The overall causes and impacts of global warming related to the increase of greenhouse gases, especially CO2, in the atmosphere are well understood with a high level of confidence, but there are large knowledge gaps concerning the impact of other species which contribute to radiative forcing, such as short-lived greenhouse gases and aerosols and their precursors. These gaps lead to high uncertainties concerning their subsequent effects on atmospheric chemistry and climate, through direct changes in emissions as well as through various feedback mechanisms (e.g., permafrost thawing). Additionally, albedo changes connected to land use and land-cover can play a role, depending on adaptation or mitigation included in different scenarios.
Thus, the main goal of the four-year EC Horizon Europe project FOCI (accepted within the call HORIZON-CL5-2021-D1-01-0 Improved understanding of greenhouse gas fluxes and radiative forcers, including carbon dioxide removal technologies), is to assess the impact of key radiative forcers, where and how they arise, the processes of their impact on the climate system, to find and test an efficient implementation of these processes into global Earth System Models and into Regional Climate Models, and finally to use the tools developed to investigate mitigation and/or adaptation policies incorporated in selected scenarios of future development targeted at Europe and other regions of the world.
WMO is one of 17 partners in the project and leads one of nine work packages: communicating and disseminating project results among the scientific community and promote their uptake in international policy and operational services, including integrated health, urban, and energy services.