13 April 2024, Nadi, Fiji. Noting the Pacific's high level of vulnerability to climate change and extreme weather and climate events, there is a need for genuine partnerships and strengthened collaborative approaches by providers of meteorological information to ensure a resilient Pacific.
The Pacific Regional Climate Centre (RCC) Network continues to strive towards improved climate services in the region and enhanced capacity of National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NHMSs) through collaborative efforts amongst its membership.
The Pacific RCC Network (RCC-N) Management Committee met in Nadi, at the Fiji Meteorological Service office on 13 April 2024, to update its workplan, and consolidate governance arrangements to deliver better climate services to the Pacific region.
RCC are Centres of Excellence that assist the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) members in a given region to better deliver climate services and products, including long-range climate forecasts, climate monitoring, climate change projections, climate data services, training and capacity building.
WMO representative for the South-West Pacific, Mr Henry Taiki highlighted the importance of collaboration within the RCC-N, he said “research on climate change and associated projections are conducted by the institutions included in the RCC nodes, through RCC forums, this information is shared with countries to enhance their capabilities nationally and help guide national policies. In turn, countries share their developments on the ground to improve research in climate science.”
The RCC-N consists of five nodes, each of the nodes are led or co-led by a lead institution (s) together with a consortium of support members. The five nodes cover, long-range forecasting, climate monitoring, climate change monitoring and projections, operational data services and training.
Prior to the Management Meeting, leads and co-leads had met to consider/propose content for a new website, track progress in each node and map out implementation of upcoming node activities, while ensuring members are updated.
“The Pacific RCC core responsibilities are at the regional level and do not duplicate the work of NHMSs at a country level, the RCC works to ensure support is provided to strengthen capacity of climate services in Pacific island countries and territories” said SPREP RCC Coordinator, Mr Terry Atalifo.
The meeting is supported by the 11th European Development Fund (EDF) Intra-ACP Climate Services and Related Applications (ClimSA) Programme, funded by the European Commission’s Directorate-General for International Partnerships (DGINTPA). The RCC Network also acknowledges the contributions of other projects e.g. Australian and NZ funded COSPPac, UNEP CIS Pac-5 and WMO CREWS.
SPREP is the lead for the Pacific region to implement activities under the ClimSA programme. One of the main deliverables of the project is to support the Pacific RCC Network to move from its current demonstration phase to a formally designated WMO RCC Network.
The activities for transition from the demonstration phase to designation is overseen by the Pacific RCC Management Committee, and capabilities are assessed against WMO requirement for formal designation.
Current Chair of the RCC Management Committee, Dr Simon McGree of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology commented on the journey of the RCC-N from demonstration to designation. He said, “Through the demonstration phase, we have seen the RCC-N significantly enhance NHMSs understanding of climate and ocean monitoring and prediction through the Pacific Islands Climate Outlook Forums (PICOF), a forum that takes place twice a year.”
“Our overall goal in years to come will be to help advance climate and ocean science knowledge of NHMS staff, as well as help them deliver better deliver products and services to their stakeholders and communities. These are products and services that are useful, useable and used”.
The fourteenth session of the Pacific Climate Outlook Forum (PICOF-14) will take place on 16 April 2024, in Fiji.
For more information, please contact the Pacific Meteorological Desk Partnership at [email protected] or your local National Meteorological and Hydrological Service.