Geology of northern Alaska: Examining the Arctic Alaska-Chukotka microplate
The International Conference on Regional Climate – CORDEX 2013 illustrated the tremendous growth of, and interest in CORDEX. It was clear that CORDEX now requires even stronger global coordination with the appropriate administrative, scientific and technical support to respond to expanding activities worldwide therefore justifying the establishment of a dedicated International Project Office for CORDEX (IPOC).
A call to host such office was issued in December 2013, with the initial 1st April deadline extended until 30th April 2014 when three offers were received.
A selection board was established by the WCRP Joint Planning Staff (JPS), in close consultation with the CORDEX Science Advisory Team (SAT) and with due consideration of CORDEX governance, expertise in regional climate science and application, and geographical and gender balance.
The review process was conducted in two phases:
The selection board reached a consensus in strongly recommending the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI) as the institution to host the International Project Office for CORDEX. This recommendation has now been approved by our Director and we will move ahead in formally establishing the office at SMHI.
The board also made the following recommendations for the office:
WCRP is truly grateful to all applicants for putting forward very strong offers and for their continued engagement in WCRP, and is now looking forward to establishing the International Project Office for CORDEX at SMHI during late 2014
Following the pioneering and successful work of the Task Force on Regional Climate Downscaling (TFRCD) which mandate ended in 2011, the WCRP has now established a CORDEX Science Advisory Team which mandate is to implement and oversee, in communication with the broader scientific community, the following tasks:
The CORDEX-SAT is expected to report regularly at the JSC and the Working Group on Regional Climate (WGRC) meetings on the progress of its activities. Members are appointed for a 3-year term, with the possibility of 2-year extensions.
Regional climate downscaling (RCD) techniques, including both dynamical and statistical approaches, are being increasingly used to provide higher-resolution climate information than is available directly from contemporary global climate models. The techniques available, their applications, and the community using them are broad and varied, and it is a growing area. It is important however that these techniques, and the results they produce, be applied appropriately and that their strengths and weaknesses are understood. This requires a better evaluation and quantification of the performance of the different techniques for application to specific problems. Building on experience gained in the global modelling community, a coordinated, international effort to objectively assess and intercompare various RCD techniques will provide a means to evaluate their performance, to illustrate benefits and shortcomings of different approaches, and to provide a more solid scientific basis for impact assessments and other uses of downscaled climate information.
The WCRP views regional downscaling as both an important research topic and an opportunity to engage a broader community of climate scientists in its activities. The Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX) has served as a catalyst to achieve this goal.
As demonstrated at the recent International Conference on Regional Climate - CORDEX 2013 held on 4-7 November in Brussels, Belgium, and co-sponsored by WCRP, the European Commission and IPCC, the CORDEX concept has gained maturity and is showing strong buy-in from the science community and VIA practitioners.
In order to meet stakeholders’ expectations, plans are now underway to follow-up on the conference outcomes so as to improve the experimental framework leading into the second phase of CORDEX (CORDEX-II)."
Name |
Affiliation |
Filippo Giorgi (co-chair) |
Earth System Physics Section, The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics Trieste, ITALY giorgi (at) ictp.it |
William Gutowski (co-chair) |
Iowa State University Dept. of Geological & Atmospheric Sciences Ames, Iowa, USA gutowski(at)iastate.edu |
I. Anguelovski |
Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona Barcelona, SPAIN Isabelle.Anguelovski (at)uab.cat |
R. Krishnan | Centre for Climate Change Research (CCCR) Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology Pune, INDIA krish (at) tropmet.res.in%20 |
W. T. Kwon | National Institute of Meteorological Research Korea Meteorological Administration Seoul, REPUBLIC OF KOREA 0wontk (at) korea.kr |
C. Lennard |
University of Cape Town |
G. Nikulin |
Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute Norrköping, SWEDEN grigory.nikulin (at) smhi.se |
S. Solman |
University of Buenos Aires solman (at) cima.fcen.uba.ar |
T. Stephenson |
Univesity of West Indies Kingston, JAMAICA tannecia.stephenson02 (at) uwimona.edu.jm |
B. Timbal |
Bureau of Metelorolgy AUSTRALIA B.Timbal (at) bom.gov.au |