World Bank: As climate change makes weather more unpredictable, improving forecasting is vital to crops, disaster mitigation

ISRIA: … As climate variability increases in the coming decades, better weather forecasting will become even more critical to aid farmers seeking to plant crops at the right time, better protect people from losses due to natural disasters, and help pilots who need predictable weather patterns for safe flying, a new World Bank study finds.

Released today, Weather and Climate Services in Europe and Central Asia: A Regional Review, suggests that forecasting improvements in Europe and Central Asia can play a critical role in improving the economy and mitigating disasters in the region. According to the report, weather services in many countries in Europe and Central Asia have been chronically underfunded and in a state of decay since the early 1990s, so potential gains from forecasting are missed. Improving weather monitoring systems can help mitigate damaging economic impacts of weather disasters, support increased productivity of agriculture, conserve energy, and promote safe aviation and transport by road and rail.

…Farmers are among those hardest hit by shortcomings in forecasting services, according to the report. Agriculture is particularly important in Central Asian and Caucasus economies, and as a result, farmers in those countries have likely been disproportionately affected by deteriorating capacity.

"Weather systems are taken for granted in OECD countries," said Lucy Hancock, the lead author of the report. "But the bottom line is that a country like Tajikistan, for example, has to re-sow an average of 70,000 hectares each year because initial sowings are washed or blown away. Better forecasts could reduce those losses. Helping farmers to anticipate the kind of weather they will have will help increase yields while decreasing wasted resources. It will also help with other aspects of farming like fertilizing and pest and disease control."

"Very slippy-weather," etch'd by James Gillray (1756-1815)