Climate Exchange

This is a condition for the success of such initiatives,

starting with a project, which will be maintained in

the long term by a national agency, namely Météo-

France. Close association of all stakeholders will

be ensured as a critical condition for a long-term

achievement. One can bet that the rate of enrich-

ment of the Drias portal, as well as the publication

of the synthesis reports for reference scenarios, will

be carefully chosen, so that it will represent a good

compromise between abundant scientific production

and the progress it carries out, as well as the need

for users to fully use the information delivered. The

next report should take into account the results of

the newest regionalized scenarios for France, based

on the ‘Representative Concentration Pathways’, and

will soon be made available through Drias.

Are we on the right track? Will our co-citizens be

more convinced because such synthesis reports and

facilities are now in place? Undoubtedly there are

many aspects of the human conscience that must

be activated in order to reach the appropriate level

of commitment regarding climate change. The real

challenge for climate services may also appear in the

training and education arena, and definitely has to deal

with a wide range of human and political sciences.

There is a vital need to develop the level of understand-

ing; the capability to translate and spread the scientific

results to a larger audience and help the end user to

understand, accept and cope with the options we have

as we face the climate challenge. Making information

available to a wider public is a safe bet. The challenge,

and the urgency, motivated all the actors of Drias to

ease and speed up the process. But other paths will

have to be explored too.

built on a strong infrastructure, inherited from the meteorological

one. The next evolutions of the portal, both in terms of content and

functionality will be easy to put in place.

A great challenge will be to boost the service around the portal,

and interact with scientists and intermediate translators, so that

the service will meet everyone’s requirements and expectations.

Another challenge will be to define the appropriate governance for

this service, with three types of players. The main developments

in the coming months will be to extend coverage of the service to

overseas territories. Refined scenarios are currently being produced

and will be integrated into the portal. New indices will be intro-

duced too, namely those delivered by current research efforts led

by academic laboratories together with industrials or other scien-

tific communities. Similarly, information from the past will be made

available through the portal. Some users have already asked for the

introduction of impact studies, and works of general interest could

be considered such as impact studies on water resources. Efforts

will still be made to explore various ways of representing uncer-

tainties and expected projections – such as developing analogous

approaches. Representations of past, present and future climate,

of uncertainties, and of their impacts are undoubtedly critical for

conveying the message to citizens and decision-makers. The reports

on the reference scenario for France are a first attempt to address

such issues by presenting a variety of results, scenarios and confi-

dence intervals instead of the single scenario originally requested

– this would have been an abuse, of course. Education remains one

of our key challenges.

The partnerships around Drias must also be highlighted.

Nothing could be done without the research groups or the mete-

orological service. A strong tribute must be paid to the governing

bodies that have supported the initiative, and have placed it

high on the agenda at the ministerial level, making Drias one

of the most prominent actions of the French National Plan for

Adaptation. The scientific and political coherence was very high.

[

] 281

apacity

evelopment

Example of the multi-model representation that can be seen in the Discovery area of the “Drias, les futurs du climat” portal