A new EU-funded research project is bringing together Europe's leading climate scientists and experts on modelling and AI to improve forecasts of future climate risks and help societies adapt more effectively to a rapidly changing climate.
– Climate change is accelerating faster than societies are adapting. Better information about what lies ahead is essential if communities are to prepare for future risks, said Bjørn Samset, senior researcher at CICERO and coordinator of RealESM, an EU-funded research project which is launched today.
While scientists have high confidence that the planet will continue to warm, there remains significant uncertainty about how climate risks will develop at regional and local levels over the coming decades. Current climate models do not always provide realistic enough simulations of the most impactful weather events, making it harder for society to prepare and adapt. With funding of €7.5 million from the European Union, the project combines world-leading expertise in Earth system modelling and AI, bringing together researchers from ten institutions across eight countries in Europe. Over the next four years, the researchers aim to transform the ability to anticipate future climate conditions and enable faster and more effective adaptation.
Unprecedented and highly damaging events, such as the floods in Pakistan in 2022, Spain and Brazil in 2024, and the United States in 2025, often result from complex interactions between the atmosphere, land and oceans that evolve over decades. Their severity is shaped by both human-induced climate change and natural climate variability.
– And even when we know that an important event is unfolding, such as the current record-strength El Niño in the Pacific, we are not always able to make tangible assessments of the resulting climate risks, said Samset.
For realistic projections of rapid climate evolution, and effective communication of the physical hazards and socioeconomic consequences, RealESM uses an integrated approach, combining traditional climate models with new insight about nature, alongside new and efficient analysis methods. Improved tools will help identify patterns and interactions in vast climate datasets that are difficult to capture using conventional modelling approaches alone.
– Our ambition is to make climate projections more realistic, more efficient, more tangible and with that more useful for society. Improved understanding of future climate risks will give governments, businesses and communities stronger evidence for adapting to a rapidly changing climate, said Samset.
