Data Snack - From Data to Action: How Climate Data Inform Decisions
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Climate data are widely used to study climate change and its impacts, and increasingly play a role in decision-making across science, policy, and society. These datasets originate from a range of sources – including observations, reanalyses (e.g., ECMWF), and global and regional climate model simulations (e.g., CMIP and CORDEX). However, their size, complexity, and diversity often make them difficult to access, compare and interpret, especially for non-specialists. Working with climate data therefore involves more than analysis alone. It requires finding and selecting suitable datasets, preparing them through subsetting, regridding, and harmonization, and deriving meaningful indicators for specific regions or applications. At the same time, ensemble approaches are essential to assess robustness and to account for uncertainties inherent in climate projections. While these technical steps are important, the challenge does not end there. Climate data must ultimately be translated into accessible and usable information. This Data Snack focuses on how climate data are turned into products such as fact sheets or decision-support tools, and highlights key considerations for their interpretation and communication across disciplines.
Author: Buntemeyer, Lars
Institution: Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon
Language: English
Subfield: Global and Planetary Change
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
SDG: Climate action
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7162028503
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