WMO's Commission for Weather, Climate, Hydrological, Marine and Related Environmental Services and Applications - SERCOM - is meeting to strengthen and fine-tune services that support decision-making in areas including agriculture, aviation, disaster risk reduction, health, renewable energy, shipping and water management.
SERCOM is one of WMO's main technical commissions and helps provide a bridge between observations, research, prediction systems and infrastructure on one side, and the decisions of governments, businesses, communities and individuals on the other.
"SERCOM turns scientific and technical excellence into services that protect lives, livelihoods and development, and it must do so with urgency, focus and unity," said WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo . Trusted, authoritative forecasts and warnings and more important than ever before, she said.
The meeting takes place during a strengthening El Niño which is influencing temperatures and rainfall and exacerbating hazards like record-breaking heat, catastrophic floods, prolonged droughts, rapidly intensifying tropical cyclones, wildfires and dense haze, and marine heatwaves.
"We're living in a world where extreme weather and climate events in all their various forms are in the news every day," said SERCOM President Ian Lisk.
"It's almost impossible to have a conversation without hearing the word El Niño - be that from government officials, resilience communities, the finance and health sector and of course the public. So, as well as planning, preparing and responding to the multi-sectoral impacts of this El Niño, let's ensure that our community uses this event to contextualize the story of what the current and future climate can do to us," he said.
Technical regulations
SERCOM will discuss amendments to WMO Technical Regulations and competency frameworks, new requirements for the WMO Integrated Processing and Prediction System (WIPPS), and a new long-term aeronautical meteorology plan. Other items on the agenda include cataloguing hazardous events, the Flood Forecasting Framework, and methods for monitoring global temperature.
There will be a one-day technical conference on the Early Warnings for All initiative -how to deliver early warning services sustainably, everywhere and for everyone.
The normative and standard-setting work of SERCOM is more important than ever at a time when technological changes and Artificial Intelligence are revolutionizing and multiplying forecasts.
"The tools have changed beyond recognition, but the need has not: a forecast people can trust, produced to known standards, verified against observations, quality-controlled, traceable, and issued by an accountable, authoritative voice, above all when a warning must lead to action. Defining those standards, verification practices and competencies is exactly SERCOM's job, said Celeste Saulo.
She said SERCOM should deliver on three outcomes:
- Agree on a focused and realistic work programme for 2026-2027 and an efficient organization, aligned with Members' priorities and available resources and able to adapt to a rapidly evolving operational environment.
- Continue to build a coherent framework for early warning services, combining sound regulations, practical guidance, capacity development and sustained implementation. As the Early Warnings for All initiative enters its fifth year, the focus has shifted from commitments to measurable outcomes: the communities protected, the warnings acted upon, and the lives and livelihoods saved.
- Embrace digital transformation to accelerate the evolution of marine, aviation and other weather- and climate-sensitive services. Advances in technology and artificial intelligence must translate into more timely, accessible and actionable information.
