The CLIMAAX project invites researchers, practitioners and policy experts to submit abstracts to the session “Challenges in climate risk assessment: From global data to regional, national and local relevance”, to be held at the EMS Annual Meeting 2026.

Despite the growing availability of climate datasets, translating global and European climate projections into information that is meaningful at regional and local scale remains a major scientific and operational challenge. Many European countries are developing National Climate Scenarios, while regions and local authorities often still rely on global projections to assess climate risks and inform adaptation decisions.

This session will address both technical and non-technical challenges in climate risk assessment, including downscaling methods, hazard-specific impact modelling chains, multi-risk assessments, and the communication of uncertainty to sectoral end-users. Particular attention will be given to how climate scenarios are used in practice, how user needs are integrated through co-development processes, and how climate information can be made more relevant, accessible and actionable.

Contributions are encouraged from both CLIMAAX partners and external experts. Abstracts may focus on experiences with national and regional climate risk assessments, cross-border comparisons, best practices to bridge large-scale projections and local relevance, and future developments in scenario science. Submissions drawing on the CLIMAAX Handbook, Framework and Toolbox are especially welcome, as well as work exploring emerging approaches such as extreme event attribution, decadal predictions, high-resolution modelling, AI/ML applications and new scientific or policy insights.

The session is part of the EMS 2026 programme and is open to all contributors whose work aligns with its scope.

Cover picture Antoine Schibler, Unsplash