CNRS and Météo France launch a program to better anticipate climate change

Europe 1 with AFP 14:30 pm, March 29, 2023

Better modeling the climate to better anticipate and act in the face of future climate challenges: Météo France and the CNRS launched Wednesday a new eight-year research program to improve knowledge and tools related to climate impacts and risks. Over the past decades, the scientific community has provided robust knowledge about the extent of climate change and the role that greenhouse gases play in it.

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The interest of developing decision-making tools

In its latest report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) highlighted the importance of developing decision-making tools, particularly at the local level, in the implementation of climate actions. This is precisely one of the objectives of the TRACCS program, funded to the tune of 51 million over eight years by France 2030.

This program will aim in particular to accelerate the development of existing climate models designed by the France to preserve their relevance and performance while improving the representation of local phenomena and increasing the capacities of current models to propose more concrete solutions at the scale of each territory.

"Climate science still needs to improve"

Ultimately, the main objective will be to "enable the development of climate services adapted to needs and based on the most solid scientific knowledge to anticipate the impacts of climate change and adapt effectively to its local, current and future manifestations, such as rising sea levels, drought and the increase in extreme events", says Météo France in a statement.

"Even if we have accumulated a lot of knowledge about the causes and severity of the situation, climate science still needs to improve, especially regarding the production of knowledge, data and information on local manifestations of climate change," said the CNRS.

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Optimizing the energy consumption of climate simulations

The other goal of this research will be to optimize the energy consumption of climate simulations, currently carried out with energy-intensive supercomputers. One of the challenges will also be to train and recruit the next generation of researchers and engineers in climate modeling, says the CNRS.

Finally, TRACCS will investigate the potential benefits of artificial intelligence methods in the implementation of climate simulations. To carry out these actions, the CNRS and Météo France will be surrounded by five academic partners: CEA, Sorbonne University, UVSQ-Université Paris-Saclay, Université Grenoble-Alpes, Cerfacs, IRD and Université Paris-Saclay.