Are We at Risk of Losing the Current Generation of Climate Researchers to Data Science?

Climate model output has progressively increased in size over the past decades and is expected to continue to rise in the future. Consequently, the research time expended by Early Career Researchers (ECRs) on data-intensive activities is displacing the time spent in fostering novel scientific ideas and expanding the frontiers of climate sciences. Here, we highlight an urgent need for a better balance between data-intensive and foundational climate science activities, more open-ended research opportunities that reinforce the scientific freedom of the ECRs, and strong coordinated action to provide infrastructure and resources to the ECRs working in under-resourced environments

Are We at Risk of Losing the Current Generation of Climate Researchers to Data Science?

Climate model output has progressively increased in size over the past decades and is expected to continue to rise in the future. Consequently, the research time expended by Early Career Researchers (ECRs) on data-intensive activities is displacing the time spent in fostering novel scientific ideas and expanding the frontiers of climate sciences. Here, we highlight an urgent need for a better balance between data-intensive and foundational climate science activities, more open-ended research opportunities that reinforce the scientific freedom of the ECRs, and strong coordinated action to provide infrastructure and resources to the ECRs working in under-resourced environments

Are We at Risk of Losing the Current Generation of Climate Researchers to Data Science?

Climate model output has progressively increased in size over the past decades and is expected to continue to rise in the future. Consequently, the research time expended by Early Career Researchers (ECRs) on data-intensive activities is displacing the time spent in fostering novel scientific ideas and expanding the frontiers of climate sciences. Here, we highlight an urgent need for a better balance between data-intensive and foundational climate science activities, more open-ended research opportunities that reinforce the scientific freedom of the ECRs, and strong coordinated action to provide infrastructure and resources to the ECRs working in under-resourced environments

Ten new insights in climate science 2022

Non-technical summary We summarize what we assess as the past year's most important findings within climate change research: limits to adaptation, vulnerability hotspots, new threats coming from the climate–health nexus, climate (im)mobility and security, sustainable practices for land use and finance, losses and damages, inclusive societal climate decisions and ways to overcome structural barriers to accelerate mitigation and limit global warming to below 2°C. Technical summary We synthesize 10 topics within climate research where there have been significant advances or emerging scientific consensus since January 2021. The selection of these insights was based on input from an international open call with broad disciplinary scope. Findings concern: (1) new aspects of soft and hard limits to adaptation; (2) the emergence of regional vulnerability hotspots from climate impacts and human vulnerability; (3) new threats on the climate–health horizon – some involving plants and animals; (4) climate (im)mobility and the need for anticipatory action; (5) security and climate; (6) sustainable land management as a prerequisite to land-based solutions; (7) sustainable finance practices in the private sector and the need for political guidance; (8) the urgent planetary imperative for addressing losses and damages; (9) inclusive societal choices for climate-resilient development and (10) how to overcome barriers to accelerate mitigation and limit global warming to below 2°C. Social media summary Science has evidence on barriers to mitigation and how to overcome them to avoid limits to adaptation across multiple fields

Promoting involvement of early-career scientists from the Asia-Pacific region in regional integrated and sustainable development through active participation and networking

Climate change is affecting global ecosystems, natural resources, and human well-being. The near- and long-term future sustainable development of society requires robust climate change information at regional scales. To contribute to the purpose mentioned above, WCRP CORDEX (the World Climate Research Programme’s Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment) initialised a collaboration with the APN (Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research), as the two programmes share common goals in advocating climate science as well as transferring climate knowledge for effective management. This APN project, entitled “Promoting Involvement of Early Career Scientists from the Asia-Pacific Region in Regional Integrated and Sustainable Development through Active Participation and Networking”, was a result of this collaboration. Specifically, the project was aimed at supporting early-career scientists from the Asia-Pacific region to attend an international science conference on regional climate science (ICRC-CORDEX 2019) and facilitate them in international partnership-building. It also contributed to enhancing communication and cooperation amongst regional climate research teams within and beyond the Asia-Pacific region. As one of the most important activities of the conference, the project supported an event for early-career scientists. The completion of the project consolidated global collaboration between the climate research community and that of adaptation-impact studies, as well as facilitated interaction with end-users. It was also a successful showcase of the scientific strategies of APN and CORDEX

Assessing mean climate change signals in the global CORDEX-CORE ensemble

The new Coordinated Output for Regional Evaluations (CORDEX-CORE) ensemble provides high-resolution, consistent regional climate change projections for the major inhabited areas of the world. It serves as a solid scientific basis for further research related to vulnerability, impact, adaptation and climate services in addition to existing CORDEX simulations. The aim of this study is to investigate and document the climate change information provided by the CORDEX-CORE simulation ensemble, as a part of the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) CORDEX community. An overview of the annual and monthly mean climate change information in selected regions in different CORDEX domains is presented for temperature and precipitation, providing the foundation for detailed follow-up studies and applications. Initially, two regional climate models (RCMs), REMO and RegCM were used to downscale global climate model output. The driving simulations by AR5 global climate models (AR5-GCMs) were selected to cover the spread of high, medium, and low equilibrium climate sensitivity at a global scale. The CORDEX-CORE ensemble has doubled the spatial resolution compared to the previously existing CORDEX simulations in most of the regions (25[Formula: see text] (0.22[Formula: see text]) versus 50[Formula: see text] (0.44[Formula: see text])) leading to a potentially improved representation of, e.g., physical processes in the RCMs. The analysis focuses on changes in the IPCC physical climate reference regions. The results show a general reasonable representation of the spread of the temperature and precipitation climate change signals of the AR5-GCMs by the CORDEX-CORE simulations in the investigated regions in all CORDEX domains by mostly covering the AR5 interquartile range of climate change signals. The simulated CORDEX-CORE monthly climate change signals mostly follow the AR5-GCMs, although for specific regions they show a different change in the course of the year compared to the AR5-GCMs, especially for RCP8.5, which needs to be investigated further in region specific process studies

Ten new insights in climate science 2022

Non-technical summary We summarize what we assess as the past year's most important findings within climate change research: limits to adaptation, vulnerability hotspots, new threats coming from the climate-health nexus, climate (im)mobility and security, sustainable practices for land use and finance, losses and damages, inclusive societal climate decisions and ways to overcome structural barriers to accelerate mitigation and limit global warming to below 2°C. Technical summary We synthesize 10 topics within climate research where there have been significant advances or emerging scientific consensus since January 2021. The selection of these insights was based on input from an international open call with broad disciplinary scope. Findings concern: (1) new aspects of soft and hard limits to adaptation; (2) the emergence of regional vulnerability hotspots from climate impacts and human vulnerability; (3) new threats on the climate-health horizon - some involving plants and animals; (4) climate (im)mobility and the need for anticipatory action; (5) security and climate; (6) sustainable land management as a prerequisite to land-based solutions; (7) sustainable finance practices in the private sector and the need for political guidance; (8) the urgent planetary imperative for addressing losses and damages; (9) inclusive societal choices for climate-resilient development and (10) how to overcome barriers to accelerate mitigation and limit global warming to below 2°C. Social media summary Science has evidence on barriers to mitigation and how to overcome them to avoid limits to adaptation across multiple fields