iClimateAction Webinars Set Technical Groundwork for Global Climate Data Talks

The webinar series was designed as practical preparation, offering participants a realistic and shared picture of how climate data and knowledge are currently organised, accessed and used.

In early 2026, iClimateAction (iCA) convened a series of technical webinars to prepare experts for a major GCOS–WGClimate–iClimateAction joint meeting to be held in Harwell, United Kingdom, from 9–13 February.

The Harwell meeting will bring together specialists in climate observations, data and knowledge systems from the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS), the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) and partner organisations. Its objective is to support the delivery of the forthcoming GCOS Status Report and to underpin the next phase of iClimateAction, by strengthening the technical foundations for future reporting, planning and international coordination.

Building a shared understanding before Harwell

The webinar series was designed as practical preparation, offering participants a realistic and shared picture of how climate data and knowledge are currently organised, accessed and used.

According to Paolo Laj, iClimateAction Coordinator, the sessions aimed to give participants “the right idea of the landscape”, enabling discussions in Harwell to move quickly beyond introductory explanations and focus instead on gaps, priorities and concrete next steps.

SAGE Data Space: sharing data without centralising it

The first webinar introduced the SAGE Data Space project, presented by Mark Dietrich, its technical coordinator. SAGE is a European initiative supporting the European Green Deal by improving access to environmental and climate data.

A central principle of the data space approach is that data remain with their owners. SAGE does not host data; instead, it connects existing data sources while allowing organisations to retain control over visibility, access rights and governance. The project provides a common technical and legal framework that enables secure and consistent data sharing, including for sensitive or restricted datasets.

The webinar highlighted real-world use cases—such as forest management, pollinator monitoring and environmental risk mapping—showing how better-connected data can reduce duplication, save time and help organisations meet growing environmental reporting requirements more efficiently.

ENVRI-Hub NEXT: making climate observations easier to use together

The second webinar focused on ENVRI-Hub NEXT, presented by Marta Gutierrez David of the EGI Foundation, with contributions from Anca Hienola (Finnish Meteorological Institute) and Ulrich Bundke (Forschungszentrum Jülich).

The ENVRI community brings together Europe’s major environmental research infrastructures, which collect observations across the atmosphere, land, oceans and ecosystems—many of them critical for tracking Essential Climate Variables (ECVs).

Speakers highlighted a persistent challenge: although high-quality observations exist, they are often fragmented across systems with different formats, terminology and access mechanisms. ENVRI-Hub NEXT addresses this by creating a common access layer that links infrastructures without moving data into a single repository.

A key focus is mapping existing measurements to GCOS-defined ECVs, allowing data from different sources to be compared and combined more easily. The project also prioritises usability, enabling users to extract only the data they need—by location, time or variable—rather than downloading entire datasets.

GEO Knowledge Hub: from open data to reusable open knowledge

The third webinar introduced the GEO Knowledge Hub, presented by Paola De Salvo, its Coordinator. The session shifted attention from data access to the challenge of preserving and reusing knowledge.

While Earth observation data are increasingly open, the methods, tools and workflows needed to turn data into solutions are often scattered or lost when projects end. The GEO Knowledge Hub addresses this by curating complete “knowledge packages”, which can include datasets, processing workflows, code, documentation, training materials and publications.

This approach supports long-term preservation and reuse. GEO representatives noted that many projects seek help to preserve outputs only at the end of their funding cycles. By encouraging early packaging and sharing of knowledge, the Hub aims to ensure that valuable work remains accessible well beyond individual projects.

Strengthening the technical basis for the next phase

Together, the webinars provided a common technical foundation for the Harwell meeting, highlighting complementary approaches to trusted data sharing, harmonised access to observations and reusable open knowledge.

These discussions are expected to feed directly into the upcoming GCOS Status Report and help shape how iClimateAction and its partners coordinate climate data, observations and knowledge systems in the years ahead.