CORDEX-CORE: World Climate Research Program (WCRP) Coordinated Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX) Common Regional Experiment (CORE)

CORDEX-CORE is an initiative of the “Coordinated Downscaling Experiment” (CORDEX) and part of the “World Climate Research Program” (WCRP) with the aim of creating a high-resolution and uniform basis of climate information for all human-inhabited continents.

In order to cover the range of possible climate changes, climate simulations were carried out in CORDEX-CORE under a scenario with strong greenhouse gas emissions (RCP8.5) and a scenario with comprehensive climate protection measures (RCP2.6). For each scenario, three global climate simulations with different climate sensitivities were selected and regionalized with two regional climate models. This results in at least twelve simulations for each of the defined simulation areas, each for the period 1970 to 2100, with a horizontal resolution of 0.22 ° (~ 25 km) previously unattainable for most regions.

At GERICS, the entire set of simulations was carried out with the regional climate model REMO operated at GERICS, and simulations for the Central Asia region (CAS) were also created. For all areas, simulations were initially generated using the ERA-Interim reanalysis data, and based on this, the performance of the model was evaluated and successfully published in November 2019 (Remedio et al., 2019). Further publications are in preparation. The data from CORDEX-CORE were presented in October 2019 at the international CORDEX conference ICRC CORDEX 2019 in Beijing and made available to the scientific community via the Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF). Scientific publications based on these data will also be included in the IPCC's 6th Assessment Report (AR6). They will provide an important basis for investigations into regional climate changes worldwide and the basis for analyzes of vulnerability, climate impacts and adaptation.