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At national and European levels development of climate services is seen as a bridge between climate research and decision makers, meant to mitigate and create a sound basis to adapt to Climate Change. To enhance the quality and relevance of climate services, several actors, namely users, providers, purveyors, and researchers participate to identify and provide through co-design, co-development, and co-delivery the improvements and innovations in climate services that are needed to better inform decision-making processes. Strengthening the two-way interaction between climate modelers and climate service providers will enhance the scientific basis for these services and the relevance of climate research and modelling outputs.The H2020 EUCP (European Climate Prediction System) project aimed to produce climate information to deliver to intermediate users, such as climate service providers and consultants, that ultimately should enter the decision domain. For this reason, one of the main objectives of the project was to produce prototypes to showcase how project’s resulting climate information could be used in the real world and how they can make a difference. One of the main goals of the engagement approach in the EUCP project is to reduce the gap between ‘top-down’ climate information driven by science and ‘bottom-up’ end-user requirements to increase the credibility and usability of climate information. This is a major barrier to the use of climate information in decision making at present. To overcome this barrier, it is widely recognized that prototyping is a key element that allows users to understand the “science behind” as well as how it could be applied in specific case studies providing valuable comments to improve the prototypes to close the gap with end users.Similarly, to what happens in producing operational climate services, EUCP prototype production was based on a cycle of prototyping through user trials following the 5Es approach: Explore, Exploit, Expose, Examine, and Expand. It is not a series of sequential steps but an iterative process where a step forward does not imply leaving that stage and not considering it anymore. For instance, understanding the users’ needs is a step that should be considered many times during the development; at the beginning understanding users’ needs should inform the scientific community about research areas of interests, then, user needs should affect how results are shown through an effective display.This presentation reviews how the 5Es approach was developed throughout the project, who were the actors involved and what instruments for users’ engagement were applied and used in this framework. Moreover, some examples of prototypes will be discussed in detail demonstrating how the 5Es approach is flexible enough to prototype different products. Finally, some lessons learnt in the project will be summarized as guidelines for future research.

Decadal prediction represents a source of near-term climate information that has the potential to support climate-related decisions in key socio-economic sectors that are influenced by climate variability and change. While the research to illustrate the ability of decadal predictions in forecasting the varying climate conditions on a multi-annual timescale is rapidly evolving, the development of climate services based on such forecasts is still in its early stages. This study showcases the potential value of decadal predictions in the development of climate services. We summarize the lessons learnt from coproducing a forecast product that provides tailored and user-friendly information about multi-year drought conditions for the coming five years over global wheat harvesting regions. The interaction between the user and climate service provider that was established at an early stage and lasted throughout the forecast product development process proved fundamental to provide useful and ultimately actionable information to the stakeholders concerned with food production and security. This study also provides insights on the potential reasons behind the delayed entry of decadal predictions in the climate services discourse and practice, which were obtained from surveying climate scientists and discussing with decadal prediction experts.

Societies use climate services as part of their mitigation and adaptation strategies to a changing climate (e.g., Cortekar et al., 2016; Vaughan and Dessai, 2014; Scott, Lemieux and Malon, 2011), and have been defined and framed around particular single applications or sectors, either agriculture, health, energy, water management or disaster risk management (WMO, 2009, Council, 2001)- just to mention a few. Whilst this can bring potential benefits such as high specialization and adaptation (WMO, 2019; Lemos, 2015), co-benefits of articulated climate services among different sectors have not been fully assessed in the broader societal system, where these are developed and implemented. Understanding and valuing the nexus between the sectors during the design, development and implementation of climate services might help project optimization, and eventually benefit the community, country, entire region or society.Climate services ecosystems are defined -slightly modifying the business-perspective definition of Vargo and Akaka (2012)- as relatively self-contained, self-adjusting systems of resource-integrating actors connected by shared institutional goals, and mutual-value creation through exchange of climate services (Goddard, Gonzalez Romero, et al., 2020). In other words, a climate-services ecosystem involves interactions between different sectors sharing the same or similar climate services, which enhances resilience, and lends efficiency and value, by optimally orchestrating the available solutions. These ecosystems tend to be more robust to climate impacts than a collection of climate services focused on certain applications or just one sector, because shocks to one part of the ecosystem are redistributed and dampened through the entire network. Since by definition these ecosystems take advantage of existing climate services in different society-relevant sectors, the overall benefit is directly dependent on the ecosystem configuration itself. The ability to scale high-quality climate services, not just to other locations but to other sectors, and the ability for these climate-service networks to organize into ecosystems is hypothesized to be a crucial ingredient to resilience in the face of climate variability and change, given that resources are finite.The analysis of the ecosystems though Dynamical Casual Network Theory allows us to understand, characterize and forsee potential behaviour and changes in relationships between the elements of the networks, supporting the decision-making processes within. In combination with projects like Climateurope2, this concept of climate services ecosystems can help with the standardization of climate services.

Despite the growing demand for seasonal climate forecasts, there is limited understanding of the landscape of organisations providing this critically important climate information. This study attempts to fill this gap by presenting results from an in-depth dialogue with the organisations entrusted with the provision of seasonal forecasts by the World Meteorological Organisation, known as the Global Producing Centres for Long-Range Forecasts (GPCs-LRF). The results provide an overview and detailed description of the organisational setup, mandate, target audience of GPCs-LRF and their interactions with other centres. Looking beyond the GPCs-LRF to other centres providing seasonal forecasts, some of which have been rapidly taking prominent places in this landscape, revealed a heterogeneous and still maturing community of practice, with an increasing number of players and emerging efforts to produce multi-model ensemble forecasts. The dialogues pointed at the need to not only improve climate models and produce more skilful climate forecasts, but also to improve the transformation of the forecasts into useful and usable products. Finally, using the lenses of credibility, salience and legitimacy, we explore ways to bridge the fragmentation of the information offered across the organisations considered and the people involved in the delivery and use of seasonal forecasts. The paper concludes by suggesting ways to address the boundary crossing between science, policy and society in the context of seasonal climate prediction. We would like to thank all the study participants for their valuable contributions and feedback to the paper, and Diana Urquiza for designing the figure. An earlier version of this paper was presented in the workshop “Quality of Climate Information for Adaptation” in October 2020. This research has been supported by the EU H2020 project FOCUS-Africa (GA 869575).

Climateurope Workshop on the Visualization of Climate Services Barcelona Supercomputing Center’s (BSC) Earth Sciences Department organized the workshop in the framework of the Horizon 2020–funded Coordination and Support Action Climateurope. The workshop aimed to discuss different aspects of the state-of-the-art of visualizations used in climate services and produce a publication on the synthesis and recommendations. We invited participants from different projects linked to the Climateurope network, including EU Horizon 2020 (H2020) and European Research Area for Climate Services (ERA4CS) projects as well as a few national projects and private contracts. The workshop was attended by representatives of 22 projects. The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreements 689029 (Climateurope) and 776467 (MED-GOLD). The authors want to acknowledge the different climate services projects that participated in the workshop, including Climate-fit.city (73004), Digital-Water.city (20954), IMPREX (641811), PRIMAVERA (641727), RECEIPT (820712), S2S4E (776787), SECLI-FIRM (776868), VISCA (730253), CIREG, Clim2power, CoCliME, EVOKED, ISIpedia, MEDSCOPE, SENSES, WATExR, C3S_429g_BSC, and the inDust COST Action (16202). We would also like to thank the participation of the projects Seasonal Hurricane Predictions, KNMI climate scenarios, and eClimViz. We also acknowledge BSC colleagues Diana Urquiza, Andria Nicodemou, and Sara Octenjak for helping to run the workshop.

This paper introduces a new methodology for the analysis of the time of recycling to compare different life cycle assessments (LCA). We apply the three variables that define the value creation principles in the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s definition of circularity: material, energy and time. Including time in the LCA methodology improves understanding of the system under study, especially for products that have a relatively short usage time compared to their recycling time. We developed a formula that includes the time necessary for obtaining the secondary material needed for "n+1" product. The paper shows that we need to consider the production of additional packaging products, quantity of which depends on the time needed for recycling, to develop comparative LCAs between systems that serve same function. The proposed approach to packaging LCA contributes to the scientific debate over the allocation of credits and burdens between several consecutive life cycles of a material. This study is an outcome of the KAIROS-BIOCIR Project, Grant number KAIROS-BIOCIR Project PID2019-104925RB-C33 (AEO/ FEDER, UE), financed by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Competitiveness. As one of the authors of this study, Ilija Sazdovski would like to express his gratitude to the UNESCO Chair in Life Cycle and Climate Change at ESCI-UPF for funding his PhD programme in Environmental Engineering at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, of which the research presented in this paper forms a part.

The visual communication of climate information is one of the cornerstones of climate services. Characteristics that make a climate service self-explanatory rely on the type of representation used, e.g. interactive or static maps, charts or infographics, and the visual channels applied for the translation of multi-dimensional data, e.g. combination of colour, size, opacity, shapes and other characteristics.Climate scientists have traditionally used predetermined types of visualisations to represent climate data, including maps (e.g. flood maps, heat maps, choropleth maps), line graphs, and probability distribution functions (PDFs). However, such a tradition neglects a plethora of stakeholders (e.g. businesses, policy makers, citizens) that are increasingly involved in climate adaptation and that are less familiar with the traditional ways of presenting these data.Effective visualisations should achieve a balance between the amount of represented data, its robustness (i.e. the representation of scientific confidence and consensus) and saliency (i.e. the relevance of the information to user needs). Choices regarding the representation of uncertainty as well as the terminology and language used in visualisations, can significantly impact the way users interpret climate data. This calls for a standardised approach for the visualisation of climate services, which can benefit from best practices applied in other disciplines, such as user experience, visualisation design, graphic design and cognitive psychology.We describe the main challenges for the visualisation of climate services identified during a visualisation workshop with representatives from 22 climate service projects involved in the Climateurope network, an EU-funded coordination and support action. In break-out group discussions, participants shared their experiences in the development of climate services visualisations and the lessons learned. Findings show that the chosen representation of uncertainty tends to be case specific and that, in general, there is a preference for interactive visualisations where information is gradually disclosed. Inter- and transdisciplinary approaches and aspects related to terminology and language, which are part of the service co-development, require further attention. The analysis of the obtained results provides a picture of the current practice of the climate services visualisation field in Europe and allows to identify recommendations for the development of the next generation of climate services.

FOCUS-Africa is an EU Horizon 2020 project funded to co-develop tailored climate services in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region. The project, led by the WMO and started in September 2020, gathers 16 partners across Africa and Europe jointly committed to addressing the value of climate services for key economic sectors in Africa: agriculture and food security, water, energy, and infrastructure.The project is piloting eight case studies (CSs) in five different countries involving a wide range of end-users. New services derived from seasonal and decadal forecasts are applied for food security and crop production in South Africa, Malawi, Mozambique, and Tanzania. High-resolution climate projections, as well as historical climate reanalyses, are used to support planning and investment decisions for: a railway infrastructure and a mix of renewable energies in Tanzania, hydropower generation assessment under climate change scenarios in Malawi, and water resources management in Mauritius.For all the FOCUS-Africa’s case studies, socio-economic impact assessment of the delivered climate services will be carried out in collaboration with the CS leaders, service providers, and end-users, by providing ex-ante and ex-post evaluations grounded in the Global Indicator Framework for the Sustainable Development Goals. The project will align the capacity development efforts with those promoted by WMO for enhancing the capabilities of the NMHSs to deliver climate services to users and will make sure that the project's innovative processes and tools will be part of the WMO training curricula.FOCUS-Africa's expected impacts are:Build a strong link between the climate scientific community and stakeholders in the SADC region by leveraging the advanced scientific knowledge and strong networks of the implementing team, and by establishing dedicated channels of communications, so as to target the full value chain of our users, from the start of the project Advance the way in which climate information is developed by characterising end-use requirements through regular engagement Contribute to the advancement of the scientific knowledge in the region and strengthened support for international scientific assessments through publications and reports such as those relevant for the IPCC, through the innovative science developed by FOCUS-Africa Demonstrate the effectiveness of the climate information by strengthening the adaptive capacity of end-users by delivering tailored, actionable, and exploitable climate services and by estimating their socio-economic benefits across the full value chain. Enhance policy-making for climate adaptation in the project and other countries Increase women’s access to climate services

Vulnerable areas of the world, including many developing countries, are increasingly exposed to natural disasters. New technologies, such as geospatial technologies, could help them manage the risks of extreme events and cope with disaster aftershock. However, new technologies are often disseminated slowly among the relevant stakeholders. Assuming that knowledge exchange through stakeholder networks can effectively enhance the uptake of innovation, this research applied a social network approach focussing on the structural patterns of communication and collaboration networks regarding landslide-related disasters in Nepal and floods in Kenya. Using methods of formal social network analysis, we reveal centrally positioned stakeholders and discuss their actual and potential roles in outscaling innovations between the different sectors and upscaling them to different levels within the disaster management communities under study. In doing so, this case study demonstrates the potential of social network analysis for improving the dissemination of innovations for disaster risk management.

The visual communication of climate information is one of the cornerstones of climate services. Characteristics that make a climate service self-explanatory rely on the visual modes it employs, e.g. maps, graphs or infographics, and the visual channels applied for the translation of multidimensional data, e.g. combination of colours, shapes or slopes. Climate scientists have traditionally used predetermined types of visualisations to present climate data, including flood maps, heat maps or choropleth maps. However, such a tradition neglects a plethora of stakeholders (e.g. businesses, policy makers, citizens) that are increasingly involved in climate adaptation and that are less familiar with the traditional ways of presenting these data. In this sense, there is a need to advance towards climate services visualisations that can guide climate change adaptation decisions by helping users to interpret and use the information as simply and quickly as possible.Effective visualisations should achieve a balance between the amount of represented data, its robustness (i.e. the representation of scientific confidence and consensus) and saliency (i.e. the relevance of the information to user needs). Therefore, choices regarding the representation of probabilities (e.g. using terciles or information on extreme events), the representation of uncertainty (e.g. showing the ensemble range or filtering by a skill threshold), the type of visual encoding (e.g. selection of the colour palette, use of shapes and sizes) as well as the terminology and language used, are some aspects that can significantly impact the way users interpret climate data.We describe the main challenges for the visualisation of climate services identified during a visualisation workshop with representatives from 22 climate services projects involved in the Climateurope network, an EU-funded coordination and support action. In break-out group discussions, participants shared their experiences in the development of effective climate services visualisations and the lessons learned. Findings show that the chosen representation of uncertainty and probabilities tends to be case specific and that there is a preference for interactive visualisations where information is gradually disclosed. Minimising the use of technical concepts in visualisations was highlighted as an objective that requires further attention. The analysis of the obtained results provides a picture of the current status of the climate services visualisation field in Europe and gives recommendations for the development of the next generation of climate services.

Many urban areas suffer from poor air quality as a consequence of high levels of car-based traffic. Even cities with well-developed multi-modal public transport networks and favourable conditions for alternative transportation, such as Barcelona, experience problems with air pollution. The restrictions imposed on movement in response to the COVID-19 pandemic offer insights into the collective social benefits of reduced traffic. This situation also provided much-needed evidence about teleworking that will indicate whether it could become a mainstream and institutionalised practice in certain professions. In Barcelona, the experience of a less polluted, quieter and more liveable city has inspired both the municipal government and the citizens to rethink the use of public spaces and look for ways to reduce car dependency. We argue that this unprecedented crisis is an opportunity to create a more sustainable future of work and mobility in cities in the post-pandemic world.

This presentation was part of the webinar Understanding Stakeholder Information Needs for Sea-Ice Forecasting organised by the Sea Ice Prediction Network (SIPN2). This webinar included an overview of stakeholder groups and their information needs, examples of how stakeholder groups deal with sea-ice and relate to sea-ice information, and discussion of how information gathered through stakeholder engagement can be of use to the sea-ice forecasting community. In our presentation, we explained the APPLICATE approach for stakeholder engagement, with special emphasis on the User Group. More information: https://www.arcus.org/sipn/meetings/webinars.

The effects of a changing climate are manifesting rapidly, particularly in the Arctic region, and these changes are potentially influencing weather and climate in the mid-latitudes. To understand the scope of these changes and their impacts, it is fundamental to have a better understanding of these processes and work on enhancing weather and climate predictions. It is with this motivation that a European consortium of scientists set out to advance our capability to predict the weather and climate in the Arctic and beyond in the framework of the EU-funded H2020 project APPLICATE. The project started in 2016 with a budget of 8M€ with the objective of improving the representation of key processes in coupled atmosphere-sea ice-ocean models, delivering enhanced numerical weather forecasts, seasonal to interannual climate predictions and centennial climate projections. The project put particular emphasis on the linkages between the Arctic and mid-latitudes, which are explored through a coordinated multi-model approach using coupled atmosphere-ocean models. APPLICATE is contributing to the design of the future Arctic observing system to improve our capacity to reanalyse the climate system and enhance models’ predicting skills, establishing collaborations with other programmes (e.g., within the EU-Polar Cluster). The project has also strong stakeholder engagement and training components, which see the dissemination of the scientific results as a priority and aim to enhance the communication scope of the project and add to knowledge co-production. In this presentation, we will give an overview of APPLICATE activities as part of our effort to understand changes in the Arctic and their far-reaching impacts for both environment and communities. We will summarise the main achievements of the project since the start in November 2016 and outline the work of the various task teams until the end of the project. The results achieved so far demonstrate a vibrant engagement of young researchers in the field of climate science and the important role the project plays in developing these scientists.

Communication and collaboration are critical for designing and implementing responses to climate change impacts and related disasters. This acknowledgement has increased interest in understanding social and institutional networks for climate change adaptation (CCA) and disaster risk reduction (DRR). In this study, we used Social Network Analysis (SNA) to explore institutional interactions within and across the communities of the aforementioned domains in Europe. Firstly, we investigated the type and intensity of interactions. We calculated SNA metrics to assess the roles of different actors and applied cluster analysis to identify actors with similar patterns of connections. SNA showed that communication is often more intensive within the two communities, while collaboration is frequent around topics related to both CCA and DRR. Cluster analysis revealed that actors tied with DRR were more closely connected, while actors tied with CCA and those with mixed connections showed no obvious clustering affinity. The European Climate Adaptation Platform, Climate-ADAPT, had the highest value for various SNA metrics, reflecting its popularity in the network and its potential for enhancing interactions among its actors. Finally, SNA was complemented by qualitative interviews, which emphasised the importance of connecting CCA and DRR in organisational mission and vision statements. The research presented in this paper was conducted in the context of the PLACARD project (Grant agreement No. 653255), funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research & Innovation Framework programme. The project aims at sharing knowledge and enhancing collaboration between the CCA and DRR research, policy and practice communities.

Background/aims Obese and overweight women experience a lower probability for pregnancy after IVF. However, despite the increasing prevalence of obesity, the large majority of infertile women are non-obese. One of the most common indications for IVF is endometriosis. Thought-provoking inverse correlation has been established between BMI and endometriosis. Lower BMI is a risk factor for development of endometriosis and a predictive factor for severe endometriosis. Since severe endometriosis carries lower reproductive chances, even after IVF, we preliminary tested a hypothesis that higher BMI among non-obese endometriosis patients improves IVF outcomes. Methods Preliminary retrospective observational cross-sectional study was performed in women with endometriosis as a sole infertility cause who underwent IVF. During analyzed period we performed 2782 IVF procedures. In order to achieve highly homogenous study sample and to eliminate almost all confound factors that could lead to bias, we implemented strict study criteria. The number of eligible subjects was 156 and they were divided into underweight, normal weight and overweight groups. Primary outcomes were number of retrieved oocytes, good quality oocytes, embryos, and the rates of biochemical, clinical and ongoing pregnancies. For group comparisons, we used parametric test, analysis of variance, and non-parametric tests (Kruskal-Wallis test, Chi-square test). Logistic regression and General linear model was used to assess correlation between BMI and dependent variables (outcome and stimulation duration) when adjusted for age. Results Endometriosis as a single infertility factor among IVF couples had prevalence of 5.61%. Underweight women accounted for 10.26%, normal weight 71.15% and overweight 18.59% of study population. Significant differences were not found in number of retrieved oocytes (p = 0.880), good quality oocytes (p = 0.476), obtained embryos (p = 0.706), and biochemical (p = 0.298), clinical (p = 0.770) and ongoing (p = 0.822) pregnancy rates between study groups. Conclusion Although preliminary results do not support our hypothesis, increase in BMI did not adversely affect the outcome of IVF in non-obese endometriosis patients, which is in contrast to literature data as regards general population of infertile women undergoing IVF. Prospective studies with large number of patients with endometriosis or prospective case-control studies should address these issues and provide more comprehensive counseling of infertile endometriosis patients regarding achievement of optimal BMI prior to IVF with the intention of achievement higher pregnancy rates.

Climate change may result in reduced water supply from the Alps – an important water resource for Europe. This paper presents a multilingual platform that combines spatial and multi-criteria decision-support tools to facilitate stakeholder collaboration in the analysis of water management adaptation options. The platform has an interactive map interface that allows participants to select a location of their interest within the Alpine Arc. By utilising the decision-support tool, stakeholders can identify suitable adaptation solutions for different geographical units, according to their experience and preference. The platform was used to involve experts across Alpine borders, domains and decision-making levels, as well as a group of university students. The experts favoured the planning instruments for saving water, while the students inclined towards the measures that would improve water conservation. The initial results confirmed the suitability of the platform for future involvement of decision-makers in...

Climate predictions, from three weeks to a decade into the future, can provide invaluable information for climate-sensitive socioeconomic sectors, such as renewable energy, agriculture, or insurance. However, communicating and interpreting these predictions is not straightforward. Barriers hindering user uptake include a terminology gap between climate scientists and users, the difficulties of dealing with probabilistic outcomes for decision-making, and the lower skill of climate predictions compared to the skill of weather forecasts. This paper presents a gaming approach to break communication and understanding barriers through the application of the Weather Roulette conceptual framework. In the game, the player can choose between two forecast options, one that uses ECMWF seasonal predictions against one using climatology-derived probabilities. For each forecast option, the bet is spread proportionally to the predicted probabilities, either in a single year game or a game for the whole period of 33 past years. This paper provides skill maps of forecast quality metrics commonly used by the climate prediction community (e.g., ignorance skill score and ranked probability skill score), which in the game are linked to metrics easily understood by the business sector (e.g., interest rate and return on investment). In a simplified context, we illustrate how in skillful regions the economic benefits of using ECMWF predictions arise in the long term and are higher than using climatology. This paper provides an example of how to convey the usefulness of climate predictions and transfer the knowledge from climate science to potential users. If applied, this approach could provide the basis for a better integration of knowledge about climate anomalies into operational and managerial processes. The research leading to these results has received funding from the EU FP7 Programme under Grant Agreement 308291 (EUPORIAS), the EU H2020 Programme under Grant Agreements 776787 (S2S4E) and 776613 (EUCP), and the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (MINECO) as part of the CLINSA Project CGL2017-85791-R. It is also part of the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) (Framework Agreement C3S_441_Lot2_CEA), a program being implemented by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) on behalf of the European Commission.

he Conference Proceedings are the product of the 2018 Adaptation Futures conference that was held in Cape Town from 18 – 21 June, co-hosted by UCT’s African Climate and Development Initiative (ACDI), the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) and UN Environment’s World Adaptation Science Programme (PROVIA). Adaptation Futures is the world’s premier international adaptation conference series and is held every two years. 2018 was the first time that this conference was held in Africa, and consequently, it aimed to focus on African and developing world linkages with adaptation. The extended abstracts were submitted after the conference to allow the authors to absorb the conference insights into their work.

While knowledge coproduction between climate scientists and climate information users has become a common theme in the climate services discourse, the interface between climate service providers and users is an aspect of climate services projects that still calls for more attention. This is due in part to the dominance of the physical sciences in these projects, as well as the prevalence of an instrumental and narrow interpretation of coproduction. Following up on the World Meteorological Organisation’s Guidance on Good Practices for Climate Services User Engagement, and incorporating insights from the social and human sciences, we develop a coproduction framework for climate services to help establish a smooth and effective interface between scientists and stakeholders. This framework is intended for research and innovation projects developing climate knowledge and services. The coproduction framework comprises three realms: (i) engagement using various communication channels; (ii) involvement through interviews, workshops and webinars; and (iii) empowerment of stakeholders and scientists through focused relationships. This incremental participatory process involves stakeholders in increasingly profound ways: from a broad stakeholder group identified through awareness-raising campaigns, on to potential users with whom we exchange knowledge, and then to a set of “champion users” who co-develop the service and pioneer its use in decision-making processes. This paper illustrates the application of the coproduction framework in PRIMAVERA, an EU H2020-funded project for designing, running and testing new high-resolution global climate models and evaluating their outputs. While PRIMAVERA provided ground breaking scientific findings that could potentially benefit various stakeholders and support climate risk assessment activities, these results are highly specialised and their added value has yet to be assessed. Accordingly, the user engagement component of the project faced the challenging task of both motivating stakeholders’ participation in the project and motivating future users of potential services based on PRIMAVERA data. The trial of the framework in PRIMAVERA provided key lessons for enhancing coproduction in research and innovation projects. We demonstrate how the role of scientists gradually shifted in this coproduction cycle from masters of knowledge(Roux et al., 2017) to co-learners, and how the involvement of the project’s interdisciplinary team and their interaction with stakeholders served to move the project towards transdisciplinary knowledge production. The authors are thankful to all the study participants and PRIMAVERA users for their valuable contributions. Their involvement helped us understand how the knowledge exchange and coproduction work. We would also like to acknowledge that the work presented in this paper is based on knowledge and experience that the authors gained from working on various projects, including the EU funded projects PRIMAVERA (641727), APPLICATE (727862), S2S4E (776787), MED-GOLD (776467), Climateurope (689029), EUCP (776613) and EUPORIAS (308291). The opinions expressed in this manuscript are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Commission.

It is well known that climate change will have effects on society at the end of the century. However, effects are also being perceived in the near future, since climate is already changing and businesses are vulnerable to these medium-range changes. Climate predictions at these medium-range time horizons can help different application areas to anticipate the effects and adapt to climate change. In this context, the concept of climate services arises with the aim to make climate information user-oriented. Despite the recent effort to develop underpinning science for climate services, their usefulness is still not well-known and they have been barely applied in decision-making. Communication and user engagement are fundamental to stimulate the use of climate information by users. This paper presents examples of products tailored to the needs of users in different sectors, providing effective solutions to visualize probabilistic information. Described examples include the visualization tool Project Ukko (http://project-ukko.net/) that provides robust information of the future variability in wind power resources for the renewable energy sector; and an online platform offering the most comprehensive view of the upcoming hurricane activity (www.seasonalhurricanepredictions.org). The latter was designed in close collaboration between climate scientists on one side and representatives of the re/insurance sector and web designers on the other side. Climate services for agriculture through systematic involvement of users in the climate service co-production are illustrated with the experience of the SECTEUR project (https://climate.copernicus.eu/secteur).

Objective Although there are substantial data linking thyroid autoimmunity (TAI) and infertility, data regarding assisted reproductive technology (ART) outcomes and TAI markers in follicular fluid (FF) of women undergoing ART are scarce. Objective of the study was to assess the association of the levels of thyroid autoantibodies in FF and ART outcome expressed as the achieved pregnancies. Methods This study enrolled 52 women undergoing ART (26 TAI positive subjects and 26 age and body mass index matched TAI negative controls). Blood samples were drawn before the initiation of protocol for controlled ovarian stimulation, and thyrotropin (TSH), free triiodothyronine (fT3), free thyroxine (fT4), thyroid peroxidase antibodies (TPOAbs) and thyroglobulin antibodies (TgAbs) levels were measured. TSH, fT4, TPOAbs, TgAbs and progesterone levels were also measured in FF. Results There were no significant differences between the groups regarding mean levels of FF TSH and FF fT4. Statistically significant correlation was discovered regarding the levels of serum and FF TPOAbs (0,961, p

Seasonal to decadal climate predictions have the potential to inform different sectors in adapting their short to medium term practices and plans to climate variability and change. The data these predictions generate, however, is still not readily usable, nor widely used in decision-making. This paper addresses two key challenges: a domain challenge pertaining to an emerging climate services market, where users, tasks and data may be unknown; and an informational challenge pertaining to the interpretation, use and adoption of novel and complex scientific data. The paper provides insights into the contributions design can offer to the development of climate services. We illustrate the key steps and share the main lessons learnt from our experience in the creation of Project Ukko (http://project-ukko.net), a fully working climate services prototype developed within the European project EUPORIAS. To address the domain challenge in climate services, extensive engagement with science and industry stakeholders was required. To address the informational challenge, we applied visualisation techniques that can help users to interpret and utilise the information as simply and quickly as possible. Fostering interdisciplinary teams of design researchers, climate scientists and communication specialists brought a wide range of expertise and competences in all stages of climate services development. Specifically, the project recognised the role of users in co-designing the product. This helped to improve the usability of climate predictions, tailor climate information to answer actual needs of users, better communicate uncertainty, and bridge the gap between state-of-the-art climate predictions and users’ readiness to apply this novel information. EUPORIAS is a project funded by the EU 7th Framework Programme and led by the UK Met Office. The research leading to these results has received funding from the EU Seventh Framework Programme FP7(2007-2013) under grant agreement n. GA 308291 (EUPORIAS), n. GA 308378 (SPECS) and the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (MINECO) under the project CGL2013-41055-R (RESILIENCE). Project Ukko is a FutureEverything and BSC project for EUPORIAS; Data visualisation by Moritz Stefaner. The Project Ukko project director and design research lead is Drew Hemment. Special thanks to the scientific team (Verónica Torralba, Francisco Doblas-Reyes, Nube Gonzalez-Reviriego, Albert Soret and Melanie Davis) and the design team (Stefanie Posavec, Dominikus Baur and Tom Rowlands). Project Ukko user evaluation by Stephann Makri. Wind power capacity data was generously provided by thewindpower.net. We thank Jason Dykes for comments that improved the paper.

There is an increasing call for agricultural water management to adapt to climate change, yet efforts in this direction often consider only the policy dimension, or planned adaptation perspective. However, it is crucial to include an assessment of farmers’ autonomous adaptation into the design and evaluation of rural policy measures. Amongst others, this helps avoid doubling efforts and ensure the effectiveness of the policies proposed. Moreover, farmers are the primary receivers of climate-proofing agricultural policies. Hence, to maximise a policy’s success, it is fundamental to include farmers in its design phases. Farmers autonomously react to changes and policies should build on ongoing efforts. This work, carried out in the Veneto Region of Italy, proved the advantages of approaching adaptation as a continuum between autonomous and planned, rather than addressing the two separately. We first collected farmers’ perceptions of and adaptations to change through an online questionnaire. We then identified the major determinants of their choice to adapt through a multinomial probit model. We analysed farmers’ expectations of effectiveness of five different adaptation options for water conservation, via an ad-hoc online decision support system tool, mDSSweb. Our work provided policy makers with information on how different typologies of farmers are (not) adapting their practices to climate change. We clearly identified which groups of farmers the policies should target first and with what type of support. Both policy makers and farmers reacted positively to our approach and expressed interest in up-scaling it to become more inclusive.

Effects of lysine-acetylsalicylate, a soluble form of aspirin, on the number of peripheral white blood cells (PWBC) and on the number of eosinophil granulocytes in spleen imprints were investigated in outbred male guinea-pigs. The absolute number of PWBC and different leukocyte types were determined by standard technique in a haemocytometer. The number of eosinophils in spleen imprints was determined on 2000 nucleated cells. In a dose of 50 mg/kg or 100 mg/kg b.m., i.p., daily for five days lysine-acetylsalicylate did not change the number of PWBC, lymphocytes, neutrophils and monocytes, in comparison with the controls (p>0.05). However, in a dose of 50 mg/kg, b.m., i.p. daily for 5 days, lysine-acetylsalicylate produced a statistically significant increase in the number of blood eosinophils (p

Background/Aim. A modern approach to surgical treatment of tuboperitoneal infertility is based on laporascopic techniques. The aim of this study was to compare results of tuboperitoneal infertility treatment by the use of laparoscopy and classical laparotomy. Methods. A retrospectiveprospective study on 66 women treated operatively form tuboperitoneal infertility was performed. Data from patient's anamnesis and those related to the surgical treatment results, obtained by the use of an inquiry, were used in retrospective and prospective analysis, respectively. Chi-square test was used in statistical analysis. P value < 0.05 was considered significant. Results. Classical laparotomy was used on 34 women in a period from 1996 to 1997, while 32 women were operated laparoscopically in a period from 1999 to 2000. The results were as follows: a total number of conceived women was 16 (24%), seven in the group I (20.6%) and nine in the group II (28.1%); 13 women were with one pregnancy, six in the group I (17.6%) and seven in the group II (22%). Twice pregnant were three women, one in the group I (2.9%) and two in the group II (6.2%). The resulting pregnancies were: five women with abortion spontaneous, two in the group I (5.9%) and three in the group II (9.4%); two women with extrauterine pregnancy in the group I (5.9%); three with pretemporal birth, one in the group I (2.9%) and two in the group II (6.2%), while six women were with the temporal birth, two in the group I (5.9%) and four in the group II (12.5%). Statistical analysis showed that there was no significant difference in the results between these two groups. Conclusion. Surgical treatment of tubeperitoneal infertility, regardless of the used methods (classical laparotomy or laparoscopy) was successful in a great number of women. These methods have a great advantage over in vitro fertilization, and they should not be ignored.

The psychological impact of developing gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) has been investigated widely in both children and adults. Although these studies suggest that person who develop GDM is at risk for emotional/ psychological distress, this finding is not universal. The aim of our study was to look at the state of anxiety in the group of pregnant women with well controlled GDM class A1 patients at 36 weeks of gestation and to compare it with the healthy controls at the same gestational age in population of pregnant women in Belgrade, Serbia. The study was carried on in 48 pregnant women with GDM and 80 healthy controls. The anxiety state of the two groups was evaluated with Hamilton Anxiety Scale (HAMA). The incidence rate of anxiety in the pregnant women with GDM were 27.03% (13/48), and in the healthy pregnant women 13.75% (11/80). The incidence rate of anxiety in pregnant women with GDM was higher significantly than control group, and there were significant difference in total score and its factorial score of HAMA in the two groups. The incidence rate of anxiety in the pregnant women with GDM is higher, and anxiety is the dangerous factor of GDM. Psychological state in pregnant woman, especially in pregnant women with GDM must be noticed, and psychological counseling and psychological therapy may be carried on as early as possible.

The new EU strategy on adaptation to climate change suggests flexible and participatory approaches. Face-to-face contact, although it involves time-consuming procedures with a limited audience, has often been considered the most effective participatory approach. In recent years, however, there has been an increase in the visibility of different citizens' initiatives in the online world, which strengthens the possibility of greater citizen agency. This paper investigates whether the Internet can ensure efficient public participation with meaningful engagement in climate change adaptation. In elucidating issues regarding climate change adaptation, we developed an eParticipation framework to explore adaptation capacity of agriculture to climate change in Northern Italy. Farmers were mobilised using a pre-existing online network. First they took part in an online questionnaire for revealing their perceptions of and reactions to the impacts of ongoing changes in agriculture. We used these results to suggest a portfolio of policy measures and to set evaluation criteria. Farmers then evaluated these policy options, using a multi criteria analysis tool with a simple user-friendly interface. Our results showed that eParticipation is efficient: it supports a rapid data collection, while involving high number of participants. Moreover, we demonstrated that the digital divide is decreasingly an obstacle for using online spaces for public engagement. This research does not present eParticipation as a panacea. Rather, eParticipation was implemented with well-established participatory approaches to both validate the results and, consequently, communicate meaningful messages on local agricultural adaptation practices to regional decision-makers. Feedbacks from the regional decision-makers showed their interest in using eParticipation to improve communication with farmers in the future. We expect that, with further Internet proliferation, eParticipation may allow the inclusion of more representative samples, which would contribute to an informed and legitimate decision-making process.

Introduction. Anal atresia is a congenital anomaly, very life threatening and urgent. Surgical treatment of this anomaly consists of colostomy first, and then of anal reconstruction. Case report. We presented a 31-year old female with the surgery treatment of anal atresia in the early childhood. In the reproductive period, due to tubal infertily, the patient was included in the program of in vitro fertilization (IVF), in the Clinic for Gynecology and Obstetrics 'Narodni front', Belgrade. Within this program a long protocol of ovarian stimulation was performed. Ultrasonographic and color Doppler monitoring of the patient was applied by the use of an ultrasonographic apparatus type Siemens Acuson X 150, while any hormonal examinations were performed by an Architect Abbott unit. During the IVF program, the growth of follicules was controlled by the use of ultrasonography, microcirculation of the ovaries and the uterus was marked by a power-pulsating color Doppler, and hormonal examination was performed starting from the day of stimulation up to the day of injecting Pregnyl?. The patient was administered Suprefact? (buserelin) sc from the 21st day of the menstrual cycle, as well as from the 3rd day of the cycle, for totally 11 days. The patient was given 29 ampoules of Gonal F? (recombinant human FSH) 75 IJ im and 15 ampoules of Menopur? (menotrophin) im. Due to a modified pelvic anatomy, the left ovary aspiration was disabled, while the right ovary aspired seven oocytes successfully. Three embryos were inserted in the uterus. The delivery was performed by cesarean section. Conclusion. In the reported patient with a modified pelvic anatomy due to four corrective surgeries of anal atresia, and tubal infertility in the reproductive period, the method of choice for the realization of pregnancy was the IVF procedure. The realized pregnancy and the delivery could be considered highly successful in regard to possible risks.

Energy case study: Effects of Arctic sea ice on energy production in mid-latitudes. Winter 2016-17 event identified as relevant by stakeholders in the energy sector The APPLICATE project releases its first case study that contributes to understanding the linkages between the Arctic and mid-latitudes. The document is mainly addressed to policy makers, although it can also be of interest for big energy associations (e.g., EWEA, IRENA, AREA) and global networks of Transmission System Operators (e.g., ENTSO-E), among others. This work has been the result of a joint effort between climate scientists, social scientists and science communication specialists taking part in the consortium and has counted with the collaboration of partners from the European H2020 project Sub-seasonal to seasonal predictions for energy (S2S4E). The case study describes a cold spell in winter 2016-17 that some energy producers, interviewed in S2S4E, identified as a relevant event affecting their businesses. The cold spell was accompanied by record-breaking low precipitation and wind speed over parts of western Europe, increasing energy demand and reducing renewable power generation, which contributed to an energy-security risk situation in France. In this first case study, the APPLICATE project explores potential linkages of the event highlighted by energy producers with Arctic changes in sea ice. Once these linkages are well-established and understood, future forecasts of extremely low sea ice extent (that also relate with forecasts of electricity demand and power generation) could be potentially valuable for assessing the risk for European energy systems.

Energy case study: Effects of Arctic sea ice on energy production in mid-latitudes. Winter 2016-17 event identified as relevant by stakeholders in the energy sector

Oral presentation at the PPP Social and Economic Research and Applications (PPP-SERA) task team co-production workshop on 25 January 2021. The workshop brought together an interdisciplinary group of researchers involved in the co-production of weather, water, ice and climate information services to capture the state of the art of co-production approaches in the European Arctic research. &nbsp

Presentation on the APPLICATE energy case study in the webinar 'Climate services for energy: sharing knowledge through case studies' organised by the European H2020 project Climateurope

Oral presentation given online at the Arctic Change Conference 2020 about the co-production of case studies in the APPLICATE project