Central American meteorology experts visit Spanish institutions to share knowledge

For some years now, the meteorological services of Central American countries have been strengthening their capacities to develop their own high-resolution climate scenarios adapted to local, national and regional scales, in order to improve their adaptation to climate change in all affected sectors. The European programme EUROCLIMA+, co-led by FIIAPP, has been supporting this initiative through the action Generation of Regionalised Climate Change Scenarios in Central America, which is being promoted by six countries in the region: Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Panama.  

For this reason, representatives from these six countries have met in Madrid to visit Spanish institutions and hold several training workshops with technical staff from the State Meteorological Agency (AEMET), the Spanish Climate Change Office (OECC – MITECO), the Centre for Public Works Studies and Experimentation (CEDEX), the Tajo Hydrographic Confederation (CHTJ – MITECO) and the FIIAPP.

Among the activities programmed, an on-site training course on regionalised climate change scenarios was held to analyse the work of the main lines of research of the Climate Modelling and Assessment Area of the AEMET. The participants also attended a workshop with the heads of the Scenarios Group of the National Plan for Adaptation to Climate Change (PNACC), who maintain the scenario viewer of the Spanish platform AdapteCCa. This platform is serving as the basis for its Central American counterpart, which was developed in a previous phase of the action. Visits to CEDEX and the Tajo Hydrographic Confederation have facilitated the understanding of the needs of the water sector as key users of the scenarios generated by the meteorological services. Finally, the group has also been able to make progress in the planning of activities for the year 2023.

Members of the working group agreed on the importance for their respective countries of having the capacity to develop their own scenarios, something that will contribute to strengthening their institutions by allowing for a certain degree of technical autonomy. Likewise, during the workshop, the importance of working on a regional scale was also highlighted, in order to face common challenges by sharing standardised climate information for the 6 countries.

This visit has allowed the group to advance in its work plan to update the viewer scenarios based on the latest recommendations of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, as well as to learn about various experiences and the work carried out by Spanish institutions in the field of meteorology, climate and water in Spain and within the framework of the Ibero-American cooperation networks CIMHET, CODIA and RIOCC.