The EC-Earth consortium, started in 2006, is a European consortium of national meteorological services and research institutes. From its original model it has been developed in three different versions, and by now, EC-Earth has become a prominent state-of-the-art model within the international landscape of global climate and earth system models. The fourth version of EC-Earth is now under development. To plan the final developments of the EC-Earth4 climate model, MERGE researchers gathered in Stockholm with their European colleagues earlier this spring. Dr. Klaus Wyser, research leader at SMHI and MERGE-member, heads the EC-Earth4 working group and coordinates the model’s developments:
- We will be ready to start improved simulations of the Earth's climate at the end of 2025. These simulations will contribute to CMIP7 (The Coupled Model Intercomparison Project), the outcomes of which contribute to assessments and reports from the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), says Dr. Klaus Wyser.
MERGE contributes to EC-Earth4 by developing various components, such as for example how vegetation interacts dynamically with the atmosphere and the global carbon cycle or how aerosols and their interaction with clouds and radiation are represented by developing the technical software infrastructure, and by testing and evaluating the model.
This is EC Earth
EC-Earth is an Earth system model. Global climate models and Earth system models are numerical models of the Earth's climate system and are used to understand how the Earth's various components, including the atmosphere, oceans, land surface, biosphere, and cryosphere, interact with each other and how they respond to natural and human-induced changes. These models simulate the physical, chemical, and biological processes that govern the Earth system, at different levels of complexity. As such, they are essential tools for understanding and predicting climate variability and climate change.
EC-Earth – EC-Earth a Global Climate Model
CMIP and IPCC
The Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) is a project of the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) providing climate projections to understand past, present and future climate changes. Members of the CMIP panel and task teams are currently finalising the design of CMIP phase 7 (CMIP7).
The outcomes of CMIP contribute to assessments and reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC is an intergovernmental body of the United Nations (UN). The IPCC informs governments about the state of knowledge on climate change by synthesising all published literature in Assessment Reports (ARs) every 5-7 years. As such, the IPCC does not conduct its own research but tasks scientists worldwide to conduct comprehensive assessments of peer-reviewed scientific literature.
