Francesca Larosa, junior scientist at the CMCC Foundation, has been awarded the EMS Young Scientist Conference Award for her study on the interaction between providers and end-users in the climate services market. A work that connects physical and social sciences, reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of climate studies.

The Annual Conference of the European Meteorological Society – the association of Meteorological Societies in Europe – gathers some 600 scientists each year from all sectors of meteorology and climatology.

As other main scientific world conferences, it is a great occasion to create bridges amongst the international scientific community that can discuss and get updates about the most recent research progress and innovative services.

The program of the 2021 edition of the conference, which took place from 6 to 10 September, gave particular attention to the topic of climate services, with a session entirely dedicated to them.

“Climate Services are innovative tools that transform climate data into information that meet the needs of end-users, whether companies or institutions at all levels and sectors” explains Francesca Larosa, CMCC researcher and PhD candidate at Ca’Foscari University of Venice. “Climate Services transform data into information in a highly-tailored way, so that they can be used and be useful.”

At the conference, Larosa was one of the five under 35 scientists, most of them women, who received the EMS Young Scientist Conference Award, which is awarded to support participation of outstanding students and young scientists at EMS-co-sponsored conferences.

The CMCC junior scientist won the award, which was intended for young scientists “whose research can benefit society”, with her paper on “The role of knowledge networks in facilitating the creation of climate information services” co-authored with Marta Bruno-Soares from the University of Leeds.

“The aim of our work is to define, assess and derive policy-relevant implications about knowledge networks for climate services” explains Larosa. “Knowledge networks for climate services are intermediaries that facilitate the interaction between upstream (providers) and downstream (user) actors in the climate services market. We aim at exploring the contribution of different stakeholders in promoting a climate-informed decision-making process at a global level. In our analysis, we find policy-relevant implications that can transform science “from useful to usable”. I am proud to receive this award, and to contribute to the EMS conference by connecting physical sciences to social sciences methods and tools, as we aim at creating a completely interdisciplinary environment where multiple sciences can work together for a common goal.”

The expertise of the CMCC Foundation on climate services played a leading role at the EMS meeting, with Jarosav Mysiak, director of research on Risk Assessment and Adaptation Strategies at the CMCC Foundation, co-organizing the session “Economic and societal valuation of climate services” on September 9, which included contributions from other CMCC scientists.