H2020 EUCP Project: European Climate Prediction System

Type Project
Status Filled
Execution 2017 -2022
Assigned Budget 12.999.515,00 €
Scope Europeo
Autonomous community Cataluña
Main source of financing Horizon 2020
Project website https://www.eucp-project.eu/

Description

While many studies produce climate predictions or projections, EUCP has gone beyond the state of the art by extracting more information from those projections and filling gaps where current projections do not yet exist. In particular, many new methods have been developed and published that allow for a better understanding of prediction skill, the constraining of projections, and the merging of initialized short-term prediction simulations with long-term climate projections. New datasets have been developed and used, for example, in the IPCC assessment and the WMO Decadal Forecast Exchange. Relevant case studies have been developed and presented to users. This new learning in EUCP is the basis for providing an authoritative climate information base for assessing the impact of climate change (high-level goals 1 and 2). It supports building a climate-resilient economy and strengthens civil protection (goals 2, 3, and 4).

It provides a basis for increasing the credibility and usefulness of climate predictions and for identifying and characterizing trends in regional climate extremes (Goals 1, 2, 3, and 4). The EUCP has made an important contribution to enabling the EU to implement Sustainable Development Goal SDG 13 “Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts,” as well as the COP21 Paris Agreement conclusions (linked to high-level Goals 2, 3, and 4). Alongside scientific developments, the EUCP developed and tested a number of storyboard-based communication approaches relevant to both scientific and professional audiences. These approaches provide a record of the EUCP legacy and could also be implemented in future projects.

The project has produced multiple written and oral briefings for policymakers and practitioners. Progress beyond the state of the art was demonstrated by the inclusion of EUCP findings in the recently published IPCC Sixth Assessment (AR6), which laid the scientific groundwork for negotiations at the UN COP26 climate conference in November 2021.

Description of activities

EUCP has made significant progress toward developing new methodologies that will significantly improve climate prediction and projections out to 40+ years. It has established these methods in the peer-reviewed scientific literature and demonstrated their potential value through pilot studies focused on real-world climate problems. EUCP has facilitated improved approaches to decadal predictions, including pioneering methods for extracting greater predictive power from these forecasts. It also played a major role in the establishment of the WMO Lead Centre for the Exchange of Decadal Forecasts, which is an important milestone in the transition of decadal forecasting from a purely research domain to operational implementation for decision-making.

It enables the construction of multi-model decadal forecasts. EUCP has also made important contributions to the science of climate projections on timescales beyond a decade, providing the first major study to intercompare methods for constraining or filtering ensembles of projections across the European region. Without the new insights, it was unclear how different approaches affected projection spread, adding an additional level of uncertainty for users. EUCP provided the first multi-model demonstration of the added value of using weather prediction model spatial resolution in a common domain for convective climate model simulations that allow it. It also provided decision-relevant forecast data for use across Europe. By aligning with the EuroCORDEX flagship experiment and introducing the results, EUCP has provided a data legacy that enables the use of sub-daily information and better simulation of climate extremes. EUCP has made significant progress in developing methods that allow for the matching or merging of near-future predictions (5 years or so) with longer-term projections.

It has also produced new insights into the fusion of spatial information from different scales, with several demonstrations of applicability. This impact will impact relevant applications that show how improved climate information could be used, for example, to understand flooding, water availability, or energy supply. An "add-on" to the original project specification was a study on the application of the latest climate prediction/projection approaches to outermost regions, beyond continental Europe.

As an example, this work showed how high-resolution convective permitting modeling can be used to observe climate change in island locations, including the use of pseudoglobal warming experiments. The impacts of COVID-19 and accompanying restrictions have slowed progress on some aspects of the EUCP, but we have also treated societal changes as an opportunity and developed approaches for collaborative climate science work.

Contextual description

The IPCC's Sixth Assessment highlighted the considerable and impactful changes observed in the global climate over recent decades. Predictions and projections of future weather and climate are an essential ingredient for making informed decisions about how society can respond to the challenge of global climate change. The EUCP was launched with a very ambitious goal: to improve predictions and projections of future climate on timescales of up to 40+ years, with a focus on Europe but applicable globally. The objective of the EUCP was to produce methods and data that would provide a solid foundation on which other climate services activities and investments could be built (Objectives 1, 2, and 3).

The project aimed to ensure that the methods being developed are available to others around the world, including through peer-reviewed publications, and that they can be used in other climate prediction systems (Objective 4). The EUCP project aimed to improve methods for characterizing uncertainty in climate predictions and projections, regional downscaling, and making use of observation-based assessment (Objective 1). The EUCP climate prediction system was required to produce consistent, authoritative, and actionable climate information (Objective 2), and an important part of the project is to demonstrate the value of this system through user-relevant climate change examples, with a focus on high-impact extreme weather events in the near past, present, and near future (1–40+ years).

This task should be based on convection-enabled regional climate models and translate the results into information on risks or impacts (objective 3). One of the objectives of the EUCP has been to demonstrate value and benefit to decision-makers, and its results are intended to support the development of national climate services in all European countries. This includes government policymakers, decision-makers in commercial organizations, and climate service providers, including national meteorological and hydrological services, and SMEs.

Objectives

The European Climate Prediction System (EUCP) project has four objectives, all directly relevant to the work programme and fully meeting its challenge, scope, and impact.

To develop an innovative ensemble climate prediction system based on high-resolution climate models for Europe in the near term (approximately 1–40 years), including improved methods for characterizing uncertainty in climate predictions, regional downscaling, and benchmarking with observations.
Use the climate prediction system to generate consistent, reliable, and actionable climate information. This information will be designed in collaboration with users to form a solid basis for the activities of the European Climate Service, supporting climate-related risk assessments and climate change adaptation programs.
Demonstrate the value of this climate prediction system by analyzing high-impact extreme weather events in the past and near future, using convection-enabled regional climate models, and translating them into risk information for and with target end-users.
Develop and publish methodologies, best practices, and guidelines for the production and use of reliable climate predictions for periods ranging from 1 to 40 years.

The system (objective 1) will combine climate predictions initialized over a multi-year period with longer-term climate projections and high-resolution regional downscaling, using observations for assessment. Methodologies will be developed to characterize uncertainty and seamlessly harmonize predictions and projections. Users will be engaged through active groups.

The system will be used (objective 2) with users to co-produce information suitable for the activities of the European Climate Service. A set of demonstrators will demonstrate the value of this information in real-world applications with user participation (objective 3).

Key outcomes will include the dissemination and publication of project methodologies, as well as relevant data and knowledge for users (objective 4).

Coordinators