Climate science and climate services

Thanks to advanced expertise and high-quality climate data, this strategy will notably help support the various stakeholders throughout their adaptation to the risks and opportunities of climate change as they relate to the main issues faced by Quebec society.

• Strong growth and diversification of requests for climate-related information to support adaptation;

• Challenge of replying to requests for climate-related information while developing tools to publicly diffuse data and services for a variety of users in an appropriate manner;

• Gaps to fill in the understanding of extremes, sub-day time scales and time horizons closer to the most frequently used variables and indicators such as precipitation and temperature;

• Growing interest in variables that are more difficult to measure, simulate and analyze (e.g. ice, wind, humidity, fresh water and ground temperature, evapotranspiration, ground frost, hail);

• Need for alternatives to weather station data in order to expand data sets to include non-measured variables as well as regions for which observation networks are too recent or insufficiently dense;

• Need to improve understanding of high-impact phenomena, domino effects and variable or event combinations that lead to higher risks;

• Need to develop innovative multivariate post-processing methods to ensure the physical coherence of the multiple variables requested by users.

• Improve the regional climate modelling system in order to expand potential uses and produce high-quality, specialized regional simulations that are relevant for decision-making;

• Develop a deeper understanding of and better identify the climate vagaries and extremes that affect Quebec;

• Continue quantifying climate change in order to support decision-making as it relates to adaptation;

• Enhance the offering and delivery of climate-related services in an effort to provide the different levels of users access to climate data analyses that are robust, effective and adapted to their needs, while at the same time implementing strategies to boost Ouranos’s efficiency and optimize its resources;

• Help ensure the scientific rigour and coherence of messages published on climate change.