Obligatory intro: American expats living in the South of France since 2005.
Today I read an article in my local rag about a new website created by METEO FRANCE (the French National Weather Service) that compiles various models (mostly French and German) of global warming forecasts until the year 2085, with minimum, average, maximum temperatures, rainfalls, etc.
It is called DRIAS (for Providing access to Data on French Regionalized climate scenarios and Impacts on the environment and Adaptation of Societies) and is really designed be used by scientists and local communities which need data to anticipate & react to climate change.
The DRIAS website is here.
More under fold:
Prepared by Meteo France with the help of several international institutes in climate research such as the Institut Pierre-Simon Laplace (IPSL) and CERFACS, this site is but one action in a national French program called GICC (Gestion and Impact of Climate Change).
I was able to learn (which I didn't know) that in July 2011, the French Government set up an overall plan of 230 separate actions that will be taken between now and 2015 to better deal with the consequences of global warming and prepare the country for an increase in temperature of 4 degrees C (models vary) by the end of the century.
An Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was set up a few years prior and published 210 recommendations based on discussions held throughout 2010 with NGOs, trade unions, business, elected officials, civil servants, etc. It is these recommendations that became the basis of the official plan.
The new DRIAS website is, as I said, only one of the many actions listed therein.
It is apparently the first plan of this magnitude in the European Union. It is meant to be monitored annually, with a final evaluation late 2015 to prepare for the next phase.
All the links above lead to French sites and documents because I was unable to find anything in English, which indeed speaks volumes. The DRIAS site provides a fascinating comparative study of various maps, although I confess the science is well above my pay grade.
I am proud to live in a country where Global Warming is taken seriously, and where the partnership of national and local, public and private interests, is forging tools to better adapt to it. I only weep that our country cannot recognize this, and will likely do too little, too late.