Research projects

Research

Filtering by: Regional Ocean Forecasting System Division

ALIENA: ALIgning Efforts to control Non-indigenous species in the Adriatic sea

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.

Blue-Cloud 2026 | A federated European FAIR and Open Research Ecosystem for oceans, seas, coastal and inland waters

The Blue-Cloud 2026 project builds on the existing pilot Blue-Cloud project (Oct 2019 – Sep 2022) and it evolves its pilot Blue-Cloud ecosystem into a federated European Ecosystem to deliver FAIR and Open Data and analytical services instrumental for deepening research of oceans, the EU sea, coastal and inland waters. It develops a thematic marine extension to European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) for accessible web-based science, serving the needs of the EU Blue Economy, Marine Environment and Marine Knowledge agendas. 

Blue4All – Blueprint demonstration for co-created effective, efficient and resilient networks of MPAs

There is an urgent need to strengthen marine conservation and restoration globally. One of the key measures to achieve this is to ensure that enough sea area is protected in effective ways. This requires designation of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in different marine habitats. According to the EU Biodiversity Strategy 2030, 30% of Europe’s sea and land areas should be under strict protection. 

CONCEPTU MARIS – CONservation of CEtaceans and Pelagic sea TUrtles in Med: Managing Actions for their Recovery In Sustainability

The Mediterranean Sea is undergoing severe changes driven by increasing anthropogenic pressures. CEtaceans and Pelagic sea TUrtles (CEPTU hereafter) are among the most important charismatic species in the Mediterranean Sea, and crucial bioindicators of marine health conditions. However, there is a data deficiency for most taxa, which is mainly due to the fact that CEPTU species spend the majority of their life in remote offshore areas that are the most difficult to monitor because of their extent. With their offshore movements, they are exposed to multiple anthropogenic stressors, such as maritime traffic causing pollution, underwater noise, disturbance and marine litter exposing the species to a higher risk of entanglement, ingestion or toxicological effects. Entanglement in fishing-related gears also contributes to increased risks linked to the pressure of fishing in pelagic areas.

Copernicus Marine Service BS MFC -Black Sea Monitoring and Forecasting Centre of the Copernicus Marine Service

Copernicus is the European Union’s Earth observation programme which offers information services that draw from satellite Earth Observation and in-situ (non-space) data and is managed by the European Commission. The Copernicus Marine Service provides regular and systematic reference information on the physical and biogeochemical state, variability and dynamics of the ocean and marine ecosystems for the global ocean and the European regional seas. It has been implemented by Mercator Ocean International (MOI) since 2015. It enables marine policy implementation, supports Blue Growth and scientific innovation. Copernicus Marine Service is an open and free of charge service, compliant with EU regulations such as INSPIRE and the Delegated Regulation on Copernicus data and information policy.

Copernicus Marine Service MED MFC – Mediterranean Sea Monitoring and Forecasting Centre of the Copernicus Marine Service

Copernicus is the European Union’s Earth observation programme which offers information services that draw from satellite Earth Observation and in-situ (non-space) data and is managed by the European Commission. The Copernicus Marine Service provides regular and systematic reference information on the physical and biogeochemical state, variability and dynamics of the ocean and marine ecosystems for the global ocean and the European regional seas. It has been implemented by Mercator Ocean International (MOI) since 2015. It enables marine policy implementation, supports Blue Growth and scientific innovation. Copernicus Marine Service is an open and free of charge service, compliant with EU regulations such as INSPIRE and the Delegated Regulation on Copernicus data and information policy.

EDITO-Model Lab, Underlying models for the European DIgital Twin Ocean – EDITO-Model Lab

EDITO-Model Lab will prepare the next generation of ocean models, complementary to Copernicus Marine Service to be integrated into the EU public infrastructure of the European Digital Twin Ocean that will ensure access to required input and validation data (from EMODnet, EuroGOOS, ECMWF, Copernicus Services and Sentinels satellite observations) and to high performance and distributed computing facilities (from EuroHPC for High Performance Computing and other cloud computing resources) and that will be consolidated under developments of Destination Earth (DestinE). 

IRIDE (Precursor phase)

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).  The objective of the project is to implement a service portfolio, ready for operations, providing Geospatial Products and to set up the digital tools and the operational scenarios for the provision of the services to IRIDE users, by also taking care of designing and developing suitable exploitation solutions and interfaces with User Operational Systems exploiting the IRIDE Services outputs.  As a result, IRIDE Marketplace will host the service value chains developed within the Service Segment and guarantee a single access point for the Users. 

LIFE21-IPC-IT-LIFE CLIMAX PO | CLIMate Adaptation for the PO river basin district

CLIMAX PO is a project funded by a LIFE grant of the European Commission. CLIMAX PO brings together most national and regional and some of the local authorities playing a role in implementing the Italian strategy on adaptation in the Po River Basin, an area of 74.000 km2 , with 3.200 local authorities, 16 million inhabitant and generating 40% of the Italian GDP.  CLIMAX PO is led by the National Po River Basin District Authority (ADBPO) chaired directly by the Italian Minister for the Environment and responsible for the implementation of the NAS at district level. The consortium covers the whole geographical river basin, all levels of Governance (National, Regional, Local) and necessary competences with 3 major research institutes on board.            

PNRR-HPC – “SPOKE 4 EARTH & CLIMATE”: National Centre for HPC, Big Data and Quantum Computing

Within Spoke 4, the scientific activity of CMCC, and of the Spoke affiliated partners, will be mainly aimed at developing a shared interdisciplinary framework for advanced Earth System Models and numerical experimentations. The framework will be focused on digital infrastructures and efficient workflows to streamline the production, facilitate the training, accelerate the understanding, and improve the quality of climate simulations and predictions.

SASIP: The Scale-Aware Sea Ice Project


An international collaborative project to better understand the impact of amplified warming in polar regions, through the development of a new sea ice modelling paradigm. Through SASIP, the Scale-Aware Sea Ice Project, we propose to develop a truly innovative, scale-aware continuum sea ice model for climate research; one that faithfully represents sea ice dynamics and thermodynamics and that is physically sound, data-adaptive, highly parallelized and computationally efficient. SASIP will exploit large datasets from both granular process models and remote sensing to constrain sea ice properties and optimize continuum model parameters, jointly using data assimilation and machine learning methods. Coupling this multi-scale modeling framework to an ocean mixed-layer model, we will open up a new regime for polar oceanography via an examination of currently unresolved or poorly understood ice–ocean interactions across physical scales. In this systematic merger of models, observations, and numerical techniques, SASIP will reform sea ice modeling, a crucial leap needed to improve regional and larger-scale predictions of polar climate. Through the further development of neXtSIM and the MEB rheological framework, SASIP will build a data-constrained model that is rigorously based on sea ice solid-like physics. This model will allow improved high resolution and large- scale predictions of Arctic and Antarctic sea ice, and the propagation of sea ice related climate feedbacks. Employing hybrid data assimilation and machine learning approaches as a native part of the model architecture will allow for objective combinations of model and data. Ultimately, SASIP will lead to reduced uncertainties related to the impact of

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