NUKLEUS 2

Actionable local climate information for Germany | Duration Time: 01/06/2023 - 31/05/2026


	Context The joint project "Actionable Local Climate Information for Germany (NUKLEUS)" is one of two cross-sectional projects of the funding measure RegIKlim. The central task of the cross-sectional projects WIRKsam and NUKLEUS is the conceptual design and development of a climate register. NUKLEUS will primarily carry out the work on the backend of the climate register. Besides the provision of climate data, the evaluation and quality assurance of the underlying climate simulations, including the bandwidths and uncertainties in comparison with the global and the emerging European CMIP6 ensembles, is central. The data itself will be made available via the data and analysis portal “Free Evaluation System Framework” (Freva).
Freva also offers the possibility of integrating useful tools for standardised data preparation as so-called Freva plugins and thus acts as an interface to the impact models of the model regions. Building on the findings from the first funding phase and the results of the other work packages, this interface will be further optimised. Specifically, our work package will process and analyse suitable climate data, correct the bias and downscale the climate simulations to a very high-resolution 1 km grid. Innovative algorithms and approaches from the field of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) will be used. In addition, by developing plug-ins, we will form a crucial milestone for the provision of reliable, very high-resolution input data for the impact models over Germany.
The research results and data products from NUKLEUS2 form the basis for the services and products of the model regions. A central component of the exploitation plan is the prototype climate cadastre. Part of the cadastre will be, among other things, the guidelines and documentation of the products, which can be used beyond the project. All planned extensions of the Freva system can also be used in other projects and institutions that use the Freva system (e.g. in the BMBF projects ClimXtreme and WarmWorld or at the DWD). This includes in particular the Freva plug-ins, which have the potential of great added value for all users of these systems, as they lead to standardisation and thus comparability, e.g. in the use of certain impact models across different projects. The data and analyses will also play an important role for other research projects up to international synthesis reports such as IPCC. In particular, the WCRP CORDEX activities on CMIP6 downscaling and the FPS URB-RCC (URBan environments and Regional Climate Change) initiative should be mentioned here.

Principal Investigator & Institution	Staff


Dr. Elena Xoplaki Center for International Development and Environmental Research (ZEU) Justus-Liebig-University, Giessen (Germany) Department of Geography Prof. Dr. Jürg Luterbacher World Meteorological Organization (WMO)	Dr. Seyedhamidreza Mojtabavi Research Assistant at the ZEU Justus-Liebig-University, Giessen


Cooperation Partners Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht (HZG) Deutsches Klimarechenzentrum GmbH (DKRZ) Universität Würzburg (UW) Brandenburgische Technische Universität (BTU) Technische Universität Dresden (TUD)	Acknowledgment This project is generously funded as part of the FONA framework programme of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).