Climate Services for Africa

In recent years, there has been a cluster of intersecting research initiatives in climate services for African countries. The three sister projects FOCUS-Africa, DOWN2EARTH, and CONFER - funded by the EU’s Horizon 2020 programme - have been collaborating closely among themselves and with preceding and ongoing initiatives like WISER, SWIFT, and ClimSA. Now that these projects are well in their mid-term implementation there is scope to collect their results in a special issue of peer-reviewed papers. Further, following COP26 and COP27, developed nations are committing large sums for climate adaptation in Africa, and it is vital that the deployment of these global resources learns from the lessons of these major projects.

Our main goal is to take stock of the state-of-the-art and new climate services initiatives in Africa. Another goal is to collect the emerging scientific outputs of these initiatives together in one joint special issue, which has the potential for becoming a reference issue for following and existing initiatives in the region. Further, we aim to collect papers from multiple disciplines, making the research available to a wider audience.

● Skill and reliability of dynamical and statistical weather and climate forecasts on time scales from days to years and decades
● Development of services and products that can be helpful in adapting to weather and climate changes
● Climate adaptation research
● Co-production of climate services engaging the whole range of actors, from model developers to communities
● Climate risk management, including insurance, and forecast-based financing
● Disaster risk reduction and early warning systems
● Teleconnections and large-scale climate dynamics relevant for Africa
● Capacity building and training pertinent to climate services and adaptation
● Assessments of the financial and societal value of climate services

Keywords: Climate Services, Africa, FOCUS-Africa, Down2Earth, CONFER, EU’s Horizon 2020 Programme, WISER, SWIFT, ClimSA, COP26, COP27, Climate Adaptation, Climate Forecasts, Climate Risk Management, Disaster Risk Reduction, Early Warning Systems

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.