Project overview

Funding: ACRP-project, Climate and Energy Fund
Title: Harvesting learnings from the use of ÖKS 15 in the Austrian decision making process to improve climate services in Austria and beyond (Use.AT)
Key words: User needs, Climate Services, Learnings from ÖKS15
Project lead: GeoSphere Austria
Contact: Laura Mainetti (laura.mainetti@geosphere.at)
Project partners: BOKU Wien, AIT, Joanneum Research, Subcontractor: Weatherpark, CCCA
Project duration: 01.11.2023-30.06.2025

Objective

The project Use.AT aims to systematically collect findings from the development, use and dissemination of ÖKS15 (= retrospective analysis) and related products as well as from comparable international approaches for climate services in order to develop the new climate scenarios for Austria (ÖKS26) in a target group-oriented manner and thus to improve their usability.
 

Executive Summary

With the ÖKS15 climate scenarios for Austria, robust and high-resolution daily data on the climate past and climate future are available. ÖKS15 is the standard product of climate services and many organizations use and/or refer to the data sets or results. In order to take account of new requirements (e.g. Paris Agreement, IPCC Assessment Report 6) and the current state of climate research (e.g. CMPI6), new climate scenarios for Austria are being developed and can be expected in 2026. The new ÖKS26 are being developed as part of a co-design process that aims to create user driven results for practitioners that are easy to apply and scientifically sound.
 

The project aims to systematically collect knowledge from the development, use and dissemination of ÖKS15 (= retrospective analysis) and related products as well as from comparable international approaches for climate services.

Use.AT wants to…

• learn from established climate service providers (e.g. at EU level, in Switzerland, in Germany) and map available climate services and products as well as providers in Austria.
• learn from the ÖKS15 as a standard climate service product for Austria by gaining insights into the requirements, needs, barriers etc. of users, non-users and potential users and acting as a learning laboratory for the co-production of climate services.
• explore the role of ÖKS15 in decision-making processes and its limitations.

Overall, the findings from Use.AT will help to develop the new climate scenarios for Austria (ÖKS26) according to user needs and thus improve their usability. In addition, Use.AT will derive recommendations for climate service providers on how climate services in Austria can be improved in order to best support climate-sensitive decision-making processes.