Local representations of a changing climate

Through the efforts shared in this chapter, we embrace the hypothesis that local representations of our changing climate offer a key angle for facing climate change. We describe the coconstruction processes of climate services in five sites across Europe: Bergen (Norway), Brest, Kerourien (France), Dordrecht (the Netherlands), Gulf of Morbihan (France), and Jade Bay (Germany), to share novel ways of transforming state-of-the-art climate science into action-oriented place-based climate services that can be integrated with social understandings and practices of coping with change in Europe. The formal context for “modes of representation” enabled us to recognize the importance of explicitly linking social transformation intentions with local challenges and values, and to connect from there with national and European Framework Directives related to climate services. We reiterate the importance of having local stakeholders engage in the climate services coproduction process in order to forge common commitments and incorporate value perspectives, even those that may be polarized, throughout society as a whole.