Towards a dedicated impact portal to bridge the gap between the impact and climate communities : Lessons from use cases

Future climate evolution is of primary importance for the societal, economical, political orientations and decision-making. It explains the increasing use of climate projections as input for quantitative impact studies, assessing vulnerability and defining adaptation strategies in different sectors. Here we analyse 17 national and representative use cases so as to identify the diversity of the demand for climate information depending on user profiles as well as the best practices, methods and tools that are needed to answer the different requests. A particular emphasis is put on the workflow that allows to translate climate data into suitable impact data, the way to deal with the different sources of uncertainty and to provide a suited product to users. We identified three complementary tools to close the gap between climate scientists and user needs: an efficient interface between users and providers; an optimized methodology to handle user requests and a portal to facilitate access to data and elaborated products. We detail in the paper how these three tools can limit the intervention of experts, educate users, and lead to the production of useful information. This work provides the basis on which the ENES (European Network for Earth System Modelling) Portal Interface for the Climate Impact Communities is built. Copyright The Author(s) 2014