The first day of the meeting will feature two important pre-conference events: a High Level Session with the participation of the European Commissioners for Research & Innovation and for Climate Action where the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) presents key findings from the IPCC Working Group I contribution to the Fifth Assessment Report Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis.

This will be followed by a Stakeholder Dialogue focusing on how science-based regional climate information can best serve the needs of regional decision-makers. Both events are open to all the conference participants.

- The second segment of the conference over the following three days is organized around the key scientific results from CORDEX Phase I. A discussion on future priority research areas for the next phase of CORDEX, of other WCRP regional climate initiatives and of major funding programmes – such as the EU FP7 and the future Horizon2020 - will also take place, taking into account the recommendations from the first segment of the conference.

For further information on the conference aims, please click here.

Call for abstracts

Abstract submission is now open.  Deadline for abstract submission : 1 April 2013

Contributions to any of the sub-topics mentioned below are welcome from CORDEX and other relevant initiatives.

Theme 1: Methodologies for regional downscaling, evaluation, analysis, integration & interpretation

• Metrics of evaluation
• Integrating multi-model, multi-method data
• Statistical downscaling methods
• Nested Regional Climate Models and variable resolution Global Climate Models
• Regional observations
• Assessing uncertainty
• Extreme event analysis

Theme 2: Evaluation of CORDEX regional downscaling: Present climate and future change

• Process level evaluation and understanding processes underlying regional change
• Scale comparison between GCM and downscaling, assessment of added-value
• Resolution and domain dependencies
• Representing regional trends and variability
• Comparing different downscaling methods
• Bias correction methodologies
• Regional responses to external teleconnections
• Downscaling performance metrics
• Ensemble estimates of regional change and quantification of uncertainties
• Developing robust estimates of regional climate change

Theme 3: User Needs: The driver of CORDEX downscaling

• Examples of regional climate science – regional user/stakeholder partnerships to support specific regional actions
• Best practice use of ensemble information for addressing user needs
• Managing contradiction and coherence across information sources
• Developing tailored data products
• Dissemination and access to CORDEX results including user interface and data mining approaches

Theme 4: Regional climate change impacts, societal vulnerabilities and adaptation/mitigation options

• Added-value of downscaling in the provision of climate change information to support of socio-economic policy and decision-making.
• Examples of the use of CORDEX data in sector-specific impact assessment models
• Future projections of sectorial impacts based on CORDEX data, and associated evaluation
• Examples of use of CORDEX output for Impact-Adaptation-Vulnerability applications, and associated evaluation
• Combinatory, multi-source, multi-sector impacts

Theme 5: Future priority areas for regional downscaling and CORDEX

• Supporting and responding to the Global Framework Climate Services
• Regional climate predictability
• Regional climate information on monthly-seasonal-decadal timescales
• New approaches to the use of multi-model, multi-method downscaling
• Informing decision making under uncertainty.

Individuals who wish to present their work at the International Conference on Regional Climate - CORDEX 2013 are encouraged to submit an abstract of their presentation for review and selection by the Science Committee.

Abstract submissions will be used to select presentations for poster and oral sessions. The selected abstracts will be posted on the conference website. Poster sessions will be the main form of presentation during the conference as the number of oral presentations is limited and only a selected number of talks will be chosen for the oral sessions planned for each day.