CMIP Phase 7 (CMIP7)

CMIP is continuing to evolve into a more continuous approach with small targeted “fast track” experiment sets, in addition to the DECK and the growing number of Community MIPs. The CMIP fast tracks are designed as a compact set of experiments including the DECK and selected experiments from Community MIPs that will support specific needs. The first fast track, “Assessment Fast Track” will respond to the needs of national and international climate assessment including the IPCC AR7. CMIP infrastructure, standards and tools will continue to support ongoing science and assessment activities. This design reflects extensive feedback from the modelling centres and wider user community.

CMIP7 Research Questions

The CMIP Panel have collated four Fundamental Research Questions motivating Coupled Model intercomparison, which the data from CMIP7 will help to address substantially. Full descriptions of the science questions can be found in the CMIP7 Overview Paper (Dunne et al., 2025).

1. Patterns of sea surface change: How will tropical ocean temperature patterns co-evolve with those at higher latitudes?
2. Changing weather: How will dangerous weather patterns evolve?
3. Water-carbon-climate nexus: How will Earth respond to human efforts to manage the carbon cycle?
4. Tipping Points: What are the risks of triggering irreversible changes across possible climate trajectories?

The DECK

As in CMIP6, running the Diagnostic, Evaluation and Characterization of Klima (DECK) will remain the “entry card” for CMIP, including the Assessment Fast Track. Community feedback on potential changes to the DECK have been received by the Panel. At their meeting in March 2024, the WGCM endorsed the CMIP Panel recommendation to include the following experiments marked in bold in the DECK:

• amip
• abrupt4xCO2
• piControl (and esm-piControl for ESMs)
• 1pctCO2 
• historical
• esm-hist (for ESMs only) 
• piClim-control 
• piClim-anthro 
• piClim-4xCO2 

The CMIP Panel confirmed their decision to ensure emissions-driven experiments are well proven and tested before inclusion as an ESM-DECK, and to consider proposals for inclusion of LMIP and OMIP in the DECK, in the future.

The Community MIPs

• 42 MIPs have registered and can be found on the CMIP website.
• The CMIP Panel will not be endorsing MIPs but have provided best practice guidance.
• Requests for Panel feedback and support from the CMIP IPO can be submitted through the registration form.
• The Panel wants to encourage MIPs to not re-run CMIP6 experiments with new models, and to collaborate across MIPs to identify and reduce any potential duplication, and with consideration of their carbon footprint.
• If MIPs have information/news they would like to share with CMIP community, then email the CMIP IPO.

CMIP7 Assessment Fast Track (CMIP7 AFT)

The newly introduced Assessment Fast Track is a subset of CMIP7 experiments drawn from the community MIPs intended to support upcoming policy assessments and downstream climate services applications, such as regional downscaling (CORDEX), impacts modelling (ISIMIP), ice sheet modelling (ISMIP) and climate services (VIACS). This includes near-term policy-relevant scenarios, model characterisation experiments, attribution studies, and process understanding experiments designed to isolate key feedbacks and uncertainties in climate projections.

CMIP7 scenarios

In a publication in Geoscientific Model Development (van Vuuren et al., 2026), the ScenarioMIP team describes a new set of global emissions scenarios that will form the basis for climate research as part of the ongoing phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project – CMIP7. Two important changes from the CMIP6 scenarios are that, during the 21st century, the highest global emissions scenario is now lower than in previous scenario sets, while the preliminary estimate of global temperature change associated with the lowest emissions scenario no longer remains below 1.5°C. The new high-end scenario still leads to substantial climate change, and uncertainties in the climate system mean that global warming could still exceed 4°C by 2100.

When to expect CMIP7 data?

Modelling centres have provided indications of when they plan to start running the piControl, historical, and scenario simulations for CMIP7, and when they expect to start publishing their data. This information is summarised in the table below (if you are having issues viewing the table, click here). The information will be updated periodically – please note the column ‘Last updated’ which indicates how recently a modelling centre updated their information.

Some centres have provided the information per individual model, others have not.

Guidance

The CMIP Panel and WIP, together with key stakeholders, are compiling guidance for modelling centres, MIPs, ESGF nodes, and data users for the production, publishing, and use of CMIP7 data. This will be the key resource throughout CMIP7 for guidance and will be updated as needed.

Key Publications

Below are a number of key publications outlining the scientific and technical design of CMIP7. There are also two special issues (‘CMIP7 scientific objectives, experimental design, and organization‘ and ‘Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 7 (CMIP7) forcings and inputs – development, documentation, and evaluation‘) which feature additional papers on MIPs and forcing datasets.

CMIP experimental design, vision, and scenarios

• An evolving Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 7 (CMIP7) and Fast Track in support of future climate assessment (Dunne et al., 2025)
• Towards provision of regularly updated climate data from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (Hewitt et al., 2025)
• The Scenario Model Intercomparison Project for CMIP7 (ScenarioMIP-CMIP7) (Van Vuuren et al., 2026)

The Rapid Evaluation Framework (REF), model evaluation, and benchmarking

• Rapid Evaluation Framework for the CMIP7 Assessment Fast Track (Hoffman et al., 2025)
• Systematic Benchmarking of Climate Models: Methodologies, Applications, and New Directions (Hassler et al., 2025)

Forcings

• Earth System Forcing for CMIP7 and Beyond (Durack et al., 2025)
• Climate models need more frequent releases of input data — here’s how to do it (Naik et al., 2025)

CMIP Infrastructure and Data Request

• Baseline Climate Variables for Earth System Modelling (Juckes et al., 2025)
• The Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP): Reviewing project history, evolution, infrastructure and implementation (Durack et al., 2025)
• CMIP7 Data Request: co-created guidance for the production of CMIP7 data [v1.2.2.3] (Mackallah et al., 2026)
• CMIP7 Data Request: Atmosphere Priorities and Opportunities (Dingley et al., 2025)
• CMIP7 Data Request: Earth System Priorities and Opportunities (McPartland et al., 2025)
• CMIP7 Data Request: Impacts and Adaptation Priorities and Opportunities (Ruane et al., 2025)
• CMIP7 Data Request: Land and Land Ice Priorities and Opportunities (Li et al., 2025)
• CMIP7 Data Request: Ocean and Sea Ice Priorities and Opportunities (Fox-Kemper et al., 2025)

Frequently Asked Questions

The following questions have been raised during events or via our Question Submission form. If you have a question, please submit it by clicking the button below. If you notice that an answer is out of date, please contact the CMIP IPO.

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