SENSES - Applied Climate Scenarios: Perspectives and Options for Action
As part of the SENSES project, complex scientific climate scenario information is translated into relevant knowledge for the various user groups.
In recent years, a new generation of climate scenarios based on a new scenario architecture has been developed within climate impact research. However, the content and meaning of the new scenarios are still difficult to understand for potential user groups, and there is a strong need to communicate new findings from scenario research in an application-orientated way.
In order to make complex scientific scenario information accessible, the project develops innovative and user-centred visualisation tools, practical guidelines and manuals and combines them in the "SENSES Toolkit".
The toolkit is aimed at (i) national and international climate policy makers, (ii) companies, especially those with long-term planning horizons, and (iii) regional users of climate scenarios, and is the result of a process of co-design and co-production with representative expert bodies from politics, business and regions.
The SENSES toolkit will enable these user groups to process climate information and derive options for action. For example, political decision-makers can use the new scenario knowledge in discussions on the implementation of the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement; regional stakeholders can better understand the local impacts of global socio-economic and climate change; companies can better assess the opportunities and risks of their investment projects in relation to climate change and the development of climate policy.
The University of Applied Sciences Potsdam will work on those aspects of the SENSES project that are linked to issues of data visualisation, interaction design and the user-centred design process, coupled with the goal of conceiving, designing and implementing components that enable users to work independently with climate data and climate scenarios. Data and expert knowledge are to be prepared in such a way that they can also be understood by the wider user community. These components will be integrated into the SENSES toolkit on an online platform and made available to users.
SENSES is funded by the JPI Climate http://www.jpi-climate.eu/home
The project organiser is the DLR-PT http://www.dlr.de/pt
