Climate Analytics
We define climate analytics as an emerging information technology sector that supports the creation and use of data analytics designed to provide decision-makers with information that conveys climate change impact or risk. It is a new field with considerable activity in the private sector (Figure 1).
Investigation overview
This investigation aimed to better understand the rapidly evolving climate analytics landscape. Our research team explored — through a desktop analysis, exploratory conversations, and hosting discussions — who is working in this space, what they see as key opportunities and challenges, and what the needs are of both climate analytics providers and users.
To gain insights and allow people to share their work in this space, we hosted sessions at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Annual Meeting focused on innovations in climate data, analytics, and decision support (sessions I and II were held in December 2023) and advances in quantifying and attributing climate impacts and damages to inform climate risk (sessions I, II, and III were held in December 2024). These sessions provided people an opportunity to share their work through oral presentations, posters, and an informal social gathering. Through an open call for abstracts, we were able to capture a snapshot of the type of climate analytics work people want to share in a research space.
Preliminary findings
There appears to be a lot of flux within and among companies that provide climate analytics.
Because the field of climate analytics is relatively new, we are continuously discovering who is engaged and the type of services they provide (Figure 1). As of January 2025, our list included approximately 35 organizations, including established firms and small startups, that offer to provide decision-makers with insights into their climate change impact or risk. Over the course of our investigation, new companies emerged and were acquired by other companies. People also moved between companies. We saw this flux happening in specific cases, but it was not feasible, within the scope of this project, to track all the movement.
The type of work that falls under the climate analytics umbrella is interdisciplinary and still being defined.
In convening AGU sessions in 2023 and 2024 with a climate analytics focus, we saw the topic emerge across disciplines. Both years we found similarly themed sessions spread across AGU sections, including Global Environmental Change, Science and Society, Natural Hazards, and Informatics. In both years, we merged with two other sessions and were aware of several other sessions that addressed the topic in somewhat different ways. Our 2024 session identified sub-themes focused on (1) quantifying damages and climate risk and (2) attributing extreme events and climate damages. The word clouds in Figure 2 provide a quick glimpse into the terms most frequently used in titles and abstracts.
Private sector participation in public discourse on climate analytics is possible but would benefit from rethinking incentives.
In our AGU session planning, we extended invitations to many private companies and had a handful of private sector presenters. We noticed, however, that the small subset of presenters who withdrew were disproportionately from the private sector. While anecdotal, we suspect that private sector employees have less incentive to attend AGU than those from universities and government agencies. In exploratory conversations, we heard a desire for companies to be transparent about data sources and for guidelines and shared understanding of the appropriateness of climate change data that could be advantageous for all providers. However, comparisons between climate analytic service providers is rare and challenging. In one of the first public risk comparisons to date, only two of nine companies agreed to participate (Chegwidden et al., 2024).
Recommendations from our exploration of climate analytics providers for improved climate change decision support:
These recommendations are based on the project team’s lived experience in understanding a rapidly evolving landscape and set the stage for future, more structured, inquiries.
- Supporting a means to continuously track the companies involved in climate analytics could help increase transparency and mature the field.
- Clearer guidelines or standards for what qualifies as appropriate information for various risk analyses would be welcomed.
- Researchers at private sector companies are interested in participating in public discussions about their research, but have fewer incentives to participate than their academic counterparts. Creating incentives for increased engagement (even supporting a community of practice) could help elevate the entire field for both public and private researchers.
- Further investigations of private sector climate analytic providers (investigations that would not require sharing information on a public stage or at a science conference), could reveal more private sector perspectives and be an important step toward uncovering ways to elevate information quality and reduce inappropriate use.
For more information on this investigation, contact jvano@agci.org.
