Climate change is one of the most complex scientific, social and economic challenges facing humanity. The Center for Climate Systems Modeling (C2SM) was founded in 2008 in order to better understand the climate system and make predictions.
C2SM brings together expert knowledge from ETH Zurich, MeteoSwiss, Empa and WSL in the areas of weather and climate modelling and climate research. As a research network, C2SM contributes to a better understanding of the climate and its influence on the environment and society.
C2SM promotes and coordinates the development and application of climate models. As a platform located in Zurich, C2SM not only helps the participating institutions to coordinate their activities and improve collaboration but also provides technical support in the field of modelling. Within the network of global cutting-edge research, C2SM creates synergies in order to tap into new areas of research and address complex questions in weather and climate research.
C2SM coordinates the research projects of partner institutions and compiles a joint strategy for the development and improvement of weather and climate models. These models are maintained by C2SM and made available to the researchers. C2SM is also involved in the development of global and regional climate models (COSMO, ICON). Moreover, it archives, standardises and distributes global and regional climate simulations from national and international research projects.
C2SM allows students to access interdisciplinary training through various research groups and institutions. Lastly, C2SM promotes dialogue between research and the private and public sector and informs academia and the general public about the climate and climate change.
C2SM develops methods that reflect the components of the climate system and their interactions on various spatial and temporal scales. As part of this work, the researchers focus in particular on the reduction of uncertainties in the dynamic, physical, chemical and biological processes of climate models. Likewise, C2SM promotes the utilisation of climate projections in order to quantify climate impacts and support necessary climate adaptation measures.
As a founding member of C2SM, MeteoSwiss is represented on the Steering Committee and is involved in wide-ranging research activities.
Together with MeteoSwiss, C2SM works on the development of Swiss Climate Scenarios (CH2018). These scenarios translate global and regional climate simulations into a user-friendly format for applications in Switzerland and facilitate the adequate quantification of climate impacts. They therefore provide a basis for deriving climate adaptation measures. The current Climate Scenarios CH2018 provide information on expected climate changes and illustrate the benefits of climate protection measures.
At C2SM, the ICON weather and climate model undergoes constant further development in close collaboration with MeteoSwiss. These developments contribute to an improvement of numerical weather forecasts from MeteoSwiss and help to reduce uncertainties in climate projections.
With the involvement of MeteoSwiss, the EXCLAIM project is developing an innovative simulation and data platform for the ICON weather and climate model. EXCLAIM will make it possible to simulate the complex climate system and all of its complex interactions (e.g. between the oceans and the atmosphere) with a high level of efficiency and far greater spatiotemporal resolution than in the past. The project will help to massively reduce uncertainties in what were previously critical weather and climate processes (e.g. thunderstorms and clouds).