Recent Thematic Projects
Thematic Project-1: Development of Next-generation Taiwan Earth System Model and CMIP7 Participation
Supported by National Science and Technology Council (2024/08 – 2025/07)
Aims of this integrated research project are to develop the next-generation Taiwan Earth System Model (TaiESM2) by improving the model physical and chemical processes, increasing spatial resolution and computational efficiency, and participating in CMIP7 using TaiESM2. This is the main project to organize research activities among the subprojects and ongoing collaborative projects. This project is responsible for developing a Unified Aerosol-Cloud-Convection-Precipitation scheme and coupling a 1-D ocean model to the TaiESM2-MOM6 system. We’ll also work to identify the sources of model biases and to expand the capability of using the TaiESM system to study the anthropogenic warming effects on climate variability and changes.
Thematic Project-2: Study on Climate Change Risk Assessment for Business (CCRAB)
Supported by the Academia Sinica Sustainability Science Research Program (2021/01–2025/12)
Objectives:
This project aims to develop a climate change risk platform for businesses using high-resolution climate data and risk assessment tools and improve on the cross-disciplinary integration among research institutes and administrative agencies. The overall results of the project can be considered as a step forward for the promotion of sustainable development among Taiwanese businesses as well as a notable establishment of the scientific foundation for the TCFD-aligned disclosures in Taiwan.
Focus:
- Generating climate information on physical and transition risks
- Developing tools to assess physical and transition risks
- Building a climate risk assessment platform tailored for businesses
Contributions:
- The Climate Change Risk Assessment Information Platform for Taiwan’s industries has been established, covering research findings on physical risks (flooding, drought, and heat stress), transition risks, and wind and solar energy. This platform supports businesses in conducting climate risk assessments and developing climate adaptation strategies.
- The research findings provide valuable insights for Taiwanese businesses, consulting firms, academic institutions, government agencies, and the broader society, contributing to the development of Taiwan’s corporate climate service ecosystem.
- The research findings are aligned with the regulations of Taiwan’s Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC), the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), and the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), helping businesses implement ESG practices and enhance the global competitiveness of Taiwanese enterprises.
Completed Thematic Projects
Completed Thematic Projects-1: Anthropogenic Climate Change: Analysis, Capacity advancement, and CMIP6 participation
Supported by the Science Vanguard Research Program, Ministry of Science and Technology (2019/08–2023/07)
Goal: To understand the potential impacts of future global warming on the global and East Asian climate and weather systems that have significant impacts on Taiwan.
Aims:
- to advance Taiwan’s capability and capacity in simulating variability of and changes in climate system, climate extremes, and high-impact weathers;
- to participate in World Climate Research Program Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) by providing climate data simulated by locally-implemented global climate models for the preparation of IPCC AR6;
- to explore the linkage between natural climate variability and anthropogenic climate change; and
- to serve as a research hub to further nurture the integrated research and collaboration within Taiwan climate research community, and to elevate the international connection and visibility.
Significances to achieve:
- increased confidence and understanding in specific climate changes projected by CMIP6 climate models;
- identification of climate mechanisms that are projected to be dominant in the future climate states;
- elevation of Taiwan’s climate simulation capability to internationally-compatible level,
- Taiwan’s contribution, for the first time, to the world-wide effort in climate change projection;
- enhancement of climate change research consortium in Taiwan.
Completed Thematic Projects-2: Extremely High-resolution Simulation of Climate and Severe Weather
Supported by the Thematic Research Project Program, Academia Sinica (2020/01–2022/12)
Although small in physical scale, Taiwan’s weather and climate are both affected by large-scale monsoon circulation and mesoscale severe convection embedded in typhoons, Meiyu fronts, thunderstorms, and also the complex terrain. These complex nature of atmospheric circulations affecting Taiwan has made an accurate and detailed (in both time and space) simulation of local climate/weather/air pollution phenomena extremely difficult.
Goals:To improve our ability in understanding and simulating these complex atmospheric phenomena, the project is proposed to achieve the following goals.
- To develop a unified model for climate and weather, Taiwan Unified Model (TaiUM), which is a nested global model that simulates global circulations in 13-km resolution and regional circulations in a nested domain over Taiwan in 3-km resolution. The model will be used by research community for scientific understanding and also the Central Weather Bureau for weather forecast.
- To develop a terrain-resolving model of 500-meter resolution to resolve the local circulations that transport air pollutants and control afternoon thunderstorms.
- To analyze the structure of tropical cyclone, embedding heavy rainfall, and evolution simulated in extremely fine resolution models.
Subprojects
Subproject 1: Development of Taiwan Unified Model for Weather and Climate (Huang-Hsiung Hsu, RCEC, Academia Sinica)
Subproject 2: Evaluation of Tropical Cyclone Activities under Current and Future Climates (Chun-Chieh Wu, Department of Atmospheric Sciences, National Taiwan University)
Subproject 3: Development of a high-resolution cloud-resolving model (TaiwanVVM) to understand the interactions of physical-chemical processes over complex topography in Taiwan (Chien-Ming Wu, Department of Atmospheric Sciences, National Taiwan University)
