The CLIVAR-Spain Committee

by Gabriel Jordà and Isabel Cacho, coordinators of the CLIVAR-Spain committee

The CLIVAR-Spain Committee (http://clivar.es/ ) was established in 1999-2000, first as a National CLIVAR Committee, sponsored by the Ministry of the Environment, and later as a CLIVAR thematic network and since 2010 the Committee is endorsed by the Spanish Meteorological Agency (AEMET). Its initial objective was to structure, energize, and coordinate research groups from the various scientific areas of climate research in Spain, ranging from paleoclimate studies, instrumental observations, and numerical modeling of the atmosphere and ocean, to regionalized projections for the western Mediterranean, which had already been identified as a high-impact region for climate change in the IPCC reports (AR3, 2001).

An initial seminar was held in February 2005, bringing together for the first time most of the Spanish climate teams from universities and public research organizations. The outcome of this seminar was captured in the first report of the CLIVAR-Spain Committee in 2006, entitled "Status of Climate Research in Spain" (http://clivar.es/?page_id=1253). This report laid the foundation for all subsequent work, bringing together the various research groups, identifying key results in the different climate areas, and outlining priority scientific aspects with specific funding and scientific strategy proposals. From that moment on, the Thematic Committee/Network worked intensively and in parallel along several lines: seeking funding to consolidate coordination work within the climate science community in Spain; establishing relationships with other existing, low-activity committees to try to merge their activities and serve as a common reference for the country's research community; establishing relationships with national organizations, as the Spanish Office for Climate Change (OECC), as well as with international institutions, in particular, with CLIVAR International (which resulted in two supporting documents, in 2011 and 2018); and the ambitious goal of replicating, on a regional scale, the philosophy and tasks of the IPCC report work cycles.

Several meetings have been held along these lines: the Seminar "Climate in Spain: Past, Present, and Future. Contribution to a Regional Climate Change Assessment Report" held in Madrid in 2009; the International Symposium "CLIMA-ES: Advances in the Detection and Projections of Climate Change in Spain in Light of the Fifth IPCC Report" held in Tortosa in 2015; and the conference "CLIVAR-ES 2023: Towards an Integrated View of Climate" held in Madrid in 2023. The results of these CLIVAR-Spain meetings have been compiled in various publications with the common goal of providing an integrated view of the climate in Spain at different time scales and covering the different components of the climate system. Specifically, assessment reports were conducted in 2006, 2010, 2017, 2019, and 2025 (see all reports in http://clivar.es/?page_id=1253). The latest report, titled "The CLIVAR-Spain Report on the Climate in Spain" featured 38 lead authors and 97 contributors, reviewing more than 1,500 papers. The report is structured into six chapters:

• 1. Atmospheric and Oceanic Changes since the Last Glacial Maximum
• 2. The Study of the Cryosphere in the Iberian Peninsula
• 3. Atmospheric Variables During the Observational Period
• 4. Physical and Biogeochemical Changes in the Ocean
• 5. Atmospheric Climate Change
• 6. Oceanic Climate Change

Recently, the CLIVAR-SPAIN Committee has been working on a White Book of the Spanish Climate Research where a in-depth review of the present status of climate research in the country has been conducted, cataloguing the existing research teams, analysing their points of interest and assessing strengths and weaknesses of the Spanish climate research community . Also, the Committee has been awarded this year with a grant from the Ministry of Science to support its activities during the next 3 years, including the organization of workshops, summer schools and an exchange program for young scientists.

Submitted by Gabriel Jordà and Isabel Cacho, coordinators of the CLIVAR-Spain committee