Research Call 2024

Met Éireann’s Research Call 2024

Funding opportunities for data scientists, climate scientists, hydrologists, modellers, etc.

For more information, please see the webinar video and supporting documents below.

FAQs

Topic 1 – TRANSLATE Programme – Additional Information

Topic 2 – Multi-Hazard Flood Forecasting – Additional Information

Topic 3 – Weather radar applications – Additional Information

Met Éireann’s Research Call 2024 is a competitive research call for applications under Met Éireann’s Weather and Climate Programme, open to all Irish Higher Education Institutions. Three research topics are of specific interest and are described below.

Key Dates

Call open: Tuesday 12^th November 2024.
Call deadline: Friday 10^th January 2025 at 17:00.
The system will automatically prevent application submission after the deadline.
Organisation approval deadline: Friday 17^th January 2025 at 17:00.
Results expected: Q1 2025.

Topic1: TRANSLATE Programme

Met Éireann is seeking application to support the third iteration of the TRANSLATE Programme. This Topic is aimed at standardising and mainstreaming national climate projections for Ireland across timescales and scenarios and developing climate services to enhance Ireland’s resilience to climate change by supporting the Irish adaptation sector’s and decision maker’s climate information requirements. The TRANSLATE Programme aims to achieve the following objectives:

To develop the highest quality, standardised national climate projection dataset from annual to climate timescales.
To develop scalable and reproducible climate services focused on translating climate information into practice to support effective risk-based decision making under uncertainty.
To enhance the uptake of climate information and climate services for decision making via the effective translation of climate services research.
To enhance the communication across all audiences so society can better engage with climate change and its associated uncertainty.
To support the National Framework for Climate Services (NFCS) in strengthening the national climate services community across the researcher – practitioner – policy maker interface.

The TRANSLATE Programme underpins many essential national and local climate directives. It feeds directly into the National Framework for Climate Services (NFCS) to support climate services development, coordination and standardisation across the country. It underpins projections for Climate Ireland, the national portal for climate adaptation. It is embedded within the National Adaptation Framework (NAF) and the National Climate Change Risk Assessment (NCCRA) and as a result supports local climate action plans and sectoral adaptation plans mandated by Government. It is therefore critical that information and services from the programme remain relevant and robust to ensure policy and decisions are based on the most accurate and up to date climate information, as well as ensuring that decision makers have access to the highest quality climate data when required and consistency across planning cycles.

Met Éireann is seeking applications to specifically address three research themes described as Sub-topic 1.1, Sub-topic 1.2 and Sub-topic 1.3 below.

Sub-topic 1.1: Underpinning Data

Expected deliverables include:

1) Updated TRANSLATE national climate change scenarios.

2) Development of a standardised national annual to decadal dataset in line with the existing TRANSLATE ensemble and methodology if appropriate.

3) To develop relevant reproducible and scalable climate services from both datasets.

For Sub-topic 1.1, proposals of maximum 48 months’ duration and with a maximum budget of €600k are sought.

Sub-topic 1.2: Understanding risk of climate extremes

Expected deliverables include:

1) Published review on changing climate extremes in Ireland across time horizons and scenarios.

2) Catalogue of past extreme events and how these could change in the future.

3) Case studies on multiple or compound events – (extreme events or events leading to extreme impacts).

4) Case studies on changing risk.

5) Development of reproducible event-based climate storylines building from TRANSLATE programme.

For Sub-topic 1.2, proposals of maximum 48 months’ duration and with a maximum budget of €600k are sought.

Sub-topic 1.3: Climate Services

Building on outputs from the TRANSLATE Programme, scalable and reproducible climate services focused on translating climate information into practice to support risk-based decision making are sought. Key elements of each climate service should focus on the communication and integration of climate information and uncertainty through climate storylines or otherwise. All audience types should be considered, (i.e. youth, public, decision makers, policy makers etc.). All climate services developed are to be based on standardised projections as defined in earlier sub-topics.

Climate services to be considered should include:

Multi-sectoral climate services.
Multi-hazard/compound climate services.
Sector specific climate services.
Systems approach to climate services.

For Sub-topic 1.3, proposals of maximum 24 months’ duration and with a maximum budget of €300k are sought.

Achieving synergies and collaboration

Applicants are invited to apply for each Sub-topic separately.

Applications will be reviewed and considered independently. It is not mandatory to apply for more than one Sub-topic. Synergies and collaborations across the whole TRANSLATE Programme are however strongly encouraged. Should an applicant (and their possible collaborators) apply for more than one Sub-topic, proposals should indicate their relationship with one another. Applicants should demonstrate how synergies between Sub-topics could be achieved. Successful applicants will be expected to collaborate closely with other Sub-topics across the programme and with Met Éireann. For a more detailed description of the TRANSLATE Programme and Sub-topics, please contact researchfunding@met.ie.

Topic 2: Multi-hazard flood forecasting

Flooding is a critical natural hazard in Ireland, with increasing risks due to climate change and extreme weather events. Historically, coastal and fluvial floods have been studied separately, but regions where these systems converge, such as estuarine areas, are vulnerable to a combination of these flood hazards. This topic aims at developing an integrated multi-hazard forecasting model that combines coastal and fluvial flood dynamics. By focusing on Ireland’s key estuaries, the topic aims to improve our understanding of the interaction between river discharge, tide and storm surge, providing valuable insights for flood risk management.

Below is a description of some of this Topic’s expected outcomes:

Review of current and best practice approaches to coupled fluvial-coastal modelling.
Data requirements for coupled modelling and gaps which may exist in current observation networks.
Development of coupled flood models that integrate both coastal and fluvial systems.
Simulation of different flood scenarios (e.g., heavy rainfall coinciding with high tides).
Testing and validation of the models in regions historically vulnerable to both coastal and fluvial floods.
Recommendations for flood forecasting strategies.
Coupled fluvial-coastal model which could potentially be deployed in an operational setting.
Identification of observational and environmental data requirements to ensure the on-going future development of coupled modelling systems in-line with best international standards.

The topic’s scope includes data collection, model development, testing, and simulation under different flood scenarios.

For Topic 2, proposals of maximum 24 months’ duration and with a maximum budget of €400k are sought.

Topic 3: Weather radar (Dual-Pol) applications

Ireland’s weather radar network provides critical information on real time precipitation over Ireland. Data and products from the network are key inputs to the weather forecasting and warning production processes in Met Éireann. An upgraded weather radar network with additional dual-polarisation weather radars is planned to provide an enhanced weather service to Ireland and to bring this essential infrastructure in line with European norms. To support this expansion, two research gaps are of interest: 1) identification & mitigation of wind turbine interference, as wind energy development continues to grow and 2) the use of dual-polarisation data to monitor hail as it can have a significant impact to road operations.

Below is a description of this topic’s two areas of interest.

Sub-topic 3.1: Impact of Wind Turbines on Dual-Polarisation Weather Radar Data

Some of the expected outcomes here included:

Investigate & report on the effect of wind turbines on polarimetric variables (e.g. ZDR, ΦDP, ρHV) including the latest state-of-the-art.
Development of a software tool which can be implemented in the real-time operational signal processing and radar data processing chain to minimize the effect of the wind turbines using the data from the new dual-pol radar at Shannon and additional radars in the expanded network.

Sub-topic 3.2: Hail monitoring & alerting

Some of the expected outcomes here included:

Investigate & report on case studies of hail events using dual-pol weather radar data, data from Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII)’s hail monitoring network and numerical weather prediction models.
Literature review of hydrometeor classification algorithms for dual-pol weather radar data.
Development of an application which uses dual-pol weather radar data, numerical weather prediction model data and data from the TII hail monitoring network and provides forecasters with the tools to monitor and alert of hail events in specific areas.

For Topic 3, proposals of maximum 36 months’ duration and with a maximum budget of €600k addressing one or more Sub-topics are sought.

Met Éireann Research Call 2024 – Requirement

A lead applicant will be requested to closely collaborate and ensure knowledge transfer with Met Éireann and its stakeholders. International collaboration is encouraged.

Support to early career researchers is also strongly encouraged and the recruitment of PhD researchers to carry out part of this research is advised, where possible. Met Éireann PhD researchers are required to be given a minimal annual stipend of €25,000.

Met Éireann Research Call 2024 – Governance Structure

To ensure each Project is implemented in line with best practice, Project steering committees of experts will be established. Prior to this, Project evaluation boards will be established to select the most appropriate research proposals.

Met Éireann Research Call 2024 – Indicative Project timelines

The following are Met Éireann Research Call 2024’s indicative timelines:

November 2024: Research Call 2024 Publication
January 2025: Applications Deadline
January/February 2025: Applications Evaluation
Q1 2025: Research Call 2024 Outcome
Q2/Q3 2025: Successful Applicants begin Projects

Key Dates

Call open: Tuesday 12^th November 2024.
Call deadline: Friday 10^th January 2025 at 17:00.
The system will automatically prevent application submission after the deadline.
Organisation approval deadline: Friday 17^th January 2025 at 17:00.
Results expected: Q1 2025.