All aspects of understanding and predicting climate variability and change will be covered to deliver a comprehensive assessment of climate research by bringing together diverse research communities that usually meet separately. The WCRP conference will be used to identify the grand challenges that face the climate research community and is timed to provide strategic input into the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is a co-sponsor of the conference. As such, a booth for DOE's Climate and Environmental Science Division, that includes the Earth and Environmental System Modeling programs, will be there. The conference program is now available.

View the WCRP Open Science Conference website for more information.

In late October, U.S. Department of Energy's Earth and Environmental System Modeling programs participated in the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) Open Science conference in Denver as part of the exhibit organized by the Office of Biological and Environmental Research's Climate and Environmental Science Division. As a platinum sponsor for the conference focused on climate research in service to society, DOE's display showcased the Climate and Environmental Science Division programs, including Earth System Modeling, Regional and Global Climate Modeling, and Integrated Assessment of Global Climate Change.

In four days over 100 visitors, from the interested passerby to the in-depth information gatherer, from many countries including, Japan, Malaysia, Ethiopia, Australia, Hong Kong, Mexico, Jamaica, South Korea, Turkey, and the Netherlands, stopped by the exhibit. Featured in the booth were climate modeling animations, which led to several conversations about the new climate modeling website including the FY2011 projects page. The Next Generation Ecosystem Experiment – Arctic was included in these animations and drew attention from the terrestrial ecosystem scientists. Popular outreach materials included DOE's "climate mats"—placemat-sized flyers describing the energy-climate nexus; the Green Ocean Amazon 2014 workshop flyer and Climate and Environmental Science Division flyer; and the ARM trifold brochures describing how to order data and submit proposals for field campaigns.

This first ever WCRP Open Science Conference was attended by more than 1900 conference participants (of which, 523 were students and early career scientists and 332 scientists were from 86 countries) with over 1750 posters and 182 papers presented orally. Prominent speakers at the conference included the head of the World Meteorological Organization and members of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) teams in 2007 and 2013. Resulting whitepapers from the conference will provide strategic input into the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report and identify grand challenges that face the climate research community.