OptimESM: Optimal High-Resolution Earth System Models for Exploring Future Climate Changes
Limiting global warming to 1.5°-2°C, as agreed in the Paris Agreement, is becoming increasingly challenging. Policymakers and societies require information about feasible mitigation pathways that realise the Paris Agreement, as well as information on the consequences of temporarily or more permanently exceeding these targets. OptimESM brings together scientists from different disciplines to provide this information by using the most advanced existing Earth System Models (ESMs), further developing and improving them to produce a new generation of ESMs, and applying these to provide new future climate simulations for a range of new emission scenarios produced by the project Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs). The project started in January 2023 and will run for five years.
OptimESM will develop a novel generation of Earth system models (ESMs), combining high-resolution with an unprecedented representation of key physical and biogeochemical processes. These models will be used to deliver cutting-edge and policy-relevant knowledge around the consequences of reaching or exceeding different levels of global warming, including the risk of rapid change in key Earth system phenomena and the regional impacts arising both from the level of global warming and the occurrence of abrupt changes.
OptimESM will realise these goals by bringing together four ESM groups with Integrated Assessment Modelling teams, as well as experts in model evaluation, Earth system processes, machine learning, climate impacts and science communication. This knowledge will provide a solid foundation for actionable science-based policies.
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Research and Innovation Actions, under grant agreement No 101081193
EUROPEAN CLIMATE, INFRASTRUCTURE AND ENVIRONMENT EXECUTIVE AGENCY (CINEA)
Funding: €7.700.000
Start date: 1 January 2023
End date: 31 December 2027
Partners
- The Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute – Sweden
- The Danish Meteorological Institute – Denmark
- Centre National De La Recherche Scientifique – France
- Meteo-France – France
- Koninklijk Nederlands Meteorologisch Instituut – Netherlands
- Barcelona Supercomuting Center-Centro Nacional de Supercomputacion – Spain
- Lund University – Sweden
- Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche – Italy
- B. Geos Gmbh – Austria
- Potsdam-Institut fur Klimafolgenforschung EV – Germany
- The Finnish Meteorological Institute – Finland
- Centre Europeen de Recherche et Deformation Avancee en Calcul Scientifique – France
- Cineca consorzion interuniversitario – Italy
- The Cyprus Institute – Cyprus
Associated partners
- METOFFICE – UK
- University of Leeds – UK
- National Oceanography Centre – UK
- University of Bristol – UK
- The University of Reading – UK
- The University of Exeter – UK
