Supporting climate proof planning with CLARITY's climate service and modelling of climate adaptation strategies – the Linz use-case

In recent years, the representation of climate information in a way to support decision making has been gaining momentum. Worldwide, these so-called climate services are emerging as an essential tool to connect the advances in climate science with the domains of climate change adaptation. The methodology developed within the CLARITY project (funded through European Union funding program Horizon 2020) is aimed at implementing a new generation of climate services specifically designed to assess adaptation measures at the city level under the effects of extreme weather events in the context of climate change. These effects are assessed based on observations as well as climate projections, and the subsequent derivation of climate indices to address changes in climate extremes. The dynamical-statistical downscaling of regional climate model results is used to obtain this information on fine spatial scales (100 m), hence providing urban scale projections and enabling climate sensitivity simulations of adaptation measures on the urban scale. The climate adaptation strategies encompass, among others, green roofs, increasing roof albedo, as well as changes in soil sealing. Here, the climate assessment methodology developed within CLARITY will be discussed in detail, and results for the city of Linz (Austria) presented. In addition, the usage of these methods and results within the CLARITY climate service as well as the connection to urban climate change resilience will be highlighted.