An international project office that opened last year at ESA’s facility in the UK is advancing its preparations for the new phase of a global climate modelling initiative.
Computational climate models simulate the chemistry and physics of Earth’s land, oceans and atmosphere in fine detail, enabling scientists to improve understanding of past environmental changes and predict future shifts in conditions.
As the international community intensifies its drive to tackle the climate emergency, outputs from these models are increasingly being used by governments and businesses to plan and execute mitigation strategies.
To help satisfy this growing demand, the World Climate Research Programme opened the project office in 2022 to support the expansion and development of a key modelling initiative called the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP).
The project office – hosted by ESA’s European Centre for Space Applications and Telecommunications – has now completed one year of operations, in which it has been laying the foundations for the next cycle of CMIP.