Open climate data for public good

🌍 A new era of open data has arrived 🌍 On 1 October 2025, European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts - ECMWF made its entire Real-time Catalogue open to all, under a CC-BY-4.0 licence. This is one of the largest meteorological datasets in the world, now freely accessible for science, innovation and entrepreneurship. This moment feels very much like when Landsat data was opened years ago — a decision that unlocked billions in economic value, empowering entrepreneurs, local governments, and innovators to build solutions that no one had imagined at the time. Now, with open meteorological data: 🔹 Local businesses can create new weather-driven services — from agriculture optimisation and insurance models to logistics and retail planning. 🔹 Entrepreneurs and startups gain access to world-class data to train AI/ML models, develop predictive tools, and build new digital products without prohibitive licensing barriers. 🔹 Local governments can improve urban planning, resilience strategies, and climate adaptation measures by tapping into global-scale forecasts at local resolution. 🔹 Communities worldwide benefit from better preparedness, aligning with the UN’s Early Warnings for All initiative — protecting lives and livelihoods. Innovation often begins when barriers to data fall away. With ECMWF opening the gates, we can expect new industries, smarter decisions, and stronger climate resilience to emerge — just as we saw with the Landsat revolution. 💡 The question is: who will be the first to harness this opportunity and turn open forecasts into open futures? https://lnkd.in/e5SEt-dP #OpenData #ClimateResilience #Innovation #Entrepreneurship #WeatherData #ECMWF #AI #Geospatial

🚀 25 years in the making—#OpenCEDA is live! When I released the very first version of the Comprehensive Environmental Data Archive (CEDA) back in 2000 as a PhD student at Leiden, I imagined a world where rigorous, transparent Scope 3 data would be available to anyone tackling climate change. Today that vision becomes reality. CEDA is now free and open to the public at openceda.org—unlocking >95 % of global GDP/GHG coverage, 400 industry sectors across 148 countries and regions, and tens of thousands of up-to-date emissions factors, refreshed annually. This milestone is the work of an incredible community. Deep gratitude to Mo Li, Ph.D., Cheng Lin, Yohanna Maldonado, Michael Steffen, Jake Feintzeig, Jonathan Gidden, Gizem Ilayda Dinç Liston Witherill, Christian Anderson—and every researcher, practitioner, and customer who has shaped CEDA since its 2000 debut. Whether you’re a start-up calculating your footprint, a Fortune 500 driving supply-chain decarbonization, or a researcher pushing LCA boundaries—this data is yours. Dive in, build, question, and tag me with what you create. Let’s accelerate climate action together! #Scope3 #LCA #GHGAccounting #OpenData #Sustainability #ClimateTech

How can data help us tackle environmental challenges like climate change and deforestation? The Amazon Sustainability Data Initiative (ASDI) is making waves by connecting researchers, businesses, and governments with powerful environmental data resources, so they can take meaningful action on critical issues. Imagine trying to assess the impact of deforestation across a supply chain: The data needed is vast and complex. ASDI steps in to simplify that, offering global datasets for studying climate, natural resources, and biodiversity—all on a shared platform. Take Apple, for example. With ASDI data, they were able to pinpoint specific areas where deforestation was affecting their supply chain and then invest in reforestation. It’s not just corporations benefitting either; in California, government agencies used ASDI’s satellite imagery to identify parts of the coastline most at risk of erosion from rising sea levels, allowing for focused conservation efforts. These stories show that ASDI is more than just a data platform; it’s a tool for turning complex environmental data into clear insights. Having easy access to such data can make all the difference. Researchers, environmental groups, and businesses alike can now collaborate more easily, using shared knowledge to address sustainability challenges more effectively. For those interested in exploring ASDI’s offerings, the AWS Registry of Open Data provides tutorials and hands-on resources that make this data accessible to anyone. Tackling environmental issues takes a collective effort, and initiatives like ASDI are opening doors for more people to get involved in finding solutions that benefit us all. #Biodiversity #DataAnalysis #Sustainability #ClimateChange #EnvironmentalSustainability

Very happy to share that we've now open-sourced our high-resolution (30m) nationwide dataset on Land Use/Land Cover (LULC) and terrestrial carbon storage in Pakistan, covering the period from 1990 to 2020. This dataset accompanies our recent study published in the Environmental Impact Assessment Review journal, providing critical evidence on how urban expansion affects carbon sequestration in Pakistan. ✦ Key Insights from Our Study: ⚬ Exponential Urban Growth: Urban areas in Pakistan have expanded by approximately 1040%, resulting in substantial changes to the country’s landscape. ⚬ Reduction in Carbon Storage: This urbanization has led to a 5% decline in terrestrial carbon storage, posing challenges for climate change mitigation. ⚬ Regional Dynamics: ▸ Emerging Cities on the Rise: Cities like Rawalpindi and Peshawar experienced rapid urban sprawl, primarily converting rangelands (~47%) and agricultural areas (~35%) into urban landscapes. ▸ Afforestation Efforts: While northern afforestation projects have increased forest carbon stocks, there is a marked north-south disparity in carbon storage loss. ▸Land Use Changes: The shift from natural ecosystems to built-up areas highlights the urgent need for sustainable urban planning. ✦ Implications for Pakistan: ▸Climate Change Mitigation: This dataset is essential for understanding carbon storage dynamics, a critical component of strategies to achieve net-zero emissions. ▸Policy Development: It offers valuable insights to support sustainable land-use practices and evidence-based policy-making. ▸Research and Collaboration: Open access enables collaborative efforts among researchers, urban planners, and environmental managers, fostering data-driven environmental management solutions. By openly sharing this dataset, we aim to empower stakeholders to make informed decisions that balance urban development with environmental conservation. Open data promotes transparency, collaboration, and innovation, vital in addressing the complex challenges of climate change and rapid urbanization. 🔗Project Link: https://lnkd.in/eMDQMaHm #pakistan #lulc #landuse #landcover #urban #urbansprawl #urbanization #carbon #carbonstorage #googleearthengine #opensource #remotesensing #geospatial #gis

The map below shows 2.9 million rows of solar panels in the US producing 186 gigawatts of clean power. Here’s why that matters. A new open dataset, GM-SEUS, is the most comprehensive, publicly available map of ground mounted solar energy systems in the U.S. Over 15,000 solar arrays and 2.9 million individual panel rows, covering nearly 3,000 km² and representing 186 gigawatts of capacity. Why does this matter beyond the energy industry? Because location and design data drive better decisions everywhere: Infrastructure and supply chains: plan grid upgrades, anticipate demand, and size transmission more accurately. Finance and risk: model asset value, insurance exposure, and material reuse at scale. Climate & land use: measure carbon sequestration trade offs, habitat impacts, and agricultural opportunities. Innovation and AI: train geospatial and remote sensing models to detect renewable infrastructure worldwide. Behind the scenes, the team (kudos to Jake Stid who had the original post I saw) harmonized the best open datasets with high resolution aerial imagery, Landsat time series change detection, and machine learning to estimate critical attributes like installation year, mounting technology, tilt, and capacity. When complex geospatial work is translated into clean, open, and actionable data like this, industries far beyond energy can innovate faster and make smarter data driven decisions. 🌎 I'm Matt and I talk about modern GIS, earth observation, AI, and how geospatial is changing. 📬 Want more like this? Join 9k+ others learning from my newsletter → forrest.nyc

As climate change accelerates, policymakers and researchers need immediate access to accurate, science-based data to inform critical decisions about natural climate solutions and forest conservation efforts. That's why the nonprofit CTrees developed the first global system to monitor, report, and verify (MRV) carbon stocks and land-use activities for every ecosystem on land, delivering critical data needs of policy and markets. In this blog, Aleena Ashary and Jules Marenghi explain how CTrees has used the cash funding and cloud credits from its 2024 Amazon Web Services (AWS) Imagine Grant to enhance the organization’s flagship Jurisdictional MRV (JMRV) tool. This free, open data platform provides precise annual measurements of carbon stocks, forest area, emissions, and land use activities—revolutionizing how governments and organizations track climate policy progress and develop jurisdictional carbon credit programs. https://lnkd.in/grmttxXD