Coordinated Research in Earth Systems and Climate: Experiments, kNowledge, Dissemination and Outreach (CRESCENDO)

Earth system models (ESMs) are the primary tools available for making future projections of global climate change, linking such projected changes to allowable carbon emissions commensurate with staying below a given warming target. ESMs allow an assessment of the potential response of the full global environment (including biological and chemical components) to future climate change. Such assessments are important for developing sustainable future development pathways.

UKESM was a key component of the EU funded CRESCENDO project. CRESCENDO runs from 2015 to March 2021 and brings together 7 European Earth System Modelling (ESM) teams and 3 European Integrated Assessment Modelling (IAM) groups, with experts in ESM performance evaluation, ESM future projection analysis, climate impacts, regional downscaling and science communication, representing 10 European countries.

The CRESCENDO project, led by Prof Colin Jones from the National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS) and the University of Leeds  coordinated a European contribution to the 6th Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6) where the climate research community compares a range of International Earth System Models using common sets of experimental protocols, to improve our knowledge of the Earth’s climate processes and provide the best possible future projections to governments and decision-makers. CRESCENDO informed a number of key Model Intercomparison Projects (MIPs) where biogeochemical and aerosol components are of critical importance to deliver realistic future projections. Such components include: the terrestrial and marine carbon cycle, vegetation processes, permafrost, atmospheric chemistry and aerosols.

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CRESCENDO Project and Outputs

Details of the CRESCENDO project and its outputs are available at: Coordinated Research in Earth Systems and Climate: Experiments, kNowledge, Dissemination and Outreach on the European CORDIS website

CRESCENDO Final General Assembly March 2021

The final meeting of the CRESCENDO project took place on 15-17 March 2021 and formed a virtual science conference showcasing some of the highlights of the project. Slides from the final CRESCENDO project meeting are available at Zenodo and an additional talk here. The full programme for the meeting included 42 talks from across the project. Videos of the talks are available on the UKESM YouTube channel. An overview of the highlights from the past 5 years was presented by Colin Jones.

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Scientific Papers

Scientific papers from the project are at: CRESCENDO scientific papers. Over 300 science papers have been published by the teams involved in CRESCENDO so far.