Non-indigenous species (NIS) pose a significant threat to biodiversity and ecosystems globally, ranking as the second most common cause of species extinctions. Particularly in the Adriatic Sea, a hub for fishing, tourism and maritime traffic, the introduction of NIS has the potential to exacerbate ecological and economic impacts. ALIENA aims at creating a shared knowledge base and collaborative monitoring system to protect biodiversity from NIS in the Adriatic Sea. Through joint monitoring and modeling efforts focused on these species, the project seeks to develop early warning solutions essential for effective marine management, biodiversity conservation, and public health protection. Additionally, it aims to improve shared protocols for NIS detection, monitoring, and management, while also increasing stakeholders’ awareness of NIS issues.

---

C-BLUES will significantly advance knowledge and understanding of blue carbon ecosystems (BCEs) seagrasses, tidal marshes, mangroves, macroalgae, and macroalgae mariculture aiming to achieve three overarching objectives: 1) develop new scientific knowledge within BCEs to reduce scientific uncertainty and improve reporting of blue carbon under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), 2) provide input to a possible revision of the 2013 IPCC Wetlands Supplement to increase inclusion of coastal wetlands in national greenhouse gas (GHG) inventories and reporting, 3) raise awareness and promote the role of blue carbon for delivering global climate policy commitments in collaboration with Chinese and other international partners.

---

The project provides a complete technical solution for the production of monthly seasonal forecasts in real time according to a pre-established operational programme. The project also involves additional development activities to be carried out with the aim of improving the quality and range of the CMCC seasonal forecasting operational system. These complementary activities include : a new ensemble of extended (16 months) hindcasts and real-time forecasts. A portfolio of workflows, structured as Jupyter Notebooks will be produced, aiming at analyzing the capability of dynamical seasonal forecast ensembles to detect and predict Extreme Events, focusing on heatwaves and tropical cyclones. New land initial conditions will be implemented in the operational chain. The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) supports society by providing authoritative information about the past, present and future climate in Europe and the rest of the World.

---

The Climate Observation and Modelling Expertise Team (COMET) aims to enhance the use of satellite-derived climate data in ocean and sea ice modelling by integrating high-quality long-term Earth Observation records from ESA’s Climate Change Initiative (CCI) for key Essential Climate Variables (ECVs) such as sea surface temperature and salinity, sea ice, and sea. By applying advanced data assimilation, model calibration, and machine learning techniques, COMET addresses key scientific challenges in climate modelling, particularly in polar regions, and contributes to more accurate and reliable representations of present and future climate conditions. The project strengthens links between the Earth Observation and modelling communities under ESA’s Climate-Space initiative and responds to scientific priorities set by the IPCC, WCRP, and GCOS, focusing on better representation of ocean–ice–atmosphere interactions in climate models. It addresses scientific priorities set by the IPCC, WCRP and GCOS, focusing on better representation of ocean–ice–atmosphere interactions in climate models. By improving the physical consistency, usability, and assimilation of satellite ECVs, COMET helps deliver more reliable climate predictions, particularly for vulnerable regions such as the Arctic.

---

Terrestrial ecosystems are key to the functioning of the global carbon cycle and play a fundamental role in mitigating climate change. According to the Global Carbon Budget, about 30% of all the carbon dioxide (CO₂) emitted in the atmosphere is removed by vegetation uptake through photosynthesis and accumulation of biomass (so called CO2 sinks on land). Land use change, nutrient limitations, and extreme events (e.g. droughts, fires and heat waves) may limit this potential to sequester carbon. Identifying processes that might destabilise net land carbon uptake is of paramount importance for understanding and managing the global carbon cycle. CONCERTO aims to improve: the current understanding of the terrestrial carbon cycle by adding land processes that are not included yet or not fully developed in Land Surface Models (LSMs); the representation of land change, land use and land management maps to improve the accuracy of carbon fluxes and stocks; the description of impacts on the carbon cycle of extreme events such as droughts, heatwaves and fires, using tools such as state-of-the-art land surface models (LSMs) embedded into Earth system models (EMSs); the integration of LSM improvements in offline global simulations (driven by re-analyses) and in coupled ESMs.

---

Climate forecasting has enormous potential influence in different socio-economic sectors, such as agriculture, health, water management, and energy. Actionable climate information is particularly relevant at seasonal-to-decadal timescales, where predictability is linked to slow fluctuations of the system such as those in the ocean, sea-ice and land-surface, thus bridging weather/sub-seasonal predictions (mainly relying on atmospheric initial condition) with future projections (mainly based on atmospheric radiative forcing). Seasonal-to-decadal climate forecasting has progressed considerably in recent years, but prediction skill over the Mediterranean is still limited. Better understanding the drivers of regional climate anomalies as well as exploring untapped sources of predictability constitute a much-needed and timely effort.

---

The Enhancing NEMO for Marine Applications and Services (ENMASSE) project represents a pivotal initiative aimed at advancing the capabilities of the NEMO (Nucleus for European Modelling of the Ocean) modelling platform. This enhancement is designed to address specific scientific and operational requirements set by the Copernicus Marine Service (CMS) program for the development and delivery of more precise and sophisticated ocean modelling products. These products are intended to support a wide range of applications, including marine safety, climate prediction, and ecosystem monitoring, ultimately contributing to informed decision-making and sustainable ocean management.

---

ESA has established the Climate Modelling User Group (CMUG) to place a climate system perspective at the centre of its Climate Change Initiative (CCI) programme, and to provide a dedicated forum through which the Earth observation data community and the climate modelling and reanalysis community can work closely together. CMUG will work with the Essential Climate Variable CCI projects to achieve this goal.

---

Mesoscale eddies are ubiquitous in the ocean, they can originate nearly everywhere, move around the basin and transporting trapped water with anomalous properties with respect to the surroundings. Although only the surface expression of mesoscale eddies is visible in remote sensing measurement of sea level anomaly (SLA), they are three-dimensional (3D) structures that can reach down into the pycnocline. WATER project plans to study the population of “active” eddies that can be extracted from surface altimetry and sea surface temperature maps. “Active” eddies are surface SLA pattern that include a colocalized SST environmental anomaly that is typically the signal of the 3D physical/biological processes concurring in the same place. The project plans to assess the active population both in the SWOT-enhanced altimetry maps and the conventional altimetry data to quantify the impact of the next-generation altimeter.

---

FOCCUS enhances CMEMS (Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service), for effective uptakes from the EU Member states to ensure a more sustainable Blue Economy and coastal resilience to climate change

---

Reanalyses are dynamical, observation-based reconstructions of past ocean state and are the principal way for exploring the existence of processes and trends not mapped by the observation networks. Beside the scientific importance, Reanalyses are growing in popularity within the artificially intelligence sector, being widely exploited as reference states for training ML-based forecasters or simulators. However, each Reanalysis is affected by systematic errors that intrinsically depends on the specific set up of the production system. In this context CMCC is leading an international Consortium that produces and maintains an ensemble of global Reanalyses within the Copernicus Marine Service. Several state-of-the-art products are available for a multitude of different applications from science studies to AI training, together with a day-by-day assessment of reliability and uncertainties of whole ensemble.

---

Reanalyses are dynamical, observation-based reconstructions of past ocean state and are the principal way for exploring the existence of processes and trends not mapped by the observation networks. Beside the scientific importance, Reanalyses are growing in popularity within the artificially intelligence sector, being widely exploited as reference states for training ML-based forecasters or simulators. However, each Reanalysis is affected by systematic errors that intrinsically depends on the specific set up of the production system. In this context CMCC is leading an international Consortium that produces and maintains an ensemble of global Reanalyses within the Copernicus Marine Service. Several state-of-the-art products are available for a multitude of different applications from science studies to AI training, together with a day-by-day assessment of reliability and uncertainties of whole ensemble.  

---

The IRIDE program is an innovative project undertaken by the Italian government in collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA) to leverage resources from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR). Phase 2 of IRIDE Lot 1 started in October 2024 following the successful implementation of the IRIDE Precursor Phase. The main purpose of the project is to deliver an operational portfolio of geospatial services and develop digital tools for End and Pilot users within the Thematic Services S1-Coastal and Marine Monitoring, S2- Air Quality, S5- Hydro-Meteorological-Climate, S6- WaterManagement. The operational services allow mapping, monitoring and forecasting of various characteristics of coastal areas (including geomorphological, land use, flooding, habitats etc.) as well as operational model validation, operational air quality monitoring and forecast, pollutant emissions monitoring and assessment, re-analysis of air quality at national scale, hydro-meterological mapping and monitoring atmospheric structure, greenhouse gases and others essential climate variables monitoring, lightening monitoring, flood forecasting and sediment management, etc.

---

Recognizing the central role played by snow, ice and permafrost in the global climate system, the LIQUIDICE project joins expert cryospheric observers and modelers to: i) comprehensively re-assess the past and future century-plus of climate-induced high impact changes to the Greenland ice sheet and climate vulnerable locations across the Alps, Norway, High Mountain Asia (HMA) and Svalbard, including permafrost areas and their ecosystems; ii) develop new, expanded and harmonized data from satellite Earth Observation (EO) and ground stations; iii) use these data to improve and test a hierarchy of ice sheet and glacier models with Earth System Models (ESMs); iv) through these steps, yield new process understanding, and ultimately v) inform water resource, hydropower, and socio-economic strategies through clear and transparent communication of results and uncertainties. The project’s strengths lie in new multidisciplinary collaborations across 18 research institutions, from eight European countries (Poland, Italy, Denmark, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Norway, United Kingdom) and India, encompassing expertise in field observations, satellite EO techniques, ESM development and application, and socio-economic analysis. Key deliverables include a) FAIR-principled new multi-decade data catalogues of multi-regional snow water equivalent and a 44-year EO-derived albedo record; b) assessments of impact of model resolution and degree of coupling on results; c) refined past and future glacier, ice cap and Greenland ice sheet freshwater fluxes to oceans and global sea level rise with indirect constraint on Antarctica; d) new hydrological simulations for HMA; e) a new framework for a Water Discharge Impact Assessments; f) socio-economic integrated risk and adaptation assessments;

---

The project covers the validation and intercomparison of the next generation of global ocean reanalyses for the Copernicus Marine Service.

---

The ocean’s biodiversity supports the livelihoods of over three billion people, providing vital services, including food and nutrient cycling. However marine policy and resource management do not yet consider the latest scientific advances, even when the state-of- the-art operational models of the European Copernicus Marine Service (CMEMS) are used. The project’s objective is to enable CMEMS to deliver novel products that inform marine biodiversity conservation and food resources management, by fusing new data into innovative ecosystem models that integrate biological and abiotic components, habitats, and stressors of marine ecosystems. NECCTON will inter-link new models in the CMEMS systems, thus building novel capacities to simulate higher-trophic-levels, benthic habitats, pollutants, and deliver projections of climate change impacts. We will develop and exploit new data-processing chains, supporting CMEMS’ use of novel ecosystem observations, including new hyperspectral data from satellites, as well as available acoustic, pollution and omics data. We will fuse these new data and models by using innovative machine-learning algorithms to improve models and data assimilation methods. These developments will be applied in thirteen case studies, co-designed with fisheries and conservation managers as part of our pathway-to-impact, resulting in the demonstration of Technological Readiness Level 6 of NECCTON products. The project objectives will be achieved by a team of twenty-three world-class organizations with track records for all the key project components. It includes the CMEMS Entrusted Entity and core developers, who will promote the final uptake of NECCTON by CMEMS. On project completion, NECCTON will provide CMEMS with the scientific and technical

---

ObsSea4Clim brings together key European actors within ocean observing science, climate assessment, Earth System modelling, data sharing and standards, with users of oceanographic products and services to deliver an improved observation framework based on Essential Ocean & Climate Variables (EOV/ECVs).

---

The Ocean plays a crucial role in the global C cycle, taking up approximately 25% of the CO2 we emit to the atmosphere, and thus slowing the rate of climate change. The future trajectory of this sink will affect the timing and intensity of the modifications to human processes that we need to undertake in order to stabilise atmospheric CO2 at 450ppm. Our ability to measure and model this sink is limited (evidenced by significant discrepancies between measured and modelled C uptake) with the current frontier area of research being a suite of biological processes related to higher trophic level behaviour within the so called biological C pump. This involvement of higher organisms suggests that human activities (fishing, energy and mineral extraction) has the capacity to affect the ocean C sink however we lack the ability to quantitatively link direct human pressures and ocean C storage. Ocean ICU will measure these key processes and evaluate their overall significance, transferring those that are important into models that inform the IPCC process and in this way contribute to resolving the observed model data mismatch of Ocean C sink estimates. We will use the fundamental knowledge we acquire around biological systems to evaluate the ability of human interventions in the ocean to alter the carbon cycle and produce management tools that allow the tension between resource extraction and C storage to be addressed. This component will involve extensive dialogue with end users and stakeholders and lead to a Decision Support Tool that will

---

This contract will develop improved algorithms to produce long term ocean reanalyses in the presence of varying observational networks. It will be focused on consistency of climate relevant metrics across 2 periods of increasing observational coverage, in the 1950’s and in the 1980s-90s as altimeter observations become available. The role of different atmospheric forcing and riverine inputs will be tested and the ensemble error covariance approaches suitable for both sparse will be developed and more dense observing networks. It will also address the detection of bias in the assimilated results and make recommendations on how best to treat bias under varying observational conditions. Finally new post-processed smoothing methods to more fully use observations and to spread information back to influence more sparsely observed periods will be applied. A set of Recommendations will be made to CMEMS to aid in the production of a climate- consistent long period ocean reanalysis in the final report.

---

Delivering validated climate services for resilient European Sea on a decadal to multi-decadal horizon is a challenge. RIVIERADE brings together the scientific communities geared into CORDEX and the Copernicus Marine Service and capitalizes on their unique scientific experience to develop and implement a pre-operational and replicable multi-model framework and protocols to produce, downscale, assess and deliver state-of-the-art decadal predictions and multi-decadal projections of climate change and related impacts on marine ecosystems, covering the basin scale and the coastal areas, up to, and including, development and demonstration of climate services. RIVIERADE will target three European Seas (Baltic, Black, Mediterranean), to produce data and information for ocean health, sustainable blue economy, and coastal climate risks, down streaming the data flow from climate ensembles to coastal areas at different spatial resolutions and for selected areas, in a circular process based on users and stakeholders engagement, co-design and assessment of innovative climate services.