Climate Dynamics and Prediction

Group Leader: 
François Counillon

General

About us

Our goal is to provide reliable climate prediction and advance the understanding of climate variability, predictability, and impacts.

Research Objectives

  • Mechanisms of climate variability and predictability

Disentangle the anthropogenic climate change signal from the natural climate variability and elucidate the mechanisms of variability from sub-seasonal to multi-decadal time scales, for both developing understanding and aiding prediction.

  • Understand and reduce errors in climate projections/predictions

Identify climate model errors, diagnose their origins, and assess their impacts in order to improve our simulations and build confidence in our climate simulations.

  • Identify the role of teleconnections between high and low latitudes

Explore the impacts of Arctic sea ice decline on climate variability and mid-latitude extreme weather events, and the converse influence of lower latitudes on the Arctic in order to broaden the usefulness and applicability of climate predictions.

  • Innovation and development of Climate services

Support the development of climate services in Norway through global climate reconstruction and prediction; advanced statistical analysis of extreme events; urban climate and air quality assessment, with the aim to deliver information of interest to stakeholders and society.

Tools and Software

We actively develop and maintain:    

  • The Norwegian Climate Prediction Model (NorCPM) that combines the Norwegian Earth System model with the ensemble Kalman Filter data assimilation method.
  • Fine scale climate assessment (FineClim) based on PALM, ECMWF boundary conditions, and measurements. 
  • The Norwegian Earth System Model (NorESM): responsible for diagnostics, CMIP processing and tracer advection
  • The KrigR statistical downscaling tool (KrigR): an R package for acquiring and statistically downscaling ERA5(-Land) data
  • Atmospheric river tracking algorithm (Atmos River): A python script for detecting and tracking atmospheric rivers 
  • Common Basis Function analysis tool (CBF): A python script for applying the common basis function approach for diagnosing model skill in reproducing observed modes of variability


People

Name Area of Expertise
Anqi Lyu
Bjørn Backeberg oceanography
Edson Silva
François Counillon
data assimilation
oceanography
sea ice
Helene R. Langehaug oceanography
Igor Ezau other scientific field
Lingling Suo meteorology
Nicholas Williams data assimilation
Noel Keenlyside meteorology
Richard Davy physics
Shengping He
Stephen Outten geophysics
Tarkeshwar Singh
data assimilation
meteorology
Victoria Miles
ecology
remote sensing
Yanchun He oceanography
Yiguo Wang data assimilation

Projects

Ongoing projects
URSA-MAJOR: URban Sustainability in Action: Multi-disciplinary Approach through Jointly Organized Research schools
PARCIM: Proxy Assimilation for Reconstructing Climate and Improving Model
4SICE: Towards skillful subseasonal-to-seasonal sea ice prediction
MAPARC: MAPARC
BASIC: Climate response to a Bluer Arctic with increased newly-formed winter Sea ICe (BASIC)
Climate Futures: Climate Futures
SPECIAL: Seasonal PrEdiCtIon Algae bLoom
CoRea: Coupled reanalysis of the climate back to 1850
EUREC4A-OA: EUREC4A-OA
ROADMAP: ROADMAP
NICEST-2: The Nordic Collaboration on e-Infrastructures for Earth System Modeling, phase 2
ARIA: ARIA - Atmospheric Sea ice interactions in the new Arctic
KeyCLIM: KeyCLIM
TRIATLAS: South and Tropical Atlantic - climate-based marine ecosystem prediction for sustainable management (TRIATLAS)
BCPU: Bjerknes Climate Prediction Unit
Completed projects
NCKS: NCKS - DMI collaboration
PredictingNorwegianExtremeSeaLevel: Predicting the impact of decadal variability on extreme sea level along the Norwegian coast
Arctic Synthesis: Arctic synthesis of the Nordic sea
AMTEC: Arctic-Midlatitude Teleconnections and Eurasian Cooling
VOLCANOES4CMIP: Applying volcanic impacts to future CMIP projections
SERUS: Building Socio-Ecological Resilience through Urban Green, Blue and White Space
MUDYFEET: MUlti-scalar DYnamics of Flood EvEnTs
INES: Infrastructure for Norwegian Earth System modelling (INES)
SFE: Seasonal Forecasting Engine
TRAKT-2018: Transferable Knowledge and Technologies for High-Resolution Environmental Impact Assessment and Management
EMULATE: Enhancing Mechanistic Understanding of mid-latitude LArge-scale circulaTion Errors
CHEX: Climate Hazards and Extremes
ALERTNESS: Advanced models and weather prediction in the Arctic: Enhanced capacity from observations and polar process representations (
Blue-Action: Arctic Impact on Weather and Climate
CONNECTED: Chinese-Norwegian partnership in climate teleconnection and prediction
Eu-R-Cool: EuRasian Cooling in CMIP5 Models
InterDec: InterDec - The potential of seasonal-to-decadal-scale inter-regional linkages to advance climate predictions
ARCPATH: Arctic Climate Predictions: Pathways to Resilient, Sustainable Societies
BECOME-GYRE: BjerknEs COMpEnsation and the sub-polar GYRE
IMOS: Isfjorden Marine Observatory Svalbard
SNOWGLACE: The Changing Arctic Cryosphere: Snow and Sea Ice Impact On Prediction and Climate Over Europe and Asia
iNcREASE: NoRthern European and Arctic Sea lEvel
PARADIGM: Prediction And RegionAl DowscalInG Models
EVA: Earth system modelling of climate Variations in the Anthropocene
ORGANIC: Overturning ciRculation and its implications for Global cArboN cycle In Coupled models
GREENICE: NordForsk Impact of Future Cryospheric Changes on Northern Hemisphere Climate
EPOCASA: Enhancing seasonal-to-decadal Prediction Of Climate for the North Atlantic Sector and Arctic
EXPLAIN: EXamining PotentiaL cAuses for the warmINg hiatus
EuraArc: Impact of Arctic sea ice decline on Eurasian Climate
NORTH: NORthern constraints on the Atlantic ThermoHaline circulation
VENTILATE: Ventilation and remineralisation in polar and sub-polar regions as indicators for climate change
NACLIM: North Atlantic Climate: Predictability of the climate in the North Atlantic/European sector
INDIA-CLIM: Decadal to multi-decadal variability in the Indian Monsoon Rainfall and teleconnection with Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO)
GreenSeas: Development of global plankton data base and model system for eco-climate early warning
Predictability of Arctic/North Atlantic climate”, research project of the Centre of Climate Dynamics: PRACTICE
BlueArc: Impact of ‘Blue Arctic’ on Climate at High Latitudes
EastAMOC: Response of East Asian climate to reduced Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation

News

What does the Pacific water temperature have to do with cold winters?

18.10.2022 - 08:00 Henrike Wilborn
In the years 1998-2013, Eurasia experienced very cold winters, despite the ongoing global warming trend. Scientists are debating their origin, but we have come...

Making climate models more accurate by improving their tuning

16.03.2022 - 16:18 Henrike Wilborn
Earth’s climate is a very complex system, and it is not easy to understand with all its components – the main ones being ocean, land, atmosphere, and sea ice....

Predicting when and where unusually warm water is travelling from the Gulf Stream to the Arctic

21.01.2022 - 13:30 Henrike Wilborn
About every 14 years, a significant temperature change is observed in the ocean between Greenland and Svalbard. Why, you wonder? Well, the Gulf Stream...

Can we predict what our climate might be like in the near future?

07.12.2021 - 05:45 Henrike Wilborn
We can predict the weather about 10 days ahead of time, and climate projections look at how the climate will look like a hundred years from now. In between, we...

Why a 1 square km datapoint is better than a 900 square km one

01.12.2021 - 11:30 Henrike Wilborn
Changes in climate have wide-reaching implications for life on Earth. By looking at the past climate we can understand ongoing processes better. But global...

21 years of algae blooms observed from space

10.11.2021 - 09:45 Henrike Wilborn
Edson Silva just published his first article as part of his institutional PhD project - congratulations! Together with five other co-authors from NERSC and one...

Wind of (climate) change: More frequent extreme winds over Europe in our future

03.11.2021 - 10:30 Henrike Wilborn
Stephen Outten and a colleague from NORCE recently published a study on extreme winds over Europe for the remainder of this century, affecting more business...

Monsoon rainfall in India – How well do reanalyses compare to real-world data?

28.10.2021 - 08:30 Henrike Wilborn
NERSC researcher Tarkeshwar Singh (CDP group) recently published an article with colleagues from India. They investigated the performance of three high-...

Workshop on climate predictability, in September

05.05.2021 - 14:30 Henrike Wilborn
This upcoming September, a workshop on climate predictability in the North Atlantic-Arctic sector is planned and the registration is open!   What? Are you...

Correcting biases in NorCPM for the tropical Atlantic with an innovative approach

16.01.2021 - 10:00 Henrike Wilborn
Several of our Climate Dynamics and Prediction researchers just published a new article in Climate Dynamics, under the lead of François Counillon (NERSC). They...