OS – Ocean Sciences
Programme Group Chair: Joanna Staneva
- OS1 – Ocean Circulation and Climate
- OS2 – Coastal Oceans, Semi-enclosed and Marginal Seas
- OS3 – Ocean Biogeochemistry and Biology
- OS4 – Global ocean processes and oceanographic techniques
In recent years, technologies based on Artificial Intelligence (AI), such as image processing, smart sensors, and intelligent inversion, have garnered significant attention from researchers in the geosciences community. These technologies offer the promise of transitioning geosciences from qualitative to quantitative analysis, unlocking new insights and capabilities previously thought unattainable.
One of the key reasons for the growing popularity of AI in geosciences is its unparalleled ability to efficiently analyze vast datasets within remarkably short timeframes. This capability empowers scientists and researchers to tackle some of the most intricate and challenging issues in fields like Geophysics, Seismology, Hydrology, Planetary Science, Remote Sensing, and Disaster Risk Reduction.
As we stand on the cusp of a new era in geosciences, the integration of artificial intelligence promises to deliver more accurate estimations, efficient predictions, and innovative solutions. By leveraging algorithms and machine learning, AI empowers geoscientists to uncover intricate patterns and relationships within complex data sources, ultimately advancing our understanding of the Earth's dynamic systems. In essence, artificial intelligence has become an indispensable tool in the pursuit of quantitative precision and deeper insights in the fascinating world of geosciences.
For this reason, aim of this session is to explore new advances and approaches of AI in Geosciences.
The radioactive materials are known as polluting materials that are hazardous for human society, but are also ideal markers in understanding dynamics and physical/chemical/biological reactions chains in the environment. Therefore, man-made radioactive contamination involves regional and global transport and local reactions of radioactive materials through atmosphere, soil and water system, ocean, and organic ecosystem, and its relations with human and non-human biota. The topic also involves hazard prediction, risk assessment, nowcast, and countermeasures, which is now urgent important for the nuclear power plants in Ukraine, the Middle East, etc.
By combining long monitoring data (> halftime of Cesium 137 after the Chornobyl Accident in 1986, 16 years after the Fukushima Accident in 2011, and other events), we can improve our knowledgebase on the environmental behavior of radioactive materials and its environmental/biological impact. This should lead to improved monitoring systems in the future including emergency response systems, acute sampling/measurement methodology, and remediation schemes for any future nuclear accidents. Furthermore, the discharge of ALPS-treated water into the ocean, carried out as part of the decommissioning of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, has attracted international attention and demonstrated that decommissioning a nuclear power plant that has suffered an accident requires a fundamentally different approach from that of a conventional decommissioning. Studies on past nuclear contamination events and other environmental radioactivity datasets are also welcome.
The following specific topics have traditionally been discussed:
(a) Atmospheric Science (emissions, transport, deposition, pollution);
(b) Hydrology (transport in surface and ground water system, soil-water interactions);
(c) Oceanology (transport, bio-system interaction);
(d) Soil System (transport, chemical interaction, transfer to organic system);
(e) Forestry;
(f) Natural Hazards (warning systems, health risk assessments, geophysical variability);
(g) Measurement Techniques (instrumentation, multipoint data measurements);
(h) Ecosystems (migration/decay of radionuclides).
This session aims to bring together multidisciplinary perspectives on the interplay between microbial activity, sedimentary processes, and geochemical signatures in lacustrine and marine environments, both modern and ancient. We seek contributions that explore how microbial metabolisms influence mineral formation (e.g., carbonates, clays, sulphates) how isotopic and molecular biosignatures record biogeochemical processes, and how sedimentary archives can be interpreted to reconstruct past environmental and climatic conditions.
We particularly encourage submissions that combine natural systems with experimental analogues, including laboratory simulations of mineral precipitation, microbe–mineral interactions, and environmental gradients. Studies integrating field observations, experimental data, and cutting-edge analytical or computational approaches (e.g., spectroscopy, synchrotron techniques, geochemistry, stable isotopes, machine learning) are especially welcome.
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
• Microbially mediated mineral precipitation in lacustrine and marine systems
• Early diagenesis and biosignature formation: field, lab, and model approaches
• Stable isotope systems as proxies for microbial and environmental processes
• Experimental analogues simulating early Earth, Mars-like, or extreme environments
• Sedimentary and geochemical archives for paleoclimate and paleoenvironmental reconstructions
• Integration of microbial ecology, mineralogy, and geochemistry to assess biogeochemical feedbacks
• Applications to the search for early life and biosignatures in the geological record and planetary contexts
The Earth system is a complex, multiphysics system with nonlinear interactions on multiple spatial and temporal scales. Understanding constituent processes (linear, nonlinear, stochastic, etc.) on the one hand, and the complexity of individual subsystems or the full integrated system on the other, is key to being able to better model the Earth System in a predictive fashion. The renaissance of machine and deep-learning in the past decade has led to rapid progress in the development of advanced approaches in, e.g., nonlinear time series analysis, dynamical and stochastic systems theory, critical slowing down theory, complex systems theory, and these approaches, in turn show promise in facilitating further advances in modeling the Earth system.
In this context, this session seeks contributions on all aspects of complexity, nonlinearity, tipping points and stochastic dynamics of the Earth system, including the atmosphere, the hydrosphere, the cryosphere, the solid earth, etc. Communications on theoretical, experimental and modeling studies are all welcome, where the latter modeling studies can span the range of model hierarchy from idealized models to complex Earth System Models (ESM). Studies based on emerging approaches such as data driven models, Artificial Intelligence approaches, complex network methods, critical slowing down analysis, dynamical and stochastic systems theory, etc., are particularly encouraged.
The year 2026 marks the centenary of Richardson’s seminal paper on turbulent diffusion. In this pioneering work, several fundamental ideas were introduced. Richardson notably recognized the non-differentiable nature of turbulent velocity and suggested that a fractal-like process could be used to represent it, proposing a Weierstrass function as an example. Based on experimental evidence, he also proposed that turbulent diffusivity follows a scaling law with an exponent of 4/3. Fifteen years before Kolmogorov’s 1941 theory, this result is equivalent to a velocity scaling characterized by a Hurst exponent of 1/3.
To mark the centenary of this landmark paper, which led the basis of modern theory of turbulent diffusion, we propose a EGU session devoted to this topic. In particular, we aim to address ocean and atmospheric applications, from small-to-large scale processes, in light of more recent results about the presence of intermittent corrections, or recent approaches in terms of continuous-time random walk or ballistic cascade phenomenologies.
We welcome contributions addressing turbulent transport and dispersion from both Eulerian and Lagrangian perspectives, including the diffusion of chemical and biological tracers, pair dispersion, and turbulent mixing. Theoretical, experimental, numerical, and observational studies are all welcome, across a broad range of spatial and temporal scales.
We also particularly encourage contributions addressing the historical development of ideas on turbulent diffusion, from Richardson’s pioneering work to contemporary approaches in oceanic and atmospheric turbulence.
Geophysical and astrophysical flows in stratified media exhibit stratified turbulence that gives rise to a variety of flow phenomena spanning a range of spatial scales from the Kolmogorov to planetary scales. Stratified turbulence significantly influences the flow dynamics on various temporal scales via complex nonlinear interactions, which continue to be challenging to understand, diagnose, and quantify from both theory and numerics. This understanding is fundamental to advance our knowledge of turbulent flow dynamics, and a prerequisite for improved turbulent closures and parameterizations for robust predictions of weather and climate. This session aims at bringing together the recent advancements in the field of fluid dynamics, with a focus on geophysical and astrophysical flows, as well as magneto-hydro dynamics.
Our session invites fundamental and applied contributions on stratified turbulence in fluids from theoretical, numerical, and experimental observational perspectives. The topics include, but are not limited to: two dimensional, three dimensional, isotropic, and anisotropic turbulence; regime transitions and energy cascades in turbulent flows; turbulent fluxes and transports; turbulent decay, mixing, and dissipation; stable atmospheric boundary layer flows and intermittent turbulence; wave-vortex dynamics in various turbulent regimes; wave turbulence; clear air turbulence; turbulence in weakly and strongly stratified flows and stratified shear flows.
We particularly encourage participation from early career researchers.
The Navier-Stokes equations, initially formulated in the early 19th century, have since become the cornerstone of fluid mechanics, subsequently extending their relevance to fluid geophysics. The existence and regularity of their solutions pose a significant challenge within a substantial domain of geophysics.
Over the years, a series of partial results have been obtained, particularly in the pursuit of proving one of the four statements proposed by Charles L. Fefferman for the Millennium Clay Prize. A definitive proof of the third statement regarding the breakdown of the Navier-Stokes equations was unveiled by OpenAI on September 8th, utilising extensive IA resources. This revelation has sparked a substantial debate, encompassing various aspects such as the physical significance of the blowing-up singularity, the utilisation of intensive AI resources in disruptive research, and the connections with concepts like intermittency, cascades, multifractals and enstrophy catastrophe. It may also inspire new approaches to resolve fundamental questions of geosciences.
This PICO session seeks to provide the geophysical community with an opportunity to contribute to this ongoing discourse.
Tropical reef ecosystems are facing a potential turning-point as they are experiencing the most extreme conditions on record. While the 4th global coral bleaching event (2023–25) exposed ~84% of the world's reefs to bleaching-level heat stress, the next extreme El Niño has started. Yet the observational baseline against which these events are assessed spans only a few decades, whereas the processes that determine whether certain reefs will persist can span centuries to millennia. To assess whether corals can adapt or have adapted to these extremes and which reefs will survive, we require baseline data that go far beyond current timespans alongside improved projections of the coming decades to centuries. Such information also provides an important foundation for restoration and conservation planning–a growing need. This session aims to bring together coral palaeoclimatology, reef (palaeo)ecology and (palaeo)biology, observations, and modelling relevant to restoration and conservation planning, policy-making, and understanding tropical climate dynamics.
We invite contributions from tropical and subtropical settings, including marginal, turbid and naturally extreme reefs, across timescales from deep time to future projections. Topics include, but are not limited to:
• high-resolution coral reconstructions and observations of ocean and climate variability (ENSO, IOD); oceanographic/ecological monitoring, remote sensing; skeletal growth/calcification, other marine biogenic archives (molluscs, sclerosponges, coralline algae)
• proxy development, process understanding; novel geochemical proxies (nitrogen, boron, clumped isotopes), biomineralisation
• coral reef ecology, biology, physiology under stress; thermal tolerance, trophic ecology, microbial symbiont dynamics, connectivity, community change, adaptation, reef refugia
• databases, synthesis, FAIR workflows; PAGES CoralHydro2k and CoralHydro2k-Seawater, CoralCache, GBR Coral Skeletal Records; proxy system modelling, isotope-enabled simulations, data assimilation, proxy-model comparison
• future projections of tropical climate and reef environments constrained by palaeorecords and observations; translation into baselines, thresholds, conservation planning
Contributions from coordinated programmes, such as PAGES working groups (e.g., 2k Network), DFG Priority Programme "Tropical Climate Variability & Coral Reefs", IODP research (e.g., IODP Exp. 389 Hawaiian Drowned Reefs), among others, are welcome.
The Quaternary Period (the last 2.6 million years) is characterized by frequent and abrupt climate swings and rapid environmental change. Studying these changes requires accurate, precise dating methods that can be applied effectively to environmental archives. Different methods or a combination of various dating techniques can be used depending on the archive, time range, and research question. Varve counting and dendrochronology allow for the construction of high-resolution chronologies. In contrast, radiometric methods (radiocarbon, cosmogenic in-situ, U-Th, and even Pb-210 for the Anthropocene), luminescence dating, and electron spin resonance dating provide independent anchors for chronologies that span longer timescales. We particularly welcome contributions that aim to (1) reduce, quantify, and express dating uncertainties in any dating method, including high-resolution radiocarbon approaches; (2) use established geochronological methods to answer new questions; (3) use new methods including recognizing and critically examine their limitations to address longstanding issues, or; (4) combine different chronometric techniques for improved results, including the analysis of chronological datasets with novel methods, e.g., Bayesian age-depth modeling; (5) we also welcome contributions integrating multiple chronological and provenance tools including U-Pb geochronology and apatite fission track thermochronology to constrain sediment provenance and source to sink dynamics. Applications may aim to understand long-term landscape evolution, quantify rates of geomorphological processes, or provide chronologies for records of climate change and anthropogenic effects on Earth's system.
To address societal concerns over rising sea levels, associated extreme events, and their impacts on coastal communities, ecosystems, and the global economy, it is essential to understand the drivers and contributions to these changes. This session responds to this need by inviting research from the international sea level community that advances knowledge of past, present, and future changes in global and regional sea levels, extreme events, and coastal impacts.
The session focuses on studies that explore the physical mechanisms of sea level rise and variability, as well as the underlying drivers, across timescales ranging from paleo records to high-frequency phenomena to long-term projections, using observations and/or model simulations. Research on linkages between sea level variability, heat and freshwater content, ocean dynamics, ice-sheet and glacier mass loss, land subsidence, and terrestrial water storage is welcome. We encourage studies addressing future sea level changes, including high-end projections from rapid ice-sheet mass loss, and those assessing short-, medium-, and long-term coastal impacts and their broader implications.
Sitting under a tree, you feel the spark of an idea, and suddenly everything falls into place. The following days and tests confirm: you have made a magnificent discovery — so the classical story of scientific genius goes…
But science as a human activity is error-prone, and might be more adequately described as "trial and error". Handling mistakes and setbacks is therefore a key skill of scientists. Yet, we publish only those parts of our research that did work. That is also because a study may have better chances to be accepted for scientific publication if it confirms an accepted theory or reaches a positive result (publication bias). Conversely, the cases that fail in their test of a new method or idea often end up in a drawer (which is why publication bias is also sometimes called the "file drawer effect"). This is potentially a waste of time and resources within our community, as other scientists may set about testing the same idea or model setup without being aware of previous failed attempts.
Thus, we want to turn the story around, and ask you to share 1) those ideas that seemed magnificent but turned out not to be, and 2) the errors, bugs, and mistakes in your work that made the scientific road bumpy. In the spirit of open science and in an interdisciplinary setting, we want to bring the BUGS out of the drawers and into the spotlight. What ideas were torn down or did not work, and what concepts survived in the ashes or were robust despite errors?
We explicitly solicit Blunders, Unexpected Glitches, and Surprises (BUGS) from modeling and field or lab experiments and from all disciplines of the Geosciences.
In a friendly atmosphere, we will learn from each other’s mistakes, understand the impact of errors and abandoned paths on our work, give each other ideas for shared problems, and generate new insights for our science or scientific practice.
Here are some ideas for contributions that we would love to see:
- Ideas that sounded good at first, but turned out to not work.
- Results that presented themselves as great in the first place but turned out to be caused by a bug or measurement error.
- Errors and slip-ups that resulted in insights.
- Failed experiments and negative results.
- Obstacles and dead ends you found and would like to warn others about.
For inspiration, see the collection of BUGS - ranging from clay bricks to atmospheric temperature extremes - at https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU25/session/52496
Nonlinear waves transfer energy, momentum, and information across scales in the atmosphere and ocean. Rossby waves, atmospheric gravity waves, and ocean surface and internal waves interact with mean flows, turbulence, and other waves, influencing circulation, atmospheric blocking, teleconnections, ocean mixing, predictability, and extreme events. Their multiscale behaviour, nonlinear interactions, and limited observability remain challenging for conventional analysis and modelling.
This session invites contributions exploring how artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data-driven methods can improve the understanding, representation, and prediction of atmospheric and oceanic waves.
We welcome studies on Rossby-wave propagation and breaking, wave packets, wave–mean-flow interactions, blocking, teleconnections, circulation regimes, extremes, and predictability. Contributions addressing atmospheric gravity waves, ocean surface and internal waves, planetary and topographic waves, and wave–wave interactions are also encouraged.
Relevant approaches may include deep learning, neural operators, physics-informed AI, computer vision, explainable AI, reduced-order modelling, causal discovery, hybrid modelling, and machine-learning parameterizations. Applications may address wave detection, reconstruction from sparse observations, simulation acceleration, unresolved processes, prediction of wave evolution, and forecasting of wave-related extremes.
We also welcome assessments of the physical consistency, interpretability, uncertainty, and generalizability of AI models under changing climatic conditions.
Potential topics include:
* AI-based detection and tracking of waves and wave packets
* Rossby-wave breaking, blocking, and circulation regimes
* Wave–mean-flow and wave–wave interactions
* Gravity-wave detection and parameterization
* Data-driven modelling of ocean waves
* Neural operators and reduced-order models
* Physics-informed and physics-constrained AI
* AI-based simulation and prediction of wave evolution
* Waves, teleconnections, and climate variability
* Wave-related extreme and compound events
* Explainability and uncertainty quantification
* Comparisons of AI, numerical, and theoretical models
The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) plays a crucial role in shaping the dynamics of the Earth’s climate by distributing heat and nutrients across the Atlantic. It is important to understand the past, present and future changes in the dynamics of the AMOC, either gradual or abrupt, since such changes, and the possibility of its tipping, can have profound climatic and societal impacts. In this regard, big data and AI play an increasingly important role in studying AMOC dynamics based on diverse types of data. These range from geological proxies over contemporary in-situ and remote sensing observations to simulations of state-of-the-art ocean or coupled Earth system models and provide an ever increasing amount of more and more complex data on the AMOC. Advanced numerical methods and AI can help us to uncover critical aspects of the AMOC dynamics by extracting new patterns and highlighting the role of complex physical mechanisms and feedbacks, including early warnings of future regime shifts of the AMOC or some of its subcomponents like the Nordic Seas deep convection or the Northern hemisphere subpolar gyre.
In this session we welcome contributions exploring new ways of using big data and AI to elucidate AMOC dynamics. We aim to cover a broad variety of computational methods, making use of the wealth of AMOC-related observational and/or model data. These can range from statistical methods exploiting big datasets to machine learning and deep learning approaches, including neural-network emulators of the AMOC. The session is open to work on a wide range of timescales, from paleoclimate reconstruction, through current observations to future projections. Contributions may address the analysis of short-term AMOC dynamics, as well as longer-term behaviour, including tipping of the circulation and associated forecast and impact studies.
OS1 – Ocean Circulation and Climate
Sub-Programme Group Scientific Officer: Joke Lübbecke
Proposals are marked in red.
NH5 | Sea & Ocean Hazards
NP7 | Nonlinear Waves
From Dense Shelf Water to Antarctic Bottom Water: Formation, Transport, Transformation, Variability, and Climate Impacts
Changes in the Arctic Ocean, sea ice and subarctic seas systems: Observations, Models and Perspectives
CL | Climate: Past, Present & Future
CR3 | Sea, Lake and River Ice
AS | Atmospheric Sciences
BG | Biogeosciences
CL | Climate: Past, Present & Future
NH | Natural Hazards
Simulating Tropical Climate Variability: Model Biases, Advances, and Future Projections
South Atlantic Ocean Processes Across Scales: Regional Dynamics, Inter-Basin Exchanges and Regional and Global Impacts
CL3.1 | Future Climate – Climate Change: From Regional to Global
ENSO, Tropical Pacific and tropical basin Interactions: Dynamics, Predictability, Modelling and Climate Change
AS4 | Interdisciplinary Processes
BG4 | Marine and Freshwater Biogeosciences
CL4 | Climate Studies Across Timescales
Eddies, waves and instabilities: observing, modelling, and parameterizing oceanic energy transfers
The Southern Ocean in a changing climate: physical, biogeochemical, and ecosystem processes
This session invites contributions that advance a comprehensive understanding and quantification of climate shifts across multiple timescales, from local to global scales. Submissions may highlight new (multi-)proxy reconstructions from diverse archives, chronological improvements, emerging statistical approaches, and/or climate simulations that help identify, quantify, and interpret transient vs. abrupt climate changes across Quaternary glacial-interglacial cycles.
The session welcomes participants beyond the INTIMATE network who contribute to its central aims: progress on relative or absolute chronological methods, the reduction of reconstruction uncertainties, multi-site integration towards common timescales (e.g., to the Greenland event stratigraphy), a dedicated use of model-data or multi-proxy comparisons to disentangle climate or ecosystem signals, and exploring teleconnections, i.e., linking impacts to different climate system components across time and space.
We particularly invite studies that improve our understanding of atmosphere–ocean linkages of extreme climate events (e.g., AMOC weakening), those that seek to separate signals of changing seasonality and/or temperature vs. hydroclimate and their implications on past societies, as well as ecosystems. Where applicable, we encourage contributions that reflect on the potential implications of past climate shifts for: (1) understanding future climate change; (2) assessing impacts on terrestrial ecosystems and societies; and (3) identifying links between extreme climate states on land and changes in ocean circulation, external forcing, internal climate variability, or volcanic activity.
Climate modeling is pushing the frontier towards increasingly complex, high-resolution earth system models (ESMs). At the same time, nonlinearities and emergent phenomena in the climate system are often studied by means of conceptual models, which offer qualitative understanding and permit theoretical approaches. Recent advancements in statistical and physical emulators – ranging from reduced-complexity climate models to machine learning-based techniques – are enabling rapid and computationally efficient assessments of climate trajectories, impacts, and risks.
Between these approaches, a persistent “gap between simulation and understanding” (Held 2005) challenges our ability to transfer insights from conceptual models to reality, and to distill the physical mechanisms underlying the behavior of complex (climate) models. This calls for a concerted effort to learn from the entire model hierarchy, understanding the differences and similarities across its various levels of complexity, to increase confidence in climate projections.
In this session, we invite contributions from all subfields of climate science that showcase how different modeling approaches advance our understanding of the Earth system and its components, and/or highlight inconsistencies in the model hierarchy. We also welcome studies exploring a single modeling approach, as we aim to encourage exchange between researchers working on different rungs of the model complexity ladder. Contributions may employ dynamical systems models, physics-based low-order models, explainable machine learning, Earth System Models of Intermediate Complexity (EMICs), simplified or idealized setups of ESMs (radiative-convective equilibrium, single-column models, aquaplanets, slab-ocean models, idealized geography, etc.), full ESMs or standalone models of components of the Earth system, and km-scale models.
Processes and phenomena of interest include, but are not limited to:
* Earth system response to climate forcing
* Tipping behavior and critical transitions
* (Coupled) modes of climate variability
* Extremes and predictability
Rotation fundamentally shapes the dynamics of geophysical and astrophysical flows across a large range of scales and systems, from planetary and stellar interiors to oceans and atmospheres. Rotation gives rise to waves, coherent vortices, turbulent cascades, and large-scale mean flows. The interactions between these processes play an important role in the transport and mixing properties of the flow, and therefore the long-term evolution of planets, moons and stars.
This session welcomes theoretical, numerical, experimental, and observational studies addressing the dynamics of rotating or rotating-stratified flows. Topics include, but are not limited to, inertial, gravity, Rossby, and magnetohydrodynamic waves; wave turbulence; wave-mean flow interactions; coherent vortices and zonal flows; rotating convection; topographic effects; transport and mixing; transition to turbulence; and deep interior dynamics relevant to planetary cores, icy moons, gas giants, and stellar interiors.
This session focuses on the fundamental mechanisms governing rotating and rotating-stratified flows in natural systems, and welcomes studies that provide physical insight into these processes across geophysical and astrophysical contexts.
This session is complementary to the EGU session on 'Stratified Turbulence in Geophysical and Astrophysical Flows', with an emphasis on rotational effects and on the coupled dynamics of waves, vortices, turbulence, and mean flows.
Northeast Greenland occupies an important position within the Arctic, linking the Greenland Ice Sheet and ice-free terrestrial landscapes with the Arctic Ocean and Greenland Sea. Geologically and environmentally, the region has undergone major change associated with the opening and deepening of Fram Strait, the onset and intensification of Arctic–Atlantic water exchange, the early formation of ephemeral glaciers, the later build-up of the Greenland Ice Sheet, and its repeated expansion and retreat throughout the Quaternary. Ice-core records from EGRIP provide insights into past climate and ice-sheet dynamics, while observations of the Northeast Greenland Ice Stream and its outlet glaciers reveal ongoing changes in one of the ice sheet's major drainage systems. Under ongoing anthropogenically forced warming, Northeast Greenland is particularly sensitive to Arctic amplification, resulting in rapid changes across its terrestrial, cryospheric, marine and atmospheric systems. Understanding these changes, their interactions and their future trajectories requires integration across disciplines and timescales.
We invite contributions from marine, cryospheric, terrestrial and atmospheric research focused on Northeast Greenland, extending from eastern North Greenland to northern East Greenland. Studies that improve our understanding of the region across geological timescales through the present and into the future, using geological and palaeoenvironmental archives, ice-core records, contemporary observations, process studies, remote sensing and numerical modelling, are all invited. We particularly encourage studies that explore connections among systems, including the dynamics and evolution of the Northeast Greenland Ice Stream, ice-sheet–ocean interactions, atmospheric and oceanic forcing, freshwater and sediment fluxes, ocean circulation and sea ice, long-term landscape evolution and its interactions with glaciation, permafrost dynamics, and terrestrial and marine ecosystem change.
This session covers climate predictions from seasonal to multi-decadal timescales and their applications. Continuing to improve such predictions is of major importance to society. The session embraces advances in our understanding of the origins of seasonal to decadal predictability and of the limitations of such predictions. This includes advances in improving forecast skill and reliability and making the most of this information by developing and evaluating new applications and climate services, including windows of opportunity.
The session welcomes contributions from dynamical modeling, machine-learning or other statistical methods and hybrid approaches. It will investigate predictions of various climate phenomena, including extremes, from global to regional scales, and from seasonal to multi-decadal timescales (including seamless predictions). Physical processes and sources relevant to seasonal to (multi-)decadal predictability (e.g. ocean, cryosphere, or land) as well as predicting large-scale atmospheric circulation anomalies associated with teleconnections will be discussed. Analysis of predictions in a multi-model framework, and ensemble forecast initialization and generation will be another focus of the session. We are also interested in approaches addressing initialization shocks and drifts. The session welcomes work on innovative methods of quality assessment and verification of climate predictions. We also invite contributions on the use of seasonal-to-decadal predictions for risk assessment, adaptation and further applications.
The Arctic plays a vital role in the Earth's climate system through complex interactions among the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere, and biosphere. Its sea ice cover reflects most of the incoming solar radiation and regulates the surface energy balance. Freshwater and heat fluxes associated with river runoff, the melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet as well as the formation and melting of sea ice can influence deep-water formation in the North Atlantic and hence the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation. Additionally, the meridional temperature gradient between low and high latitudes drives large-scale atmospheric circulation. In the meantime, Arctic permafrost and peatlands store vast amounts of carbon, and the region is home to unique and vulnerable ecosystems.
However, anthropogenic climate change is warming the Arctic nearly four times faster than the global average in recent decades. Numerous feedbacks amplify this Arctic warming, known as Arctic amplification, and modulate the response of climate. The resulting changes are affecting Arctic ecosystems and potentially also influence remote regions through atmospheric and oceanic teleconnections.
Past warm climates act as natural laboratories and provide valuable information for the understanding of key processes and feedbacks involved in Arctic changes, establishing a basis for constraining future Arctic projections. Climate models on the other hand, project that the Arctic Ocean could become nearly ice-free during summers within the next few decades. Nevertheless, substantial uncertainties remain regarding the future Arctic evolution, potential variation of its influence on the global climate system and its ecosystem responses under continued warming. The ERC synergy grant i2B (Into the Blue) aims to address these research gaps by an integrative approach, combining paleoclimate evidence, modern observations, and numerical modelling.
Building on this interdisciplinary perspective, this session brings together studies that explore Arctic processes and their wider implications across different climate states. Therefore, we welcome contributions from all career stages investigating the Arctic mechanisms, impacts and interconnections across past, present, and future warm climate states from observational, proxy, or modelling perspectives.
Earth's climate is undergoing rapid change, with anthropogenically forced trends emerging across the atmosphere, ocean, and cryosphere. At the same time, internally generated multidecadal variability continues to modulate regional and global climate evolution, complicating attribution and prediction. Therefore, understanding the interplay between externally forced change and natural variability is essential for improving confidence in climate projections, decadal predictions, and climate risk assessments.
Recognizing the importance of addressing these issues, the WCRP CLIVAR has initiated a research focus on “Confronting Earth System Model Trends and Multidecadal Variability with Observations (CEMT-MV)”. This session contributes to CEMT-MV, offering a venue to summarize recent work and to stimulate new research. We invite contributions on the detection and attribution of observed climate trends, separation of externally forced signals and internal climate variability, and multidecadal variability in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere, and coupled climate system. We are particularly interested in the evaluation of existing and new ESM simulations (e.g., CMIP7 and PMIP7) and reanalysis datasets, on the mechanisms underlying simulated and observed multidecadal variability, and on implications for decadal climate prediction. We welcome studies utilizing paleo-climate reconstructions and data-model comparisons for the last millenium and ones that introduce new methods, including AI and machine learning, for identifying trends and multidecadal variability. Implications for future climate projections, regional climate change, and climate services.
OS2 – Coastal Oceans, Semi-enclosed and Marginal Seas
Sub-Programme Group Scientific Officer: Sandro Carniel
Proposals are marked in red.
Oceanography at Coastal Scales: Modelling, Coupling, Observations and Applications.
Chemical Processes in Coastal Oceans: Natural and Anthropogenic impacts on the biogeochemical processes
Advances in Understanding the Dynamics of the Southern European Seas (Mediterranean, Marmara and Black Seas)
GM8 | Coastal and Submarine Geomorphology
NH5 | Sea & Ocean Hazards
Coastal digital twins, Observations, and AI-ready cloud infrastructures to support coastal resilience
Coastal dynamics and processes under changing climate and changing human activities.
BG4 | Marine and Freshwater Biogeosciences
GM8 | Coastal and Submarine Geomorphology
BG2 | Methods in Biogeosciences
ERE2 | Renewable energy
From satellite to the coast: SAR-enabled coastal monitoring, forecasting and digital twins
ESSI4 | Advanced Technologies and Informatics Enabling Transdisciplinary Science
OS3 – Ocean Biogeochemistry and Biology
Sub-Programme Group Scientific Officer: Peter Landschützer
Proposals are marked in red.
BG4 | Marine and Freshwater Biogeosciences
CL3.1 | Future Climate – Climate Change: From Regional to Global
Effects of anthropogenic pressures on marine ecosystems: from impacts to scalable, cost-effective observations and citizen science approaches
Marine Carbon Dioxide Removal: Progress in understanding the potential, impacts, and MRV requirements
Ocean Physical–Biogeochemical Interactions under a Changing Climate: Coupled Variability in Oxygen, Carbon, and Heat
BG | Biogeosciences
CL | Climate: Past, Present & Future
GI | Geosciences Instrumentation & Data Systems
The concept of Earth as the sole body in the Solar System with liquid water that can harbor microbial life has been overturned by the discovery of multiple 'ocean worlds'. The Solar System is home to several planetary bodies with subsurface oceans of liquid water, including icy satellites such as Europa, Ganymede, Callisto, Enceladus, Titan and Triton, as well as dwarf planets like Pluto, and chief among these ocean worlds, the Earth. Furthermore, new icy and ocean worlds are being continuously discovered in other planetary systems as well. Like Earth, the exploration of these oceans includes both aspects of planetary evolution and habitability. The geodynamic role of oceans in planetary evolution is thus a crucial aspect of understanding not only planet formation, but the onset of biological activity as well. In what ways can the oceans of Earth serve as analogs for other oceans of the Solar System? What instrumentation can be implemented on the Earth now to further our understanding of these ocean worlds, and what technological advances might we expect in future exploration of subsurface liquid water environments beyond Earth?
This session focuses on analog sites, laboratory simulation, modeling, instrumentation and mission proposals. Coordination between Earth, marine and planetary science communities is encouraged, as well as emphasis on upcoming (e.g. JUICE and Dragonfly) and proposed missions (e.g. Enceladus Orbilander). Analog sites might encompass either geological or biological themes in the broader frame of habitability. Interfaces of ice-water (e.g. underside of floating ice shelfs and subglacial lakes), clathrate-water (e.g. ocean floor sediments, veins/fractures/faults, layered horizons and atmosphere particulates), seafloor-ocean, and rock-ice (i.e. glaciers) are of particular curiosity. Instrumentation includes sensors, buoys, submersibles, drilling and coring, as well as satellite instrumentation (e.g. spectrometers, magnetometers and gravimeters).
OS4 – Global ocean processes and oceanographic techniques
Sub-Programme Group Scientific Officer: Aida Alvera-Azcárate
Proposals are marked in red.
G3 | Geodynamics and Earth Fluids
NH5 | Sea & Ocean Hazards
BG4 | Marine and Freshwater Biogeosciences
CR3 | Sea, Lake and River Ice
NP5 | Predictability
Ocean extremes: multi-scale dynamics through observations, models and machine learning techniques
Monitoring, Modeling, and Risk Mapping of Marine Pollution and Its Environmental and Socioeconomic Impacts
High-Frequency Radar observations of ocean surface velocities: advances, applications and synergies with present and future satellite missions
Scientific challenges for the Copernicus Marine Service and the European Digital Twin of the Ocean
Advancing Seamless Open-to-Coastal Ocean Observing and Forecasting for Coastal Applications
HS | Hydrological Sciences
NH | Natural Hazards
Long spin-up times remain a major computational bottleneck in ocean and climate modelling, limiting our ability to investigate past climate states, understand model biases, and quantify parameter uncertainty. Developing more efficient spin-up methods can help overcome these limitations and support the use of past climate information to strengthen confidence in future climate projections.
This session will bring together results from the Past-to-Future Global Ocean Circulation Model Spin-Up Competition. The competition challenges participants to bring a global ocean model to equilibrium using as few computational resources as possible. Participants access the model as a time-forward black box, advancing the ocean state through a prescribed routine without modifying the underlying model or its physical configuration. This common framework enables a systematic comparison of alternative approaches.
The session will focus on three core aspects:
• presenting the methods developed by participating teams and comparing their performance against the common benchmark;
• discussing computational efficiency, convergence, and reproducibility, including the costs associated with training data where machine learning methods are used;
• exploring lessons learned and the potential for applying successful approaches more broadly in ocean and climate modelling.
We welcome competition participants and researchers interested in ocean and climate modelling, numerical analysis, scientific computing, and machine learning. The goal is to identify promising approaches, discuss remaining challenges, and encourage future collaborations on efficient model initialisation. Registration for the competition closes on 1 November 2026, with final results due on 1 March 2027.
Global coupled models that resolve ocean mesoscale eddies, and increasingly atmospheric storms, can now be run over multidecadal to centennial timescales. This allows us to ask whether small-scale processes change the large-scale climate: its mean state, its modes of variability and its response to forcing. This session focuses on the rectified effect of resolved small scales in the ocean, the atmosphere and at the air-sea interface on the climate system.
We welcome contributions from global km-scale models as well as from eddy-rich coupled configurations with coarser atmospheres, regional high-resolution setups and model hierarchies. Topics include the role of ocean mesoscale and submesoscale dynamics, boundary currents and fronts in climate; mesoscale air-sea coupling and its influence on storm tracks, jets, and precipitation; interannual to decadal to centennial variability including the AMOC, the Southern Ocean and tropical modes; whether resolution alters forced responses, climate sensitivity and SST trend patterns; sea ice, and ice-sheet-ocean interactions at high resolution; biogeochemistry, impacts on marine ecosystems, and km-scale mechanisms underlying the exchange of carbon at the air-sea interface and its subsequent transport in the ocean.
We also welcome studies exploring how resolved oceanic and atmospheric small-scale processes influence extremes, including heatwaves, marine heatwaves, ocean carbon uptake and acidification, heavy precipitation and compound events, particularly where these provide insight into climate variability and climate change.
We also invite studies using pacemaker or filtered-forcing experiments and resolved-versus-parameterised comparisons to isolate mechanisms or transfer insight to coarser models, as well as storyline approaches, pseudo-global-warming experiments, uniform warming experiments (e.g. +4 K frameworks), and related targeted methodologies used to understand the role of resolved small-scale processes in climate variability, extremes, and climate change, as well as work on challenges specific to long coupled simulations such as spin-up, drift, tuning, and initialisation.
Contributions from EERIE, DestinE, nextGEMS, WarmWorld, DYAMOND, DYAMOND3, MESACLIP, HighResMIP and related efforts are encouraged.
Connect with colleagues across disciplines at the 5th Lagrangian session!
This session provides an open venue for scientists to share the latest advances in Lagrangian techniques, explore diverse applications, and build new connections.
We invite presentations on topics including, but not limited to:
- Planetary circulations and variability (fundamental processes shaping jets, gyres, waveguides, overturning circulations, transport barriers across atmosphere and ocean)
- Mesoscale eddies and coherent structures (eddy transport, wave-mean flow interactions, blocking)
- Turbulence and mixing (turbulent and convective entrainment, breaking internal waves, boundary layers)
- Numerical and computational advances (incl. data-driven techniques, GPU acceleration, graph-theoretical formulations, adaptive methods, data assimilation)
- Inverse modeling techniques (long-range transport of volcanic plumes, wildfire smoke, hazardous material, aerosols, plastics, micro-organisms, and their impacts on global composition, health, and climate)
- Field campaigns (drifters, floats, superpressure balloons, etc)