ENSEMBLES – Ensembles-based Predictions of Climate Changes and their Impacts

The project was to develop an ensemble-based forecast system for the development of the climate change and its effects, based on modern, highly-detailed global and regional Earth System Models. The modelling system is used for performing a quantitative assessment of climate change effects based on possible future climate scenarios. From this, policy-relevant information is to be provided. This method is intended to improve the reliability of the climate projections and quantify uncertainties.
The basic idea of the project is to create as many global and regional climate models for the same area, the same time periods and in the same resolutions as possible, in order to create a model ensemble. This method is intended to improve the reliability of the climate projections and quantify uncertainties.
Objectives: Several global and regional climate simulations for Europe and Africa that are available to users have been calculated and evaluated. The general objectives of the project were:
ENSEMBLES was divided into ten research themes with the following tasks:
Afrika
In order to be able to assess the entire range of possible climate changes, an ensemble of climate simulations was created comprising seven global and 15 regional models in one, taking multiple climate projection realizations and one or more emission scenarios (A1B, A2, B1 and E1) into account. The representations for Germany can be found in Climate Service Center 2.0-Report 6: "Regional Climate Projections for Europe and Germany: Ensemble Simulations for Climate Change Effect Research".
The new emission scenario E1 (mitigation scenario) is used in various global climate models (GCMs or "general circulation models"). The E1 scenario is a mitigation scenario that assumes that the greenhouse gas concentrations will stabilize at 450 ppm by 2100. In this scenario – as in the 5th Assessment Report of the IPCC – it is the level of greenhouse gases (i.e., the radiative forcing) that is proscribed for the climate models, and not the emissions. The results show that in most models the temperature rise remains under the European climate target of 2 degrees plus.
extreme events
Climate effects will be: higher levels of precipitation and higher temperatures, and an increase in floods through heavy rainfall combined with drought. The adaptive capacity of many ecosystems will be overtaxed and damaged to the extent that a negative impact on biodiversity and the ecosystem services can be expected.
ENSEMBLES developed a probabilistic estimate of the uncertainties of the future climate at the seasonal, decadal, and longer timescales. The uncertainty in the representation of physical, chemical, biological and human-related feedbacks in the Earth System was quantified (including water resources, land use, air quality, and carbon cycle feedbacks). Moreover, indicator value tests are developed for the climate change effects on the biosphere, and incorporated in the global climate models.
European Union (EU) 6th Framework Programme (FP6)
Met Office, Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research
- Météo-France, Centre National de Recherches Meteorologiques
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (including IPSL, LMD, LSCE, LGGE)
- Danish Meteorological Institute
- European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF)
- International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)
- Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV)
- Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI)
- University of Bristol
- Max-Planck Institute for Meteorology
- National Observatory of Athens
- Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI)
- University of East Anglia (UEA)
- Universität Hamburg
- CGAM, University of Reading
- Agenzia Regionale per la Prevenzione e l'Ambiente dell'Emilia-Romagna, Servizio IdroMeteorologico (ARPA-SIM)
- Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
- Bureau of Meteorology Research Centre (BMRC)
- Société Civile CERFACS
- Czech Hydrometeorological Institute
- Center for International Climate and Environmental Research
– Oslo (CICERO)
- CLIMPACT
- Consiglio Nazionale Delle Ricerche (CNR.ISAC)
- Charles University Prague, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics
- Department of Agronomy and Land Management, University of Florence
- Deutscher Wetterdienst
- Electricité de France
- École Normale Supérieure
- Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich
- Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM)
- Fundacion para la Investigacion del Clima
- Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI)
- University of Applied Sciences, Stuttgart
- Freie Universität Berlin
- Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht GmbH
- Ustav fyziky atmosfery AV CR
- The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics
- Instituto Nacional de Meteorologia
- The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York (IRI)
- University of Stuttgart
- Joint Research Centre of the European Community
– Institute for the Protection and Security of the Citizen
- London School of Economics
- London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
- Norwegian Meteorological Institute
- Federal Office of Meteorology and Climatology
- Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center
- National Institute of Hydrology and Water Management
- National Meteorological Administration
- Research Centre for Agricultural and Forest Environment, Polish Academy of Sciences
- Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research
- Societé de Mathematiques et de Sciences Humaines (SMASH)
- Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE)
- Universidad de Cantabria
- Universite Catholique de Louvain
- Universidad de Castilla La Mancha
- University of Oslo
- Lunds Universitet
- University of Kassel
- University of Liverpool
- Chancellor Masters and Scholars of Oxford University
- Université Joseph Fourier
- C4I
- University of Bern
- Leibniz-Institut für Meereswissenschaften
- University of Geneva
- Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency
- University of Aarhus