News

The International Project Office for WCRP’s Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX) will be hosted by ESA’s ECSAT facility in the UK, from 1 July 2026. CORDEX provides high‑resolution, locally-relevant climate information by downscaling global climate model projections, and its data has been utilised across a number of IPCC Assessment Report cycles in its role supporting the CORDEX Scientific Advisory Team (CORDEX-SAT). The Project Office coordinates participating scientists, methods and data to support climate research, the assessment of future climate impacts, identify vulnerabilities and support adaptation policy and action.

New incoming director

The CORDEX International Project Office will be led by newly appointed Director, Dr Rachel McInnes, who brings over 15 years of experience in climate science, modelling and climate services, most recently at the UK Met Office. The University of Cape Town, as co-host, will provide science communication and administrative support.

“We are delighted to welcome Rachel as the new Director of the CORDEX International Project Office. This is an important role for CORDEX, and we look forward to working closely with her as we support the community and guide CORDEX into the future,” say CORDEX-SAT co-chairs, Melissa Bukovsky, José Manuel Gutierrez, and Silvina Solman.

The decision brings together the coordination of WCRP global and regional modelling efforts physically together in one location, alongside ESA’s Earth observation and climate expertise.

Since 2022, ESA has served as host to the project office of the WCRP’s Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP), which coordinates the global projections underpinning IPCC assessment of the global climate. ECSAT is also the home to the team managing ESA’s Climate Change Initiative – a significant research and development effort focussed on generating a suite of satellite retrieval algorithms and climate data records that detail the evolution of key aspects of the climate system over recent decades.

About Dr Rachel McInnes

Dr Rachel McInnes has been appointed Director of the CORDEX International Project Office. She brings more than 15 years of leadership in climate science, regional climate modelling and applied climate services from her career at the UK Met Office. She has led multidisciplinary international teams and is widely recognised for her expertise in climate modelling, environmental science and science–policy engagement. Rachel holds a PhD in astrophysics, is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics, and an Honorary Associate Professor at the University of Exeter.

Susanne Mecklenburg, head of ESA’s Climate and Long-term Action division, explains, “hosting both WCRP project offices reflect Europe’s strong support for coordinated global efforts to advance climate modelling. It creates a unique environment to strengthen the use of satellite observations in model development.”

The World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) invites applications for the position of Programme Manager for the International Project Office for Coordinated Regional Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX-IPO), to be hosted jointly by the European Space Agency (ESA) and University of Cape Town (UCT).

CORDEX goals are:

• To better understand relevant regional/local climate phenomena, their variability and changes, through downscaling.
• To evaluate and improve regional climate downscaling models and techniques
• To produce coordinated sets of regional downscaled projections worldwide
• To foster communication and knowledge exchange with users of regional climate information

The Programme Manager you will be responsible for supporting coordination, planning, development, and implementation of the activities of CORDEX and leading on implementation of operations of the IPO as well as facilitating active CORDEX IPO liaison between the climate observations and modelling communities.

To know more about the position and to apply, see the details available in the call. Application closing date: May 30, 2026

We are delighted to announce that the CORDEX International Project Office (CORDEX-IPOC) will be hosted jointly by the European Space Agency (ESA) in Oxford, UK – with the Working Arrangement now completed—and the University of Cape Town (UCT), with the Working Arrangement  to be finalized in the coming days.

This new structure ensures robust international collaboration, coordination and continued excellence in coordinating CORDEX’s global efforts on regional climate downscaling, model evaluation, projections, and user engagement worldwide.

The transition builds on the successful 10-year tenure at Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI). Recruitment of the new IPO Director, to be based at ESA will be completed soon. For further details or inquiries, please contact the Maureen Wanzala the WCRP Secretariat officer at: mwanzala@wmo.int

At the CORDEX International Workshop on Coordinated Regional Projection Research and Synthesis to be held on May 12–15 in Trieste (Italie), the CORDEX community will be brought together to coordinate contributions to literature supporting IPCC AR7 WGI, addressing gaps in regional climate information, extremes, and uncertainty, while integrating new CMIP6-CORDEX simulations and AI-based regional climate emulators.

To know more visit the workshop website. Participation by invitation only.

The CORDEX Task Team on CORDEX-CMIP7 Protocol and Infrastructure (TTPI) is currently addressing the technical feasibility of publishing the existing CORDEX-CMIP6 data as soon as the ESGF Next Generation (ESGF-NG) becomes available in the next few weeks. We are running a survey to gather critical information from CORDEX modelling centers, to ensure swift data publication of CORDEX-CMIP6 data as soon as it is technically possible. Note that this is an informative survey, but your responses (or lack thereof) might affect the publication of your data.

https://forms.gle/cnn4sNdtt3vmgdgp8

Please respond as soon as possible to this brief survey so we can be prepared to have your data published smoothly as soon as ESGF-NG is available. Note that if you are part of a consortium with common details, you can designate a single person to enter the details for the whole consortium.

If you have contact with an ESGF data node, or you would be willing to deploy a data node in your institution, please consider forwarding or filling out this additional (different) survey, intended for ESGF data node operators: https://forms.gle/zyonAiKh91u66AvK8.