Sustainability and resilience of climate projections and related data records for European and global science and policy

Expected Outcome:

The action should contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:

• The EU climate data and infrastructure sovereignty is strengthened, securing access to essential observation and modelling data for European research community.
• Effective delivery of climate information relevant for European and global climate policy, including timely contributions to the IPCC assessments and UNFCCC processes.
• The resilience of the Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF) is strengthened in Europe and globally, and the foundations for an integrated, sustainable long-term operational solution are laid.

Scope:

The evolution of the geopolitical situation, with the associated changes in science funding priorities and data access policies represent a major threat to evidence-based decision making. The continuity of production, maintenance and open access to climate data, including observations and projections, is fundamental for European and global climate science and policy action. Steps to ensure sustainability and resilience of the strategic resources and infrastructures in Europe needed to deliver these data are imperative. Acting on this offers an opportunity for the EU to consolidate its leadership in climate science and foster critical climate data sovereignty.

The action should address all the following aspects:

• Track the availability of climate change projections and related data records, as well as the evolution of the global compensation efforts, gaps and risks in the context of disengagement of major partners and other geopolitical developments.
• Coordinate Europe-wide solutions to mitigate the most pressing risks for the European and global scientific community in the context of securing access to data needed for IPCC, WCRP, CMIP, CORDEX, and other relevant scientific initiatives.
• Explore options and take steps to improve the resilience, effectiveness and to further development of the ESGF:
  • Europe: Prepare the ground towards a sustainable long-term solution, in coordination with national efforts and in the context of the ESFRI. This includes exploring all relevant options to maintain data access, improve architecture and interoperability, governance, service quality and operational aspects. Among others, it should encourage and mobilise sustained national investments in storage capacity, staff and other core resources, and explore options to expand the node network.
  • Global coordination function: sustain access and data availability, redundancy and maintenance, including support to the necessary technical components and expert capacity, with strong focus on inclusiveness, equity, and the needs of the most vulnerable countries. Promote global interoperability and trusted frameworks.

The action should build on existing efforts and engage with relevant national, European and international initiatives and stakeholders (e.g. ENES modelling community), maintaining a regular consultation on the status of data. Exploring the opportunities for integration into the landscape of research infrastructures prioritised by ESFRI is encouraged, with a view to identify long-term structural solutions and foster synergies with other stakeholders, initiatives and climate-relevant Research Infrastructures of pan-European interest. Moreover, the action should foster interoperability and alignment with common European Data Spaces, like the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) and downstream applications. Synergies with relevant data and service providers (e.g. relevant Copernicus Services, WMO and GCOS, ESA, EUMETSAT, ECMWF) and main EU AI- and HPC-related initiatives are also encouraged as appropriate. International cooperation is strongly encouraged specially for the global coordination component.

Particular efforts should be made to ensure that the data and data management tools produced by the project funded under this topic is in line with the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Re-usable) principles.

The action should take into account and coordinate with relevant projects funded under the topics HORIZON-INFRA-2023-SERV-01, HORIZON-INFRA-2025-01-SERV-02, HORIZON-INFRA-2026-DEV-01-07, HORIZON-CL5-2025-06-D1-01: Climate simulations data and knowledge for optimal support of IPCC Assessments and International Policy and HORIZON-CL5-2026-07-D1-01: Next generation climate monitoring and related capabilities to maximise complementarities and avoid redundancies.