We aim to promote research enabling improved prediction services for the polar regions.

PCAPS (Polar Coupled Analysis and Prediction for Services), a project of WMO's World Weather Research Programme (WWRP), builds upon and extends the work undertaken by the former WWRP's Polar Prediction Project and its flagship activity, the Year of Polar Prediction.

Goals

PCAPS aims at improving the actionability, impact, and fidelity of environmental forecasting for human and environmental well-being in the Arctic and Antarctic regions.

The PCAPS project will undertake research that leads to improved service provision for vulnerable communities and those operating in the fast-changing polar regions.

The research activities will focus on improving coupled weather and climate forecasting models, as well as on increasing the understanding of user requirements (user groups, products, timeliness, access, and scale) through trialling co-production mechanisms and communication.

It is anticipated that the WMO contribution to the fifth International Polar Year (IPY) (2032-2033) will be informed and assisted by the outcomes from PCAPS.

The PCAPS goal and outcomes support WMO’s Research Strategic Objectives:

  • 3.1: Advance scientific knowledge of the Earth system

  • 3.2: Enhance the science-for-service value chain (or value cycle) to ensure that scientific and technological advances improve predictive capabilities and analysis

  • 3.3: Advance and contribute to policy-relevant science

PCAPS has an overarching project goal as well as five main objectives. These objectives are aligned with the five main project outcomes, and their associated sub-outcomes. The achievement of the intended outcomes will lead to the intended long-term impact of PCAPS.

Areas of interest

  • Engage a variety of user groups in undertaking assessments of environmental forecasting services, recognizing different user needs and different services at different spatial and temporal scales. 

  • Explore and assess the consequences – intended and unintended – of the provision and use of enhanced environmental services on human activities in the polar regions.

  • Advocate for enhancing the observing system, particularly via advancing coupled atmosphere, cryosphere, and ocean Earth System Models to accurately represent critical polar phenomena.

  • Identify and select partners for collaborative projects, which target specific challenges or innovations, including but not limited to:

    1. Improving the interpretability/usability of forecasting services.

    2. Exploring the possibilities and implications of employing artificial intelligence and machine-learning across the value chain.  

  • Provide interdisciplinary training, networking, and professional development, with an emphasis on early-career professionals as well as underrepresented groups.

Background

The polar regions are directly impacted by climate change, necessitating the provision of the best-possible user-informed, research-driven environmental forecast and reanalysis services to address the current, near-, and long-term risk picture.

PCAPS, spanning 2024-2028 under the World Weather Research Programme (WWRP), is dedicated to enhancing environmental forecasting in the Arctic and Antarctic regions for human and environmental well-being.

As the effects of climate change intensify, polar regions are experiencing rapid transformations, impacting their complex socio-ecological systems. With rapid environmental change in these regions, a pressing need for improving the actionability, impact, and fidelity, of weather forecasting in the polar regions is rooted in the unique challenges posed by these extreme environments.

PCAPS recognizes the complexity of interactions in polar socio-ecological systems and aims to enhance environmental forecasting services with diverse user contexts in mind by facilitating the provision of more accurate, reliable, and usable prediction services.

Guided by user needs and service provision capabilities, PCAPS involves work to improve models, particularly in predicting small-scale processes essential for accurate forecasts in the context of improving the overall service provision. Key parameters include surface wind speed, swell characteristics, cloud conditions, precipitation, visibility, and sea-ice features.

PCAPS will assess the need for a tiered surface observing network to address gaps in polar observations, utilizing ground-based remote sensing, robotic crafts, and permanent observatories to enhance satellite data, with a focus on validating critical products and conducting a cost-benefit analysis for sustainable polar observation.

Increased cooperation and coordination between user communities, operational centres and researchers will ensure that environmental forecasting services are fit for purpose.

Such inter- and transdisciplinary collaborative efforts are required to achieve the priority of understanding operational decision-making and user needs to enhance service provision and thereby facilitate human and environmental health in the polar regions.

PCAPS endeavors to integrate contributions from the social and physical sciences as well as the service provider and user communities throughout its entire project lifetime.

While physical scientists will work on improving the understanding and representation of stable atmospheric boundary layers, mixed-phase clouds, and wave–ice–ocean interactions, emphasizing the need for a comprehensive understanding of the coupled nature of the dynamic and thermodynamic interactions across these boundaries, this research will be guided and informed by social scientists whose research explores decision-making, risk perception and interaction with environmental forecasting specialists as well as by service providers and users, including Indigenous communities.

In sum, PCAPS aims to facilitate the exchange of knowledge at the science-policy-service-user interface to improve the actionability, impact, and fidelity of environmental forecasting services.

PPP and YOPP

The Year of Polar Prediction (YOPP) Final Summit was the final milestone in WWRP’s Polar Prediction Project (PPP). YOPP was PPP’s flagship activity and a period of intensive observing, modelling, prediction, verification, user engagement and education activities from mid-2017 to mid-2019.

YOPP successfully united scientists, practitioners, and stakeholders, enhancing observational capabilities and user engagement.

This collaboration yielded numerous scientific publications, improved model predictions, and a deeper understanding of polar-midlatitude interactions, highlighting YOPP's comprehensive impact from fostering community to advancing operational forecasting.

YOPP has contributed to better coupling in Earth system models and addressed unresolved polar processes through tailored observation campaigns. Additionally, there are improved sea-ice forecasting techniques, innovative evaluation frameworks, and a deeper understanding of societal needs in polar regions.

The YOPP Final Summit sessions and stakeholder discussions enriched our understanding of YOPP's societal impact and provided valuable input for future directions. The YOPP Final Summit highlighted several key research priorities in the realm of environmental prediction and services for the polar regions.

The complexity and infancy of polar-coupled prediction systems introduce challenges. Ensuring that these systems are fit-for-predictions demands careful consideration, including addressing limitations, refining models, and adapting to the unique characteristics of polar environments. Addressing biases in reanalyses—comprehensive reconstructions of past weather and climate conditions—is crucial for advancing climate science and ensuring informed decision-making to tackle the challenges posed by climate change. Ensuring that historical data accurately represents polar conditions is challenging due to sparse observational networks, uneven data distribution, and limitations in assimilating information into models.

The YOPP Final Summit acknowledged the progress made in identifying key user groups and their needs but called for increased efforts to expand natural and societal research and tailor services to a broader spectrum of users.

Endorsed projects

PCAPS invites projects that support its goal and aims to apply for endorsement by the Scientific Steering Committee (SSC) of the World Weather Research Programme (WWRP).

Endorsed projects play a key role in improving the actionability, impact, and fidelity of environmental forecasting for human and environmental well-being in the Arctic and Antarctic.

Project endorsement by WWRP-PCAPS offers several benefits:

  • Gain visibility of the research activities through the inclusion of links to the endorsed project’s websites or activities in both the WWRP and PCAPS website and e-newsletter;

  • Align your project with the strategic priorities of WWRP and PCAPS, fostering interdisciplinary collaboration and knowledge exchange;

  • Foster engaging and inspiring networking and communication by strengthening collaboration between project partners andthe broader WWRP and PCAPS community;

  • Each Endorsed Project is assigned PCAPS focal points from both the natural and social sciences – reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of PCAPS – to ensure your work is meaningfully connected to relevant Task Teams and enriched by diverse scientific perspectives.

The Endorsed Project application is a very simple application that requires answering some brief questions and submitting a 250-word maximum summary of the project and a 1000-word maximum description about how the project relates to WWRP and PCAPS.

Funded projects as well as project proposals are both eligible to apply for project endorsement.

Further information about WWRP Endorsed Projects is below.

Endorsed projects

  • IP FAST

    Emilia Kyung jin

    JAN-25 – DEC-30

    Project FAST (Forecast of Antarctic Sea Ice Trend) aims to establish the Antarctic sea ice observation system by implementing cutting-edge field observation technology through global cooperation, obtain high-quality data required for improving forecasts, and identify the formation, growth, and melting characteristics of Antarctic sea ice, particularly focusing on the rapid melting process in Terra Nova Bay near Jangbogo Station, East Antarctica.

    PCAPS SG focal points

    Natural Science: Clare Eayrs

    Social Science: ?

  • IP T-SCAN

    Paola Rodriguez Imazio

    JAN-25 – FEB-26

    The T-SCAN (Turbulence and Supercool Clouds in Antarctica) project aims at identifying supercooled cloud droplets in polar regions. These droplets exert substantial radiative impacts on the surface energy budget, and play an important role in Arctic amplification and solar absorption over the Southern Ocean, in addition to generating in-flight icing, which represents a significant hazard to all forms of aircraft. Essential for both aviation and climate studies.

    PCAPS SG focal points

    Natural Science: Paola R. Imazio

    Social Science: ?

  • IP IWOOS

    Marius O. Jonassen

    JAN-25 – DEC-26

    The Isfjorden Weather and Ocean Observing System (IWOOS) aims to address critical gaps in atmospheric and oceanographic data in the Isfjorden region in Svalbard, particularly responding to the rapid Atlantification that impacts the area. This phenomenon has significantly reduced sea ice cover and changed marine ecology, which calls for enhanced monitoring and understanding of the changes.

    PCAPS SG focal points

    Natural Science: Jørn Kristiansen

    Social Science: Machiel Lamers

  • IP SIPN South

    François Massonnet

    JAN-17 –

    The Sea Ice Prediction Network South (SIPN South) project, addresses the growing challenge of predicting Antarctic sea ice in a context of puzzling changes. Following 35 years of slight sea ice expansion in a warming world, the trend has rapidly reversed, with record low levels of sea ice now being observed across all seasons. This significant shift, which some scientists believe may indicate a regime change in the Southern Ocean, presents a unique opportunity to assess the value of dedicated prediction systems.

    PCAPS SG focal points

    Natural Science: Clare Eayrs

    Social Science: Victoria Heinrich

  • IP Coupled Modelling and Observations in MIZ

    Malte Müller

    JAN-24 – DEC-26

    Coupled Modelling and Observations in the Marginal Ice Zone. The main goal of the project is to observe and better understand the complex interplay between atmosphere, waves, and sea-ice in the Marginal Ice Zone (MIZ) and to assess the predictive skill and uncertainties of coupled Arctic forecasting systems. A large number of observation points are needed to allow for a representative comparison between in-situ observations and gridded model data.

    PCAPS SG focal points

    Natural Science: Phil Browne

    Social Science: Jelmer Jeuring

  • IP NURTURE

    Steven Cavallo

    JAN-24 – JAN-28

    The North American Upstream Feature-Resolving and Tropopause Uncertainty Reconnaissance Experiment (NURTURE) is a planned NASA-supported large-scale aircraft field campaign designed to advance knowledge of the processes that lead to extreme high-impact weather (HIW) events during the winter, such as severe cold air outbreaks, windstorms and hazardous seas, sea ice breakup, and extreme precipitation.

    PCAPS SG focal points

    Natural Science: Pranab Deb

    Social Science: ?

  • IP ANTSUBICE

    Won Sang Lee

    JAN-26 – DEC-32

    The ANTSUBICE (Acoustic Navigation and communications Technologies for Submersible Units Below Ice and Cavity Exploration) project aims to reduce uncertainties in sea level rise projections by developing innovative autonomous under-ice exploration technologies for investigating ice shelf-ocean interactions beneath ice shelves. Through a synergy of global collaboration, the project focuses on pioneering advanced solutions to study the dynamic processes at the ice-ocean interface, a critical yet underexplored area in Polar science.

    PCAPS SG focal points

    Natural Science: Clare Eayrs

    Social Science: Daniela Liggett

  • IP Canada-Sweden Arctic Ocean Expedition 2025

    Åsa Lindgren

    AUG-25 – SEP-25

    The Swedish Polar Research Secretariat opens a call for an ECS expedition/Research School on the I/B Oden 8 August through 19 September, 2025. It will take the form of a research school, combining the practical work of a research expedition with exercises and instruction and a curriculum of lectures covering essential parts of the Arctic Ocean climate system and environment. It cover aspects of all three main components of the Arctic Ocean climate system: the ocean, the sea ice and the atmosphere, as well as the coupling between them.

    PCAPS SG focal points

    Natural Science: ?

    Social Science: Machiel Lamers

  • IP Improving Weather Forecasting Models for Services in Antarctic and Southern Ocean Regions

    Victoria Heinrich

    FEB-24 – DEC-26

    In the remote, extreme environments of Antarctica and the Southern Ocean, weather forecasts, based on numerical weather prediction (NWP) models, are critical to people’s planning, decision-making, risk assessment and safety for their outdoor activities and operational efficiency. Through an online survey and workshop this mixed-methods, trans-disciplinary, and collaborative project aims to elicit expert opinions and develop consensus across diverse stakeholder communities on research priorities and ways forward to improve forecasting services to produce usable and actionable information that meet user and decision-maker needs.

    PCAPS SG focal points

    Natural Science: ?

    Social Science: Victoria Heinrich

PCAPS logos

Banner image by Ramcharan Vijayaraghavan.