The core of WCRP research is organized into six enduring research communities, termed 'Core Projects.' The Core Projects are where researchers from around the world work together to ensure that we are addressing the most pressing climate challenges, such as through the WCRP Lighthouse Activities. The six WCRP core projects are:
  • Climate and Cryosphere (CliC): CliC encourages and promotes research into the cryosphere in order to improve understanding of the cryosphere and its interactions with the global climate system, and to enhance the ability to use parts of the cryosphere for detection of climate change.
  • Climate and Ocean Variability, Predictability and Change (CLIVAR): CLIVAR’s mission is to understand the dynamics, the interaction, and the predictability of the coupled ocean-atmosphere system. To this end it facilitates observations, analysis, and predictions of changes in the Earth's climate system, enabling a better understanding of climate variability, predictability, and change.
  • Earth System Modelling and Observations (ESMO): The science and technologies for modeling, observations, and model-data fusion. ESMO will unite and strengthen the work of the Working Group on Coupled Modelling (WGCM), (including CMIP), the Working Group on Numerical Experimentation (WGNE), the Working Group on Sub-seasonal to Interdecadal Prediction (WGSIP), and the Subseasonal to Seasonal Prediction (S2S) Project.
  • Global Energy and Water Exchanges (GEWEX): GEWEX is an integrated program of research, observations, and science activities that focuses on the atmospheric, terrestrial, radiative, hydrological, coupled processes, and interactions that determine the global and regional hydrological cycle, radiation, and energy transitions and their involvement in global changes.
  • Regional Information for Climate (RIfS): The science and capability needed for providing societally relevant climate information for regions, including the work of the Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX).
  • Stratosphere-troposphere Processes And their Role in Climate (SPARC): SPARC provides intellectual leadership to address key issues in atmospheric dynamics and predictability, chemistry and climate, and long-term records for climate understanding.

Four of the WCRP Core Projects were established in the 1990s (CliC, CLIVAR, GEWEX, and SPARC) and two were established in 2021 (ESMO, RifS) in response to a need to bring together climate observations and modelling (ESMO) and to ensure that climate data and information are useful to and usable by society (RIfS). 

 WCRP core projects 2021

Image credits: NOAA Ozonesonde; Pixabay (1348808, 5960371, 1807576); iStock (148329826, 505524719, 985895696) (WCRP, 2021).