**6. Concluding remarks and future research**

In this article we have studied a general methodology for research and forecasting. It utilises a hierarchical flux of information between different models, aimed at providing useful, easy to understand scientific tools for decision makers and stake-holders. It can be decomposed into three levels. The first involves either coupled or non-coupled General Circulation Models which supply the initial and boundary conditions for the second level, namely, Regional Models, which employ statistical or dynamical downscaling. The third level feeds on the information given by level 1, offering tailor-made applications for decision makers, ranging from hydrological resources availability in a basin to ecosystem dynamics or vector borne diseases related to climate.

The various applications take into consideration different climate phenomena occurring at several spatial and temporal scales. The goal is to develop really useful tools for policy making, where high spatial resolutions are often needed for short-term, seasonal, decadal and climate-change scales. These efforts require heavy computational resources which, fortunately, are becoming more commonly available nowadays in Climate Centres, and sometimes through regional collaborations like the Latin American Observatory of Climate Events, as has been stressed throughout this article.

In the near future the present methodology is likely to change through the use of a seamless Earth System Simulator, capable of executing hundreds of petaflops which support the numerous time scales and integrate the physical equations resorting to new meshes and more powerful numerica1l schemes. With the help of such systems, climate science should advance significantly over the next few years.
