Météo-France

Météo-France is the French national meteorological service. It has the responsibility of observing weather and climate over the country. Its primary mission consists of observing and forecasting the evolution of the atmosphere, of the snow and the surface oceanic characteristics and so ensuring the security of people and property. It routinely provides forecasts and information at scales from 2km short-range to the global climate change scale. Numerical modelling at these scales is very effective because of the powerful computers, the active research, and the collaboration with ECMWF. Météo-France has good experience in European Research projects, especially on seasonal forecasting including the FP6 DEMETER and ENSEMBLES projects. Météo-France has been a WMO-recognised Global Producing Centre (GPC) since November 2006. It leads the Long-Range-Forecast node of the network-Regional Climate Centre (RCC) for the Regional Association VI (Europe). The Climatology Department (DClim) is responsible for conducting and coordinating the majority of the current activities related to climate matters, including operational seasonal forecasting and provision of climate and climate change information. DClim has a great experience in conveying climate information to end users from various sectors including energy, water resources, tourism, health and agriculture. Under the DClim coordination, the French DRIAS platform has been developed for providing regional climate change scenarios, especially to the national adaptation community. In addition, some research activities are also conducted in close cooperation the CNRM (Centre National de Recherche Météorologique), especially those related to the use of climate information, tailoring with respect of users’ needs and the evaluation of the usefulness/benefits related to such an information.