Met cooperation hailed during Finland’s chairmanship

Meteorological cooperation is considered one area where success has been achieved during Finland's Arctic Council Chairmanship.

One of the Finnish priority areas that Ambassador Aleksi Härkönen, Chair of the Senior Arctic Officials, emphasizes as a success, is meteorological cooperation, said a press release from the Arctic Council.

“Already now we could say that we have achieved a breakthrough when the WMO and national meteorological institutes decided to actively contribute to meteorological cooperation in the Arctic, " said Härkönen.

In its Chairmanship program, Finland emphasized the need for enhancing both meteorological and oceanographic cooperation across the Arctic States. This would improve public safety, benefit international shipping and air traffic, and enhance Arctic climate science.

As the Arctic changes, weather patterns in lower latitudes are affected. The benefits of increased meteorological collaboration in the high North thus reach far beyond the Polar Circle. Not only does it improve monitoring and observation networks across the Arctic and fill geographical data gaps, it also facilitates effectively to manage and forecast risks resulting from extreme weather events.

In March 2018, the Finnish Meteorological Institute organized an Arctic Meteorological Summit in Levi, in Northern Finland. The aim was to gather different stakeholders to share knowledge and to develop alliances that would strengthen Arctic observations.

Coming ahead of the Senior Arctic Officials’ meeting, the summit gathered climate experts, industry representatives, as well as representatives from the Arctic States and indigenous Permanent Participants. One of the biggest contributions of the summit was the dialogue it initiated between these different stakeholders.