Use.AT and Klimaszenarien.AT – a scientifically sound approach for user friendly, useful and usable climate scenarios

There is high demand for reliable climate information. But which aspects are most crucial for the development of useful and usable climate services, i.e. provision of products and services besides pure data? Which implications can be derived for climate service providers? The project Use.AT targeted these questions to inform the development of the next Austrian climate scenarios within a national, multidisciplinary process called Klimaszenarien.AT. In detail, the project

• examined the providers’ perspectives by looking at other countries with long-standing experiences in providing and evaluating climate services like UK, CH, DE, NL and Austria.
• focused on the users themselves: Who used the current Austrian climate scenarios ÖKS15? Who could and should use them in the future? What are users’ needs, requirements, and challenges? And which role does ÖKS15 play in climate-sensitive decision making?
• investigated the vast field of climate communication: Which aspects of effective climate communication and climate service provision can be found in the literature? How do existing products compare considering those criteria? Are they of different relevance for different user groups?

Using a mixed-method approach – literature research, surveys, interviews and focus groups –new insights on the needs and rationales of user groups concerning climate information and derived services were discovered. These now inform the development of a communication strategy for Klimaszenarien.AT, shaping the products and formats that are tailored to three different user levels: (i) `explorers’ that mostly need interpretation in the form of fact sheets, figures and content ready for social media, (ii) `practitioners´ that need tools and interfaces suitable for their everyday use to make use of the new localised climate scenarios, and (iii) `specialists´ that need the raw data themselves, accompanied by tutorials and uncertainty information. Therefore, the communication strategy aims to tailor the products to the relevant user groups needs, guide their navigation towards those products and services they really need and simplify access to data, web- and print services. The presentation will focus on the corner stones of the communications strategy, as well as recommendations for (inter)national climate service providers resulting from the results and experiences of the Use.AT project.