Navigating Weather, Water, Ice and Climate Information for Safe Polar Mobilities

• Main Authors: Dawson, Jackie, Hoke, Winfried, Lamers, Machiel, Liggett, Daniela, Ljubicic, Gita, Mills, Brian, Stewart, Emma, Thoman, Richard
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: unknown
• Published: World Meteorological Organization 2017
• Subjects: Antarc*; Antarctic
• Online Access: https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/46211/; https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/46211/1/012_WWRP_PPP_No_5_2017_11_OCT.pdf; https://hdl.handle.net/10013/epic.cc4fb251-8b27-4e36-9d9c-6aa9407e310c

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The Polar Prediction Project (PPP) was conceived and initiated in 2012 by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), through its World Weather Research Programme (WWRP), in response to rapid environmental change in the Polar Regions. The primary goal of the PPP is to advance scientific knowledge such that society, both within and outside of the Arctic and Antarctic, may benefit through applications of improved weather and climate services. This includes improved understanding and prediction of physical parameters and the ways people use the available information. To this end, the Polar Prediction Project Societal and Economic Research and Applications (PPP-SERA) working group was established in 2015. This report represents the foundational work of PPP-SERA and aims to explore how weather, water, ice and climate (WWIC) information is currently being used and produced in the Polar Regions, by whom, and for what reasons. The report also identifies, frames and articulates important areas of research related to the use and provision of environmental prediction services that should be prioritized and further developed during, and beyond, the Year of Polar Prediction (YOPP, 2017-19). The concepts of information value chains and human mobilities are used in this document to conceptualize the complex interaction between the production and use of environmental prediction information. This approach facilitates: (a) the exploration of WWIC-related risks that affect physical movement of people, goods and services between places (i.e. mobilities); (b) an examination of the demand for, and production and mobilization of, WWIC knowledge and information that can inform user decisions (i.e. value chain). We identify that WWIC information provision occurs through a variety of actors, from formal state institutions, to private and community-based organizations, to Indigenous and local knowledge obtained by a range of individual actors or groups, positioned in an increasingly complex value chain of information ...