The Dynamical Core Model Intercomparison Project (DCMIP) organizing committee is happy to announce that applications are now being accepted for students and postdoctoral scholars to participate in the 2016 workshop and summer school, to be hosted at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado from 6-17 June 2016.

The DCMIP workshop and summer school is a unique and intensive educational experience for future climate scientists and atmospheric model developers. Special attention will be paid to simplified physical parameterizations, physics-dynamics coupling, non-hydrostatic atmospheric modeling and variable-resolution global modeling.

The summer school and model intercomparison project promotes active learning, innovation, discovery, mentorship and the integration of science and education.  A morning lecture series will bring together some of the top experts in the field, followed by an afternoon workshop where participants will be given hands on experience with atmospheric models from centers around the world.  Participating dynamical cores include FV3, HOMME, MPAS-A, DYNAMICO, IFS-FV, CSU, NICAM, NEPTUNE, ICON, GEM, OLAM, TEMPEST and CHOMBO. Funding is available to fully support participation by students and postdocs over the two week period covering the workshop.

The application form for students and postdoctoral scholars, along with additional information about the workshop can be found here.

Applications will be accepted until 14 March 2016. Following closure of the application process, the organizing committee anticipates to announce the selection of funded participants by 31 March 2016.

The international climate research community expresses alarm at news of cuts to climate research programmes in Australia... read the message

The SPARC Newsletter contains news on current SPARC-related research activities, meetings, conferences, and reports... read the newsletter

A new article has been published highlighting the importance of integrated multidisciplinary approaches to climate, climate variability and climate change research. Read the article

The CLIVAR Open Science Conference and Early Career Scientists Symposium (ECSS) will take place 18-25 September in Qingdao, China. The Conference is now open for abstract, poster cluster and town hall submissions, ECSS applications and travel grants.

Abstracts can be submitted online here until 15 March 2016. Abstracts must be submitted to one of the OSC sessions.

The Early Career Scientists Symposium is a 3-day programme designed by, and for, early career scientists. To apply for a place at the Symposium, participants must submit an abstract as first author to the main conference, and indicate that they would like to take part in the Symposium.

Limited resources are available to support attendance of researchers from developing countries and early career scientists. Financial assistance can be requested only via the conference website on submission of an abstract. Deadline for requests is 15 March 2016.

For more information click here.

The 13th International Meeting on Statistical Climatology will be held in Canmore, Alberta from 6-10 June 2016. The meetings, which have been held roughly every three years since 1979, are organized by independent statisticians, climatologists and atmospheric scientists. The meetings facilitate communication between the science and statistics communities and promote good statistical practice in climate and atmospheric science. The local organizer of the 13th meeting is Dr Francis Zwiers. This meeting is sponsored by the Pacific Climate Impact Consortium and the World Climate Research Program.

Contributions are invited in all aspects of the application of statistical methods in climate research and the development of new statistical methods and theories relevant to climate applications. In addition, a number of named sessions are planned, including:

• Climate Data Homogenization and Climate Trends/Variability Assessment
• The Detection and Attribution Model Intercomparison Project (DAMIP) and Relevant Applications
• The WCRP Grand Challenge on Extremes
• The Attribution of Extreme Weather Events and their Impacts to External Drivers of Climate Change
• Understanding Climate Variability and its Teleconnections Under Global Warming
• Extreme Value Theory and its Applications
• Nonlinear Methods in Statistical Climatology
• Statistical Approaches for Weather and Climate Model Validation and Evaluation
• Advanced Methods for Evaluating Weather and Climate Extremes in Climate Model Simulations
• Statistical Downscaling of Climate Model Simulations
• The Stochastic Analysis of the Hydrologic Cycle.

The deadline for submitting an abstract is 15 February 2016.

On behalf of obs4MIPs, Robert Ferraro from JPL received a NASA Group Achievement Award for 'Innovative leadership and implementation of the Observations for Model Intercomparison Project and its contribution to the international climate research community'. The obs4MIPs effort was initiated with support from NASA and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and has now expanded to include contributions from the broader community including ESA, EUMETSAT, NOAA and DLR under the leadership of the WCRP Data Advisory Council. For more information about obs4MIPs, see https://www.earthsystemcog.org/projects/obs4mips/.

The 1st WCRP Summer School on "Climate Model Development: Atmospheric Moist Processes" was held on 15-26 June 2015 at Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg. Video lectures from this event are now available here.

We are pleased to announce that Dr Catherine Rio from LMD/IPSL, France, has been awarded the WCRP/WWRP International Prize for Model Development 2015.

The Prize Committee, consisting of representatives from WCRP, WWRP and WGNE was greatly impressed by her strong profile and the high quality of her contribution to model development.

In making the selection, the Committee considered a range of criteria, including the importance of the contribution in the field, but also the community impact and supporting statements by referees. The Committee was faced with the very difficult task to make a selection from truly outstanding nominations and is thankful to all nominees, proposers and seconders for the numerous and high quality applications received.

The WCRP and WWRP have established the Prize in recognition of the essential role model development plays in weather and climate science. The prize is awarded annually for an outstanding contribution to model development by an early- to mid-career researcher. It comprises a certificate signed by the Chairs of the WCRP JSC and WWRP SSC as well as funding for the recipient to present the results of his/her research at a major relevant conference or meeting of his/her choice.

After an extensive search, we would like to welcome the new director of the Climate and Cryosphere Project (CliC) of WCRP, Lawrence Hislop.

Lawrence is from Montreal, Canada and has more than ten years of international experience leading UN and EU funded projects, and has produced many environmental assessments and related communications products. From 2009-2014, Lawrence led the Polar and Cryosphere programme at GRID-Arendal in Norway and collaborated on projects with the Arctic Council, University of the Arctic and UNEP-linked activities in Polar and mountain regions. He was also on the management team of the Himalayan Climate Adaptation Programme (HICAP) from 2011 - 2014 and initiated long-term research on environmental impacts in Nepal, India, Pakistan and China. In addition to his research work, Lawrence also produces documentary photography, films and infographics.

The CliC office is generously hosted at the Norwegian Polar Institute in Tromso, Norway.

CLIVAR is seeking a Staff Scientist for the International CLIVAR Global Project Office (ICGPO) in Qingdao, China. The advertisement for the position is available here. The deadline for application is 5 January 2016. 

Run to coincide with the start of COP21, the European Space Agency's free online course on Monitoring Climate from Space starts on 30 November 2015. Sign up now!

The Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society published an article in August 2015 highlighting the Earth System Grid Federation, titled A Global Repository for Planet-Sized Experiments and Observations.

“The Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF) allows users to access, analyse, and visualize data using a globally federated collection of networks, computers, and software. Its architecture employs a system of geographically distributed peer nodes that are independently administered yet united by common federation protocols and application programming interfaces (API)..." read the article

The Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (IAI) is seeking an Executive Director. The advertisement for the position is available here and the Standard Nomination Form for candidates can be downloaded here. Deadline for application is 1 December 2015

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CLIVAR is seeking a Senior Staff Scientist for the ICGPO in Qingdao, China. The advertisement for the position is available here. The deadline for application is 15 October 2015. 

SMHI is currently seeking a Director for the International Project Office for CORDEX (IPOC). The advertisement for the Director position is available here. The deadline for application is 25 October 2015.

The Norwegian Polar Institute (NPI) and the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) invite applications for the position of Director of the Climate and Cryosphere (CliC) International Project Office (CIPO). The position, hosted at NPI in Tromsø, Norway, is temporary for a period until 31 January 2018. The deadline for application is October 15, 2015.

The advertisement for the Director position is available here.

Together with the CliC co-chairs, we would like to ask you to kindly give some thought to suitable candidates who might be interested in this position and to circulate the advertisement in your network.

Further inquiries about the position may be directed to WCRP Director Dr David Carlson, tel. +41 79 229 1042, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., WCRP Senior Scientific Officer Dr Michael Sparrow, tel. +41 22 730 8486, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., or NPI Research Director Nalân Koç, tel. +47 77 75 05 30, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Further information on CliC is available at: http://www.climate-cryosphere.org/

The WCRP Special Issue of Weather and Climate Extremes Journal, Vol. 9,  has now been published (and is free to download). This highlights the work of the WCRP Grand Challenge on Climate Extremes as well as the WCRP-ICTP Summer School on Attribution and Prediction of Extreme Events.

"Understanding our planet׳s climate – not just warmth of air near the surface but the vast complicated and interacting physical, ecological and social factors that control and modify exchanges of heat, water and carbon among atmosphere, land, ocean and ice – to such a degree that one can make skillful predictions of future climate: this represents a scientific, technical and creative challenge equal to any confronting humanity. For the task ahead – and we must admit that, even building on three or four decades of extraordinary advances in research and particularly modeling, much of the task lies still ahead – climate science needs to attract and retain the best, brightest and most diverse students. For the foreseeable future, driven mostly by persistent inability of our fastest computers to run fully coupled full height full depth high resolution interactive biogeochemical climate models in ensemble mode (and not to mention the lack of full-coverage data by which to validate those models), those students will calculate and explore and compare, in detail and with exquisite care, monthly means, meridional heat transports, zonal wind patterns and global nutrient budgets – the large-scale but often subtle diagnostic patterns of our planet..." read the article

The worldwide climate research community has talent, dedication, and a clear sense of knowledge gaps. It needs to close those gaps and convey its messages effectively to user communities ... read the article

Scientitsts and water managers actively involved in world water balance research are invited to submit a paper for the International Conference on Water Resources Assessment and Seasonal Prediction that will take place in Koblenz, Germany, on 13-16 October 2015. This is a unique platform for exchanging views and ideas on monitoring, assessing and predicting key variables for water management. Deadline for submission: 20 June 2015 ... read more

The International Council for Science (ICSU) is convening a special event on July 6th on the sideline of the climate science conference in Paris "Our Common Future Under Climate Change" . The leadership of ICSU-cosponsored research programme (including WCRP) is invited to debate on how science can help to support the world's transition to a low carbon future... read more

At the 17th World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Congress on Friday 29th May, the delegates reviewed the latest achievements of WCRP. The WMO Congress expressed appreciation for WCRP's continued, positive and effective relationship with its co-sponsoring organizations   ... read the article

The findings and recommendations emerged from the Climate Symposium organized by EUMETSAT and WCRP in October 2014 have been published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (BAMS). Session topics revolved around the six "Grand Science Challenges" of the WCRP and addressed the specific need, and role of, climate observations from space. Based on the presentations and discussions the authors identified the main outcomes of the symposium  ... read the article

Latest issue of International Innovation features an interview with WCRP Director David Carlson highlighting the Programme's cross-cutting role within the climate users. By facilitating analysis and prediction WCRP channels the knowledge of climate processes into products, prediction and assessment... read the article

The workshop was organized under the auspices of the WCRP Grand Science Challenge on Clouds, Circulation and Climate Sensitivity. Over thirty experts from around the world gathered together for one week in Ringberg, Germany, in March 2015. The workshop produced nine recommendations, many of them focusing on specific research avenues that could be exploited to advance understanding of climate sensitivity... read the report