Kick-off meeting of FUTURA and ENES-RISe

The two European projects FUTURA and ENES-RISe launched during a joint kick-off event from September 22 to 25, 2026. A team from the Data and Analysis department of DKRZ was among the more than 150 participants who traveled to Milan.

Plenary sessions and workshops focused on topics such as the design and provision of climate projections for the upcoming IPCC Assessment Report, the integration of the climate impact community into this process, and the further development of European, federated climate data and analysis infrastructures.

FUTURA brings together key European institutions specializing in climate modeling and research infrastructure. The project aims to improve the coordination of European activities regarding climate projections and data provision, as well as to establish shared services and structures — particularly in respect to the next IPCC Assessment Report. To this end, the DKRZ is advancing its climate data services and working on new solutions for cataloging, accessing, and processing large datasets. This includes handling high-resolution climate model data (at the kilometer scale) and combining asynchronous tape storage access with the provision of "analysis-ready" data. The services being developed aim, among other things, to better integrate the communities associated with ISIMIP, CORDEX, CMIP/ESGF, and high-resolution simulations.

ENES-RISe will provide technical support for major Earth system models — such as ICON, EC-Earth, NorESM, and HCLIM — as well as for infrastructure software tools like OASIS3-MCT, YAC, XIOS, and dr2xml. Furthermore, the DKRZ is enhancing existing services for the provision, configuration, and execution of models on European high-performance computers and is integrating German data services into the new European ENES Research Infrastructure. This infrastructure forms the European branch of the ESGF, thereby making an essential contribution to the global, reliable availability of climate simulation data. In this context, the DKRZ coordinates the provision of core data via the ENES-RI data nodes.

During the the kick-off meeting in Milan initial joint objectives and specific tasks were defined. A particular focus was placed on interconnecting climate models, projections, data, and infrastructures. FUTURA and ENES-RISe complement each other in this regard: ENES-RISe supports ENES-RI in offering its services in a consistent manner across Europe and in improving their coordination. Building on this, FUTURA develops new services and solutions to meet future demands placed on the European climate research infrastructure.