Findings

Flow of information

A common observation from the workshops was that climate information typically follows a chain of use within organizations. It begins with initial users—often from water resources or meteorology teams—who collect climate data and possess strong knowledge of its limitations and biases. These users process or reconstruct the data before passing it along to other teams, such as those responsible for load forecasting or outage planning. However, critical information about the data’s limitations is often lost along the way, as each team tends to assume that the data they receive has already been validated and corrected for uncertainties.

Another category of climate information users includes those who rely on standards, such as design values from organizations like the CSA or internal norms. These users may not be familiar with the origins or limitations of the data but trust that the authoritative body behind the standards ensures its reliability.

Overview of decision-making challenge in the Workshops

The Sankey diagram below provides a preliminary overview of the applications discussed by participants during the workshops (across all organizations). Note: This is an early draft that includes only a limited set of applications.

The first set of nodes (leftmost column) represents the sectors involved in the decision-making challenges. The second column provides a brief description of the decision context. The third column highlights the climate variables associated with these challenges, and the final column outlines key characteristics identified by participants as essential for informed decision-making.

Please note that the values shown may exceed the number of visible incoming or outgoing flows. This indicates that certain links were cited multiple times across different decision-making contexts by participants.