EFficient exploratiOn of Climate dAta Locally (FOCAL)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness
Programme: Climate, Energy and Mobility
Theme: Climate
Destination: Climate sciences and responses for the transformation towards climate neutrality
Action type: Research and Innovation actions
Countries involved: Germany,Czechia,Belgium,Spain,Slovakia,Greece
Call: Further climate knowledge through advanced science and technologies for analysing Earth observation and Earth system model data (HORIZON-CL5-2023-D1-01, 2023)
Start date: 2024-11-01
End date: 2027-10-31
Duration (months): 36.0
Total project cost (EUR): 8112916.61
EU funding (EUR): 7820523.75
Participants: 15
Project status: SIGNED

Despite the wealth of climate data and services currently available, access is often limited to scientists and modeling experts. FOCAL will develop a platform (FOCAL Platform) that combines intelligent workflow management with high-performance computing (HPC) infrastructures, featuring data and metadata management linked to artificial intelligence (AI) development routines. This environment will enable the fast and efficient training and validation of innovative AI and statistical methods, enhancing the understanding of climate change impacts at a local scale. The project focuses on two pilots: urban planning and forestry, intending to develop a platform that enables efficient climate impact assessments on the local level while leveraging AI and HPC for analysing earth observation (EO) and earth system modelling data. Furthermore, FOCAL will generate new insights into key processes of the Earth system by integrating advanced EO data with existing and new data assimilation or modelling approaches. By harnessing a diverse range of EO datasets, FOCAL will improve climate predictions and provide a more comprehensive understanding of the interactions within the Earth system. This integration will allow for the identification of previously unrecognized patterns and feedback mechanisms, ultimately refining local climate models and enhancing their predictive capabilities. The platform will also facilitate Web/Cloud app development through a co-design process with urban planners and foresters, ensuring the resulting applications address their specific impact assessment challenges. Additionally, the FOCAL ecosystem will support developers, particularly small and medium size enterprises (SMEs), by providing services, modules, tools, and workflows that can be integrated into their own solutions. The project promotes a highly interdisciplinary approach, with a defined clustering and dissemination strategy to effectively apply its innovations across various fields. An Open Geospatial Consortium Domain Working Group (OGC-DWG) will be established to manage and maintain these clustering efforts. Ultimately, FOCAL aspires to enhance climate science and policy, improve societal resilience to climate change, and promote sustainable practices, all while ensuring transparency and openness in data management and model development.

Keywords: climate modelling,geospatial data,local impact assessment,earth system modelling,urban planning,forestry,artificial intelligence,high performance computational infrastructure,scientific workflow management,earth observation