nextGEMS-Project officialy starts with a Kick-Off Meeting on 1st September 2021

Today was the official start of our nextGEMS Project, funded by CINEA within the European Union’s Horizon 2020 climate projects. Our digital kickoff-meeting with 122 international participants gave us not only a brief overview about the project itself but also emphasized the task to make science available for the broader user community.

Bjorn Stevens and Irina Sandu, our coordinators, opened the meeting with an insight about the pressing question how climate responds to warming and how we are going to solve existing and upcoming problems with the Next Generation Earth Modelling System. For this, two Storm-Resolving Earth System Models (SR-ESMs) will be developed and analyzed from three different themes: Storms and Radiation, Storms and Ocean as well as Storms and Land. Those themes will test emerging and long-standing hypotheses, underpinning our understanding of climate change. Further, the scientific accomplishments will couple the SR-ESM simulations with impact-sector modelling to work with users beyond the climate science community and put it into social context by the theme Storms and Society. Additionally, a newly established video communication concept, which will accompany the lifetime of the project will visualize the project for the broader user community.

The afternoon session started with a talk about our project embedded in the H2020 projects followed by a status and outlook of recent progresses and achievements in the development of the SR-ESMs. After the talks, participants had the chance to meet in smaller groups, get to know each other, and to discuss their ideas for first steps in the project.

All in all, the start of the project was very productive and everyone is highly motivated to tackle the upcoming challenges of the project.

Stay tuned for updates and follow us on our website nextgems-h2020.eu or on twitter @nextgems_eu!