Robust Information Working Group

Background

The aim of the Robust Information Working Group (RIWG) and its associated task teams is to establish what it means for a scientific product to be “robust”, i.e., context specific regional climate information that is fit for informing decision-making; and what processes could look like to generate and apply robust information to produce “robust” decisions. The Working Group is tasked to:

Identify attributes of robustness of information
Identify processes to generate and apply robust information
Produce recommendations in the form of publications, community resources and presentations about what we need to change in our communities of practice, institutions and structures to allow for the achievement of robust climate change information geared towards context-specific decisions.
Organize stakeholder and community engagement workshops, webinar series and trainings to advocate for robust information.

Working Group Participants

Douglas Maraun	Co-chair	University of Graz, Wegener Center for Climate and Global Change
Genito Maure	Co-chair	Eduardo Mondlane University
Monica Morrison	Co-chair	NCAR
Ana Maria Durán Quesada	Member	University of Costa Rica
Elma Montaña	Member	Scientific & Technological National Research Council (CONICET)
Hideki Kanamaru	Member	Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)
Lucy Mtilatila	Member	Malawi Department of Climate Change and Meteorological Services
Pratik Kad	Member	Norwegian Research Center (NORCE)
Rachel James	Member	University of Bristol
Richard Jones	Member	UK Met Office Hadley Centre
Tiffany Shaw	Member	University of Chicago
Vaileth Masaba	Member	Tanzania Meteorological Authority
Alessandro Dosio	Liaison to RIfS SSG	European Commission Joint Research Centre
Dragana Bojovic	Liaison to RIfS SSG	Barcelona Supercomputing Centre
Wendy Sharples	Liaison to RIfS SSG	Australian Bureau of Meteorology
Bruce Hewitson	Ex-officio Member (and RIfS SSG co-chair)	University of Cape Town

Please direct your questions to any Working Group member, or the RIfS IPO: admin@wcrp-rifs.org

The work of the Working Group is underpinned by task teams to address a range of topics identified as in urgent need of deeper attention. The Working Group coordinates work across the task teams to synthesize the task team results and to liaise with the RIfS SSG as well as other relevant activities.

Task Team 1: Robust Information in Context

Robust regional climate information, that is fit-for-purpose for decision makers, needs to come from a mutual understanding of both the decision context, as well as the scientific context, and thus close collaboration between stakeholders and scientists is crucial. This task team focuses on improving the interaction between scientists and stakeholders in the context of providing climate information, and exploring methods for generating climate information in context. The aim is to improve our understanding of the collaboration process, develop new means of co-creation and build a community of practice to develop guidelines and standards towards integrity and utility of climate information, bridging the gap between for decision makers and climate scientists. The expected outcomes of this task team are as follows:

Identify potential case studies of decision contexts where climate information is valuable, which can be used to explore the process of co-creation and generating robust information in context
Identify stakeholders who would be interested to contribute to exploring these themes, including climate service providers
Organise and facilitate a stakeholder forum to explore methods for co-creating robust information for case studies
Develop research methods (for example surveys) to capture data from this workshop
Document insights for co-creating robust information in context
Consider products that could support co-creation of information in context, for example a protocol for (informal or formal) conversations/engagements

Members

Rachel James	Co-chair	University of Bristol
Wendy Sharples	Co-chair	Bureau of Meteorology, Australia
Doerte Jakob	Member	Bureau of Meteorology, Australia
Gopika Soresh	Member	National Institute of Oceanography, India
Julie Vano	Member	Aspen Global Change Institute
Laura Burgin	Member	UK Met Office
Louise Wilson	Member	UK Met Office; UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO)
Marina Friedel	Member	Leipzig University
Mark Tadross	Member	United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
Michaele Leone	Member	International Development Research Centre (IDRC)
Pablo Borges de Amorim	Member	GIZ; Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN)
Pawan Chaubey	Member	Nanyang Technological University
Pratik Kad	Member	Norwegian Research Center (NORCE)
Raphaela Maier	Member	University of Graz
Richard Jones	Member	UK Met Office Hadley Centre
Dragana Bojovic	Working Group liaison to RIfS SSG	Barcelona Supercomputing Centre

Task Team 2: Attributes of Robust Information

The aim of this task team is to identify attributes for characterizing the robustness and fitness of climate information in various decision contexts, and to develop guidelines and recommendations for both the construction of such information as well as the assessment of the robustness of information by potential users. The attributes will consider not only epistemic attributes such as the reproduction of observed climatologies and trends or the representation of key processes, but also aspects related to stakeholder involvement, consideration of the decision context, ethics and transparency. The task team will therefore closely collaborate with the other task teams of the working group. The results of the task team are intended to be mainstreamed into the generation of climate information and climate services. To this end, the task team will, via the working group, liaise with relevant international and national activities. The expected outcomes of this task team are as follows:

A glossary of terminology around the terms robustness and fitness for purpose
A set of attributes to characterize the robustness and fitness of an information product in a certain context
A definition of a minimum set of criteria of robustness, linked in particular to steps and decisions in the production process
Guidelines for users to assess the robustness and fitness of an information product in a certain context
Scientific publications related to the rationale and outcomes of the task team

Members

Douglas Maraun	Co-chair	University of Graz, Wegener Center for Climate and Global Change
Amy Waterson	Member	UK Met Office
Andrea Boehnisch	Member	Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU)
Bibian Ekot	Member	Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NIMET)
Guillaume Evin	Member	Institute of Environmental Geosciences (IGE), Grenoble
Jesse Schrage	Member	Norwegian Research Center (NORCE)
Natalia Pessacg	Member	Scientific & Technological National Research Council (CONICET)
Rachael Isphording	Member	Monash University
Saran Aadhar	Member	Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Jodhpur
Shingirai Shepard Nangombe	Member	Danish Meteorological Institute
Soundharajan Bankaru Swamy	Member	Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham
Tiffany Shaw	Member	University of Chicago
Wendy Parker	Member	Virginia Tech
Luke Harrington	Member, RIfS SSG member	University of Waikato
Xuebin Zhang	Liaison to GEP	University of Victoria

Task Team 3: Ethics, Values, and Transparency

This task team addresses questions of procedural ethics in this domain, the meaning of “transparency” and working with the Attributes Task Team to include markers of transparency among others, the incorporation of user-values into scientific methods, and to identify potential case studies on ethical oversight around adaptation actions. The expected outcomes of this task team are as follows:

A set of data protection and ethics review policies and procedures
A set of attributes of transparency and user values
Survey social science approaches on information construction, working with marginalized communities, FAIR data practices and other sets of standards (e.g. for indigenous community collaborations)
Interrogate what “transparency” means (info construction, values) and develop ideas for how to ask communities how they want their values incorporated
Explore the ideas of intergenerational and ecological justice
Research on how to incorporate user-values into how we do our science supporting adaptation and hazard-response
Identify potential case studies on ethical oversight to develop around adaptation (and consider transferability to other contexts)

Members

Monica Morrison	Co-chair	NCAR
Ayansina Ayanlade	Co-chair	Obafemi Awolowo University
Alex Wen Jie Lew	Member	Environman
Ana Maria Durán Quesada	Member	University of Costa Rica
Ariane Manlangit	Member	Development Academy of the Philippines
Arona Diedhiou	Member	IRD-University Félix Houphouët Boigny
Carrington Pomeroy	Member	Environment and Climate Change Canada
Elma Montaña	Member	Scientific & Technological National Research Council (CONICET)
Iris de Vries	Member	University of Graz
Jalloh Mohamed Sanusi	Member	African Indigenous Caucus Networking Group

The RIWG is preceded by an Interim Working Group that was established following an expert meeting on Robustness of Climate Change Information for Decisions in April 2024 [read more here].