Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is looking for qualified meteorologists who will support agricultural climate services across FAO’s work globally and in countries. The particular focus is on a shorter-time scale – applying meteorological products for the agrifood systems and their actors to cope with current weather variability and extreme weather events, e.g., anticipatory actions and agrometeorological advisories. For more information about how to apply, please contact Hideki Kanamaru (hideki.kanamaru@fao.org) by 17 January 2024.
Tasks
• Support improved access and use of meteorological data and products across FAO’s work globally and in countries – agricultural climate services on a shorter-time scale (i.e., coping with current weather variability and extreme weather events);
• Support multi-disciplinary approaches to improve climate services in the agrifood systems;
• Provide continuous monitoring of meteorological risks to the agrifood systems – hydrometeorological conditions and hazardous events, and their forecasts and early warnings globally, and provide technical support and advice on the communication of weather and climate information within FAO;
• Support the development and improvement of tools for meteorological risk monitoring, early warning systems, and database development, including various sub-sector early warning systems (EWS) of FAO (e.g., locust, animal health) that use weather information;
• Develop a guide for translation of hydrometeorological hazards into risk information in food and agriculture sectors for effective EWS and actions;
• Assist countries with gap analyses in agrometeorological capacities, in terms of observations, e.g., weather station and remote sensing, and technical capacities such as the production of agrometeorological bulletins from forecasts and agronomic information;
• Assist countries with weather monitoring, combining different information sources, and with the use of forecasts for decision-making in the agrifood systems;
• Assist countries with strengthening agrometeorological advisory capacities, and impact-based forecasting;
• Assist countries with developing, validating, and calibrating anticipatory action trigger systems for meteorological hazards;
• Support normative guidance work on anticipatory action triggers, and the development of trigger tools;
• Support capacity development activities on the technical topics;
• Provide technical backstopping to field projects to support local activities on the technical topics.