Climate change:
who says too much
information leads to
misinformation?
COP21 side event, December 2015
A changing world
Evidence 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
COP21
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. COP21 is the next step on that
journey as nations meet to look at what
progress has been made and attempt to
agree a global approach to our future.
The immediacy of the challenge and
potential consequences of failure require
innovative evidence based solutions.
Copernicus – A global sentinel
When 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.
Land
Monitoring
v
climate ariables
20
f readings per
hou
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Future Scenarios
Supercomputer
Government
and Policymakers
Forecasting
Academic Expertise
Climate Monitoring
Data Archive
Marine
Monitoring
Measurement
1.
2
Scientific
Community
Consultants
and Startups
The Public
Application
It is Europe’s eyes on Earth and provides
insight into our climate future, equipping
society to:
-- Mitigate the negative effects of
Land
Monitoring
climate change
-- Adapt where change is unavoidable
Marine
Monitoring
-- Identify opportunities to succeed despite
a changing world.
Atmosphere
Monitoring
Land
Emergency
Atmosphere
Monitoring
Climate
Change
Monitoring
The European Centre for Medium-Range
Weather Forecasts is delivering two key parts ofManagement
the programme and assisting with a third, bringing a consistent standard to how we measure,
Marine
Security
forecast and predict atmospheric conditions
and climate change:
Monitoring
Monitoring changes in the chemical
Security
composition of our atmosphere as well
as
providing daily forecasts of air quality and
greenhouse gases.
Climate
Change
The Copernicus Climate Change
Service (in development) Land
Monitoring
Monitoring and analysing around 20
variables to build a global picture of
Marine
our climate, as well as developing Monitoring
customisable climate projections in
relevant economic sectors.
Atmosphere
Monitoring
Atmosphere Monitoring
Analysis
Information and analysis provided by
the programme is already being used by
the International Panel on Climate Change
to assess the risk society faces from
our changing climate.
Delivering the programme
The Copernicus Atmosphere Emergency
Management
Monitoring Service
Satellite
Monitoring
Industry
Air
Monitoring
As nations meet at COP21 in Paris,
the 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.
Use
The Copernicus Emergency Management Service - Floods
Supporting improvements to flood forecasting and understanding of
the frequency, variability and consequences of extreme weather events
including floods, storms and droughts.
Emergency
Management
Security
Along with the other Copernicus Services, these will transform the certainty with which
Climate
Change
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.
WHO 2014 - http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2014/air-pollution/en/
3
A world of information – Freely available
Certainty to invest – The energy sector
Copernicus 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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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
In time it may be commonplace to look up
atmospheric and climate data in the
same way as a weather forecast.
280 million
observations
Land
Monitoring
Marine
Monitoring
Atmosphere
Monitoring
Emergency
Management
Big data driven solutions
every 12 hours
Copernicus will not only enable better
infrastructure management, but provide
governments and industry with the data
enter
and
tools they need to kick start the climate
the Atmosphere
Monitoring
Service
data economy.
every 12 hours
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
of €206bn.4
Theincrease
two systems
cover the entire globe
and in Europe can focus
down to 10Km
Climate
Change
280 million
observations
enter
280 million
observations
the
Atmosphere
Data is the gateway to new products and
Monitoring
Service
services as well
as vital in underpinning
effective policy and ensuring accountability.
Security
The Copernicus
Climate Change
Service will compile
100 years of
observations to
support climate analysis
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”.
The Copernicus
Climate Change
Service will compile
100 years of
observations to
support climate analysis
By monitoring and forecasting
snow, ice and river runoff,
Copernicus can support the
planning of hydroelectric
dam placement.
Copernicus data enables
the development of tailored
maps to assess the potential
yield of wind and solar
generation sites.
The Copernicus
Climate Change
Service will compile
100 years of
observations to
support climate analysis
enter
the Atmosphere
Monitoring Service
every 12 hours
The two systems
cover the entire globe
and in Europe can focus
down to 10Km
10Km
10Km
The two systems
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.
Predictive models can assess
conditions in advance to enable grid
planning - for example when cables
need to be buried underground.
cover the entire globe
and in Europe can focus
down to 10Km
10Km
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.htm
4.
European Commission 2015 - https://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/en/digital-single-market
2.
4
5.
6.
International Energy Agency 2015 - http://wds.iea.org/wds/pdf/IEA_RDD_Factsheet_2015.pdf
UN 2015 - http://www.un.org/sg/statements/index.asp?nid=8539
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Knowledge to adapt – The water sector
Data to develop – A diversity of applications
Water 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.
Copernicus 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:
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.
-- 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.
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.
Copernicus monitoring
allows the identification
of risks such as icebergs
in shipping lanes,
allowing companies
to assess routes.
By assessing climate
variables Copernicus
can predict areas at
risk of future flooding
from sea level rises.
!
7.
6
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.
UC Davis 2015 - http://johnmuir.ucdavis.edu/drought-cost-2-7-billion-to-california-economy-says-uc-davis
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Find out more
Join 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.
ECMWF
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