More accurate climate change predictions

Brussels, 20 Jun 2005

They say 'great minds think alike' but the essence of large-scale integrated projects is to put the best minds – frequently from different disciplines – towards solving major scientific problems. One European project, called Ensemble, takes this grouping principle to the next level, assembling partners from all over the world to come up with more accurate predictions for climate change.

Predicting climate change – whether from natural or man-made causes – is notoriously difficult because of uncertainties in weather forecasting and problems with data reliability and key processes used, lament scientists. For the first time, thanks to European Union funding, a group of research teams spanning the globe will develop a common aggregated climate forecasting system covering various timescales and spatial spreads – i.e. regional, local, national.

More accurate climate prediction has a number of immediate and longer-term benefits. Scientists – and other users of the systems that the Ensemble projects aims to develop – will be able to forewarn authorities when there is greater risk of unnatural weather extremes, causing disasters, such as floods, landslides and avalanches. Farmers will be able to plan ahead for potential droughts or unseasonal weather that could damage crops. Policy-makers will be better informed about the environmental impacts of climate change, and act accordingly.

The Ensemble research consortium is made up of 70 partners from the EU, Switzerland, Australia and the USA who will spend five years and €15 million in EU funding developing what it calls an "ensemble prediction system based on state-of-the-art high-resolution, global, regional and whole Earth system models". Led by the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research at the UK Met Office, Ensemble (short for Ensemble-based predictions of climate changes and their impacts) will validate these models against current weather data to come up with more accurate forecasts of future climate aberrations – seasonally, over decades and even longer timescales.

As well as improving data reliability, Ensemble will integrate new processes into its climate models to come up with what it calls "true Earth system" models. But having the know-how and making good use of it are not the same things.

Ensemble is also focusing attention on how its climate prediction models and information can be put to use by an increasingly diverse user community. It is committed to widening the availability of scientific knowledge and providing relevant climate change information to various stakeholders, policy-makers and the public at large, where relevant.

Critical to the success of the Sixth Framework Programme project will be collaboration between physical climate modellers and experts in the carbon cycle and atmospheric chemistry, the team note in a presentation during its launch phase in September 2004. As, too, will its plans to combine global and regional models to give a fuller picture of the changes taking place now and possibly in the future. It will also bear in mind the socio-economic dimension in its integrated "total Earth system models".

DG Research
http:///europa.eu.int/comm/d gs/research/i ndex_en.html
Item source: http: //europa.eu.int/comm/research/headl ines/news/article_05_06_17_en.html Previous Item Back to Titles Print Item