The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), as the Entrusted Entity for both Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) and Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS), invites tenders for the development and implementation of the components required for a transition to a sustained mode of operation in the provision of historical climate forcings data for the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) and other uses. ECMWF intends to award a single Framework Agreement, with a maximum duration of 27 months, which shall be implemented via a single multi-annual Service Contract, expected to commence at the beginning of Quarter 4 2026.

COP2_001 Sustained Operational Provision of Historical Climate Forcings for CMIP and Wider Applications

C3S and CAMS aim to support the climate forcings community with the transition to a sustained mode of operation. A key element of this goal is to support the needs of non‑CMIP users that require near‑current historical forcing data, with appropriate long-term support for dataset versions deemed fit for specific purposes. This Invitation to Tender (ITT) is a first step towards this vision, and will establish an operational infrastructure layer supporting sustained, high‑quality, regularly extended climate forcing datasets for the historical to near-present period, while also scoping and producing a longer-term vision for future historical forcings provision. This will ensure that the infrastructure, quality control, documentation, and regular extension of existing forcing datasets become continuous activities and complement the well-established forcings research activities which support CMIP.