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Addressing Urgent Climate Challenges

The EXPECT project, “Towards an Integrated Capability to Explain and Predict Regional Climate Changes” is a Horizon Europe research project that aims to address the urgent issue of rapid climate change, which has led to an increase in extreme weather events at a rate faster than current models predicted. The project’s main goal is to develop the capability for integrated attribution and prediction of climate changes, including changes in European summer extremes. In alignment with the WCRP Lighthouse Activity on Explaining and Predicting Earth System Change, EXPECT seeks to identify and quantify the factors that drive regional climate changes over periods ranging from years to decades.

Designing and Building Cutting-Edge Technology

To achieve these objectives, EXPECT utilises advanced climate simulations, Earth observations, and machine learning techniques to bridge existing knowledge gaps related to atmospheric circulation and land-atmosphere interactions, and their roles in driving extreme weather and climate events. The project leverages recent investments in high-resolution climate models and Earth observation data, and it develops tools that can efficiently analyse large and diverse datasets sourced from various institutions. 

Advancing Data Science Capacity and Climate Research

EXPECT also aims to enhance data science skills by ensuring wide access to knowledge and technology, promoting further exploitation of the project’s developments, and incorporating new machine learning methodologies. By training the next generation of climate researchers, EXPECT will generate long-lasting scientific and technological advancements that benefit society and support the global climate science community. 

4 key themes

EXPECT is structured around four key themes, each tackling a specific aspect of climate research—from bridging different data sources to generate new climate knowledge and enhancing predictions to understanding and predicting climate hazards and building the infrastructure necessary for efficient data analysis. Through these themes, EXPECT aims to bridge the gap between new and existing data and cutting-edge scientific insights, ultimately helping society better respond to the challenges of a changing climate. 

Data for the generation of new climate knowledge

Theme 1

Integrated attribution, prediction and projection

Theme 2

Past, current and future climate hazards

Theme 3

Underpinning infrastructure for the efficient and flexible analysis of large climate datasets

Theme 4