Research and development services and related consultancy services

Tender description

ECMWF as the Entrusted Entity for implementing the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) will issue an Invitation to Tender (ITT) for quality assessment of gridded estimates of Essential Climate Variables (ECVs) derived from observations and from climate reanalyses. The objective for this ITT is to ensure that C3S services are consistently informed by the best available data about the observed climate, and that the users of those services receive clear contextual guidance on the implications of uncertainties in the underlying climate data. C3S users include scientists, consultants, planners and policy makers, the media and the general public. ECMWF is building the technical infrastructure for a distributed Climate Data Store (CDS) that will provide users with a single point of access to a large variety of climate datasets, which may be produced by (and located at) different institutions and data centres. Selection criteria for the CDS catalogue include scientific quality as well as reliability of data access and other technical aspects. ECMWF has issued service contracts for production of Climate Data Records (CDRs) addressing a number of ECVs, and will issue similar contracts for additional ECVs. C3S also supports various activities related to production of global and regional climate reanalyses. In addition, many of the high-quality climate data records already available from international agencies, institutes and research programmes are also considered for inclusion in the CDS catalogue. This ITT will address the overall scientific quality assessment of ECV products for the CDS. The successful bidder is expected to have access to a broad range of expertise covering the majority of ECVs needed to monitor the global impacts of climate change. The scope of activities will include assessment of ECV products delivered to ECMWF via service contracts, as well as comparable ECV products available elsewhere. Assessments should refer to surveys of existing literature and product documentation, supplemented by targeted studies carried out by the contractor. Assessments should probe the degree of consistency among products addressing different ECVs as well as characterising their uncertainties, e.g. by investigating energy budgets, consistency of the hydrological cycle, etc. The preferred bidder is expected to liaise with the ‘Fitness-for-Purpose’ function that the European Commission has put in place in order to evaluate the overall performance of the Service. Contract duration is 48 months.