Brussels, Belgium, 30 May 2018. From 14 to 25 May, within the framework of the Climate Governance component of EUROCLIMA+, FIIAPP has sent two experts from the Spanish Meteorological Agency (Spanish acronym AEMET) to five Central American countries to generate regionalised climate change scenarios.

AEMET is a State Agency whose objective is the development, implementation and provision of meteorological services. It represents Spain before international meteorological agencies.

The main objectives of the mission consist of an analysis of the data recovery needs of the meteorological services of Guatemala, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Honduras and Panama, the identification of needs and users for the generation of climate scenarios, and the presentation of the partnering and strengthening that EUROCLIMA+ will offer in the framework that the FIIAPP Foundation is developing in the programme.

Knowledge of future climate conditions is fundamental for different socioeconomic sectors (civil protection, hydrological management, food security, energy, transport, tourism...) when they are able to develop a strategy for mitigating the effects of climate change and implement the necessary adaptation measures.

Climate change scenarios are simplified representations of the future climate, based on a set of climatological variables that are constructed for use in the investigation of the potential consequences of climate change, and which serve as an input for public policy decisions as well as in the evaluation of impacts and vulnerability.

Given that the Central American region is an area especially vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change, it is essential to have the best future climate scenarios with the appropriate resolution and reliability.

The most suitable entities for this task are the Meteorological Services, so the experts have already visited Guatemala, El Salvador and Costa Rica. They are currently in Honduras. From there, they tell us that the meteorological services are strongly engaged in the project, helping to create a fairly clear picture of the situation. Their next stop will be Panama.

The images show (from left to right) the meeting in Honduras with the staff of COPECO (Permanent Contingency Commission), the warehouse with all the paper climate records for El Salvador, and the INSIVUMEH building (National Institute of Seismology, Volcanology, Meteorology and Hydrology) of Guatemala.

For more information:

Beatriz García-Pozuelo, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

General press contact for the EUROCLIMA+ program

Alexandra Cortés Mora

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. / Skype: alexandra_cortes  /  www.euroclima.org

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