H2020 CONFESS Project: Consistent representation of temporal variations of boundary forcings in seasonal reanalysis and forecasts.
- Type Project
- Status Filled
- Execution 2020 -2024
- Assigned Budget 1.279.987,5 €
- Scope Europeo
- Main source of financing H2020
- Project website Proyecto CONFESS
The most visible result of global warming is the increase in extreme weather events around the world. Reliable monitoring and forecasting of climate developments is more important than ever. With this in mind, the EU-funded CONFESS project will support the societal need for an enhanced Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S).
A consistent representation of temporal variations in boundary forcings will allow for reanalysis of climate forecasts and improve seasonal forecasts through the implementation of improved Earth observation data, such as land use, vegetation status, and surface-emitted aerosols. C3S systems will be optimized for annual land-use changes by adding satellite and forecast information on vegetation status or aerosol emissions. CONFESS will assist societies in their adaptation and mitigation strategies to extreme climate events.
An overview of the main results of the first period is presented below.
- WP1 A harmonized observational Leaf Area Index (LAI) dataset covering the period 1993–2019 has been finalized and disseminated to CONFESS partners. The Land Use/Land Cover (LULC) dataset has been aligned with IFS Vegetation Types and shared with partners. The FCover dataset has been retrieved and finalized to support modeling in Tasks 1.2 and 1.3. Annual LUH2-derived LULC maps have been produced consistent with SURFEX plant functional types. Vegetation and atmospheric input (ERA5 hourly forcing) have been prepared separately for each partner. A list of land model output (variables, frequency) has been agreed upon and shared among partners. A land-only historical simulation with interactive vegetation has been performed.
- WP2 A new approach has been developed to derive a new version of the CAMS aerosol climatology, using the latest version of IFS with full chemistry and aerosols, and including 14 aerosol types. A new climatology will be derived over a period of several decades to allow the creation of a time-varying climatology, for a more accurate representation of the present-day climatology and a much more accurate representation of the temporal evolution at the regional scale. A test suite for this new approach has been successfully implemented. A climatology was created from the Global Fire Assimilation System (GFAS) developed and maintained by CAMS, which will be made available in the Atmosphere Data Store. Observed emissions from GFAS are already implemented in the IFS ENS, which will be used to carry out the experiments.
- WP3 The experimental protocol for WP3 experiments has been developed, covering all experiments in the WP (Tasks 1, 2, and 3). Production of reforecasts with prescribed changes in land surface conditions will begin in the second year of the project.
- WP4 The project management structure has been established. The kick-off meeting was organized virtually and an open General Assembly is being prepared to be held virtually on December 1, 2021. The D4.2 project website has been developed and is maintained with regular news and updates.
The objective of CONFESS is to improve the reliability and usability of C3S information in the coupled land-atmosphere system by leveraging new and improved Earth Observation data records on land use, vegetation status, and surface-emitted aerosols, distributed across the different Copernicus services. CONFESS developments will be coherently integrated for use in future C3S systems, improving the service's accuracy in representing annual land-use changes and incorporating satellite-derived and forecast vegetation status information, along with aerosol emissions due to hazardous or extreme events, such as volcanic eruptions and large-scale biomass burning (e.g., wildfires).
The additional capacity to represent the temporal variations and trends of these variables, as well as the occurrence of hazardous or extreme events, will be supported by a rapid adoption of new Earth Observations. The impact on the Earth system will be assessed based on the quality of the global reanalysis, as well as seasonal forecasts, using state-of-the-art modeling systems. The infrastructure and knowledge developed in CONFESS will contribute to enhancing C3S capabilities for reliable monitoring and forecasting, with a particular focus on extreme events. By exploiting enhanced observational records distributed across different Copernicus Services, CONFESS will enhance C3S capabilities to monitor and predict extreme events and produce reliable climate trends, increase the relevance of services in representing hazardous events and their impact, and pave the way for the rapid adoption of new observations.
This will be achieved by enabling consistent representation of the temporal variability of chemical and biological elements of the Earth's surface state and atmospheric composition in future C3S reanalyses and seasonal forecast systems, by taking stock of the latest harmonized datasets, and by further incorporating forecast models for these new Earth system components. The strategic objectives of CONFESS are:
- Representation, for the first time, of temporal variations in land cover and vegetation in C3S systems by exploiting cutting-edge Copernicus observational datasets
- Improved temporal representation of tropospheric aerosols by harmonizing CMIP6 and CAMS datasets.
- Improved forecasting capabilities through the inclusion of prognostic vegetation and new response capabilities for volcanic and biomass burning emissions.
A climate-resilient society requires reliable monitoring and forecasting information on climate trends, patterns, and disturbances, both at global and regional scales. Through consistent representation of temporal variations in boundary forcings in reanalyses and seasonal forecasts, CONFESS will contribute to the emerging societal need for an enhanced Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) that can support adaptation and mitigation strategies in the face of increased frequency and intensity of climate extremes.
The objective of CONFESS is to improve the reliability and usability of C3S information in the coupled land-atmosphere system by exploiting new and improved Earth observation data records on land use, vegetation states, and surface-emitted aerosols distributed across different Copernicus services. CONFESS developments will be consistently integrated for use in future C3S systems, improving the service's accuracy by representing annual land-use changes by adding forecasted and satellite-derived vegetation states along with aerosol emissions due to hazardous/extreme events, such as volcanic eruptions and large-scale biomass burning (e.g., wildfires).
The additional capacity to represent temporal variations and trends in these variables and the occurrence of extreme or hazardous events will be supported by the rapid adoption of new Earth observations. The impact on the Earth system will be assessed based on the quality of the global reanalysis, as well as seasonal forecasts using state-of-the-art modeling systems. The infrastructure and knowledge developed within CONFESS will contribute to enhancing C3S capabilities for reliable monitoring and forecasting, with a particular focus on extremes.
- Terrestrial. Unprecedented information on global vegetation, provided by the latest satellite campaigns within the Copernicus framework, will be integrated into land surface models used for reanalysis and initialization of seasonal prediction systems. The variability of vegetation properties, such as leaf density, green vegetation cover, and land cover types, will be considered in both EO-based land models and the new prognostic parameterization of vegetation dynamics, thereby overcoming current limitations of short-term analysis and predictions in the affected terrestrial regions. One of the ambitions of CONFESS is to contribute to closing the gap between models used for short-term climate prediction and the latest advances in Earth System Models used for climate change research (CMIP6 framework), which are believed to significantly limit the current performance and usefulness of seasonal predictions. There are two strategies for modeling vegetation variability, and this project will help determine which is most appropriate for representing water, carbon, and energy fluxes between land and atmosphere. One is to prescribe the observed LAI. This approach corrects for model biases in vegetation mean state and variability. The other strategy is to consider the dynamic evolution of vegetation through a predictive parameterization of the LAI. The modeled vegetation may remain biased but can evolve in a manner consistent with simulated environmental variables that impact vegetation phenology (soil moisture, incident radiation, temperature).
- Tropospheric Aerosols and Biomass Burning Improved representation of aerosol forcings will contribute to improvements in the accuracy of long-term trends and low-frequency variability in reanalyses and seasonal forecast systems, without incurring the additional costs and complexity of full aerosol and emissions modeling. Although small in absolute terms, the improvements are important because they will allow for more precise calibration of the climate change signal in seasonal forecasts and more consistent estimates of the Earth's energy balance in the reanalysis.
- Stratospheric Volcanic Aerosols. Implementing the FVF methodology and CMIP volcanic aerosol datasets in the IFS will enable this model to achieve the state-of-the-art capability to specify the observed properties of volcanic aerosols from past events. This is all that is needed for reanalyses of the past. It would also allow, if desired, seasonal repredictions with a more precise specification of past stratospheric states.
- EUROPEAN CENTRE FOR MEDIUM-RANGE WEATHER FORECASTS (ECMWF)
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