WCRP is pleased to announce that Dr Michael (Mike) Sparrow has joined the WCRP JPS team in Geneva. Mike comes from the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR), where he has been Executive Director for the last five years and Executive Officer before that... read more

75% of very hot days occurring over land can be attributed to human activity according to a new study recently published in Nature Climate Change. Moreover the authors found that 18% of extreme precipitation events is caused by temperature increase since pre-industrial times. Such study is based on the CMIP data coordinated by WCRP Working Group on Coupled Modelling.... read the article

The World Weather Research Program (WWRP) and World Climate Research Program (WCRP) have launched in 2013 a joint new research initiative, the Sub-seasonal to Seasonal Prediction Project (S2S) which main goal is to improve forecast skill and understanding of the sub-seasonal to seasonal timescale, and to promote its uptake by operational centres and exploitation by the applications communities. A main deliverable of this project is the establishment of an extensive database that contains sub-seasonal (up to 60 days) near-real time forecasts (3 weeks behind real-time) and reforecasts (sometimes known as hindcasts), following the work started with the THORPEX Interactive Grand Global Ensemble (TIGGE) database for medium-range forecasts (up to 15 days) and the Climate-System Historical Forecast project (CHFP) for seasonal forecast. Detailed informations on the database are available here. This research database, hosted at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) and the Chinese Meteorology Administration (CMA) is now available to the research community from the ECMWF data portal.

The Belmont Forum and JPI-Climate have launched a call for proposals on climate predictability and inter-regional linkages. This call aims to contribute to the overall challenge of developing climate services with focus on the role of inter-regional linkages in climate variability and predictability. Project proposals should demonstrate a research need for international and regional coordination. Deadline for submission 1st June 2015... read more

 Recognizing the convergence in their interests and activities, and the potential for substantial mutual collaboration, WCRP and PAGES (Past Global Changes) have formed a scientific partnership aimed at strengthening ties between the two organizations at several levels.... read more

The second assessment of climate change for the Baltic Sea Basin (BACC II) is now available as open access. This book is an update of the first BACC assessment published in 2008 and offers new scientific findings in regional climate research for the Baltic Sea basin. The book will be launched at the ECCA2015 in Copehagen, Denmark, in May 2015... read more

The 30th session of the CAS/WCRP Working  Group on Numerical Experimentation was held on 23-26 March 2015 at the new NOAA Center for Weather and Climate Prediction (NCWCP), College Park, Maryland USA. This was also the occasion for celebrating 30 years of achievements by reviewing the history of WGNE in the latest three decades... read more

In a new article featured in Nature Geoscience, S. Bony and B. Stevens  -plus many other authors- describe the WCRP Grand Challenge on how clouds, circulation and climate interact. This initiative focuses on understanding the role of cloud feedbacks and convective organization in climate, and the factors that control the tropical rain belts and the extratropical storm tracks... read the article

The CORDEX Scientific Advisory Team met in February 2015 to plan future activities that will strengthen regional climate modelling across the globe. Today, CORDEX has produced regional climate scenarios that cover most of the world's land regions... read more

The workshop on CMIP5 Model Analysis and Scientific Plans for CMIP6, jointly organized by the WCRP Working Group on Coupled Modelling and the European Commission FP7 project EMBRACE, will take place in Dubrovnik (Croatia) during 20-23 October 2015. Those interested in submitting an abstract are invited to visit the workshop webpage. Deadline for abstracts submission is 13 April 2015

CliC is pleased to release its 2014 Annual Report which summarizes the amazing number of activities that the Project sponsored, and in many cases, initiated over the past few years. The publication lists the achievements as well as the CliC plans for the coming years.... read more

The workshop is part of the S2S project activities and will take place in Jeju, Republic of Korea, on 22-24 June 2015. This will provide a forum for researchers and forecasters to discuss recent advances and current issues covering the sub-seasonal to seasonal prediction of monsoons, with an emphasis on lead times of 2 to 4 weeks... more information

The World Meteorological Organization has issued a report on the Climate in Africa 2013, the first of an annual series of peer-reviewed statements on the continent climate conditions. The report examines temperatures, rainfall and extreme events on the African region which is especially vulnerable to natural climate variability and long-term climate change... read more

The WCRP Joint Scientific Committee (JSC) working closely with WG 1 of the IPCC, organized a meeting on Lessons Learnt from the recently published IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (AR5). The meeting took place in September 2014, in Bern, Switzerland, hosted by the International Space Science Institute (ISSI) and with substantial support from the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment read more

Eleanor O’Rourke has been hired as the Director of the new WCRP International Project Office for CORDEX (IPOC), kindly hosted by the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI) in Sweden. The WCRP JPS staff in Geneva is looking forward to further developing CORDEX with her and the SMHI team.

Eleanor O’Rourke completed a BSc (Hons) in Meteorology and Oceanography at the University of East Anglia, UK. She then spent a year working in scientific conference development and management before undertaking a PhD at the Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory (now National Oceanography Centre) in Liverpool, UK. Her thesis focused on ‘The effect of topography on thermohaline adjustment’ and was funded through the NERC RAPID programme. During her time as a PhD student, Eleanor was also involved in a number of outreach and education activities in the local area gaining beneficial experience in communicating science to the public. Further she undertook a three month fellowship at the Parliamentary Office for Science & Technology at the Westminster Parliament in London where she provided UK parliamentarians with concise and easily understood information regarding the impact of climate change on renewable energy potential.

After completing her PhD, Eleanor then spent three years working at a scientific consultancy in Glasgow, UK gaining wide ranging experience of European Framework Programme project management, stakeholder engagement and proposal preparation. In 2012 she moved to the Rossby Centre at SMHI, Sweden to project manage the FP7 EMBRACE project and further took a number of roles in communication and dissemination for the Rossby Centre and other FP7 projects, proposal preparation, and group coordination. Eleanor also quickly became involved in CORDEX as a member of the Communications and Early Career Scientist group and later as part of the CORDEX 2013 conference organising team.

Eleanor is tremendously excited about taking on the role of Director of the International Project Office for CORDEX and working with the whole CORDEX community and many other stakeholders.

The 11th International Conference on Southern Hemisphere Meteorology and Oceanography will take place this year (5-9 October 2015) in Santiago, Chile. This is a great opportunity to showcase WCRP ocean and atmosphere sciences specific to the Southern Hemisphere. Prof. James Renwick, WCRP JSC member, and Prof. Rene Garreaud, GEWEX SSG member, are the Chair of the Programme Committee and the Chair of the Local Organizing Committee respectively. For more information go to the conference webpage

This topical conference jointly organized by ESA and GEWEX will take place on 20-23 October 2015 in Frascati, Italy. The main objectives are to review the latest contributions in water cycle science, to assess the uncertainties and consistency of observations, to identify current gaps in our knowledge and observations, and to consolidate a scientific roadmap for future priorities. Deadline for abstracts submission is 30th April 2015... read more

The Climate Symposium 2014 main findings and recommandations are now available on the symposium website. They are split into 3 themes: (1) Research and Process Understanding, (ii) Observations and (iii) Coordination and Integration of Observations... read more. A new video has also been produced with many interviews to international experts attending the symposium... watch the video

Dr. Boram Lee is the new Senior Scientific Officer of the WCRP Joint Planning Staff. Before joining the WCRP, Boram worked at the Marine Meteorology and Oceanography Programme (MMOP), WMO, being responsible for the international coordination of the marine affairs including coastal disaster forecasting and warning through the Joint WMO-IOC Technical Commission for Oceanographyand Marine Meteorology (JCOMM). She also managed the WMO Coastal Inundation Forecasting Demonstration Project (CIFDP) that are implemented in five countries/regions. Boram has worked at the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO  from 2003 to 2011 as Programme Specialist, at the National Institute for Agro-Environmental Sciences of Japan in 2002 as visiting scientist, and at the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) from 1995 to 2001 as research scientist for applied meteorology. Since 2010, Dr Lee serves as adjunct professor in the College of Ocean Science, Jeju National University, Republic of Korea.

Boram Lee holds Ph.D. in climatology from the Université Paris VI, France, Masters and Bachelors degrees in atmospheric science from the Seoul National University in Korea.

Geneva/Tromsø (19 January 2015) The World Climate Research Program (WCRP) is launching a Polar Challenge to reward the first team able to send an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) for a 2,000 kilometer mission under the sea-ice in the Arctic or Antarctic... read more

Welcome to Prof. Dr. Guy Brasseur as the new Chair of World Climate Research Programme Joint Scientific Committee (JSC) from 1st January 2015, and farewell to Prof. Antonio Busalacchi who finished his term with the end of 2014. The JSC, on behalf of the worldwide community of WCRP affiliated scientists, wishes to express its gratitude to "Tony" for his extraordinary active leadership in the last 6 years during which a highly successful Open Science Conference took place and the future directions of WCRP emerged in the form of Grand Challenges.... read more

The World Climate Research Programme (WCRP), Max-Planck-Institute für Meteorologie (MPI-M), and Hans Ertel Centre for Weather Research announce the 1st Summer School on Climate Model Development hosted by the MPI-M, in Hamburg, Germany, from 15 to 26 June 2015. The School is open to graduate students and early career researchers in meteorology and associated fields. The application deadline is 28 February 2015; please turn to our on-line application system at this web site: http://schools.enes.org/WSSCMD1

A group of international experts convened in Pasadina, USA, to discuss the next steps in coordinating global and regional information on drought understanding, monitoring, forecasting and management. The International Global Information System (GDIS) Workshop: Next Steps was held from 11-13 December 2014 and featured a joint open session with representatives of the GEWEX Hydroclimatology Panel (GHP)... read more

We are pleased to announce that Peter H. Lauritzen from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Boulder, USA, has been awarded the WCRP/WWRP International Prize for Model Development 2014. The Prize Committee, consisting of representatives from WCRP, WWRP and WGNE was greatly impressed by his strong profile and the high quality of his contribution... read more