to kick start the climate data economy.

The European Commission expects its Open Data Strategy for Europe to deliver a €40 billion annual boost to the EU’s economy,3 while studies suggest that by 2020, big data analytics could boost European economic growth by 1.9%, a GDP increase of €206bn.4

280 million observations

enterthe Atmosphere

Monitoring Service

The Copernicus Climate Change Service will compile 100 years of observations to support climate analysis

every 12 hours

10Km

The two systems cover the entire globe and in Europe can focus down to 10Km

280 million observations

enterthe Atmosphere

Monitoring Service

The Copernicus Climate Change Service will compile 100 years of observations to support climate analysis

every 12 hours

10Km

The two systems cover the entire globe and in Europe can focus down to 10Km

280 million observations

enterthe Atmosphere

Monitoring Service

The Copernicus Climate Change Service will compile 100 years of observations to support climate analysis

every 12 hours

10Km

The two systems cover the entire globe and in Europe can focus down to 10Km

Copernicus will: - Allow assessment of the potential yield of renewable technology to help countries manage electricity supply and plan grid connections

- Help industry identify the most profitable and sustainable sites for wind farms, hydro-electric dams and solar panels

- Improve operational management and risk assessment tools to support wind, wave and solar energy production and energy infrastructure planning”.

ClimateChange

AtmosphereMonitoring

LandMonitoring

SecurityEmergencyManagement

MarineMonitoring

6 7

Copernicus will: - Identify areas most at risk of drought or flooding to protect property, infrastructure and ensure security of supply

- Allow policymakers to assess the potential impact of ice melt on low-lying coastal areas - Enable the strategic planning of water intensive industries such as agriculture.

7. UC Davis 2015 - http://johnmuir.ucdavis.edu/drought-cost-2-7-billion-to-california-economy-says-uc-davis

Data to develop – A diversity of applicationsCopernicus data has the potential to identify both the causes of atmospheric pollution and climate change - two issues intrinsically linked by human activity - and from that data the most effective strategies to help us adapt. One area where it is already having an impact is in helping policymakers to understand and manage air quality by identifying the source of pollutants that affect it, for example traffic flow. In time, understanding of climate change and atmospheric pollution may also allow companies to develop innovative new products to help you choose your route to work, what you buy or even your new home.

Copernicus will: - Kick start the climate data economy opening the gateway for companies to develop new products and services

- Identify and isolate the causes of atmospheric conditions and climate change allowing mitigating measures to be assessed

- Provide the evidence base for governments to act on pollution and climate change.

! In future you might be able to look up Copernicus data to consider how flood risks may evolve over time. Useful when planning infrastructure, or even choosing a home.

Day-to-day uses could include looking up the chance of harmful air pollution on your route to work.

By assessing climate variables Copernicus can predict areas at risk of future flooding from sea level rises.

Copernicus monitoring allows the identification of risks such as icebergs in shipping lanes, allowing companies to assess routes.

By assessing variables like glacier melt and river runoff, Copernicus can predict the likelihood of seasonal droughts to enable planning of supply management and agriculture.

Knowledge to adapt – The water sectorWater is the most important resource available to us, vital to life and prosperity across the globe. As the climate changes, variable rainfall patterns are likely to increase the risk of drought and in extreme cases famine. It is estimated that the current drought in California will cost $2.7 billion and 18,600 jobs in 2015 alone.7 Understanding how our water system is changing is essential to ensuring continuity of supplies and developing strategies to mitigate the impacts of drought and flooding.

Find out moreJoin the ECMWF Copernicus team on our websites: http://climate.copernicus.eu http://atmosphere.copernicus.eu and on twitter @CopernicusECMWF

Visit http://copernicus.eu for more information on all six Copernicus services.

Media enquiriesTel: +44 (0) 118 949 9778Mob: +44 (0) 755 477 3973Contact: Silke.Zollinger@ecmwf.int

ECMWF Shinfield Park Reading RG2 9AX United KingdomContact: david.armstrong@ecmwf.int