The World Climate Research Programme Joint Scientific Committee (JSC) has formally endorsed during its 45b session the process and scenarios proposed by ScenarioMIP as part of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) suite of experiments. The proposed scenarios have been established through internal consultation, in close collaboration with the CMIP community and endorsed by the WCRP Earth System Modelling & Observations (ESMO) Core project’s Working Group on Coupled Modelling (WGCM) . Download the endorsement here. 

The WCRP Regional Information for Society (RIfS) Core Project is launching an Africa Task Team for researchers living and working in Africa to define and address their regionally-specific challenges on climate information for society. The Task Team will become a body of the RIfS representing the regional interests of Africa. It will facilitate and steer this work in Africa, and be a model for how RIfS might organize similar activities in other regions of the world.
For more information and to nominate someone (including self-nomination), deadline 15 March 2025 - 17:00 UTC, please visit the RIfs Africa Task Team web page.

RIfS is also looking for a Science Officer, based in Africa, to coordinate activities with regional foci in Africa. This key coordination role requires someone with a working knowledge about physical climate science, and comfortable with engaging a wide range of disciplines, individuals, projects, and organizations across the continent already active in relevant work. The goal of the Science Officer is to serve as the connecting glue for various communities of practice that touch on producing robust information for decisions in the face of climate change.
For more information and to apply, deadline 31 March 2025 17:00 UTC, please visit the application web page.

The 2024 edition of the WGNE Blue Book 2024 is available through the open repository Zenodo. This publication fosters collaboration and the early exchange of ideas among scientists at the forefront of numerical model development. These models are critical for advancing Earth system simulations and forecasts across various timescales, from short-to-medium range, from subseasonal to seasonal and beyond.

The WGNE Blue Book continues to be an invaluable resource for the modelling community, showcasing innovative approaches and facilitating the exchange of ideas that drive the science forward.

Read the WGNE Blue Book 2024, DOI 10.5281/zenodo.14753296

"ESMO Brief," the newsletter of the ESMO project, will come out every six months with updates, reports and insights from the ESMO community.

This first issue covers key developments in Earth system modeling and observations, including:

• New Working Group on Observations – Strengthening collaboration between modeling and observational research communities.
• WGNE Blue Book Now on Zenodo – Easier access and improved referencing for this key resource.
• Conference & Meeting Highlights – Key takeaways from recent events.
• Exciting Research & Opportunities – New publications, initiatives and expert insights.
• Upcoming Events – Don’t miss important workshops, conferences, and webinars.

We invite you to read the 1^st issue of the ESMO Newsletter.

We are delighted to announce that Dr Addis Alaminie, an exceptional hydrologist and climate scientist from Ethiopia, has been named the first recipient of the WCRP 2024 Global South Fellowship. This Fellowship program aims to empower early to mid-career researchers from the Global South to develop and foster climate research in the regions. In 2024, the Fellowship call focused on Africa, inviting proposals from African researchers to address critical gaps in climate research highlighted by WCRP, enhance climate action for and in Africa, and build a strong legacy for the continent’s scientific community. 

Professor Tim Naish (New Zealand) and Professor Cristiana Stan (USA) have been elected as the Chair and Vice-chair of the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) Joint Scientific Committee (JSC).  

The elections for the two positions concluded on 27 January 2025.

The Digital Earths lighthouse activity is organizing two webinars - one each under the land modelling webinar series and the Global Hackathon - next week.

1. Groundwater representation in High-Resolution Land Modeling (Digital Earths - Land Modeling webinar series) - 3 Feb 2025; 15:00 UTC (Register here). 
2. A Global Pan-Hackathon for Km-Scale Models (Digital Earths) - 4 Feb 2025; 16:00 UTC (Register here). 

Rising sea levels are a major concern for low-lying coastal communities and ecosystems across the globe, yet planning for future sea-level rise is hampered by uncertainties in future greenhouse gas emissions, how ice sheets will respond and other potential climate tipping points that lead to a wide range of possible future projections. The World Climate Research Programme’s Grand Challenge on 'Regional Sea-Level Change and Coastal Impacts’ was implemented to further advance understanding of natural and human contributions to sea level rise, promote advances in observations and foster the development of sea-level information that assists coastal practitioners in planning for the future.

We invite you to read the review paper "Perspective on Regional Sea-level Change and Coastal Impacts” based on the Grand Challenge on Regional Sea Level Change and Coastal Impacts.

The 10 New Insights in Climate Science (10NICS) has opened call for expert input in preparation for its upcoming edition. To know more about the process and to apply, please click here.

Deadline to apply is 31 January 2025. 

We are delighted to announce the upcoming webinar in the Tipping Points Discussion Series to be held on 22 January 2025, 15:30 CET. Click here to register for this event. 

The report from My Climate Risk Fifth General Assembly held online in October and November 2024, has now been published. This report includes summaries of the pre-recorded presentations, together with a synthesis across the three sessions of the main points arising from the discussion.

WCRP Climate and Ocean Variability, Predictability and Change (CLIVAR)  is excited to announce the publication of a new paper "A Global Overview of Marine Heatwaves in a Changing Climate" by the Marine Heatwaves in the Global Ocean Research Foci Group. This comprehensive article provides a review of advances in understanding marine heatwaves (MHWs) and their increasing impacts on marine ecosystems worldwide. Marine heatwaves have become a major concern due to their profound effects on ocean ecosystems, fisheries, and coastal communities. The paper explores the three-dimensional structure and evolution of these extremes, their drivers, their connection with other extremes in the ocean and over land, future projections, and assessment of their predictability and current prediction skill.

The paper, published in Communications Earth & Environment, is available here.

The WGCM Infrastructure Panel (WIP) is a Working Group on Climate Modelling (WGCM) subcommittee charged with coordinating infrastructure support for CMIP. It works with projects funded to develop software and supporting infrastructure that facilitates access to and analysis of the CMIP model output. It defines specifications and standards that ensure model output is written in a common structure and format, and that it is archived and made accessible worldwide in a common way. More generally, the WIP provides guidance and oversees infrastructure development so that it will be fit for its purpose and meet the scientific needs of CMIP and other MIP projects.  

This call invites the community to nominate candidates (including self-nomination) to join the WIP. Application deadline: 08:00 UTC, Friday 10th January 2025

For more information and to apply, click here.

Around 40 scientists working on a range of impacts due to climate change gathered at the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) to inform, brainstorm, and exchange ideas. The Workshop on High-Risk Cascading Shocks, organized by members of the Safe Landing Climates Lighthouse Activity of WCRP, took place from 18 to 20 November, 2024. The enthusiasm among the participants was palpable as they worked together on forming a forward-looking agenda for their work in the coming years. 

More than a dozen organizations have signed an open letter to leaders at COP29, emphasizing that exceeding the 1.5°C threshold risks will trigger irreversible and uncontrollable shifts in the Earth’s climate system, with catastrophic consequences for both current and future generations. Tune in to the media event, which will take place at the Cryosphere Pavilion at COP29 on Friday, 22 November, at 10:00 AM local time in Baku (7:00 AM CET): https://iccinet.org/cop29-november-22. The event will be streamed live and made available later on the International Cryosphere Climate Initiative (ICCI) YouTube channel.

The Global Carbon Project (GCP) published the Global Carbon Budget 2024 yesterday at the 29th Conference of the Parties in Baku, Azerbaijan. You can find the key messages on the GCP website and the preprint on the Earth Systems Science Data website.

Image: GCP website

1. Pan-Australia Kilometre-Scale Weather and Climate Modelling: Bridging the Tropics and Midlatitudes - 19 November 2024, 21:00-22:00 UTC. Register here. (Digital Earths Webinar series)
2. The LIAISE Land Surface Model Inter-comparison: What Goes Wrong When These Models Are Run at km-Scale Resolutions? - 2 December 2024, 15:00 UTC. Register here for this webinar (Digital Earths webinar series on high-resolution land model and land-atmosphere coupling)
   
    

Stéphane Hallegatte, Senior Climate Change Adviser at the World Bank Group, will be at the World Meteorological Organization to deliver a keynote on Climate and Economic Modeling: Lessons from 60 Country Climate and Development Reports and Key Knowledge Gaps.  

In his lecture, he will draw from his experience at the World Bank to highlight what works and what doesn't, in the climate and economic modeling realm. This lecture is part of a series of workshops (invite-only, in-person) organized by the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) and S&P Global.  

Scan the QR code in the image to join the livestream.  

Click here to know more about the speaker and the event.  

5 November 2024, 15:00-16:30 CET

Join us for the next webinar in the Tipping Points Discussion Series, which will explore the origins of model uncertainties and shift the focus from asking when a model is "good enough" to considering when it becomes too unrealistic to be useful. The webinar will include two talks by Dave Stainforth (London School of Economics) and Thomas Stocker (University of Bern) and will be moderated by Gabi Hegerl (University of Edinburgh). Register now!

We are delighted to announce the next webinar hosted by the Explaining and Predicting Earth System Change (EPESC) lighthouse activity on 12 November 2024. The details are as follows:

• Topic: Approaches, Challenges, and Emerging Opportunities in Extreme Event Attribution
• Date and time: 12 November 2024; 12:00 CEST.
• Speakers: Dr Nicholas Leach (University of Oxford), Dr Yukiko Imada (University of Tokyo), Dr Yang Chen (Chinese Academy of Meteorological Science).

To register for this webinar, click here.
Past webinars of the EPESC webinar series, are available here.