Regional climate services illustrated with experiences from Northern Europe

In this article, we discuss the advisory capacity of climate science for political and societal decisions. To provide options, open up perspectives and enhance the understanding for the dynamics of climate is a task we name climate services. After a general discussion, experiences of providing these services on a regional and local scale – Northern Germany, the metropolitan area of Hamburg and the Baltic Sea Basin – during the last few years is reviewed.Key components of this regional climate service is the establishment of a regional climate office, of regional IPCC-like assessments of knowledge about regional and local climate change, and detailed homogeneous data sets describing changing weather statistics (i.e., climate) in past decades and in perspectives for the next several decades.