Overview
Do you want to learn to use climate data and information in your work with confidence, even though you don't have a background in climate data science? Then this course is for you!
Climate change is no longer a distant concern — it is shaping the decisions we make today. Rising temperatures, shifting rainfall, sea level rise, and more frequent extreme events affect water management, infrastructure, health, food systems, and economies worldwide.
So whether you are a researcher, advisor, policymaker, extension worker
or educator - whether you work in finance, insurance, urban planning,
renewable energy, or any other sector, it is likely that climate change
is a factor you have to take into account.
The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) provides reliable, consistent and authoritative information about climate change that is freely accessible - and with its user-friendly tools and services, C3S has made quality climate data easy to use.
To help professionals around the world find, interpret and confidently use C3S climate data and information in their work, C3S is launching 3 online short courses in 2026 that provide learners with the necessary knowledge and skills to use climate data.
Using climate data starts with understanding what climate data are, how they are produced, what different types of climate data are available to you, what these can and cannot be used for, and where you can find the data you need.
Understanding climate data doesn’t mean having to become a climate scientist, but you do need to understand the basics to make the right choices for your needs.
Join our first online short course to understand the basics of climate data and gain the confidence to find, interpret, and use the right information in your own work.
Registration will open soon.
The course is the first in a sequence of 3 online courses on climate data offered by C3S. The courses build upon each other. With the foundational knowledge you gain in this first course, you will get the necessary building blocks for advancing and deepening your knowledge and skills in the subsequent courses.
Objectives of the training
This course introduces the foundations of climate data: what it is, how it is collected, processed, and made available by C3S. It enables you to make sense of the climate data types provided by C3S, understand their scope of use and limitations. It provides an overview of the C3S Climate Data Store (CDS) and other tools and services offered by C3S. Climate data types covered in this course include observations, reanalysis, seasonal predictions, and climate projections, with derived indicators covered in the next MOOC in the series.
After this course you will be able to:
By the end of this course, you will be able to navigate the world of climate data and apply it confidently in your field.
Target audience
This course is for anyone who needs or wants to (better) understand climate data but does not have necessary knowledge yet to make sense of different climate data types: what they can and cannot be used for, who uses these data types, and where you may find the climate data that fits your needs.
Example learners for whom this course was created:
No expertise in the domain of climate data is needed to follow this course.
Course structure and content
The course is fully online and self-paced, meaning that you may go through the content in your own time. Study load for the course amounts to a total of approximately 8 study hours in total. The course is open for the limited duration of 8 weeks.
It consists of six modules, with the first covering the foundations of climate data and introducing the five climate data types that will be explored in the subsequent modules: observations, models, reanalysis, predictions, and projections.
Each module has a variety of learning activities and real-life examples that allow you to get a solid understanding of the basics of climate data and enable you to explore the C3S data sets. In each module you will meet a professional with a climate data need for a particular purpose. These cases illustrate the use of climate data in practice. Other learning content includes videos, images, text, podcasts, quizzes and discussion questions.
Course contributors
This course was created by ECMWF through C3S and contracted to Wageningen University & Research (WUR). Input to the course was also provided by experts from academia, national meteorological services and private industry.
Course Content
- Online course: Understanding climate data