Research and development services and related consultancy services

Description

ECMWF as the Entrusted Entity for the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) issued contracts for the production of seasonal forecasts, to contribute to the operational phase of the C3S seasonal forecast service. The service will be a continuation of the activity started by C3S in 2016, which has at its core a multi-system seasonal forecast infrastructure. The focus will be on production and delivery of forecast data to an operational schedule. Each month during the next 3 years, each of the contractors will deliver 6-month forecasts from their respective operational seasonal forecast system. Similar inputs will be collected from ECMWF's operational seasonal forecast system, to the same deadlines. C3S will take ownership of the data products thus delivered, create further data and graphical products — including multi-system combinations — and make them available to the public without charge. While the task of maintaining and updating the operational system of each provider remains their responsibility, these contracts will support some of the activities involved. In addition to their production activities, each of the contractors is committed to contributing to user support and documentation associated to the data and products, under the coordination of C3S.