IMPETUS4CHANGE (I4C): IMPROVING NEAR-TERM CLIMATE PREDICTIONS FOR SOCIETAL TRANSFORMATION

Project Information

Impetus4Change

Grant agreement ID: 101081555

DOI

10.3030/101081555

EC signature date 4 October 2022

Start date 1 November 2022

End date 31 October 2026

Funded under

• Climate, Energy and Mobility

Total cost

€ 9 573 842,36

EU contribution

€ 9 573 842,36

Coordinated by

NORCE RESEARCH AS
Norway

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - Impetus4Change (IMPETUS4CHANGE (I4C): IMPROVING NEAR-TERM CLIMATE PREDICTIONS FOR SOCIETAL TRANSFORMATION)

Reporting period: 2022-11-01 to 2024-04-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Impetus4Change (I4C) is a Horizon research project where climate, city and social experts work together to improve the quality and delivery of near-term climate predictions for cities and regions. Despite the increased awareness surrounding the climate crisis, there is still an information gap regarding the time scales at which action must be taken to avert the worst impacts of global warming. Cities across the globe are currently facing negative impacts due to climate change, namely extreme weather events and their aftereffects. This poses many challenges as extremes weather events combined with densely populated areas can result in catastrophic losses. Urban decision-making requires timely, tailored, science-based climate information and services at the local scale to support adaptation and planning efforts. In line with the EU’s Mission on Adaptation to Climate Change for a “climate prepared and resilient Europe” by 2030, I4C aims to improve the quality, accessibility and usability of near-term climate information and services at local to regional scales.

To this end four European cities were selected to serve as demonstrators for the transdisciplinary co-production process, which will distill the scientific advances in I4C into actionable climate information. The demonstrators will be used to showcase innovative approaches and examples for implementing effective and locally tailored strategies to address climate challenges.

Barcelona: I4C tackles the impact on public health in response to rising temperatures and heat waves. Actions include a vulnerability assessment of the unequal distribution of heat-related impacts, designing public spaces as climate shelters, and policy insights for housing retrofitting and urban regeneration.

Bergen: I4C aims to address flooding challenges by studying hydrological patterns and their relationship to floods, involving local stakeholders in assessing historical damage, and utilizing models to simulate hydrological events in the city. The end goal is to develop a tailored hydrological risk assessment for urban planning and adaptation decisions.

Paris: To tackle the urban heat island in Paris, I4C will integrate urban climate response into urban planning to develop mitigation strategies. This involves assessing health impacts and stakeholder needs, conducting high-resolution climate simulations, and combining impact indicators with sociodemographic and epidemiological data to evaluate health risks.

Prague: In response to urban heat island impacts on air quality, I4C will conduct a study in collaboration with local stakeholders using simulations to assess the potential for green infrastructure to mitigate adverse effects. The simulations will inform future planning needs, including considerations for quality, health, and the implementation of adaptation measures.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

In the first 18M of the project we made significant advances that laid the foundation for improved climate predictions at the local scales where they are needed most. The global modelling team has conducted several analyses that elucidate the limitations in current prediction systems and have developed new methods to better correct the drift and systematic error from climate predictions. Innovative new methods are under development. The group working on localization has made significant progress in developing new AI-based methods that emulate very high-resolution climate models at a fraction of the cost, enabling the generation of large ensembles and robust assessments of uncertainty. Further, the I4C team has begun the process of implementing advances that will blend climate information across different time scales to create truly seamless predictions from seasons to decades.



Additional achievements were made in co-production, where scientists (both physical and social) work with practitioners to distill scientific advances into usable and actionable climate information. This is a demanding and intensive activity but I4C aims to streamline and mainstream the methods into a road map for future use. As part of this effort critical hazard indices have been identified and their analysis has commenced resulting. As an example, a figure for the annual maximum heatwave temperature for France and Paris is presented with this summary. It shows that a maximum temperature above that of the 2022 heatwave is already likely in the 2020s-30s and will be the norm by the 2040s.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The approaches being developed to address persistent shortcomings in decadal prediction combined with the climate emulators I4C will result in a novel system that will allow for a robust data-driven downscaling of near-term climate predictions. This has implications far beyond the near term and far beyond Europe as these approaches can also be applied to address persistent shortcomings in the timely delivery and reliability of climate projections and democratize science in under resourced parts of the world.

Heatwave annual maximum temperature