The Coordinated Regional Downscaling Experiment project, CORDEX, was established to meet the demand for more future climate information at the regional scale, with an initial focus on Africa.
Today, CORDEX has produced regional climate scenarios that cover most of the world’s land regions. The need for regional climate information to support climate impact and adaptation planning and local decision making has only increased in recent years. Therefore the work of CORDEX continues to play an important role in coordinating the production of regional climate information across the globe, promoting capacity development and supporting the impact and adaptation communities.
“CORDEX is providing global coordination to advance the science of regional climate downscaling. Its activities are central to the task of providing credible, actionable information on regional climate change to the broader community,” says Bill Gutowski, one of the CORDEX Scientific Advisory Team’s Co-Chairs.
SMHI is host for the International Project Office for CORDEX
It was in 2014 that the World Climate Research Programme, WCRP, appointed SMHI as host of the IPOC. It will support the development of climate models, coordinate production and analysis of future climate information on the regional scale, and promote cooperation between different regions and countries with a special focus on capacity development in developing countries.
Eleanor O’Rourke, formerly EU project manager at SMHI’s Rossby Centre, was appointed as the Director of the IPOC. She will be responsible for ensuring the day to day coordination of CORDEX, supporting the Scientific Advisory Team, promoting capacity development across the CORDEX domains, and outreach and dissemination.
’The establishment of the IPOC at SMHI offers greater coordination, support for and promotion of the CORDEX activities across the globe and further ensure the scientific and societal benefits aims of CORDEX are realised to their greatest extent,” says Eleanor O’Rourke.
Some of the activities over the coming year
During the coming year, the IPOC will support CORDEX workshops in South East Asia, Africa and South America together with a workshop on empirical statistic downscaling that will be held at the University of Cape Town.