Comment from the co-chairs about ICRC-CORDEX 2023

Silvina Solman and Daniela Jacob, co-chairs of WCRP CORDEX.

Hi Silvina Solman and Daniela Jacob, co-chairs of WCRP CORDEX. What was the highlight of the ICRC-CORDEX 2023, that was held in Pune, Trieste and online, according to you?  

Silvina: A conference is always a big challenge because we have initial thoughts about the structure and the topics and expectations. Overall, I can say that we have had a very successful meeting this week. Then when you come to the conference things might change, but we have had a very successful meeting this week. We learned a lot about new approaches and frontier topics that came up during the different sessions. What I liked the most was the open discussions with the community, because it is the only face to face way we can get their feedback to the Science Advisory Team (SAT) and to us the CORDEX co-chairs. So, I think in that sense we have been very successful, and we thought about enough time for discussions.

I think the highlights have to do with what we are thinking for the future of Codex. And I’m really glad we talked about the coordination and the coordinating experiments, which is the heart of CORDEX. We came to very nice agreements on what to expect and the next steps around those ideas. Then we also touched upon other different topics which are interesting and very relevant, such as the activity of the Flagship Pilot Studies (FPS). With these studies we prove that we are moving forward in many ways. We have much to do, but we have a very nice setting and a very nice community to do that.

Daniela: We could meet as a community at this conference, which is for sure a highlight. We are a bit challenged by the many different activities in CORDEX, which we should do and they need the discussion and agreement in the community. From a scientific point of view, I think it’s very clear that the FPS’s are really pushing forward our scientific development. Still, I think there could be a bit more exchange between the FPS’s. For example, convection permitting modelling, developed in one FPS is important for urban studies another FPS, too.

I really like to see the engagement of many people from different continents. In the years between the conferences, the engagement is not so visible to everyone. We have some common infrastructure and we are sharing simulation protocols  But there’s, I guess, a lack of exchange of scientific results in between. Some of my scientific highlights from this conference, are the push towards low lying islands and to risk. I am glad that we could clarify CORDEX’s role in delivering information and that we are not trying to do everything. We are delivering information which can then be used for risk assessments, climate services and to inform society.

Thank you!

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